PANEL PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS SPECIFIC TO GROUPS:

1. Policy and Planning:

What's Working:

• Political and community support for "go to work" message.
• Creativity of the private sector.
• A reduction in barriers through: increased retained earnings, child-care assistance, earned income tax credit.
• Many partners focusing on the issue is improving the way various sectors relate.
• State policy in place to reduce poverty and invest in the infrastructure.

• Packaging economic and social programs and getting the word out.
• Inadequate resources for counselors and other staff.
• Inadequate technology to support the system's collaboratives.
• People being sanctioned don't seem too concerned about it.
• Planners made assumptions, but participants make unanticipated choices.
• Market-driven economy doesn't get people out of poverty.
• Lack of affordable housing.

2. Employer Issues:

What's Working:

• Developing pre-job training for specific job opportunities.
• Mentoring within work experience. Purposeful use of elders.
• Specifying "task" and "social support" and allowing "local" tailoring.
• Building relationships.
• Knowledge sharing, industry and cross-industry benchmarking and best practices sharing.

What's Not:

• Scarcity of potential employees. Inflexibility of employers.
• Big gaps in skills & literacy yet to be filled. Can't make generalizations.
• Differences in understanding of what "job skills" mean between employer/employee.
• Employers must take greater responsibility to secure auxiliary services.
• Cultural fears and diversity awareness and sensitivity training.
• Experiential training.
• Hiring someone to fit them into a job. Rather, employers must create a job at which the employee will succeed.
• Specialization. Unwillingness to move beyond "we're good at what we do."

3. Welfare Experiences:

What's Working

• Better financial incentives.
• Motivating people to get out of the welfare system.
• More women working outside the home. Less isolation.
• Good coverage in the media of success stories and the difficulties.
• More employers reaching out to communities.

What's Not:

• System is not participants' friend.
• Women carry the burden.
• Participants without skills and supports not making it.
• Inadequate transitional supports.
• Penalty for success. Punishment for self-reporting.
• MFIP child care dollars segregated from sliding scale dollars.

4. Social Services/Auxiliary Services/Recipient Advocacy

What's Working:

• Employers willing to help with needs-based training.
• Job placement, especially rural Minnesota.
• Innovative automobile purchasing experiments.
• Some banks providing easier mortgage access.
• Some perception of public support of MFIP.

What's Not Working:

• Culture of the system needs changing.
• Efforts to curb racism.
• Providing materials in different languages.
• Up front assessments when participants meet with counselors.
• Sanctioned clients getting lost.
• Location of jobs too far away.
• No safety net when the five-year clock ends - and what is there is eroding.
• Lack of data. Specifically, the proportion of dollars spent on administrative costs, as well as the number and adequacy of child-care slots.

5. Workforce Training

What's Working:

• People are finding jobs. This is partly due to a good economy, a national focus, training directives, job search assistance, many more employment services, corporate tax credits, child-care assistance, and the fact that MFIP is no longer an "entitlemen t" program.
• There are more role models now.

What's Not Working:

• When work is begun, participant can wind up with less assistance and in a deeper hole. More assistance is needed for energy and phone bills, prioritizing and long-term coaching.
• Transition time. It takes much longer than one year to find a job that fits and to develop "soft" employment skills.
• Inflexibility of employers. Employers don't feel it is their job to train employees, or don't understand what it is like to have one's first job. Employers' value systems need to change.
• Employers and community are not educated in the process, and it is hard for them to change.

6. Research

Rather than focusing on what's working and what's not, researchers outlined what research was still needed. Current Research:

• Five-year Department of Human Services undertaking. Two thousand families on MFIP are being studied.
• The Urban Institute's study of the effects of welfare reform on children in a dozen states. Baseline data is in place and data will be coming back at stated intervals. Paid for locally.

What's Still Needed:

• More data, more research and more funding.
• A holistic approach to fashioning a research agenda. Rather than looking at one part of the issue, this agenda must examine values and provide an overarching framework for research that is useful to all those involved, especially participants of MFIP.
• Identification of the key issues to study with a focus on children, race and space, and the working poor.
• An overall tracking system.
• Coordination of research efforts. Often, researchers are unaware of each other's work.
• A consensus as to what to do with research and how to implement any recommendations.

Top | Introduction | Statistical Snapshot | What's Working
Conclusions of Large Group | Where Do We Go From Here?
Conclusion | Contact Information