Making Workfare a Success:
                             Alternative Work Experience Program 2 Year Report
                                                 Executive Summary
                                             Dr.  Jo Anne Schneider

                                                             Program Description

The Alternative Work Experience Program: Unemployed Parents Initiative (AWEP-UP) (note: now called PhillyCorps)is a model program for people on public assistance which combines on-the-job-training through community service experience in non-profit organizations with a seminar which helps participants prepare to find work, deal with life problems which make it difficult to find and keep a job, learn to work with people from different backgrounds, develop conflict resolutions skills, build critical thinking skills, understand the economics of the Philadelphia area, and foster a sense of citizenship. AWEP-UP also provides counseling and support services for program participants. The program works closely with the agencies which host AWEP-UP interns to ensure that the experience benefits both the intern and the agency.

AWEP-UP provides its participants with current work experience which could lead to employment, helps them build job specific skills, and the critical thinking and people skills essential to become productive employees, and empowers them to become more effective citizens.

As mandated by the federal Family Support Act of 1988 two parent families on public assistance are required to perform community service in order to receive cash benefits. As a program funded to carry out this mandate, AWEP-UP is a workfare program. However, by including an educational component in our program design and endeavoring to partner our program with other education, training and job search activities, the AWEP-UP model differs from standard workfare programs. Unlike most welfare to work programs, which involve participants in a progression of activities one at a time which will hopefully lead to full time employment, AWEP-UP stresses the value of simultaneous participation in education and work experience activities.

The first two years of this project offer insights into the benefits and limitations of workfare. The unique aspects of our program offer alternative methods to prepare welfare recipients for work. Our experience also outlines the kinds of supports needed to carry out an effective workfare program.

The current debate about welfare reform often sees education and work experience as separate and competing strategies to move public assistance recipients from welfare to work. The AWEP-UP program takes a middle ground in this debate. Both education and work experience are important components in fostering long term self-sufficiency.

AWEP-UP is an integrated service learning model. The seminar uses the community service experience as the basis for job readiness training, citizenship and other lessons. Classroom training and internship experience work off of each other. For example, our conflict resolution seminars encourage participants to bring in potential conflicts from their internship sites for discussion. The alternative ways to approach disputes learned in seminar are then applied at the worksite. In this way, the combination of classroom experience and community service help participants become better employees both at their internship sites and in their future careers.

AWEP-UP case management works from a capacity building model. Capacity building focuses on helping to develop participants' skills at resolving their own problems. For example, rather than call a housing counselor to resolve a landlord problem for a participant, AWEP-UP counselors give the participant the phone number and instruct them on the kind of information which the agency will require to advocate for the participant. Our case management role is to empower the participant to find the resources necessary to deal with problems throughout their lifetime rather than view problems as barriers to self-sufficiency which will vanish once the participant finds a paying job.

Realizing that entrepreneurship provides a potential avenue to self-sufficiency for AWEP-UP participants, the program design includes seminars on small business development provided by the organizations funded to help develop these businesses. AWEP-UP participants who show particular interest in this option are encouraged to enroll in more intensive seminars offered by these organizations.

Our participants are placed in community service internships which most closely match their skills or career aspirations. Placements take into account language and cultural needs as well as travel time to the worksite. We work with 18 organizations at 25 locations throughout Philadelphia. We currently offer 126 placement slots: 41 percent maintenance/construction/ semi-skilled labor, 27 percent clerical/bookkeeping, 12 percent professional or quasi-professional positions working with children and youth (e.g. child care aid, music teacher), 16 percent professional or quasi-professional positions working with adults (e.g. ABE tutor, conveyancer, translator), and 4 percent other opportunities. We are also committed to providing opportunity to people with limited English: 3 sites provide opportunities for Russian speakers and 6 sites have placements for Spanish speakers. We also have a Spanish speaking staff person.

AWEP-UP is not contracted for job placement, but we do post openings, offer job club activities as part of the seminar and provide ongoing counseling for job seekers. Our goal is to motivate participants toward economic self-sufficiency through the internship experience.

While our worksites are not required to hire AWEP-UP interns, participating agencies do sign a contract stipulating that interns will be considered for appropriate positions. To date, one-third of our agencies have offered employment to AWEP-UP interns and three have hired two people or more. Given that the majority of these organizations have total workforces of less than 20 employees, the impact of employment from this program is very significant.

PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHICS

The AWEP-UP program served 154 individuals in the past two program years. The number of people enrolled at a particular point in time varied depending on referrals from the Department of Public Welfare and the number of people who had left the program during a given month. During the first year (October 1993 - September 1994), a maximum of 45 people were enrolled in the program at one time. In total, 75 people participated in the program that year. Forty-one people were carried over into the second contract year (October 1994 - September 1995). During the 1994-1995 program year, we served a maximum of 60 people at one time. That year, a total of 120 individuals participated in the program. On average, AWEP-UP enrolled six new participants and six people left the program every month.

EDUCATION BY YEAR

Education	93-94	94-95
LT High School	1 1%	8 7%
Some High School	20 27%	35 29%
High School	24 32%	36 30%
Post Secondary	30 40%	41 34%
Total	75 100%	120 100%

AWEP-UP serves an extraordinarily diverse population. Our participants range from people with less than 9th grade education to people with graduate and professional degrees. The majority have worked in the past, and many have years of paid work experience. Nearly half of our participants are refugees or migrants whose first language is not English. Approximately 40 percent of our participants who were born in the United States are white, the remainder are African American or Latino. Our participants come to welfare through several different paths and need diverse strategies to become tax paying citizens again. In all cases, their experience with welfare and work involves the strategies of households, not just the decisions of individuals. Our experience shows that efforts to move people from dependency to self-sufficiency must focus on the needs of the household rather than simply prepare an individual to go to work.

Program participants fall into several general categories:

· Dislocated workers who have used up their unemployment benefits. The majority of these families were accessing public assistance for the first time.

· Low wage or seasonal workers who alternate between welfare and paid employment. These families move between welfare and work as jobs end or a family crisis such as a serious illness makes it impossible to cover costs through low wage employment. Most of these families were on welfare for the second or third time.

· Migrants. The majority of the migrants in our program come from Puerto Rico. As a Spanish speaking territory of the United States, its residents are U.S. citizens entitled to welfare. The Puerto Ricans who participate in AWEP-UP come from many different backgrounds. Some were mostly raised in the U.S., resembling either dislocated workers or low wage workers who were born on the mainland. Others are very similar to migrants from other countries. Still others are involved in a common strategy of moving between Puerto Rico and the mainland U.S. in search of employment opportunities.

· Refugees attempting to regain a place in their former professions.

Policy makers can not assume that all participants in workfare programs will have the same results as the AWEP-UP population because our participants differ from the general public assistance population in several important ways. First, all of the participants in our program at present are members of two parent households. AWEP-UP participants also include many more refugees and a smaller percentage of African American participants than most programs. This difference makes our results particularly important because we can compare the experience of groups of people who come into the system with different education and work experience as well as different goals.

Overall, participants were in the program an average of 3.5 months in the 1993-94 program year and 5.28 months in the 1994-95 program year. Differences between the two years in the amount of time that people with different outcomes were in the program were not statistically significant. Most of the people who continued with the program at the end of the second year had entered late in the 1994-95 program year. The people who had stayed in the program over one year fell into two categories. Half were displaced workers over the age of fifty and the other half were educated refugees attempting to pass professional licensing exams.

EMPLOYMENT

In total, 53 percent of the participants who left the program in 1993-94 left because someone in the family entered paid employment. In 1994-95, 50 percent of the people who left fell into this category. Our employment statistics are not comparable to that collected for other studies of welfare to work programs because our employment category measures only people who left the program to accept employment. The various studies of welfare to work program note the percentage of participants who had ever worked during a given follow-up period. According to informal estimates, over half of AWEP-UP participants work temporary or part-time jobs while enrolled in our program. If these people were counted as employed in our data, somewhere between 60 and 75 percent would have worked for wages.

JOB CHARACTERISTICS FOR BOTH YEARS

Both Years (Info. Missing on 4 People)	Less than $6.00/part time	Less than $6.00/full time	More than $6.00/part time	More than $600/full time	Total
1993-94	2 13%	3 20%	1 7%	9 60%	15 100%
1994-95	9 35%	2 8%	5 19%	10 38%	26 100%

In the first program year, 80 percent of our participants found full time work, 67 percent were paid $6.00 an hour or more, and 76 percent of those jobs offered health insurance benefits. In 1994-95, 46 percent of the jobs were full time, 57 percent paid $6.00 an hour or more, and 31 percent offered health insurance benefits. In 1994-95, within six months of accepting a 20 hour a week job at more than $6.00 an hour, 21 percent (3) participants had moved up to full time work with benefits in the same company. If we count these stepping stone jobs as full time, 50 percent of the jobs in the second year offered full time wages with benefits.

While we have divided the employment statistics into greater than $6.00 an hour and less than $6.00 an hour, the majority of our participants who found work were paid much more. In 1993-94, the average wage for all jobs was $9.18 per hour and in 1994-95, the average wage was $7.26 per hour. There is no clear pattern for wage levels in the first year. In the second year, wages over $6.00 an hour fell into two groups. Most of the people taking semi-skilled or skilled blue collar positions began work at wages of $7 .00 or $8.00 an hour. The professionals accepted positions paying between $12.00 and $15.00 an hour.

In reviewing these statistics, it is important to note that several of our most successful participants refused to provide employment information. If we assume that these individuals reentered jobs paying greater than $6.00 an hour, 71 percent of the 1993-94 participants and 61 percent of the 1994-95 participants took jobs at $6.00 an hour or more. Over 93 percent of the 93-94 employed participants would have found full-time work and over 50 percent of the 1994-95 participants.

Employment trends fell into three groups: 1) people who used the AWEP-UP experience to find work through worksite related contacts, 2) people with significant skills already actively on the path to employment in their fields, and 3) low skill workers who found employment similar to their previous experience.

For some of our participants, the internship work sites provided an important link to a new career. In the 1993-94 program year, 12 percent of our participants (2) found work at their worksites and 21 percent (6) in 1994-95. These included several displaced workers who had previously worked in factories who found jobs in either maintenance or social service and clerical workers who returned to their previous careers or were able to move into new directions. Employment at the worksites has had a snowball effect. As the positive reputation of the program grows, more interns are offered employment at the worksites. Halfway through the 1995-96 program year, we have nearly matched the number of people employed by their internship sites last year and at-least four more are likely to be offered employment in the next few months.

In 1994-95 we began long-term tracking of our participants who had found work. We contacted people who had been on the job six months or more. The difference between people who took jobs that paid less than $6.00 an hour and those who took jobs paying more than $6.00 an hour is striking. We obtained information on 22 participants from the 1994-95 program year. Fifty-eight percent of the participants who had taken jobs paying $6.00 an hour or more had received promotions or raises. The rest were in the same positions at the same wages.

In contrast, only 18 percent of the people who had left the program to start jobs which paid less than $6 .00 an hour had experienced a change for the better. Forty-five percent were in the same position at the same wages.

These employment data compare quite favorably with the results from most welfare to work programs. Unlike the Hull (1992) study and the Project Match data (Berg et al 1991) where nearly 80 percent of the participants have lost their jobs before a year is up, 88 percent of our participants were still working and the majority had improved their position at the same firm.

The significance of the difference in work patterns is most clear when looking at earnings. The West Virginia CWEP AFDC-U participants earned an average of $2,582 over 15 months (Brock et al 1993: 35). In contrast, AWEP-UP participants worked an average of 31 hours per week and earned an average of $11,700 per year. In reality, annual earnings for most participants were probably closer $14,000 to $18,000. Participants with this level of earnings contribute to the economy through taxes and increased purchasing power. In contrast, people who earn small amounts each year simply cost the government less in public assistance benefits.

COMBINING EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY SERVICE

While seminar attendance is a required component of the program, some interns do not place as much importance on regular seminar attendance because it is not a mandatory requirement to receive their benefits. Ten percent of our population is exempt from the seminar because they are also enrolled in another structured educational program which conflicts with both seminars. We began tracking regular seminar attendance during the 1994-95 program year. People who regularly attended three or more seminars per month we considered regular attendees. In total, 54 percent (65) of our 1994-95 participants attended the seminar on a regular basis. Given that 10 percent of the participants are exempt, 36 percent do not attend the seminar on a regular basis.

Attending the seminar made a very significant difference in the ability to get a job. Seventy-one percent of the people who found employment attended the seminar regularly. People who left the program for non-cooperation also did not attend the seminar regularly. Ninety-four percent of the people who were terminated for poor attendance at the worksite also did not attend the seminar regularly. However, several people at risk of termination for non-cooperation who attended the seminar regularly were able to use new skills gained through this experience to turn their performance around.

STAFF SUPPORT

AWEP-UP employs two full time case managers. Our counselors estimate that their time is divided as follows: 35 percent spent on record keeping, 30 percent spent on counseling participants, 15 percent spent on screening, interviewing and placing new participants, and 10 percent focusing on issues at a particular worksite.

Quality case management clearly makes a difference in the ability to successfully maintain program compliance. If one of the goals of a workfare program is to instill on time and consistent work behavior, ongoing monitoring is extremely important. Throughout most of the two years of the program, between 80 and over 90 percent of our participants had completed the number of hours required per month. The lowest months, at 70 percent full compliance, were months with bad weather where participants missed hours at their internship site because they had trouble getting there. In comparison, the West Virginia program assigned AFDC-U participants to an average of 76 hours per month. AFDC-U participants actually worked an average of 56 hours per month, a much lower participation rate (Brock et al 1993: 31).

Worksite supervisors estimate that they spend between 5 and 10 hours a week supervising people involved in 17 hours of community service activity. Interns must also be trained to use equipment at the worksite as well as in agency procedures. Participants with lower skills or less developed work habits require much more supervision than those with higher skills.

LESSONS FOR WORKFARE AND WELFARE REFORM

Our program shows how a workfare program can become a key component in a system which uses community service combined with education to prepare public assistance recipients for long-term paid employment. We do not see this program as an all or nothing option, but as a stepping stone to prepare participants for a wide variety of options for self sufficiency.

THE POTENTIAL OF COMMUNITY SERVICE INTERNSHIPS

Community service internships for public assistance recipients can serve several functions:

· Providing work experience and links to employment. We have seen AWEP-UP help participants shift to other kinds of employment, gain work experience for skills gained in training, and network participants into jobs at their volunteer sites or other community based organizations. This link has worked best for dislocated workers and migrants.

· Helping participants vision a career. Community service experience provides participants with practical experience in a given occupation, as well as direct knowledge of the skills and requirements of a range of careers as modeled by other employees in an agency. Through their own activities, and work with others, community service provides an important career exploration experience. After developing a clear sense of their goals, participants can develop a career ladder and effectively find and complete appropriate training. All participants benefit from this opportunity.

· Helping participants value and use other education and training. The AWEP-UP program shows participants the value of basic education and their concrete needs for specific skills training. Through partnering education, skills training and work experience, participants learn to apply classroom work in real life situations. Understanding the importance of skills encourages participants to seek and persevere with remediation programs. This aspect particularly benefits low skill and dislocated workers and migrants.

· Helping people learn to juggle work, education and family. AWEP-UP provides a supported work experience through case management and the seminar. The capacity building model used in this program encourages participants to discover ways to resolve their problems and maintain multiple goals. The mandatory requirements and reinforcement of on-time and continuous activity supports the work habits needed to survive in the paid labor force. All participants benefit from this opportunity.

· Helping people move beyond their home communities. A community service experience which consciously brings participants in contact with people different from themselves is particularly critical in an increasingly multicultural world. Through experiential education, people learn to effectively cross into different worlds. For people who are not native speakers of English, AWEP-UP provides a supportive environment in which to improve their English language skills.

In order to create a workfare experience which plays a significant role in moving participants toward self-sufficiency, several elements need to be in place:

· Careful matching of participants to internship slots in agencies with appropriate supervision and a goal to train participants. AWEP-UP is successful in placing participants into positions which turn into long term employment because we insist that the sites have appropriate supervision for participants and see them as trainees who are participating in service in order to develop new skills. We also carefully match participants to internship opportunities which meet their goals and move them to new opportunities if their goals change.

· Ongoing case management using a capacity building model.

· Combining education with community service experience. The AWEP-UP model provides a limited, low cost educational component through the seminar. While only one hour per week, the critical thinking method used in this course has powerful results.

· Creating opportunities for participants to move beyond their home communities.

· Effective job development and job placement along with community service experience. While most workfare programs combine job search with community service, the service experience follows unsuccessful job search activities. If job placement was combined with the community service experience to allow job developers to parlay the service work skills into employment, this combination could be much more effective. However, it is important to note that job development in this case means professional job development and placement services combined with mentoring activities for professionals. Simply sending participants out to find work has limited value.

LESSONS FOR WELFARE REFORM AND WELFARE TO WORK PROGRAMS

The AWEP-UP experience provides three important lessons for welfare reform:

· Welfare to work programs must provide a range of activities to fit the needs of participants from varying backgrounds. The AWEP-UP program serves people from many different backgrounds, with a huge range of aspirations and skills. In order to successfully serve all of these different groups, we offer many different activities, provide information on small business development as well as a host of education, training and career options. Rather than try to find one size fits all solutions, welfare to work programs must maintain flexibility and provide many options.

· Programs must partner community service, education and training activities in order to provide cost effective training in an era of limited resources. Linear models of education, training and then work have limited success moving public assistance recipients from welfare to work.

· Community service provides participants with the concrete understanding of the education and training that they need to succeed. Using community service as a reality check before placing people in education and training can limit the number of times people drop out of programs because they can not see their use or because the training was not what they wanted. People who do not need classroom training, but can parlay already existing skills into employment through on-the-job training in community service positions, would further limit the pool of people receiving formal training.

Partnering community service with education and training makes training much more effective because participants come out of the program with real world experience using classroom skills and the work experience which employers want as a prerequisite to paid employment.

· Welfare to work systems must be rethought to provide people with the tools to develop long term career paths through step by step progress rather than one shot training activities. Some current models see training programs as the only opportunity to help public assistance recipients become self-sufficient. Other models see the role of welfare training programs as a "quick and dirty" method to get people into the paid labor force. Neither goal is appropriate in the current policy framework. Instead, training programs should be viewed as an important first step on a long-term education and training path. Like most working Americans, people on public assistance should be encouraged to develop the skills that they need in order to pursue long term goals while supporting themselves through work. Initial training in the "second chance" system for people on public assistance should link people to employment which pays a living wage. It is equally essential that these programs also foster critical thinking and the ability to juggle multiple roles successfully. Programs should emphasize capacity building and communication skills to create a flexible workforce.