Overview
The overall objectives of the New Hampshire Employment and Training Program Process and Outcome Study were to examine the planning, funding, and implementation of the State's welfare reform program and its different components at the State and local levels. This examination included documenting the organization and staffing of New Hampshire's program and observing and documenting service delivery processes; describing client flow and participation; and analyzing participant outcomes in terms of key variables such as employment and earnings and family structure and stability. The thrust of the analysis was to observed how the implementation of the State's program affects participant outcomes by studying client and staff reactions to the new program.
The major research questions included: (1) What are the reactions to and effects of the various sorts of interagency collaborations around which the program is designed?(2) What activities has the State conducted to promote culture change among the staff, clients, and community partners? (3) What has been the reaction to the up-front diversion and employment aspects of the program? (4) How is staff implementing assessment and program assignment procedures? (5) Overall, what do the assessment procedures help discover about client barriers and needs? (6) What are outcomes on measures such as employment rates, length of employment, amount of earned income, child support collections, total family income and savings?
The approaches used to conduct this process study included interviews with State program officials, site visits to local offices, longitudinal analysis of administrative data on participant flows and outcomes, participant surveys and focus groups, and surveys of local program staff.
The project period is 9/30/97-12/30/03 and the point of contact is Leonard Sternbach. Ask a Question.
Background
ACF provided multi-year grants for 23 evaluation projects in 21 States that continued or modified evaluations initiated under welfare reform demonstration. These demonstrations were begun under waivers prior to implementing TANF. Nine States (Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin) received funding as Track 1 projects to continue, unchanged or with limited modifications, the evaluations of the welfare reform demonstrations that they had begun operating prior to the implementation of TANF. Thirteen States (California, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia) received funding as Track 2 projects to continue, modify or replace evaluations of welfare reform demonstration they had begun operating prior to implementing TANF. Although there was significant variation among the States in the actual policy strategies that they adopted, the policies had common goals related to promoting self-sufficiency. The policies included time limits on assistance, stronger requirements to participate in work or work-related activities, stronger sanctions for non-cooperation, making work pay, and promoting personal responsibility.
By the end of FY 2003, most of these evaluation projects had been completed. Evaluation work continued on five projects in four states (California, Indiana, New Hampshire and Ohio).
Common research questions about impacts included: (1) Was self-sufficiency increased according to various measures of employment, earnings and income? (2) Was welfare use reduced according to various measures of the duration and amount of welfare receipt? (3) Was participation in program activities and use of program services increased, according to such measures as attendance at, and completion of, assigned training or employment activities? Also, most States included policies to improve family stability and child well-being, and these were reflected in their impact research questions. In addition to these impact issues, each evaluation assessed program strategies and problems in implementing and operating welfare reform programs, including such major factors as planning, staffing, training, organizational structure, management and supervision, and application of program rules and delivery of services to clients.
Some projects (particularly Track 2) are limited to process evaluations
related to assessing program strategies and problems in implementing and
operating welfare reform programs, including such major factors as planning,
staffing, training, organizational structure, management and supervision,
and application of program rules and delivery of services to clients.
Some examine the breadth of a mix of welfare reform policies related to
time limits, stronger work requirements and personal responsibility and
their effects on self-sufficiency, welfare receipt and participation in
program activities. Meanwhile, others focus on more specific issues such
as post-employment services or front-line assessment and placement in job
activities where policy choices have devolved to the county level.
Although States varied in particular elements of their design, all States funded under Track 1 used a random assignment experiment to answer impact questions. Under this approach, experimental group cases are subject to welfare reform policies as modified by waiver policy and control group cases are subject to AFDC policies in place prior to welfare reform. Each evaluation also utilized record data, surveys, site observations, staff interviews, and program documents to obtain information about the research population, and completed process, impact and cost-benefit analyses.
All Track 2 projects provide for process analyses on the implementation of welfare reform policies. Some include impact analyses based on either experimental or non-experimental research designs.