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Making 'Welfare to Work' Really Work
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Education and Training (Continued)
Recommendations
- PRWORA permits certain forms of education and training that meet the definition of "work,"
including up to 1 year of vocational educational training, job skills training, and education, which is
directly related to employment. The general categories of "job skills training" and "education directly
related to employment" should be interpreted to include options for postsecondary education. Thus:
- State legislators should work with college administrators and job training personnel to ensure that
higher education is included in the state's definition of work activities.
- Caseworkers should apply flexible interpretations of work requirements that include postsecondary
education and training in the assessment of their clients.
- Applications for public assistance should openly present education and training as a viable option
to the client.
- States should fight to change the law to permit education and training opportunities for women
on public assistance for at least 4 years to complete associate and bachelor's degrees necessary to
obtain meaningful jobs that pay a family wage and ensure long-term self-sufficiency.
- Because success in work and educational settings is strongly related to social supports, state
legislators must include funding and programs for adequate housing opportunities, child care costs,
health insurance, food stamps, earned income tax credits, protection from family abuse and violence,
substance abuse treatment options, transportation costs, and access to appropriate clothing for women on
public assistance who are trying to work and obtain more education and training. Medicaid and child care
benefits need to be extended to families for at least 2 years after they leave welfare for work. In this
period they may continue both work and the pursuit of higher education. Psychological services need to
be provided to women dealing with violence, substance abuse, and other such problems.
- To widen the opportunity for higher education and encourage economic self-sufficiency, states
should receive waivers to increase allowable limits on asset/resource accumulation and allow recipients
to contribute to special education and training accounts in substantial amounts, up to $20,000.
- Service delivery providers should develop individualized self-sufficiency plans for and with
each person receiving public assistance who is able to work. Such plans should recognize the wide
differences between individuals' circumstances, skills, abilities, resources, and needs and ensure the
continuation of help and benefits for as long as the individual works toward independence through
broadly defined work activities that include vocational and higher education.
- Increased funds must be made available for case management and counseling to ensure that clients
receive a thorough individual assessment of their skills, resources, and needs and the barriers to
further education, training, and employment including factors such as lack of literacy skills, substance
abuse, and violence that could affect their ability to become economically self-sufficient.
- College administrators and advisors should advocate and work with state legislators, welfare
personnel, community organizations, and agencies to formulate policy, supportive programs and services,
and flexible courses of study that help welfare students stay in college and finish their programs and
degrees. They are also in a position to mitigate against some of the harsher effects of the new law by:
- Acknowledging that these students have a legitimate place on the campus and a right to participate
in higher education by developing supportive services, strategies, and environments to help students on
welfare succeed;
- Providing more funds for financial aid packages and for campus child care, housing, and other
supplemental resources these women may need, and appointing a person who will act as liaison between the
college and welfare agency; and
- Establishing linkages with state welfare offices, businesses, and community organizations that can
help women on welfare become self-sufficient.
- State policy must not penalize women on public assistance by cutting their benefits when they
secure financial aid packages and student loans.
- Some potential recipients of public assistance may prefer not to use up the limited time for
which they might be eligible, or may be ineligible for financial aid through welfare. Workforce
development funds should be used to provide the income necessary to allow these individuals to
participate in education and training programs.
- Policy action should ensure access for poor women to education and training for nontraditional
employment such as in trades requiring skills and apprenticeships through funds available under the Job
Training Partnership Act, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act, and other
sources of federal and state support.
- Sex equity in training and education and improved enforcement of the Equal Opportunity Act and
equal opportunity laws should be a priority in facilitating women's access into higher paid,
male-dominated occupations and in ensuring nondiscrimination in hiring, pay, promotion, and benefits in
all occupations.
- States should design job training programs that assess and accommodate individual differences,
for example, in each person's job and educational needs, in attitudes and behaviors that promote
resilience and success in getting and keeping jobs, and in what kind of support systems are needed.
Designing programs that accommodate differences will require research about the impact of these
individual differences and what strategies work best for each.
- In their job referral networks, states should include referrals to jobs and job training in
high-growth technological areas.
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