The Parents’ Fair Share (PFS) Demonstration:
Matching Opportunities to Obligations

Chapter 2:
The Pilot Sites:
Institutional Structure and Program Flow

[ Main Page of Report | Contents of Report ]

Contents

1. A Typical PFS Experience
2. The Institutional Structure of the PFS Pilot Programs
   1. Factors that Affected the Organization of the Pilot Programs
   2. The Key Agencies and Their Roles in PFS
   3. Building Linkages Among the Partner Agencies
   4. Implications of Different Organizational Structures
3. The Program Flow
   1. Target Populations
   2. Client Flow
4. Conclusions

Endnotes

Before moving to detailed discussions of the key program components, this chapter sets the stage with a broad introduction to the pilot sites and the PFS programs. The chapter begins by describing a "typical" PFS experience from the perspective of a participant. The second section focuses on the organizational structure of the programs and the strategies sites have adopted to build B linkages among agencies with different cultures and missions. The third section includes a detailed description of the usual flow of participants through the programs, describing the pathways into PFS and the typical schedules and sequences of program activities.

Diversity and innovation are key themes of this chapter. Each site approached PFS with a different set of existing institutional resources and inter-agency linkages and a distinct vision of PFS; as a result, a unique organizational approach has emerged in each community. Each of these approaches has potential advantages and disadvantages, but the pilot experience has demonstrated that a variety of strategies are viable. Sites generally succeeded in assembling the organizational pieces needed to operate PFS and, in most cases, found ways to reconcile the disparate goals of the partner agencies to build smoothly functioning programs.

I. A Typical PFS Experience

Ken is a 30-year-old father of two. His children, Sandra and Ken Jr., live with their mother, Marcie, who is receiving AFDC. Ken and Marcie were never married, although they were in a steady relationship when the children were born. They are no longer together, but Ken sees the children about once a week and gets along reasonably well with Marcie and her new boyfriend.

It is now August, and Ken has not held a regular job in eight months. He lives with his mother and sister and does odd jobs for relatives and neighbors to pick up cash. He gives money to Marcie or buys clothes or shoes for Sandra and Ken Jr. when he can. Ken was ordered to pay $150 per month in child support four years ago, shortly after Marcie began to receive welfare. The court has deducted this amount from Ken's paycheck whenever he has been steadily employed, but Ken has been out of work several times since the order was set. He has made no payments since he quit his last job in January after a dispute with his boss.

Two months ago, Ken received a notice to appear at a court hearing to explain his failure to pay court-ordered child support. The notice made clear that Ken could be arrested if he failed to appear. Ken had some minor scrapes with the police as a teenager and knew that he had better attend the hearing.

It is now the day of the hearing. Ken goes to the courthouse at the scheduled time and, after a long wait, he is called into the courtroom. A hearing officer presides over the hearing. Representatives of the CSE agency and the county prosecutor are also there, but Marcie is not. Ken has no legal representation.

The hearing begins with a review of Ken's payment record. The CSE staff person tells the hearing officer that Ken has not paid support in eight months. Together with previous periods of nonpayment, Ken now owes about $3,000. Ken's purchases for the children and cash payments to Marcie are not counted by the system because they were not paid to the court. (If Ken had paid through the court, a maximum of $50 per month would have gone to Marcie and the children; the rest would have been retained by the welfare department to offset Marcie's AFDC payments.)

The hearing officer asks Ken why he has not been paying support. Ken explains that he has been unemployed for some time and does not have the money to pay. Before PFS existed, the hearing officer would have had few options for handling Ken's case. Not knowing whether Ken was telling the truth about being unemployed, he could have sent Ken to jail, ordered him to make a "purge payment" of a few hundred dollars, or told him to look for work; none of these would have solved the problem. In fact, it is quite possible that the CSE agency would not have pursued Ken very aggressively because the probability of collecting any money was so low. PFS has added a new option that makes it worthwhile for the agency to take action on Ken's case

The hearing officer tells Ken that a program called Parents' Fair Share has been set up in the county to help unemployed fathers find work so that they can pay their child support. He asks Ken how that sounds. Ken responds that he could use the help since he has had no luck finding a job on his own. The hearing officer then says that he has decided to order Ken to attend PFS. He explains that he will reduce Ken's child support order from $150 to $50 per month while he is in the program to give Ken an opportunity to get training without building up too much more debt. The hearing officer stresses that this is an unusual opportunity and that he expects Ken to show up and attend program activities regularly or start paying child support. If he fails to do so, his child support order will return to $150 and he will be brought back to court and possibly sent to jail. The hearing lasts less than 10 minutes.

Before leaving the courthouse, Ken meets briefly with a PFS staff person stationed in the court, who provides some additional information about the program and schedules Ken for an orientation session the following Monday at 9 a.m. The staff person echoes the hearing officer's words: This is a real opportunity, but Ken must follow through. Otherwise, he will be brought back to court.

The orientation is held in a PFS program office downtown. Several other noncustodial parents are there. The session is run by a staff person from JOBS, the county's employment and training program for welfare recipients. Because the county is part of PFS, the JOBS program has been expanded to serve noncustodial parents and several JOBS staff have been assigned to PFS.

The staff person starts by describing the goal of PFS: to help the fathers find good jobs and stay out of trouble with the court. He says that the program offers a variety of services, including job search help, opportunities for training, a peer support group that will give the participants a chance to meet other fathers, and help in resolving disputes with custodial parents. He explains that several agencies have come together to run PFS. Each father will be assigned to a JOBS case manager, who will be his primary contact. Activities will mostly be led by staff from other agencies but will usually take place in the PFS office. He concludes by reminding the fathers that they are expected to show up every day to their assigned activities or call to explain why they cannot attend; if they do not, the case worker will have to notify the court. A staff person from the CSE agency the same person Ken met just after his hearing stops in and gives out his business card; he tells the fathers that he is assigned to work with PFS participants and that they should call him directly if they have any questions about child support issues.

After orientation, Ken takes a brief reading and math test and completes some forms that describe his education and work history. He then meets with his JOBS/PFS case manager to talk about his employment goals. They discuss the possibility of a classroom training course, but Ken says he would prefer to go to work. They decide that he will begin with a job club that will help him find employment; it is also possible that the job club staff will help Ken locate an on-the-job training (OJT) position. If Ken does not find a job or an OJT, they will meet again to think about a training program. The job club will start in two weeks. In the meantime, Ken's peer support group will begin meeting in two days later in the PFS office.

Ken is skeptical about the peer group but attends the first session anyway to avoid problems with the court. It is more interesting than he expected. The other participants are facing problems that are very similar to his own, and the group leader (the "facilitator") seems to understand what the fathers are going through. They talk about what it means to be a father and how it feels to be unable to support your children regularly. The group meets three days a week for about two hours a day. By the third session, Ken is attending because he wants to, not because he has to.

The job club starts the following week; it meets every morning from 9 a.m. till noon (peer support continues in the afternoons). The job club is run by an instructor from a local nonprofit organization but meets in the PFS office. Many of the men Ken has gotten to know in peer support are also there. The first week is in the classroom. The instructor helps Ken produce a resume and they videotape a mock interview. The instructor offers Ken some useful tips about how to "sell" himself to an employer.

Late in the second week, Ken begins to search for employment, using telephones and job listings provided by the program; the instructor is present to provide additional tips. This is difficult because few companies are hiring; Ken gets frustrated and misses several days. The job club instructor lets Ken's case manager and the peer support facilitator know about Ken's absences. His case manager and the facilitator call him at home and encourage him to keep trying. They also remind him that he will be sent back to the court if he misses any more days. Ken decides to give the program another chance. If he had not returned, he probably would have been served with legal papers and charged with contempt of court. Two weeks later, a job developer working with the job club tells Ken about a job opening that sounds right for Ken. He interviews for the job, gets it, and goes to work.

Ken continues to attend peer support in the evenings after he gets off from work. The other fathers and the facilitator help him think about how to deal with a problem with his supervisor at work. Ken is proud of the way he handles the problem; in earlier days, he might have confronted his boss and gotten fired. Ken graduates from the peer support program a few weeks later. His mother, Marcie, and the kids attend the ceremony, which is held in a local church.

Meanwhile, the CSE raises Ken's child support order back to its original level. Child support begins to be deducted from his third paycheck. Ken's case manager checks up several times to see how Ken is doing at work. After three months of steady payment the normal standard for completing PFS Ken's case manager calls to congratulate him for finishing the program successfully. The case manager tells Ken to get back in touch immediately if he loses his job and cannot pay support.

Ken does not exist. He is a fictitious composite character created from the general characteristics of PFS participants, which will be discussed in Chapter 3. Similarly, his PFS experience does not describe any one PFS pilot program. Rather, it draws on the common themes explored in this and later chapters to construct a "typical" route through PFS. Clearly, Ken's PFS experience was quite positive overall; this is obviously not true of all those who are referred to PFS. Nevertheless, his story provides a useful introduction to the day-to-day reality of PFS.

[Go To Contents]

II. The Institutional Structure of the PFS Pilot Programs

Chapter 1 described the institutional challenge presented by PFS: Successful implementation of the PFS approach requires close cooperation among agencies and systems with little history of joint action and fundamentally different missions and cultures. Thus, new linkages and innovative organizational approaches were a prerequisite to mounting the program.

This section examines how sites have addressed this challenge. It begins by describing the key factors that shaped the structure of PFS in the sites and then describes the typical organizational approaches chosen by sites, the strategies used to build inter-agency linkages, and the implications of different approaches.

A. Factors that Affected the Organization of the Pilot Programs

The core PFS components employment and training, peer support, enhanced child support enforcement, and mediation are too diverse for any one agency to handle alone. Thus, in each site, a multiagency network has been assembled to operate PFS. Both the identity of the partner agencies and the organizational and financial bonds that link them are complex and vary from site to site.

The process of developing these networks proceeded differently in each site, but tended to be influenced by a few common factors, including the nature of pre-existing organizational resources and linkages, the source of the main impetus for PFS, and the key partners' visions of the program. Each of these is discussed below.

1. Existing Agencies and Their Linkages. The nature of the PFS service approach and the program's target population virtually ensured that three national systems the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) Program, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), and the child support enforcement (CSE) program would play important roles in PFS. Noncustodial parents would be identified through the CSE system and referred for services delivered at least in part by agencies affiliated with JOBS and/or JTPA. CSE agencies would then be responsible for enforcing the PFS participation mandate and for translating earnings into child support payments. Moreover, most of the program funding would be delivered through these systems.

Because JOBS, JTPA, and CSE programs existed in each of the pilot communities before PFS began, it may appear that the sites began with similar raw materials when they set out to build PFS programs. In fact, however, all three of these entities are less "programs" than decentralized systems for distributing federal and state funding ⁽¹⁾ to local public and private agencies. ⁽²⁾ All operate under federal regulations, but the federal guidelines allow substantial discretion to states and localities in designing and operating the programs. Thus, both organizational structures and program approaches vary dramatically across jurisdictions in all three systems.

JOBS programs are generally overseen by state or county welfare agencies. In some places, these agencies are also key providers of program services such as job clubs. In other areas, the JOBS agency serves primarily as a broker, coordinating education and training services that are delivered under contracts or agreements by other government agencies, community colleges, school districts, private nonprofit organizations, and others. ⁽³⁾ Targeting strategies and program emphases also vary within the parameters set by federal regulations. For example, some JOBS programs place a heavy emphasis on basic education, while others stress quick entry into the labor market.

Similarly, although each state has a designated IV-D agency that is responsible for child support enforcement (usually the welfare agency), the key institutional actors at the local level often include family courts, prosecutors, and sheriffs' departments, among others. The roots of these complex arrangements may date back decades to a time when the federal government played only a small role in child support; the arrangements vary dramatically across states and, in some cases, across jurisdictions within a state. Moreover, local CSE practices are Bly affected by state laws and regulations, case law, and longstanding judicial procedures. Thus, the system's performance and the "street level" reality of child support enforcement vary tremendously across jurisdictions. For example, in some communities, noncustodial parents frequently serve time in jail for child support-related issues; this is much less common in other areas.

JTPA is, in some ways, the most decentralized of the three systems, operating differently in each of more than 600 local Service Delivery Areas (SDAs). The JTPA program in each SDA is overseen by a Private Industry Council (PIC), the majority of whose members must represent the private sector. As in JOBS, there is a wide range of contracting and brokering arrangements in place, and the resulting organizational and programmatic approaches are many and varied.

In addition to experiencing the diversity within these three systems, each community started with a distinct set of public and private nonprofit (and, in some cases, for-profit) agencies that provided employment and training and social services to various disadvantaged groups. Some of these agencies were supported by JOBS or JTPA funding, while others received funding from other local, state, or federal agencies or from private sources.

This diversity meant that each community approached PFS with different organizational resources and existing institutional relationships, particularly among employment and training and social services agencies. As discussed later, these prior conditions Bly affected their approaches to PFS. In addition, four of the sites Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio had some experience operating programs that linked employment and training services with child support enforcement. The Florida and Michigan programs had been operating for several years, providing mostly job search services to substantial numbers of noncustodial parents referred by courts or CSE agencies. The Minnesota program, which operated in Anoka County, was smaller, but offered a broader array of services including a component that closely resembled peer support. The Ohio program operated in Butler County and provided a combination of JOBS and JTPA services.

2. The Initiating Agency. Although applications for the demonstration were submitted by state human services (IV-A) agencies, the impetus for PFS came from a different source in each state. In some cases, a department of the state government made the first move, recruiting or selecting one of its own divisions or another local agency to run the program. In other states, particularly those where local programs for noncustodial parents were already operating, interest tended to begin at the local level, sometimes with a key judge, and the state was engaged to apply for admission to PFS and act as a funding conduit.

Another key distinction was the level of initial involvement by CSE agencies. In a few sites, such as Michigan, a CSE agency was the primary force behind PFS from the outset. In others, the impetus came mostly from a JOBS program or a private nonprofit employment and training agency; the CSE agency was recruited to participate.

Given the important differences in organizational missions described in Chapter 1, the source of the original impetus for PFS helped to shape the site's overall vision of the program in important ways; this, in turn, influenced the structure and design of the program.

3. Program Philosophy. PFS aims to achieve a diverse set of objectives: raising the earnings of noncustodial parents, increasing child support payments, and reducing welfare spending, among others. The relative priority placed on these various goals and views about the best means for achieving them varied from site to site. These differing visions were closely linked to the source of the impetus for PFS and the existing organizational resources and linkages described earlier.

B. The Key Agencies and Their Roles in PFS

Given the differences across sites in the dimensions described above, it is not surprising that they developed quite different organizational approaches as they adapted PFS to local conditions. This section characterizes these approaches by examining the lead agencies and service provider networks that were assembled to operate PFS.

1. Local Lead Agencies. Each site's PFS program was built around a "lead agency." ⁽⁴⁾ These agencies are described in Table 2.1. As might be expected, given the statutory authority for PFS ⁽⁵⁾, the most common type of lead agency was the entity responsible for the JOBS program, usually a state or county welfare department. ⁽⁶⁾ JOBS was the lead agency in Alabama, Florida, Missouri, and Ohio. ⁽⁷⁾ Public agencies also served as the lead in two other sites. Minnesota's lead agency, the Anoka County Job Training Center (ACJTC), was the local JTPA administrative entity. ⁽⁸⁾ Michigan's program was led jointly by the Kent County Friend of the Court (CSE agency) and the Kent County Department of Social Services (which oversees the JOBS program).

TABLE 2.1

In the three remaining sites, the lead agency was a private nonprofit organization. In Massachusetts, the Springfield Employment Resource Center (SERC) has a history of providing education and employment services to ex-offenders and other populations, usually under contract to state agencies. In New Jersey, the Union Industrial Home for Children is a 140-year-old social services agency serving youth in Trenton. Tennessee's lead agency, Youth Service, USA, Inc., is a church-affiliated organization with more than 70 years' experience providing a wide range of services to young people in Memphis and other cities.

In most states, the identity of the lead agency reflected the factors described in the previous section. Most of the lead agencies were selected based on their previous experience, usually as providers of employment and training services. For example, the JOBS programs obviously had a history of providing employment-related services to AFDC recipients. In addition, as noted earlier, the lead agencies in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, and Butler County, Ohio, had previously operated employment programs for noncustodial parents. The lead agency in New Jersey had previously operated a program for young fathers, and the Massachusetts and Tennessee lead agencies both had extensive experience providing employment services to men involved with the criminal justice system.

2. Other Participating Agencies: None of the lead agencies had the capacity to implement PFS alone. Thus, in each site, it was necessary to assemble a network of agencies to operate the program. In most sites, at least part of the PFS provider network grew out of pre-existing organizational linkages forged in the JOBS program or in a previous initiative for noncustodial parents. However, in all cases, it was necessary to recruit new partners and develop new links.

In most sites, the PFS network revolved around a group of two to six case managers employed by the lead agency. ⁽⁹⁾ These staff typically received referrals from courts or CSE agencies and were responsible at least for conducting initial orientation sessions, assigning participants to employment and training activities and peer support groups, monitoring their participation in these activities, and arranging needed support services.

The core PFS components were administered through a wide variety of institutional arrangements. These structures can be distinguished in part by the scope of the lead agency's role and the range of responsibilities assigned to the case managers. The typical approaches for each component included the following:

• Employment and training. In most sites, lead agency staff operated at least some employment and training activities, typically focusing on relatively short-term services such as job clubs or job-readiness training classes. Longer-term services such as vocational skills training and basic education were usually provided by outside organizations typically JTPA-funded agencies, community colleges, or school districts under a variety of contracts and agreements. ⁽¹⁰⁾ Several of the lead agencies also employed job developers who were responsible for identifying OJT and/or unsubsidized job openings for PFS participants; in the other sites, this function was typically contracted to a JTPA agency.

• Peer support. About half of the lead agencies directly employed the peer support facilitators; these staff typically served as both case managers and facilitators. The others contracted with outside agencies to provide this service, and facilitators were usually responsible for this aspect of the program only. The contracted providers included a branch of Goodwill Industries, a community college, a private consultant, family health agencies, and an organization with a history of providing employment and training services.

• Enhanced child support enforcement. The IV-D agency was responsible for this component in all sites. In each site, at least one individual typically a IV-D employee who had been outstationed or detailed to the PFS program was assigned to handle the CSE aspects of PFS cases (implementing wage withholding arrangements, coordinating enforcement in response to noncompliance, and so on.). In some sites, responsibility for PFS participants' CSE cases was actually transferred to the dedicated PFS IV-D worker. In others, this worker may have been empowered to take specific types of actions on PFS cases, but did not assume ultimate responsibility for them.

• Mediation. Outside agencies were under contract or agreement to provide formal mediation services in most sites, although lead agency staff provided some mediation services directly.

This information suggests that the complexity and nature of the institutional networks assembled for PFS varied dramatically from site to site. The following box describes four different organizational approaches, three led by JOBS programs (Alabama, Florida, and Missouri) and one led by a community-based nonprofit organization (New Jersey). In all four cases, the lead agency provided some services directly and also served as a broker, coordinating services provided by other agencies. The Alabama and New Jersey structures were relatively tightly consolidated, with the lead agency playing many key roles. The Florida and Missouri structures were somewhat more complex.

C. Building Linkages Among the Partner Agencies

The previous section illustrates that it typically was possible to assemble the key elements of the PFS service package. However, given the complexity of the multi-agency partnerships that developed, one of the key challenges facing sites was to integrate these diverse elements into coherent programs and create smoothly functioning management structures.

Chapter 1 described the important differences in the perspectives and organizational missions of the key systems and agencies involved in PFS. As expected, these disparities led to sharply different visions of the program and produced tension in most sites during the pilot phase. CSE agencies often saw PFS as a useful enforcement tool, but did not always support the program's attempt to tie opportunities to the CSE mandate. Thus, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, some of these agencies resisted making routine reductions in the child support obligations of PFS participants to encourage them to build their skills. Chapter 7 will describe how some JTPA agencies, while supportive of the program's overall goals, nonetheless were reluctant to serve program participants in JTPA-funded programs if they faced serious barriers to employment.

The day-to-day interaction between these divergent cultures presented a host of practical management challenges. For example, although each site had one overall manager typically associated with the lead agency line staff who were detailed to the program from other divisions or agencies often did not formally report to this individual; the lines of authority may have been complex and confusing to staff. To add to the difficulties, highly specialized managers and staff from the partner agencies usually had very limited knowledge of one another's procedures and jargon; PFS staff literally speak different languages.

Despite these challenging circumstances, almost all of the sites made notable progress in building B inter-agency linkages. Tensions certainly arose, but they did not cripple the programs. In fact, line staff began to understand and appreciate one another's perspectives and, over time, a unified "PFS culture," combining elements of each of the partner agencies' missions, began begun to emerge. Several strategies facilitated this process. These include:

• Central program offices. Several sites set up special PFS program offices and stationed staff from several agencies in these locations. Thus, in Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Jersey, participants came to the same location for orientation, peer support, meetings with case managers, and some employment and training activities, even though these may have been led by staff from different agencies. This brought staff together in a neutral location that was not on any one agency's "turf."

• Outstationed staff. Whether or not there was a central PFS office, in most sites, staff from one partner agency were outstationed in the offices of another to promote regular interaction among PFS staff. For example:

In Montgomery County, Ohio, Dakota County, Minnesota, and Missouri, CSE staff were placed in the lead agency's office to facilitate interaction with PFS case managers.

In Florida, staff from a nonprofit agency that was contracted to provide peer support and case management worked alongside case managers employed by the lead agency in the central PFS office. In addition, PFS paid the salary of a staff person in a local community college who worked with PFS participants enrolled in education and training programs and outstationed an employee in the CSE agency to help with PFS-related activities.

In New Jersey, a job developer employed by the state Department of Labor was outstationed in the PFS office to work directly with lead agency staff.

• Joint activities. In most sites, staff from the CSE agency, the courts, and other partner agencies regularly visited peer support groups and help conduct initial orientation sessions for new enrollees. This not only provided important information to participants, but also allowed staff to learn about their colleagues' jobs. In Michigan, staff from the lead agency and the school district that operated the job club co-facilitated peer support groups, and in Alabama, Florida, Massachusetts and Tennessee lead agency staff regularly sat in on court hearings to meet newly referred noncustodial parents and orient them to the program.

• Management teams. To facilitate coordination, most sites formed management teams that included supervisors from the key partner agencies. These teams met regularly to review the program's performance, identify operational issues, and develop corrective action measures.

• Case conferences. In several sites, line staff from the partner agencies met regularly to discuss specific cases. This process was formalized in several sites, including Michigan, where lead agency staff, JTPA case managers, and job club instructors meet periodically to review all cases with attendance problems.

These and other similar strategies helped build cooperation and mutual respect among staff from different agencies and ensured that participants heard a consistent message about the goals and objectives of Parents' Fair Share.

D. Implications of Different Organizational Structures

Each of the organizational approaches described above had both advantages and potential drawbacks. For example, the identity of the lead agency may have had implications for which of the components operated most effectively. In Michigan, where a CSE agency served as one of the lead agencies, the site identified and referred large numbers of noncustodial parents to PFS. However, it was difficult to build a B employment and training component in this site. Most of the other sites started with more expertise in employment and training, but had more difficulty building successful identification and referral systems. Similarly, programs with complex provider networks that included many agencies may have benefited from the varied expertise and experience of the partner agencies. However, such programs may have appeared fragmented to participants. In contrast, sites with tightly consolidated structures may have had difficulty offering a rich array of services, but more success in transmitting a consistent message.

Interestingly, no one organizational structure emerged as superior during the pilot phase, and some of the outcomes were quite different from what might have been expected. For example, several of the sites in which employment and training providers served as lead agencies had difficulty establishing B employment components. Inter-agency linkages were sometimes Ber in sites with many service providers than in those with fewer. And, perhaps most surprising, CSE agencies often emerged as the Best supporters of PFS, even in sites where the original impetus for participation in the demonstration came from an employment and training agency.

Overall, the pilot phase experience demonstrated that creative and flexible strategies can compensate for the potential weaknesses of each structure. Finding these approaches required a willingness to experiment and, in some cases, to change existing bureaucratic practices that hindered collaboration. Sites where PFS received the active attention of senior program managers in the key agencies were able to develop these strategies through constant experimentation. Those where the program was not a priority for high-level staff had more difficulty overcoming inherent obstacles. In these sites, existing rules were more likely to inhibit change.

[Go To Contents]

III. The Program Flow

As described in Chapter 1, the PFS service approach was not defined in detail during the pilot phase. Beyond the requirement to include the four core components, sites were free to design programs to suit their own strengths and philosophies. Many of the same factors that shaped the institutional structure of PFS also affected the service approach, and (as might be expected) a distinct version of the program evolved in each site; however, certain common patterns emerged. This section provides a broad outline of the typical flow of participants through the programs; more detailed discussions of the individual components follow in subsequent chapters.

A. Target Populations

The demonstration-wide eligibility criteria, derived from the Family Support Act provision authorizing the PFS waivers, state that PFS is open to noncustodial parents with children on AFDC who are unemployed or underemployed at the point of referral to PFS. ⁽¹¹⁾ In addition, all participants must have either established legal paternity for their children on AFDC who were born out of wedlock, or agree to initiate the paternity establishment process within three months of enrollment. ⁽¹²⁾

Most of the sites chose not to add additional demographic eligibility criteria that would have substantially restricted the number of eligible participants. Most required that noncustodial parents live in the county covered by the program or within commuting distance of the program office. ⁽¹³⁾ A few sites also added age criteria. For example, several limited participation to those over 18 years old. New Jersey and Tennessee, where the lead agencies had experience serving youth, set upper limits on the age; the New Jersey program served noncustodial parents up to age 35 and Tennessee served those up to age 45. Most sites stipulated that eligible noncustodial parents had to be physically able to participate in program activities and to work; thus, recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) were typically ineligible. ⁽¹⁴⁾

More important, however, most of the sites substantially restricted the universe of eligible cases by choosing to focus on noncustodial parents who had established paternity and had a child support order in place; ⁽¹⁵⁾ a large fraction of AFDC custodial parents do not have support orders. Chapter 1 noted that states applying for admission to PFS were encouraged to devise strategies to reach out to noncustodial parents who were outside the CSE system (that is, had not established paternity). However, most sites chose not to follow this course, in large part because it is inherently difficult to identify and locate noncustodial parents who have not yet established paternity; these individuals are, by definition, not known to the system. ⁽¹⁶⁾ The challenge of establishing systems to routinely identify, contact, and refer the relatively "reachable" population of noncustodial parents with support orders usually consumed as much staff time as was available. As described below, only the Missouri and New Jersey sites made substantial efforts to recruit noncustodial parents who had not established paternity.

B. Client Flow

Although there was obviously wide variation, there were four basic stages in most participants' PFS experience: (1) identification and referral, (2) intake and initial activity assignments, (3) ongoing participation and monitoring, and (4) termination. Each is discussed below.

1. Identification and Referral. Developing regular systems to identify and refer noncustodial parents to PFS was been one of the most challenging tasks facing program staff. Because there was likely to be attrition at various stages in the intake process, MDRC predicted that sites would need to identify as many as 1,000 eligible parents in order to achieve the goal of serving 300 during the pilot phase. This process involved extensive and detailed inter-agency collaboration and, in some sites, substantial changes in long-established procedures involving CSE agencies, prosecuting attorneys, and courts. As discussed in Chapter 4, in at least six of the sites, these efforts ultimately produced reliable systems that generated large numbers of referrals on a relatively consistent schedule.

The vast majority of PFS cases were identified and referred to the program through the CSE system. This system is quite complex and operates differently in each locality. In addition, in an effort to meet the pilot phase enrollment goals, each site experimented with a number of referral procedures triggered at various points in the CSE process. Thus, the details of the referral process in each site were complicated and highly idiosyncratic. However, the broad outlines of these procedures were fairly similar from site to site: Nonpaying noncustodial parents with children on AFDC were identified through the course of normal CSE monitoring procedures, notified of their nonpayment, and called in for a court hearing or an appointment with CSE staff. ⁽¹⁷⁾ As will be discussed further in Chapter 6, in some sites, PFS led to an increase in the number of cases that were processed (or "worked," in CSE parlance) in this manner, or to changes in the process itself, while in others it did not.

At the hearing or CSE appointment, noncustodial parents were asked to explain their nonpayment and, if unemployment was cited, were usually referred to PFS. The nature and language of this referral varied. In some locations, noncustodial parents were first asked if they were interested in PFS. In others, they were routinely ordered into the program without consultation. However, in either case, the end result was usually a PFS participation mandate: The noncustodial parent was required to appear at a PFS orientation session within a few days, and to participate regularly in assigned program activities. Sites that routinely reduced participants' child support orders did so at this point.

In several sites, PFS staff were present at hearings to meet with newly referred noncustodial parents, provide a brief orientation to PFS, and schedule the orientation. ⁽¹⁸⁾ In other sites, court-based staff played this role. Chapter 4 will describe how the response rates to the initial referral differed, based in part on the language of the message and the authority of its deliverer.

Noncustodial parents who failed to appear for their CSE hearing or appointment were usually subject to further enforcement action; if they had been personally served with legal papers informing them of a hearing and then failed to appear, they could be picked up on a bench warrant. In other cases, the hearing or appointment have been rescheduled. Those who were referred to PFS and failed to show up for orientation were typically rescheduled and given one or two more chances to appear. If they did not show up at that point or contact the program to explain their absence, they were referred back to the CSE agency for further enforcement action. This could have ultimately resulted in a finding of contempt and a jail sentence, although the likelihood of this conclusion varied dramatically from site to site. ⁽¹⁹⁾

The key exceptions to this general referral pattern were Missouri and New Jersey. In both of these sites, noncustodial parents often appeared at a PFS orientation session without having attended a court hearing or a CSE interview. The New Jersey site recruited "early intervention" participants (that is, mostly fathers who had not yet established paternity for one or more of their children) in two ways ⁽²⁰⁾: (1) through community outreach efforts aimed at unemployed fathers of children on AFDC, and (2) by using information provided by the CSE agency about the putative fathers of AFDC children who were named by custodial parents during AFDC intake interviews. ⁽²¹⁾ In both cases, new PFS recruits were invited to attend an orientation session at the PFS program office; the CSE agency was notified later.

In Missouri, most participants were identified by CSE staff, but the referral to PFS usually took place by mail or phone, and was essentially voluntary. Interested participants were instructed to go directly to a recruitment meeting with lead agency staff, and there was little follow-up on those who failed to attend this meeting.

2. Intake and Initial Activity Assignments. During the pilot phase, PFS participation always began with an orientation to the program an important early opportunity to shape the program's message to participants. Sites held either group or individual orientations periodically, depending on the flow of new participants. The content and length of orientation sessions varied; some sites focused primarily on describing the PFS program and its components, while others included basic skills testing or other assessment activities. In Anoka County, Minnesota, this process sometimes took several days.

After orientation, participants usually joined a peer support group. As will be discussed further in Chapter 5, this sequence was generally chosen because staff discovered that peer support often helped participants handle the anger and resentment many of them felt about being required to participate in PFS, thereby increasing their ability to benefit from employment preparation activities. In several sites, including Missouri, New Jersey, and Tennessee, participants usually completed the full Responsible Fatherhood curriculum in their peer support groups before moving to employment and training activities. Completion of the curriculum took two to five weeks. In the other sites, participants started employment and training activities shortly after beginning peer support, and remained active in both components concurrently. Peer support tended to meet two to three times per week in these sites, and continued for varying lengths of time. The sequence of employment and training activities and the criteria for assigning noncustodial parents to activities varied considerably, as will be discussed in Chapter 7. In any case, participants were usually expected to attend PFS activities at least three days per week during their entire eligibility period unless they were waiting for a scheduled activity to begin.

3. Participation. PFS case managers monitored participants' attendance at their assigned activities. Most contracted service providers reported on participants' attendance weekly. Each program developed standards of acceptable attendance, usually involving a maximum number of absences without an excuse. The steps taken in response to poor attendance varied from site to site. Some programs attempted to counsel the participant and to identify and resolve barriers to attendance before referring him to the CSE agency; others more routinely referred the participant's name to the PFS/CSE staff person, who coordinated further enforcement action. This usually involved a contempt hearing which could, in theory, result in a jail sentence.

4. Termination. The end of PFS participation usually came when a participant was employed and had paid child support for a specified number of months, or failed to cooperate and was referred back to the court or CSE agency for enforcement action. ⁽²²⁾ In some cases, participants remained active in peer support or other program activities after they found jobs. The extent of post-placement follow-up varied; as the pilot progressed, MDRC began to encourage sites to increase the amount of contact with employed participants to help increase job retention.

[Go To Contents]

IV. Conclusions

The organizational resources needed to build a PFS program exist in most communities and, for the most part, the PFS pilot sites succeeded in assembling multiagency networks to operate the program. These networks looked quite different reflecting the wide variation in the pre-existing organizational landscape in each site but the key pieces were put in place. The challenge was to manage these diverse partners and to blend their different organizational procedures and perspectives into smoothly running programs. Although tensions emerged in all sites, most made notable progress toward building B inter-agency linkages. Active attention by senior level staff in the key agencies was vital to achieving this goal.

Endnotes

1. The JOBS and CSE systems use a combination of federal and state (and, in some cases, local) funding. JTPA is entirely federally financed. [Back To Text]

2. Of the nine PFS states, Alabama, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Ohio have state-supervised, county-administered welfare systems. In these states, JOBS and CSE funding is usually distributed to counties, which are responsible for operating the programs. [Back To Text]

3. In some instances, these outside providers receive JOBS funds. In others, they agree to serve JOBS participants using other funding streams such as JTPA or state education funding. [Back To Text]

4. Technically, each state's IV-A (welfare) agency was ultimately responsible for PFS, since the federal waivers were granted to these agencies. However, in most cases, the state designated either one of its own divisions or a local-level public or private organization to oversee PFS and serve as the lead operating agency for the project. [Back To Text]

5. As explained in Chapter 1, PFS grew out of a provision in the Family Support Act of 1988 that directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to permit a group of states to provide JOBS services to noncustodial parents of children receiving AFDC. [Back To Text]

6. Florida's JOBS program, Project Independence, is operated by the Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security (LES) under contract to the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS), the welfare agency. [Back To Text]

7. In these sites, the CSE and JOBS programs were usually housed within the same state or county human services agency. Thus, these two divisions tended to cooperate closely in administering PFS. However, in each case, the program's overall manager was associated with the JOBS program. [Back To Text]

8. Minnesota's program operated in two counties, Anoka and Dakota. Anoka, which operated the earlier program for noncustodial parents, was the lead county, and ACJTC was the overall lead agency for PFS. In Dakota County, the program was run by the Dakota County Department of Employment and Economic Assistance. [Back To Text]

9. In both Florida and Michigan, case management responsibility was split between lead agency staff and staff from an outside agency working under contract to PFS. [Back To Text]

10. As will be discussed in Chapter 7, most sites emphasized only one or two kinds of employment and training services in practice. [Back To Text]

11. If the eligibility criteria ceased to apply at some later point for example, if the noncustodial parent's children left AFDC he would be allowed to remain in PFS. [Back To Text]

12. Participants were also not permitted to enter income-producing activities such as OJT positions until they initiated the paternity establishment process. [Back To Text]

13. MDRC also requested that states accept only cases in which the custodial parent was receiving AFDC in the state. This will eventually allow MDRC to track AFDC payments for all custodial parents through statewide welfare computer systems. [Back To Text]

14. The SSI program provides cash assistance to needy aged, blind, and disabled people. [Back To Text]

15. In fact, the target group was further restricted because sites could work only with nonpaying noncustodial parents for whom a valid address was known. The reason for this restriction is obvious, but it may have greatly reduced the size of the universe of eligible cases. [Back To Text]

16. It is important to note that all states are developing new strategies to increase paternity establishment rates in an effort to meet performance standards imposed by the Family Support Act. However, these efforts have generally not been linked to PFS. [Back To Text]

17. In some sites, nonpaying noncustodial parents also received a letter inviting them to go directly to the PFS program office, rather than appearing for a hearing or meeting with CSE staff. The response rate to these letters was usually low. [Back To Text]

18. In Michigan, where the CSE was one of the lead agencies, CSE staff serving as PFS case managers actually conducted the initial meeting for potential PFS eligibles. [Back To Text]

19. A noncustodial parent who failed to appear at a scheduled PFS orientation but admitted to being employed (and agreed to pay child support) would not have been held in contempt of court. [Back To Text]

20. Midway through the pilot phase, New Jersey also initiated a court-based referral system much like the one described above. However, it did not abandon the early intervention strategies described here. [Back To Text]

21. When applying for AFDC, custodial parents are required to name the father of each of their children and to provide information that might help the CSE agency locate him. Normally, this information is transferred to the CSE division or agency, which attempts to establish paternity or pursue support. However, in New Jersey's PFS program, the information was then transferred to the lead PFS agency, which recruited the noncustodial parent and encouraged him to establish paternity and enter PFS. [Back To Text]

22. In many cases, noncustodial parents who were found in contempt of court might be referred back to the PFS program; that is, they were given another chance before being sentenced to jail. [Back To Text]

Where to?

Top of Page
Contents

Main Page of Report | Contents of Report

Home Pages:
Human Services Policy (HSP)
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Last updated: 04/26/01