Center for Employment Opportunities

The Region IV Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA); Region IV U.S. Department of Labor (DOL); and Region IV Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) convened a meeting entitled "Sustainable Employment Strategies: A TANF, Workforce, and Child Support Collaboration" in Atlanta, Georgia, from August 14-16, 2013. The meeting provided TANF, Workforce, and Child Support administrators and staff with an open forum for discussing critical issues impacting the collaboration of their respective entities towards sustainable employment strategies for their TANF and hard-to-serve population, and an opportunity to network both amongst themselves and with Region IV leadership. Region IV staff from each agency--ACF, DOL, and OCSE--shared lessons learned and gathered strategies that can improve their own programs' ability to identify and address multiple barriers, and develop pathways to create sustainable employment and career building opportunities for program participants. In addition, the meeting gave participants an opportunity to meet with their individual State teams to develop action plans that support interagency collaboration.

In response to the technical assistance and program needs of States throughout the Southeast, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Region IV, and the United States Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Region IIII, hosted a technical assistance meeting from July 24-26, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia. This meeting allowed member States to work alongside their peers to outline specific challenges faced by TANF and WIA agencies and the families they serve and posit plausible peer-based solutions for moving low-income and working families toward economic self-sufficiency. State TANF and WIA directors and program staff also discussed ways to promote interagency collaboration. Topics included: engaging veterans and military families in the TANF and WIA systems; leveraging partnerships to strengthen subsidized employment and transitional job initiatives; developing demand-driven career pathways for low-income individuals and TANF participants; maximizing WIA youth and TANF funds to support summer youth employment initiatives; and improving skill-building for low-income individuals and TANF participants with barriers to employment.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (TA) Network is a federally funded initiative through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance.  The objective of the Welfare Peer TA Network is to facilitate the sharing of information between and among states and to establish linkages between organizations serving the needs of welfare recipients. 

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF), with support from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network, sponsored the Addressing the Needs of Non-Custodial Parents in TANF Families Workshop on January 18-19, 2001, in Tallahassee, Florida.  Participants included representatives from State Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Child Support Enforcement, local fatherhood providers, and Federal participants from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services.  The purpose of the workshop was to promote collaboration between State TANF and OCSE agencies, and to encourage the sharing of information about initiatives to address the needs of non-custodial parents.

The Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance Region IV convened the 2011 TANF Priority Update Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia on August 17-19, 2011 to discuss the status of TANF programs and foster peer dialogue among State TANF directors to discuss key issues impacting their programs and share best practices and lessons learned with their peers. The meeting brought together State TANF directors and program staff from across Region IV to strategize ways to guide low-income individuals and families to greater economic self-sufficiency while providing input and feedback on TANF legislation. Specific topics included asset building strategies for domestic violence survivors, service improvement for refugees and immigrants, career pathways and education, innovative solutions for economic recovery, and collaboration improvement strategies.

Phased in during a time of strong economic expansion, welfare reform and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program have been associated P with an unprecedented drop in the welfare rolls and commensurate increases in employment. While the nation’s rural areas have shared in the benefits of economic prosperity and welfare reform, poverty continues to be more prevalent and persistent in rural areas than in nonrural ones. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is funding the Rural Welfare-to-Work (WtW) Strategies Demonstration Evaluation to learn how best to help TANF and other low-income rural families move from welfare to work. Under contract to ACF, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR), along with Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR), is conducting the evaluation. Economic and geographic conditions in rural areas make it especially difficult for welfare recipients and other low-income families to enter, maintain, and advance in employment and secure longer-term family well-being. Unemployment and underemployment rates are higher, and average earnings are lower, in rural labor markets than in urban ones. The lower population densities and greater geographic dispersion that characterize most rural areas result in severe transportation problems and limited employment options. Key services, such as education, training, child care, and other support services, are often unavailable or difficult to access. Many evaluations have focused on rural populations and employment strategies, but few, if any, have been rigorous. The Rural WtW Evaluation will lead to increased information on well-conceived rural WtW programs. Distinctive, innovative programs in three states—Illinois, Nebraska, and Tennessee—were selected as evaluation sites. A rigorous evaluation of each will greatly contribute to knowledge about what rural strategies work best for different groups of welfare recipients and other low-income families. It also will highlight lessons about the operational challenges associated with these programs, provide recommendations for improving them, and guide future WtW programs and policies related to the rural poor. (author abstract)

In the foreground of reauthorization the Administration for Children and Families Regions I, II, III, and IV convened the first ever 2010 East Coast TANF Directors’ Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 19-21, 2010. The conference brought together 24 State TANF directors and program staff to strategize on ways to move low-income and working families closer to economic self-sufficiency while providing important input on the development of new TANF legislation. Specific topics included subsidized employment, strengthening safety-net partnerships, improving assessments and service delivery for domestic violence victims, and asset development strategies to improve long-term economic development. The conference brought together federal, state, and local partners and stakeholders to develop a new vision for a new decade and to enhance the program options available to low-income families and TANF participants.

Recently, the Colorado Works Program requested Technical Assistance from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (WPTA) Network, specifically on effective strategies for integrating subsidized employment programming into local Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. As a result, the WPTA Network hosted two conference calls in August and September for the Colorado Works Program by facilitating a peer-to-peer dialog with the Tennessee Department of Human Services, inquiring about its subsidized employment program, specifically its successful program in Perry County, Tennessee. During these calls, Paul Lefkowitz, Director, Family Assistance Policy, Tennessee Department of Human Services, and Jan McKeel, Executive Director, South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance, provided an overview of a subsidized employment program that began in Perry County, Tennessee, in May 2009, through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, to the Technical Assistance Requestor—Mary Roberto, Section Manager, Colorado Department of Human Services, Colorado Works Program. Some of the topics of the program discussed on the conference calls include eligibility, working with employers, outreach and marketing, data collection, and replication and lessons learned.