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Key Findings and Lessons
The Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies (RWtW) Demonstration Evaluation is assessing whether innovative programs can improve employment and other outcomes for rural low-income people. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and its subcontractors, Decision Information Resources and the Rural Policy Research Institute, are conducting the evaluation with funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. This report chronicles the implementation experiences of three programs:
- Illinois Future Steps, which offered intensive, employment-focused case management to prepare participants for work and to help them find and keep good jobs.
- Building Nebraska Families (BNF), which provides preemployment education to improve the basic life skills of hard-to-employ people so they can engage in job search and training activities and address personal and family barriers to self-sufficiency.
- Tennessee First Wheels, which offers no-interest car loans to low-income families who need transportation to get to work and improve their quality of life.
The findings and lessons on the implementation of the RWtW demonstration programs focus primarily on program development and client experiences; institutional partnerships and local connections; and outreach, staffing, and management.
Key Findings
- Overall, the RWtW programs’ implementation has conformed to their models. The programs all developed and benefited from earlier pilot projects that were refined by state welfare agencies and their partner organizations.
- Program staff members, especially in Future Steps and BNF, help clients address a range of specific issues and employment barriers. To varying extents, they also identify and refer clients to various outside service providers, resources, and potential employers.
- Although clients’ employment cannot necessarily be attributed to their participation in the demonstration programs, program records suggest that many participants in Future Steps and BNF do have some success in securing jobs. (Most First Wheels clients must already be employed to qualify for a loan.)
- Independent partner organizations bring the advantages of location, reputation, and staff expertise to their programs. Previous collaboration experience between the state welfare agencies and their partners helped smooth program startup and operation in Illinois and Nebraska.
- Future Steps and BNF served at least as many clients as planned. First Wheels has had difficulty reaching its goals, largely because of competing priorities in local offices and insufficient coordination on outreach between the state welfare agency and its partner organization.
- Program staff members typically work in locations distant from program administrators and exercise substantial discretion and autonomy in their daily work. The programs have sometimes found it challenging to identify and hire people who have the combination of desired staff qualifications and who are familiar with the rural communities the programs serve.
Lessons Learned
- Welfare-to-work programs may be most valuable for rural clients when they both focus on improving employment prospects and provide assistance on a range of other issues. In rural places where fewer service providers exist, clients appear more likely to turn to welfare-to-work program staff for many kinds of help.
- Program staff can address rural challenges related to clients’ poor personal reputations by vouching for them with potential employers and other service providers. Having a staff member act as a reference is of special value to clients in tight-knit rural communities, where a poor personal or family reputation can negatively affect a person’s economic prospects.
- Partner organizations offer advantages—location and reputation—that have particular significance in rural areas. The partners’ physical presence promotes outreach and provide service delivery over a wide territory. As locally-recognized institutions, their involvement may also help generate support for a program from employers and lessen the strong stigma often attached to welfare programs in rural areas.
- Outreach must be aggressive to reach potential clients in rural places.
Clear incentives and strong coordination between a welfare agency and
its partner organization promote successful recruitment.
- Operating programs in large, sparsely populated service areas requires independent staff members who are familiar with their communities. Program leaders must be prepared to actively support staff members and monitor their work from a distance.
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