Question from California Health and Human Services

This report describes the first year of activities of the 14 tribes and tribal organizations who in 2011 received demonstration grants from the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) for Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect.  The overarching goal of the Study of Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services is to document the way in which the tribal grantees are creating and adapting culturally relevant and appropriate approaches, systems, and programs to increase coordination and enhance service delivery to address child abuse and neglect.

Low-income families such as those who qualify for TANF are generally at greater risk for child maltreatment than other families. Since many families are involved with both the welfare (TANF) and child welfare (CW) systems, TANF and CW agencies are ideal partners to coordinate efforts to provide services that can address family risk factors, as TANF is intended not only to encourage parents to improve their socio-economic status, but also to provide stable homes. The funded projects were expected to focus on one or more of the following services: (1) improved case management for families eligible for assistance from a Tribal TANF program; (2) supportive services and assistance to tribal children in out-of-home placements and the tribal families caring for such children, including adoptive families; and (3) prevention services and assistance to tribal families at risk of child abuse and neglect. (author abstract)

This brief provides an overall summary of the lessons learned from the TANF-SSI Disability Transition Project. It brings together material spread across other documents in a concise format, and it also offers new insights from state-level data analyses that largely back up the conclusions drawn from federal data. (author abstract) 

This publication provides an in-depth, systematic description of program implementation, operations, outputs, and outcomes of four Tribal TANF programs (the Navajo Nation Program for Self Reliance, Tanana Chiefs Conference, Athabascan Self-Sufficiency Assistance Project, and South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency).  The publication also identifies promising practices and other areas for further study.

Overall, the study found that tribes use the flexibility of Tribal TANF to create diverse programs that reflect their unique circumstances, opportunities, and cultures.  Elements of tribal culture were evident in the program design, in the way program staff and clients interacted, and in the types of activities in which clients were engaged.  The Tribal TANF programs in the study generally focus on the broad goal of self-sufficiency, beyond the narrower goal of employment.(author abstract)

The Office of Family Assistance hosted a Webinar, "Integrating Comprehensive Case Management Strategies into TANF Programs." The Webinar provided an overview of various methods for creating an efficient and integrated approach to providing case management services with TANF populations. This Webinar also offered TANF-serving organizations information on program models and strategies that address intensive case management, service integration, and barriers to service. Program representatives presented information on their program design and implementation, population served, partnerships, challenges to service delivery, and lessons learned.

Nearly a decade has passed since Indiana began planning its approach to welfare reform. In January 1994 Governor Evan Bayh announced an initial plan, called the “Partnership for Personal Responsibility.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approved a revised plan in December 1994 and, in May 1995, Indiana randomly assigned its entire welfare caseload (more than 60,000 families) to one of two groups for purposes of evaluation. The first was subject to the State’s new welfare reform rules and the other to its previous welfare policies. The goals of the program, as specified in 1995, were to increase clients’ employment and decrease their reliance on welfare, to make work more financially rewarding than public assistance, and to encourage responsible parenting.

Since 1995, Indiana’s welfare reform goals and approach have been consistent. Under Governor Frank O’Bannon, the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) made policy changes in 1997 and 2000 intended to strengthen welfare reform, but these changes were consistent with the program’s original goals and most of the original policies remain in place. Relatively minor changes were required as a result of enactment of welfare reform at the federal level, in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA).

Despite the consistency over time in goals and approach, both Indiana’s welfare caseload and the State’s economy have fluctuated substantially since 1995. Indiana’s welfare caseload dropped precipitously in the early phase of welfare reform and continued falling until mid-2000, when it began to increase sharply. The economy has gone from very low levels of unemployment in the early years of welfare reform to a current recession and State budget difficulties.

In the face of these changes, and given the time that has passed, it is important to assess Indiana’s approach to welfare reform. The key question is: How has Indiana’s welfare reform program affected participating families, and have those effects changed over time? Especially relevant given the current budget situation is a second, related question: Has the program been cost-effective?

The answer, provided in this report, is that the program has had real effects on participants, increasing employment and decreasing their use of welfare. The size of these effects is generally in the middle range of impacts found for welfare reform programs in other states. Indiana’s program also has been cost-effective, with the savings in welfare payments outweighing the costs of providing additional child care and employment services. The observed impacts, however, have not on average resulted in increased income for families. By that measure, therefore, the program has not made families substantially better off financially. (author abstract)

*managed by OPRE, funded by Indiana Family and Social Services Administration

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 changed cash welfare from a system of income maintenance as an entitlement to low-income families to one in which assistance to families is both limited and temporary, and in which work and economic self-sufficiency are emphasized. The emerging emphasis on work has led many states to significantly narrow the exemptions from welfare-related work requirements. Under prior Federal law, states could opt to adjust the young-child work exemption from its Federally-mandated level, which exempted parents with a child under three years old, to exempt only parents with a child under one year old. In 1998, 22 states used the new flexibility granted under PRWORA to require parents to work if their youngest child was less than one year old. This report examines the state and local policies and practices that encourage and support the activities of welfare-reliant parents of infants who are required to engage in work and school activities.

Juggling work and family responsibilities is a formidable challenge for two-parent families with young children, but it is even harder for single parents, who make up the majority of the welfare caseload. Even more challenging for single parents who work is the task of caring for an infant because infant care is generally less available, more expensive, and harder to assess in terms of quality. As states seek ways to support families with infants in their transition from welfare to work, many questions emerge for researchers and policymakers alike. How successful is the welfare-to-work transition for parents of infants? What special challenges do these parents face in balancing their parenting activities with required work or school activities? What supportive services are critical to continued participation in work and school activities, and ultimately, to a successful transition from welfare to work? Is continuous, reliable, affordable, and good-quality infant care available to these parents? Have states taken the opportunity to link these families with child care that can promote the health and development of infants?

In an effort to answer these questions and, ultimately, to address the issue of providing infant care for single, working, low-income parents, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) to conduct the Study of Infant Care Under Welfare Reform. The study was designed to provide information about the strategies states and communities are using to help parents of infants make the transition to school or work while promoting the health and development of their infants, and about the policy and program challenges states and communities are facing in this effort. The information is intended both to inform policymakers about the experience of several communities and to build a foundation for future research on the effectiveness of particular programs, policies, and strategies in supporting the transition to work or school while promoting infant health and development.

The study has three phases:

A general information-gathering phase, focusing on the work-, school-, and child care-related policies and programs in 22 states that required parents of infants to work in 1998, when the study was launched.

An in-depth study phase, focusing on welfare and child care program policy and practice in eight communities, and on the experiences of welfare-reliant parents of infants in these sites.

A research design phase, focusing on the evaluation of programs, policies, and strategies designed to support parents’ transitions to work and their infants’ health and development.

This report presents the findings from the first two phases of the study, with an emphasis on the second phase. We end with a summary of research directions, which will be expanded upon in a forthcoming report. (author abstract)

Helping low-income families in rural areas find gainful employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency is an ongoing policy concern. The Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies demonstration is using rigorous experimental designs to build knowledge about how to help low-income families in rural areas strive toward sustained employment and self-sufficiency. This report examines an employment-focused case management initiative deployed in southern Illinois. Despite a lack of impacts on employment, earnings, and self-sufficiency, the findings imply a need for stronger interventions in rural areas and demonstrate the challenges inherent in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs in these types of settings.(author abstract)