TANF-ACF-IM-2016-05 (Supporting Career Pathways for TANF Recipients)
Published October 20, 2016
Updated December 13, 2016
TO:
State, Territory, and Tribal agencies administering the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program
SUBJECT:
Supporting Career Pathways for TANF Recipients
REFERENCES:
Title IV-A of the Social Security Act; 45 CFR Parts 260-265; The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (Public Law 113-128)
PURPOSE:
To encourage TANF agencies to provide career pathway opportunities for TANF recipients and other low-income individuals.
BACKGROUND:
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has a strong commitment to helping low-income youth and adults acquire marketable skills and industry-recognized credentials that can launch them on a long-term career trajectory. Career pathways do just that. A career pathway provides access to interconnected education programs and support services for students and workers to help them advance in their chosen career paths to jobs with family-sustaining wages. For TANF recipients, participating in a career pathway can help pave the way toward economic security even if the starting point is an entry-level job. In a letter dated April 28, 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was among 12 federal agencies that committed to creating career pathways opportunities through better alignment of education, training and employment, and human and social services among public agencies and with employers.
The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA) includes an updated definition of and overarching framework for the implementation of career pathways at federal, state, local, and tribal levels. WIOA defines a career pathway as “a combination of rigorous and high-quality education, training, and other services that—
- aligns with the skill needs of industries in the economy of the State or regional economy involved;
- prepares an individual to be successful in any of a full range of secondary or postsecondary education options, including registered apprenticeships. . .;
- includes counseling to support an individual in achieving the individual’s education and career goals;
- includes, as appropriate, education offered concurrently with and in the same context as workforce preparation activities and training for a specific occupation or occupational cluster;
- organizes education, training, and other services to meet the particular needs of an individual in a manner that accelerates the educational and career advancement of the individual to the extent practicable;
- enables an individual to attain a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent, and at least one recognized postsecondary credential; and
- helps an individual enter or advance within a specific occupation or occupational cluster.” [Section 3(7) of WIOA]
In 2015, over one-third of adult TANF recipients (38.6 percent) had less than a high school education, and more than half (53.9 percent) had no further education beyond high school completion (or its equivalent). Some career pathways incorporate “bridge” programs that allow students to address limited basic skills and barriers to employment while also obtaining the technical skills and credentials they need to prepare for employment. Career pathways can address some of the barriers that TANF recipients face to finding work with family-sustaining wages by combining adult basic education, occupational training, career and academic advising, and support services.
TANF POLICIES IN SUPPORT OF CAREER PATHWAYS:
ACF’s Office of Family Assistance (OFA) encourages TANF agencies to adopt policies and practices that will connect families to robust and tailored career pathways to help parents receive the training and credentials they need to obtain jobs with family-sustaining wages. TANF agencies can also actively engage with workforce agencies, education providers and employers to create or strengthen career pathways that are accessible to TANF recipients, and provide support services such as child care, transportation, counseling, and even campus-based coordinators to participants. While some TANF policies, such as work participation requirements, may appear to impose limits on this approach, the flexibility within TANF provides considerable opportunity to support the participation of TANF recipients in career pathways.
Allowable Uses of TANF
All federal TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) expenditures must meet one or more of the four statutory purposes of the TANF program. Career pathways programs fall under the second purpose, to end the dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage. TANF agencies may use TANF and MOE funds to support a range of benefits and services for low-income parents as part of a career pathways approach, such as adult basic education, job training, job placement, postsecondary education (including career and technical training), apprenticeships and subsidized employment, and support services such as child care and transportation.
Counting Participation in a Career Pathways Program toward a State’s Work Participation Rate
State TANF agencies have raised questions about how to count the career pathways activities of TANF recipients in their work participation rates. If a career pathways participant is a part of a family receiving TANF assistance and the participant is a work-eligible individual participating in countable work activities, the state should report those hours as it normally does in the TANF Data Reporting System. In other words, a career pathways participant may be involved in education, training or work, all of which are likely already countable toward a state’s work participation rate. Although there are some limitations, described below, in counting some of these activities, there are several ways to combine an individual’s activities to meet the work participation rate requirement. Activities that do not count toward the work participation rate may still be allowable uses of TANF funds.
For a family to count in the overall work participation rate for a month, a work-eligible individual in the family must participate in qualifying activities for an average of 30 hours per week, of which at least an average of 20 hours per week must be in one or more of the “core” activities. For single-parent families with a child under six, the average weekly requirement is 20 hours and it can only be satisfied with core activities. The table below outlines the nine “core” activities and three “non-core” activities that count toward the TANF work participation rate, almost any of which could be part of a career pathways program.
“Core” Activities |
“Non-Core” Activities |
---|---|
Unsubsidized employment | Job skills training directly related to employment |
Subsidized private sector employment | Education directly related to employment (for those with no high school degree or equivalent) |
Subsidized public sector employment | |
Work experience | Satisfactory attendance at secondary school or in a GED program |
On-the-job training | |
Job search /job readiness assistance | |
Community service programs | |
Vocational educational training | |
Providing child care to a participant in a community service program |
Career pathways approaches can use a variety of core and non-core activities, such as vocational educational training, jobs skills training directly related to employment, and subsidized or unsubsidized employment, including for internships or work-study, as appropriate. Below are a few key points for states to keep in mind when determining how to count career pathways activities toward their work participation rates.
Most postsecondary education can be counted as vocational educational training. There is a 12-month lifetime limit on counting vocational educational training for any given individual; however, for many students, the first step on a career pathway involves certificate programs or training that spans fewer than 12 months. Indeed, many in-demand, high-growth jobs require less than 12 months of training and provide entry to a career ladder.[1] For students who need more than 12 months of education, concurrent paid internships or work-study can count as subsidized employment and, thus, may fulfill core hour requirements.
A state may incorporate basic skills activities – including English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and GED completion – into a program of vocational educational training if the state determines that participation in such activities will improve the likelihood of success in the vocational educational training. The time spent in these basic education activities may count as vocational educational training for work participation rate purposes as long as the basic skills are integrated within, concurrent to, or for a limited-duration prerequisite to vocational educational training and will improve the likelihood of success in the vocational educational training. [2] For example, a state could count basic skills education as vocational educational training in programs where:
- basic education/ESOL instruction is fully integrated in a vocational educational training program, such as Washington State’s I-BEST model described below;
- vocational educational classes take place four days a week and basic education instruction, determined to be reasonably likely to contribute to success in the activity, occurs on the fifth day; or
- a limited period of remedial education, determined to improve the likelihood of success in the vocational educational training, precedes the vocational educational training program.
The law restricts how much of a state’s work participation can come from the combination of vocational educational training and teen educational activities (i.e. secondary school attendance and education directly related to employment for parents under the age of 20) to no more than 30 percent each month. Despite this limit, many states can still increase the number of participants that count in vocational educational training because most states are not affected by the 30 percent cap: in fiscal year (FY) 2014, only eight states and one territory exceeded the 30 percent limit in one month or more.
TANF agencies are not necessarily limited to counting just class or training time in career pathways programs toward the work participation rates. In educational activities such as vocational educational training, states also have the opportunity to count all hours of supervised homework time and one hour of unsupervised homework time for each hour of class time, provided that total homework time counted does not exceed the hours required or advised by the particular educational program.
Most career pathways activities, including basic skills activities and community college courses, also count as either job skills training directly related to employment or education related directly to employment, though these are non-core activities and individuals would therefore have to satisfy the core requirement before the state could count hours in these activities for work participation rate purposes.
Career pathways programs may also include activities that would fit under the TANF work activity called job search and job readiness assistance. This activity can count toward the work participation rate for no more than 6 weeks in a 12-month period (or up to 12 weeks in a 12-month period, if a state meets certain conditions specified in the law[3]), and for no more than 4 consecutive weeks. In FY 2015, all states but one qualified to count job search and job readiness activities for up to 12 weeks in a 12-month period.
States should be familiar with the work activity definitions and limitations as they plan how they will meet their target work participation rates. Although a state’s required work participation rate is 50 percent for the overall work participation rate and 90 percent for the two-parent work participation rate, in actuality, most states face a lower required work participation target due to a caseload reduction credit. In FY 2014, more than half of all states (30 states) had an adjusted overall work participation target under 25 percent.[4] In planning how they will meet their work participation rates, states could create opportunities for eligible families to participate in allowable career pathways activities that may not be countable toward the rate (such as additional vocational education training).
Counting Participation in a Career Pathways Program toward a Tribe’s Work Participation Rate
Like the state TANF programs, a tribal career pathways participant may be involved in education, training and/or work – all of which are countable toward the tribe’s work participation rate. The regulations for establishing and calculating a tribe’s work participation rate and what activities count toward it are given in 45 CFR Part 286. In contrast to state TANF programs, the law provides greater flexibility for designing tribal programs. For example, there is no distinction between core and non-core activities, and tribes are not required to limit vocational education for any one individual to a period of twelve months.
Tribes must implement their TANF programs, including work participation requirements, in a manner that is consistent with their TANF plans. The tribe must include a rationale for the work participation requirements and ACF must approve the plan. The law allows flexibility for designing a plan that is conducive to a career pathways approach. Tribes may use evidence-based and promising practices related to career pathways to justify their work participation requirements and other plan elements.
CAREER PATHWAYS APPROACHES IN PRACTICE:
A number of TANF agencies have experience in providing career pathways opportunities, and have formed partnerships with community colleges and other stakeholders to provide these services. Below are several examples of how states and tribes have used career pathways to provide TANF recipients the education, training, and supports they need to obtain careers that provide economic stability. We encourage TANF agencies to look to these and other examples, and to pursue evidence-based best practices, collaborations, and creative strategies to provide TANF recipients access to career pathways programs. OFA’s technical assistance website, OFA PeerTA, includes a Career Pathways hub that provides key resources for TANF agencies looking to further explore career pathways programs. The hub also includes OFA’s Catalog of Career Pathways Toolkits , which is a collection of interagency tools for building career pathways.
Pennsylvania’s Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) Program
The Pennsylvania KEYS Program provides support services and counseling to students receiving TANF who are pursuing postsecondary education and training at community colleges. All TANF participants and some Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants in the state are eligible to participate in the KEYS program, which the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (DHS) operates at 14 community colleges in the state. DHS’s Special Allowances for Supportive Services program assists eligible student parents by covering student registration fees, transportation, child care, books, school supplies, clothing, and uniforms, while tuition is covered by Pell grants and other forms of student financial aid. In certain circumstances, Pennsylvania’s TANF program can also fund up to two courses while waiting for a student’s financial aid to take effect.
A fundamental aspect of the KEYS program is that each participant receives support from a KEYS student facilitator, an employee of the community college funded through DHS. These facilitators help students create course plans and ensure that students are connected to all of the support services they need to be successful in their plans. KEYS facilitators also help to document and verify KEYS students’ activities so that they can be accurately reported and counted in the state’s work participation rate.
Pennsylvania allows TANF recipients in the KEYS program to participate in vocational education as their main TANF work activity for 24 months. Although the state can only count engagement in the KEYS program toward the state’s work participation rate for the first 12 months, the small percentage of students in their second year of the program (relative to the number of TANF work-eligible individuals) does not significantly affect the state’s work participation rate. Pennsylvania also pays for KEYS students to take on internships or practicums as part of their education while counting them toward the work participation rate.
Kentucky’s Ready to Work Initiative
Started in 1999, Kentucky’s Ready to Work initiative assists TANF recipients in obtaining educational credentials from community and technical college programs to enter jobs in high-demand industries. Ready to Work is administered through a collaboration between the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which operates Kentucky’s TANF program, and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). The program provides eligible students with work-study opportunities, support services, and academic and employment counseling. The work-study jobs enable recipients to meet 20 hours of “core” work participation (by counting work-study as subsidized employment) even after they reach the 12-month limit on vocational educational training. The Ready to Work program relies on a combination of funding sources, including TANF funds and Federal Work-Study money. This use of work-study boosts Kentucky’s work participation rate while relying on multiple sources of funding to support program participants.
The Ready to Work program has grown to include a network of campus-based case managers at 16 KCTCS colleges and a statewide coordinator. The program’s case managers are funded with TANF dollars but are employees of the college. They help student parents arrange financial aid, work with local TANF offices to ensure that eligible students receive support services such as transportation and child care, and recruit TANF recipients into the Ready to Work program. Case managers also provide counseling to students at risk of dropping out of college, and connect students with educational and employment support, including tutoring, career counseling, job placement, and post-graduation follow-up.
Arkansas’ Career Pathways Initiative (CPI)
The Arkansas CPI provides a comprehensive set of academic and support services designed to enable low-income, low-skill individuals to acquire credentials for jobs in selected high-demand, high-wage industries. The Arkansas Department of Higher Education manages the initiative and funds it with TANF dollars administered by the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services. The initiative operates at 25 community and technical colleges throughout the state, and includes programs in which TANF and TANF-eligible adults can gain marketable credentials for immediate entry into high-demand occupations. The Arkansas CPI program began as a pilot in 2005, and the Arkansas General Assembly codified the program through legislation in 2007. For FY 2016, the funding for the program was set at $7.15 million.
CPI is open to needy parents beyond those receiving TANF cash assistance. Students are eligible if they are adult caretakers of children under age 21 and have incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty line, are former or current recipients of Arkansas’s TANF program or Transitional Employment Assistance, or current recipients of food or medical assistance in the state. CPI uses TANF funds to cover a range of expenses related to the participation of these parents, including the costs of tuition, child care, transportation, and other student support services.
When entering CPI, participants are assigned a career counselor and tutor for the duration of the program. CPI combines the strengths of different stakeholders to provide participants with training under one career pathways system that offers employability skills, basic skills, remediation, advanced skill training for high-demand jobs, and college coursework. By integrating these services, the program can support low-skilled workers with “bridge” programs that build skills prior to entering degree or certificate programs. When CPI identifies skills gaps, including language barriers and needs for other remedial coursework, it can connect participants with adult education programs and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs as part of their career pathways.
Pascua Yaqui Tribe’s Career Pathways Program
The Pascua Yaqui Adult Social Services TANF staff, the Pascua Yaqui Center for Employment and Training, and Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, have worked collaboratively to create a career pathways program. The program includes intensive support services, contextualized curriculum, and clear pathways for continuing training and for employment. The program uses assessments to identify support service needs, career interests, and academic skills.
Students are assigned a case manager, who can help them obtain a range of support services, including child care, family counseling, domestic violence services, and drug addiction counseling, in addition to monitoring their academic progress and daily attendance. The case managers work with students from the time they enter the program through job placement and retention.
The curriculum includes three levels of eight-week bridge programs. The first level is for students at less than a sixth grade level of education, a second is for students up to a ninth grade level, and a third is for students up to a college level. The curriculum integrates academic skills and job skills as well as Yoeme history and culture throughout the program. Bridge programs are delivered at the Pascua Yaqui Center for Employment and Training. As students progress academically, they may transfer to the Pima Community College campus with the support of a college liaison and student service coordinator.
Within the program, pathways have been created for two sectors: business and health care. The pathways connect training from all levels of the bridge programs to non-credit and college credit programs, as well as to specific jobs openings with local or regional employers.
Washington’s Integrated Basic Skills and Training (I-BEST) Program
The Washington I-BEST program, developed by the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, pairs adult basic education or English language instructors with professional technical instructors in the classroom to provide students concurrently with literacy, work, and college-readiness skills. By integrating basic skills instruction with career training and by providing support services, I-BEST seeks to accelerate students’ learning so they can receive occupational training faster with more support. Community colleges that offer I-BEST use a team-teaching approach where students work with an occupational instructor and a basic skills instructor in the classroom to gain job-training skills while improving basic skills in reading, math, or English language. I-BEST enrolls more than 4,500 students annually, many of whom lack high school credentials. WorkFirst, Washington’s TANF program, provides tuition and textbook assistance, planning assistance, and additional support to TANF participants who participate in I-BEST. The program includes TANF-funded coordinators at community and technical colleges that provide advising and connect students to support services to help them succeed. WorkFirst participants are also eligible for TANF-funded work-study that can allow Washington to count the students’ activities toward meeting the work participation rate. From 2006-2008, 37 percent of I-BEST students were TANF recipients.[5]
Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) Programs in Washington and Alaska
In addition to the state and tribal examples outlined above, the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program provides examples of promising strategies for serving TANF recipients in career pathways programs. The HPOG program, administered by OFA, consists of sector-based career pathways programs targeted to TANF recipients and other low-income individuals. HPOG provides education and training so that participants may advance along established career pathways for occupations in the health care field that pay well and are expected either to experience labor shortages or be in high demand.
In 2010, OFA awarded HPOG grant to 32 organizations to carry out five-year programs. In 2015, OFA awarded a second round of HPOG grant to 32 organizations for a new five-year period. These HPOG grantees illustrate ways in which partnerships with local workforce boards can support TANF recipients while also satisfying TANF work participation requirements.
In Washington, at the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County, HPOG navigators are co-located in TANF offices and work with their TANF partners to explain the different components of the program’s long-term training and how to code them appropriately to count toward the state’s work participation rate. The navigators also develop individual plans for TANF recipients engaged in longer-term training.
At the Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) in Alaska, HPOG is part of the Tribal Employment and Training Division and is co-located with TANF. The HPOG program receives direct referrals from the TANF program. Participants receive joint case management and access to additional support services to help students address any barriers and progress through the program. The TANF program includes HPOG training goals in the Family Self-Sufficiency Plans, and time spent in HPOG activities are included in countable work activities.
STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTING CAREER PATHWAYS APPROACHES:
Career pathways programs that serve TANF recipients often require collaboration between a wide variety of stakeholders, including community colleges, workforce boards, one-stop career centers, community-based organizations, and employers. For example, partnerships between TANF agencies and community colleges can result in increased work-study opportunities and support services for low-income students.[6]
With the implementation of WIOA, state TANF agencies have an opportunity to improve collaboration with the workforce development system and strengthen career pathways approaches for low-income parents. The law highlights new roles for state TANF programs, including the designation as a mandatory partner in the WIOA One-Stop system (unless the Governor of a state opts out). In this partnership, the workforce development system can help TANF agencies gain better connections to employers in high-demand, high-growth industries, and TANF agencies can provide expertise on how to support the needs of individuals with barriers to employment.
To support TANF agencies interested in learning more about successfully integrating TANF with workforce programs, the Office of Family Assistance has developed a collection of materials available at the OFA PeerTA TANF/WIOA Resource Hub .
Additionally, many tribes are well positioned to develop career pathways approaches because their size lends itself to building collaborative relationships across tribal offices, such as TANF, education, employment, and child care. Further, many tribes have tribal employment rights ordinances that require all employers operating a business on reservations to give preference to qualified Indians in all aspects of employment, contracting, and other business activities. Such ordinances can often be leveraged to engage employers in shaping career pathways training programs so that individuals who are eager to work will be equipped with the skills that employers are seeking.
As highlighted in ACF reports on engaging TANF recipients in the HPOG program[7] or in the state and tribal examples above, the following are key strategies used in career pathways partnerships to serve TANF recipients.
For collaboration between TANF and education and training programs, promising strategies include:
- Including partners early by communicating with potential partners to ensure a clear understanding of the TANF agency’s work in the community, participant demographics, needs, and work participation requirements.
- Establishing formal agreements to create a structured approach to identify and refer participants.
- Aligning service approaches to streamline support for participants.
- Co-locating services to facilitate increased communication and information sharing.
- Hiring on-campus coordinators using TANF and other funding sources to address the barriers that students encounter, including barriers to accessing social services and work supports, as they navigate completing their certificate or degree program.
- Ensuring equitable and accessible programs that meet the needs of underrepresented populations, including women, people of color, LGBT people, people with disabilities, and veterans.
For engagement of TANF participants, promising strategies include:
- Creating structured processes to identify and refer likely career pathways participants from TANF families.
- Providing intensive case management supports.
- Addressing TANF work participation requirements.
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION:
ACF has a robust portfolio of research and evaluation efforts underway to build the evidence base around career pathways approaches. In 2007, ACF’s Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) initiated the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) project, formerly known as Innovative Strategies for Increasing Self-Sufficiency. PACE is a ten-year, rigorous evaluation of nine innovative career pathways programs designed to increase the economic self-sufficiency of low-income individuals and families. We expect initial impact reports beginning in early 2017.
OPRE is using a multi-pronged evaluation strategy to assess the success of the HPOG program. OPRE’s evaluation strategy includes HPOG programs funded under both rounds of grant awards (2010 and 2015) and aims to provide information on program implementation, systems change, outcomes, and impacts (i.e., reliable measures of program effectiveness).
Specific to the first round of HPOG programs, the HPOG Impact Study, launched in 2011, is using an experimental design to examine the effect of HPOG on participants’ educational and economic outcomes. The rigorous evaluation is poised to fill a void in the sectoral training and career pathways literature about the effectiveness of career pathways programs and program components. We expect initial impact findings in 2017. Descriptive findings on program implementation and participant outcomes as well as an analysis of changes to the service delivery system associated with HPOG program implementation have already been released as part of the HPOG National Implementation Evaluation (NIE) and the Evaluation of Tribal HPOG.
OPRE launched the National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2nd Generation of HPOG in 2015. This project will design and conduct a comprehensive implementation and outcome evaluation of the second round of Tribal HPOG grantees, as well as an implementation, outcome, and impact evaluation of the second round of non-Tribal HPOG grantees.
In 2014, OPRE launched the Career Pathways Intermediate Outcomes (CPIO) Study to evaluate the intermediate outcomes of career pathway program models on the educational progress and self-sufficiency of individuals who participate in the programs. The CPIO Study includes the programs participating in PACE and the first-round HPOG programs participating in the HPOG Impact Study.
Lastly, within ACF’s career pathways research and evaluation portfolio, there is a strong focus on providing useful information for practitioners. Under the Employment Sector Analysis for TANF Recipients and Other Low-Income Families project, OPRE recently published a number of resources that state and local TANF agencies can use to help connect TANF recipients and other low-income families with good jobs. Specifically, this series of publications provides support to TANF agencies interested in designing high-quality career pathways programs that are aligned with labor market information. This includes state-level information on promising occupations expected to experience growth through 2022 that an individual can enter after completing a relatively short-term training. The publications are:
- Promising Occupations Achievable Through Short-term Education or Training for Low-Income Families
- Resources for Connecting TANF Recipients and Other Low-Income Families to Good Jobs
- Using Data to Connect TANF Clients to Good Jobs: An Opportunity to Foster WIOA Partnerships
More information about all of these projects is available via the main OPRE website and a separate website from OPRE dedicated to research on career pathways (www.career-pathways.org ).
RESOURCES:
For more information on how to record and verify educational activities that count toward the TANF work participation rate, visit: /programs/ofa/resource/q-a-counting-and-verifying-hours-of-work-participation.
Health Profession Opportunity Grant and TANF Partnerships: Lessons Learned in Engaging TANF Participants, available at: /sites/default/files/documents/ofa/hpog_tanf_paper_final_508.pdf (PDF).
Training TANF Recipients for Careers in Healthcare: The Experience of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program, available at: /opre/resource/training-tanf-recipients-for-careers-in-healthcare-the-experience-of-the-health-profession-opportunity-grants-hpog-program.
Farther, Faster: Six Promising Programs Show How Career Pathways Bridges Help Basic Skills Students Earn Credentials That Matter, by Julie Strawn, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), August 2011, available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/files/Farther-Faster.pdf (PDF).
Funding Career Pathways and Career Bridges, CLASP, March 2013, available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/files/CPToolkit2012_V1R4.pdf (PDF).
TANF Education and Training: The Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative, by Josh Bone, CLASP, April 2010, available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/files/Arkansas-Career-Pathways.pdf (PDF).
TANF Education and Training: Pennsylvania’s KEYS Program, by Josh Bone, CLASP, April 2010, available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/files/KEYS.pdf (PDF).
TANF Education and Training: Kentucky’s Ready to Work Program, by Josh Bone, CLASP, January 2010, available at: http://www.clasp.org/resources-and-publications/files/RTW.pdf (PDF).
Improving Fiscal Accountability and Effectiveness of Services in the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program, by Greg Hager, et al., Legislative Research Commission Program Review and Investigations Committee, June 20, 2004, available at: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/lrcpubs/RR%20321.pdf (PDF).
INQUIRIES: Please direct inquiries to the TANF Program Manager in your Region.
/s/
Susan Golonka
Acting Director
Office of Family Assistance
[1] As discussed later in the document, see the ACF Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation’s report Promising Occupations Achievable Through Short-term Education or Training for Low-Income Families.
[2] See Q5 in “Q & A: Counting and Verifying Hours of Work Participation: TANF Program Policy Questions and Answers,” at /ofa/resource/q-a-counting-and-verifying-hours-of-work-participation.
[3] See States Qualifying for Counting Up To Six Additional Weeks of Job Search and Job Readiness, available at: /ofa/resource/12wks-qualifiers.
[4] A state’s target rate can be adjusted due to reductions in caseload as well as increased state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) spending. FY 2014 Work Participation Rate data can be found at: /ofa/resource/work-participation-rates-fiscal-year-2014.
[5] Wachen, John, Davis Jenkins, and Michelle Van Noy. How I-BEST Works: Findings from a Field Study of Washington State's Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training Program. Community College Research Center, Columbia University (2010).
[6] See OFA Issue Brief: Supporting Postsecondary Completion for TANF Recipients through Work-Study Programs, available at: /sites/default/files/documents/ofa/work_study_issue_brief_final.pdf (PDF).