parenting curriculum

community-based healthy marriage and responsiblefatherhood workforce strategy webinar. today's call is being recorded. for opening remarksand introductions, i'd like to turn the conference over to ms. caterina bummara, ssrc productstask lead and training and technical assistancemanager at icf international. caterina, pleasego ahead. thank you. good afternoon and welcome to anintroduction to the community-based healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood workforcestrategy webinar. my name is caterina bummara and i will be your moderator today. this webinaris sponsored by the self-sufficiency research clearinghouse. before we begin, i will providea brief overview of the ssrc. the self-sufficiency research clearinghouseis a virtual portal of research and other resources related to self-sufficiency. itfunctions as an online community for researchers,

practitioners, and other stakeholders interestedin self-sufficiency, employment, and family and child well-being. the ssrc s purpose isto disseminate quality research. we currently have over 4,700 items in our library, andwe are constantly adding new resources. the library s materials are organized into 12topical areas that are listed on the right-hand side of your screen. every item included inthe library is reviewed for relevancy. users may search by key word or use filters liketopic area, target population, geographic location, or research methodology to browsethe collection. every topic area page under the browse topics tab includes a our librarianrecommends box that highlights research and resources recommended by the ssrc libraryteam. each topical area page also includes

relevant federal laws and regulations. under the stay connected tab, you ll findentities involved in self-sufficiency research, a robust events calendar, and a list of organizationsthat have partnered with the ssrc to host events. please visit this tab to access previouswebinar recordings and additional materials. on the screen is a snapshot of the new studentscorner and professors place. through these tabs, professors may access self-sufficiencyrelated course material and readings. and students may parse through the ssrc libraryresources to supplement their coursework, as well as exploring learning opportunitieswithin the self-sufficiency field. on the right side of your screen, you ll find somequick links to the ssrc. select the title

and then click the browse to button for thoselinks to open in a new window. moving on today s webinar, our speakers todayare matthew shepherd, community and clinical psychologist and fellow at icf international;penny tinsman, senior project manager at icf international; and again, i m caterina bummara,your moderator. finally, we encourage you to join today sconversation on twitter using the ssrc webinar hashtag displayed on the screen. tweets usingthis hashtag will display on the left side of the webinar platform. as you can see, alot of people already have already been tweeting using the hashtag. following the presentation, we will hold aquestion and answer session. you can submit

your questions through the q&a feature atthe bottom right of your screen, and we will address these questions during the q&a session.i will now turn it over to penny tinsman for today s presentation. hi there. good morning, or good afternoondepending on where you are in the country. i wanted to start off by just giving a fewbrief websites where you can find the information that you can see here. the self-sufficiencyresearch clearinghouse reference page; the office of family assistance resource pagewhere you can find the toolkit that we ll be describing today; and further there s anothertoolkit regarding the family economic stability toolkit which is also there on that website.

we re going to get started today by talkinga little bit about the poll. we d like to know from you as how familiar you are withthe community-based healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood strategy? please respond by eitherindicating not at all familiar, you understand it and have heard about it but don t reallyknow a lot about it in detail, you re fairly familiar, or you re very familiar. it s exciting as we see a lot of folks statingthat they re not familiar with it at all, or that they have heard about it but don treally know a lot about it in detail. tanf (temporary assistance for needy families)eligible families and healthy marriage & responsible fatherhood (hmrf) programs

okay, i m going to move on to the next slide.i was having some technical difficulty there my apologies. the office of family assistance(ofa) provides and supports healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programs throughoutthe country. they are currently in a brand new set of grants that were just funded inoctober. so that s a very exciting time for ofa. and since 2006, the office of familyassistance has funded such organizations that would implement healthy marriage and fatherhoodprograms. the programs aim to improve the overall well-being of children and parentsby helping participants build and sustain healthy relationships and marriages, or tostrengthen positive father-child interaction. however, economic stability has emerged asan increasingly important element for consideration

in working toward the overall goal of familyand father well-being. workforce development strategies that focusan increasing the skills and abilities of individuals to be successful in their locallabor market are an important element in building economic stability for families. in responseto this need, ofa has begun placing a strong emphasis on integrating economic stabilityand workforce development activities and services into what has been traditionally offered tostrengthen fathers and families. many hmrf programs have relatively littleor no experience in effectively implementing and integrating economic stability activitiesinto their program models. and there is a lack of clear understanding of the key componentsrequired for an effective program. as such,

the grantees required practical advice abouthow to implement such activities. to provide this guidance, ofa undertook a process ofresearch and investigation that has resulted in the development of the community-basedhealthy marriage and responsible fatherhood workforce strategy that we re going to discusstoday. the healthy marriage and responsible fatherhoodgrantees have the potential to develop into effective providers of economic stabilityand workforce development services. the grantees must be provided information and models andtools that are based on research-validated approaches and that can be tailored to theindividual needs of each grantee. the workforce strategy that we re going todiscuss today and then ultimately the workforce

toolkit, which will be described by my colleaguematt shepherd, is built on an extensive review and refinement process and provides a frameworkfor working with these high-need and lesser-skilled population. basically, we initiated the research for thisstrategy by developing and looking at an enormous amount of literature that was available regardingworkforce strategies for community-based organizations. we then developed a strategy and we took iton the road if you will. we went and visited several fatherhood and marriage programs thatdid have an economic stability program component within the organization. and finally afterrefining the model further, we vetted the information with an expert panel meeting inwhich those practitioners, researchers, and

policymakers were brought together to reallyget their ideas, suggestions about how to make the strategy better. the results of which is can be found in twoconceptual tools. the conceptual model, which provides a convenient means to summarize themain components of the framework. we lovingly refer to it as the diamond. and also the conceptualprocess map, which actually describes the path that one of the individual participantswould be taking through this model. i m now going to turn it over to my colleague mattshepherd to walk us through the strategy and toolkit. hello everyone. my name is matt shepherd andas mentioned i m a fellow at icf international

and one of the authors of the workforce strategyand the toolkit that we ll be talking about today. and i just want to provide you a briefoverview of the model and the information that you re going to find contained in thetoolkit that you can find on the ssrc website. as penny mentioned the conceptual, the workforcestrategy, as i m going to call it today for short, really can be described using kindof two visual aids. the first is the conceptual model that we call the diamond here and thesecond is a process map. the workforce strategy conceptual model was developed as a framingwork for understanding how programs, in this case healthy marriage and responsible fatherhoodprograms, but this should be applicable to many programs, how a system of services canprovide the needed services to participants

to increase the economic stability and theirfamily well-being. it s designed to enable organizations to maximize the impact theyhave through partnership to help specifically low-income, low high-need individuals. lets see if i can handle the technology here myself. this is the process map, which really againprovides a visual aid of how individual participants might go through the system. a single organization,or service provider, is not necessarily expected to have the capacity or the responsibilityto provide the entire spectrum of services. rather such a system typically requires theengagement of a network of collaborating partnerships that taken as a whole, provide access to allthe supports that might be needed by participants.

likewise individual participants are not necessarilygoing to need all the services that an integrated service system could provide, and each participantwill have his or her own path toward economic stability that would utilize different partnersdepending on their own individual needs, and strengths, and weaknesses. now going back to the workforce strategy,we re going to go through these one at a time. and each one of these module components isrepresented in the toolkit by a separate chapter, or module, as we call them. i think you canfind detailed information on all of these aspects in that toolkit. the first module i want to talk about is theintake and assessment module. and it covers

things such as personal needs assessment,job and skills experience assessments and motivational interviewing. the intake/baselineassessment process is the mechanism for establishing the baseline of a client s needs. you lookat the personal skills and the job skills, determine what the appropriate needs are goingto be and how to address those. it also presents an opportunity to assess the client s willingnessand readiness to engage in a program. and can help participants identify goals and developa hopeful vision for the future. to do this, good interviewing skills are critical to thisprocess, and they help put the client at ease and develop a focus on achievable goals andsupport the conditions for change. the second module in the toolkit is case management,the client plan, and supportive services.

the case management, client plan, and supportiveservices together serve as the glue, or the connection between all the other aspects ofthe model. they link clients to services and supports and they monitor their progress.the concepts in the model, or the framework, are intended to function as a tailored networkof support services that help individuals move towards economic stability rather thanrequiring participants to engage in a linear sequence of services that may not be relevantto their individual needs. economic stability cannot be met through employment alone, butthrough employment activities that are combined with supportive services and tailored towardsthe needs of individuals. the coordination of these services is the function of casemanagement. the client plan then outlines

the goals and services that are needed toaccomplish what that client needs to move towards economic stability. and all of thishinges on the effective assessment of individual needs, as we just described in module #1 withthe intake and assessment. to ensure that appropriate services are delivered,research indicates that the use of case management significantly impacts the sustainability ofeconomic stability towards among low-income individuals. so the gains that they achievethroughout the model are only really sustainable with an effective case management process. whatever the specific approach that a programadopts in terms of providing case management through that, be it through case managersor job developers or someone with a different

title, it s important that an individual serviceplan be developed that includes both short-term and long-term goals. and that these plansare designed to move towards readiness and job placement. case managers help their clientswith interpersonal skills and coping skills, and both of these things affect employability.so case management is the function of linking these services. the client plan tells youwhat those services will be. and to really make it effective, supportive services addressall of those extra needs such as transportation, it could include childcare, any kind of otherneeds or services that need to be addressed. case managers can either address those thingsdirectly by themselves, or address them through referrals to partnerships.

the third module is capacity building, andcapacity building really is at the heart of this economic stability model. improving thecapacity of the client or the participant, to balance income and expenses and to alsoprepare them for the future by building their own personal and work skills is critical tomove a family towards economic stability. it s these skills that equip participantswith information and the personal and professional capacities that enable them to gain, retain,and advance in employment and acquire the financial reserves that are needed to cushionagainst economic setbacks. and so as you can see the capacity buildingmodule really focuses on a number of different aspects, including education about what todo with your money; the ability to save that

money; and then i think very importantly,both interpersonal skills and needs such as problem solving, critical thinking, conflictresolution, which are the aspects of a program that are typically provided by your standardhealthy marriage or responsible fatherhood program or other social service programs thatpeople may be aware of. but those also have direct impact on the work environment. soyour ability to get along with your spouse, improving that also improves your abilityto get along with your employer. and the final aspect of that capacity buildingreally is the ability to build job-specific technical skills, things such as heating andair-conditioning training, or mechanics training, or truck driving, or some specific skill thathelps them be more competitive in the job

market and advance their career. the fourth module in the toolkit is aboutconnecting to job openings. and there s an important distinction here between job developmentand job placement and the other things that you ll find in this category. job development really focuses on the locationand the development of job placement opportunities. so it is the process of finding an opportunityfor someone to apply to. and this can be done at several different levels. it may includesomething as simple as looking in the newspaper to find a job opportunity or queuing yournetwork to find if there s an opening someone can apply to. but it also in many cases involvesmuch more detailed efforts such as serving

on community boards, working in partnershipwith employers to develop opportunities that may not have otherwise been there, or thatmay not have been there for the population that you re interested in working with. in job placement are the actual activitiesthat are surrounding actually connecting that person to a specific job opportunity. and finally, transitional supports are anarray of services or supports that help individuals particularly those individuals without a lotof job experience gain some of that experience or at least get their foot in the door interms of employment opportunities. and things such as internships, apprenticeships, subsidizedemployment opportunities, and transitional

programs, including sometimes working fora specific program themselves and then gaining from job experience and then moving towardsmore of the competitive job market are all kinds of examples of connecting to job openings. the final module in the toolkit is aroundwork retention and career advancement. and these are strategies that are designed tosustain or advance individuals in their job and support the long-term labor market. thecomponents of this include incentives, ongoing support, and up-skilling. and incentives can be incentives that areprovided to the employee, or they can include incentives that are provided to the employer.

and ongoing support really is the continuationof the kind of the case management process. and it s important that these services dont end when someone gets a job. so what we often see in some community-based workforceprograms is that the services for someone are in place until that person actually getsthe job. and then pretty much as soon as that person gets the job, that case is closed andwe moved on to the next person who needs those services. but what we found out is that withoutongoing contact and support and follow-up the same kind of problems that prevented peoplefrom getting a job in the first place can occur again. and those can be issues of substanceabuse, or mental health, or conflict in the home, or a lot of different things that canmake them less successful in being able to

retain that job over time. so it s reallyimportant to have a mechanism in place that provides that long-term ongoing support wherepeople can be kind of weaned off of that so that they can be stable in the job marketand have some success. and finally the concept of up-skilling aswe call it, which is really the distinction between having an entry-level job and havinga career. and so in many cases it s easy to find someone an entry-level job, but movingfrom one entry-level job to another entry-level job isn t really a way to promote family economicstability or well-being. you want to move someone out of those entry-level positionsinto management positions, manufacturing positions, into some kind of career that can providelong-term stability and chances for advancement

for a family. so those are the main components that youll find both in the workforce strategy and in the toolkit online. and again this hasbeen a really incredibly short overview of that and i encourage you to look at both ofthese resources for additional information. so i m going to turn it back over to pennyfor a few final comments. thank you matt. and as we move on and justthinking about more of global takeaways as the slide says, many programs serve and programsthat we work with in the healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programs but its also community-based programs in general, they serve a low-skilled but a high-need population.and as i mentioned including several different

federally funded programs. and these programshave the potential to play an important role in the provision of effective economic stabilityand workforce development services. as we mentionedearlier particularly with the healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood grant, the fundingopportunities and their new grant awards place a very high focus on economic stability andworkforce development activities. this was the case the last time as well as this timefor these, particularly the fatherhood grants in which they had three authorized activities,one of which was specifically to do economic stability programming. to achieve the objective, organizations mustbe provided with information, models, and

tools that are based on research-validatedapproaches and tailored then to the individual organization. the toolkit and the strategythat we just provided is such a tool and we hopefully will be able to provide additionalresources and assistance to the new grantees on this tool and strategy as we move forward.it s important to note that while the strategy is pretty wide-reaching and no one programis designed in a way that probably could do everything in this model. that s why as mattmentioned, partnering with other employers or other referral sources is extremely importantthroughout. the strategy is not built as a one organization do-it-all, but rather a partnershipand referral component being very important in that aspect.

the workforce strategy is built on an extensivereview and refinement process and it provides the framework for working with high-need,lesser-skilled populations. and i think earlier we discussed how it was based in the literature.it was based on individual programs that we visited. and then, finally, vetted by expertsin the field. so that again built the framework for the strategy. and it s also aligned with a new federal policy,which is the workforce innovation and opportunity act, wioa if you will. and it aligns withthe president s universal community college proposal which was highlighted in his mostrecent state of the union address. and it targets the low-wage, low-skilled adults whichare many of whom are typical of the hmrf,

or healthy marriage and responsible fatherhoodprograms. respond to this poll question i think we re going to finish up here witha quick, another poll which is asking you for your first and your primary reaction tothis new strategy, to the strategy that we ve described here. can it be applied and usefulto the work that you do? could it be applied with different clients? it s interesting,but not relevant to the work we do? or it could be applied to the bottom of birdcages. as we re watching these come through, it lookslike the majority of folks are indicating that it might be, could be applicable to thework that they re doing. that s great news.

as we mentioned, the tool and the strategycan be found on the hmrf website. i m going to go ahead and click over to the next slide.and we ll turn it back over to caterina for questions. but just as we mentioned, it canbe found and the website is i think it might be on the last slide for informational purposes,but it can be found at hmrf.acf.hhs.gov. so i m going to turn this back over to caterinafor some questions. please feel free to continue asking questions in the q&a box on your screen. i m just going to make one more comment aswe kind of transition to the questions. and that is the toolkit and the framework reallyis designed to be a living document. and we don t expect that what

we have now addresses every question thateveryone s going to have about how to work with a low-skilled, high-need population.and to that end we re actually currently in the process of adding two modules to the toolkit.one is around specifically around employer engagement and how do organizations, nonprofits,work with businesses directly to kind of develop these partnerships to find opportunities formaybe transitional supports and subsidized employment, those kinds of things. so thats going to be coming out. and the second one is specifically dealing with how do you workwith an incarcerated or re-entry population. because there is a lot of additional challengesthat come along with working with people who have a history of incarceration, in additionto making it more challenging to find a job

at other organizations that you have to workwith particularly if you start working with people while they re actually in the facilityor coming out of the facility. so those are two additional modules that are being addedprobably sometime in the next few months to the toolkit. so we ll continue to add additionalresources as we move along. i see a few questions and we want to have& does someone want toread the first question? i think caterina s going to step back in anddo that. okay. yes. thanks penny and matt. so, as we startedto jump into our question and answer session, again you can submit your questions to presentersthrough the question and answer feature which

is at the bottom right of your screen. oryou can tweet @opre_ssrc using the #ssrc webinar hashtag. and again, the tweets using the hashtagwill display on the left side of your screen. so we had a few questions come in. the firstone. does the toolkit include any sample tools, like assessments that our program could use,or a good pre- and post-test to help show progress? the toolkit contains two different kinds ofresources in each module. and one is useful links or sources resources that you can use.so there are some links to specific tools or resources for questions that you mightwant to ask. but there s also additional links to resources that provide background informationor provide more in-depth reading on a particular

topic. so for instance, if you re interestedin motivational interviewing the module i think has several pages about motivationalinterviewing. but it also can direct you to other resources that have a lot more informationif you want to go more in-depth or engage in a motivational interviewing process andyou haven t had one before. thanks matt. this question is coming in frombarb sterrett. in module #5 you mentioned up-scaling. can you please share examplesof promising practices that actual healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood granteeshave used to maintain contact with their clients over time? well i can yes. so there are several differentways that this can be done and there s no

one-size-fit-all approach for programs touse. several different approaches that i m familiar with one includes programs that havean extended planned period of disengagement where they would plan to keep people engagedin services or in contact with their case manager for six months or a year after [audiobreaks up]. and so that there are periods of regular follow-ups that take place afterthat. some people some sites have used technology to help them achieve thosegoals including as simple as using a spreadsheet and a calendar to do that. and there are someother sites that are using more social media platform types of technology to help keeppeople engaged, both in kind of a community of peer support and as a way to stay engagedwith their case managers or their providers

to provide that kind of ongoing support thatmight be needed. does that answer the question? go ahead. hi. this is penny. i just want to jump in.i think it also really can be determined by the program model that the program might beimplementing. again it could be part of an ongoing follow-up that your agency and thecase management approach that your agency is taking with this population as well. yes and finally, i think there is a distinctionbetween the amount of time that a program or an organization can invest in a singleindividual. and how much time it might take to up-skill someone in a particular set ofskills. and so [audio breaks up] programs

typically have a short duration of time wherethey can work with an individual. and so up-scaling someone may be difficult in that period ifyou want to get them through. you might be able to do something like truck driving school,but it s going to be much harder to get someone an associate s degree or a bachelor s degree.and so for putting them on the pathway towards those kinds of longer term advancements isalso an equally important kind of avenue to explore even if you won t be working withthem by the time they get their bachelor s degree. and finally, just when matt said that it mademe think a lot of programs are now implementing more like an alumni situation where they dooutreach to current and previous just to see

how things are going. because it s also verytrue that in these particular programs that even though an individual may be taking ajob and they might have been placed in employment and then are continuing to strive with thatemployment, but they might also be still working with the program on other needs that theymay have. thank you both. this is this question comesin about the research. and can you discuss a little more about the research that wasconducted in building the framework and how it factored into the development of the toolkit? sure i ll try and address that. and pennycan back me up if i forget anything. but really this process started with a basic understandingof trying to understand just what programs

were actually doing around economic stabilityand workforce development and how programs what they should be doing. and so based onthose kinds of questions, the first step really was an in-depth look at the literature acrossnumerous fields. and we actually did, i put together a compendium of like a 178-page researchdocument that then had 30 separate authors scanning, i think 10 different fields of studyto pull out all the relevant information that we felt kind of addressed this. so based onthat research review process we developed a white paper which kind of outlined the frameworkof the model that we wanted to present. and that framework then was both field testedand vetted by experts in the field. we had a meeting in dc with feds, with researchers,with programs, with experts around the country

to all provide their feedback on that. andthen we revised the model and then took that out back into the field for another seriesof testing to see how it held up to the reality of things. so that was the basis of that.and so the beginning process of the research was really that intensive kind of compendiumthat we had developed that kind of covered the basis of all these things. so it was an extensive literaturesearch. excellent. thank you. this next question comesin from kay reed who is curious about what specific content, or approach, or strengththat a healthy marriage or responsible fatherhood practitioner would bring to the table thattraditional workforce development agencies

may not have experience with? well, that s a great question. oh, go ahead,penny. i m sorry. i was going to say i d like tojust add, throw out my initial thoughts on that, in that the piece that the programsthe healthy marriage programs can bring is really in that client plan and case managementapproach. in that capacity, your program would be providing services for the holistic approachfor the individual rather than strictly a workforce development or workforce activity.for example, many of the men or women who come into these hmrf programs, what they recoming in for is because they ll tell you, i need a job. yes you do need a job, but theres a lot of other issues that need to be addressed

before you re going to make a good employee,if you will. so the marriage programs these community-based programs are able to provideservices such as maybe during the intake and assessment, maybe a substance abuse issueor it s that there s housing issues or child support issues or mental health issues orjust general health issues that can be addressed and need to be addressed throughout so thatyou re not just doing that workforce piece. the other thing when working with your employerpartners i think matt mentioned that we re going to have another module to this toolkitthat is really working on how to work and engage an employer partner, is that the employerswhen you are referring an individual to that employer they are really they know that yourprogram is providing them with the individuals

with services to make them better employees.you re giving them the soft skills if you will and communication skills that is reallygoing to be a benefit for the employer. and then, many times we found in talking to someof the different programs that are implementing similar strategies here is that that employerwill then reach back to your agency to see if you have additional employees, potentialemployees, that when they are in need for employers. so i think the holistic approachis what these community-based programs are able to provide that a typical workforce strategymight not be able to. matt? i would just add a couple of things to that.there are i think a couple of things that make healthy marriage and responsible fatherhoodprograms specifically valuable partners in

this process. and one is, as penny alreadyalluded to, really is in the development of soft skills. many of the programming curriculathat are used are specifically designed to develop soft skills that are intended to improvefamily well-being. and so they are the issues of conflict resolution, socialized skills,problem-solving. and so those are things that are needed and are intrinsically taught aspart of a marriage or a relationship curriculum, as part of a parenting curriculum that alsohave direct transferability to kind of the workplace. and i think the other thing whichis often overlooked is the process of going from having a low-skilled, high-need personto working their way through the system, it s a lot of work and it s a very difficultthing to do. and it s really, i think what

many job programs have found is that peoplearen t necessarily ready for that kind of change and they need to have some kind ofmotivation to do that. and the other thing that we ve discovered along the way that healthymarriage and responsible fatherhood programs are particularly good at is providing thatmotivation. and so people get into these programs because they want to do better for their familybecause they want to have a better relationship with their spouse. and so that s the reasonthey re there in the first place. and that same motivationwill take them through the program because achieving greater economic stability is goingto benefit their family is going to benefit their relationship. and the other thing thats tied to that, and that s why i pulled up

the conceptual process map here, is that wefound is that to be successful in this process really at some fundamental level is a processof personal transformation. you come out of these programs, out of this process a differentperson than you were when you went in. it s not just a matter of learning a job skilland then you re going to be successful in the job market. it s really a matter of changingwho i am at a fundamental level that underpins particularly some of the very basic fatherhoodprograms. and that personal transformation has more impact on their long-term sustainabilityto get and keep a job than any of the hard skills that are taught almost. and so thoseare two aspects that healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programs are particularlygood at and why they re important to have

as part of this entire social service systemof care. great. thank you. conversely we had anotherquestion come in asking how does this model work with non-marriage programs? i would say that while the program model wasdeveloped specifically to look at how healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood programscan fit into a system of care it really at its fundamental it had to first describe howa system of care should work. so there are a lot of opportunities for programs who areinterested in this population to find a piece of that puzzle that they feel like they regood at or that they want to be involved in. so i think the model is applicable to anykind of community. and so therefore, it can

be as relevant to other kinds of providers,non-healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood providers who want to be involved in thiswork. and so you may say, well, what do i do in this model? maybe i provide transportationor maybe i do a specific job skill, but you have a role in the larger set of network providers.and the trick then is to find this network and to kind of help build a coordinated systemof care. thanks matt. we have many more questions comingin so i ll just keep going through them. another one is what suggestions do you have for healthymarriage and responsible fatherhood practitioners in approaching their local [unclear] to implementwioa? my [unclear] for individuals to hmrf programs for soft skill development and withdisconnected youth.

penny do you want to try that one on first?well as it would happen, this is actually a question that we ve been asking ourselvesover the last few months particularly since the new wioa rules have come out. and to thatend we have actually engaged in a process over the last few months of talking to someprograms around the country about how they engage with their wioa and their workforceboard. and so i don t know that i have the correct answer at this point, although whatwe have found is that there are a lot of varieties. and in many cases there s a real close relationshipand other places there s not a good relationship at all. and that may have to do as much withwhat that workforce investment board in your area is focused on. are they focused on alow-skilled, high-need population or are they

moving in that direction? or are they focusedmore on middle class america and helping to get people back to work who had lost theirjob? and in those cases, there s not as much connection between the workforce board andprograms like this. but that s starting to change as well. and so the only advice i wouldsay is that there is opportunity there and you have to develop those personal relationshipswith those key stakeholders in the workforce board or in the other areas to get into thatsystem, or you have to in many cases develop kind of a parallel alternate system that addresses theneeds of low-income individuals because the workforce system in your area is not doingthat. penny do you want to add to that?

yeah. i would just add to that that with wioain particular, there is an age component that& but i would say that many of the marriageprograms and fatherhood programs actually have an overlap there. so it is an opportunitywith the wioa to take that opportunity and to build your relationship if there isn talready one. but i would tend to agree with matt that the information that we ve gatheredthus far has been varied if you will. everybody seems to be doing it a little bit different.but building that relationship and there s also been, at ofa in particular, a focus ontrying to work with tanf agencies and working having the tanf agencies working with theworkforce folks as well. so i know within states. so i know that s also the approachthat ofa is aware of and is trying to implement

that. so hopefully there will be some promisingpractices coming from that as well that would be of benefit to you. thanks. as a follow-up to this can you elaboratemore on how this model matches up with wioa? well i think as we alluded to in the slides,we ve actually had some of our colleagues do a step-by-step comparison of what is inthe wioa rules and regulations and goals and the workforce strategy. and they match upvery well. so i m not saying there s a necessarily one-to-one correspondence, but all of theaspects that are in the workforce strategy are relevant and appropriate to the new rulesthat are coming out of wioa. and the majority of the rules and regulations that are beingput forth from wioa in this process fit within

the workforce strategy. so they re very complementaryin that way. and so i think moving forward with this framework is a great way to startthe process of engaging with that world, if you were not already involved in it. excellent. this question comes in from stevenpaschal who is asking: are there any suggestions for how programs not involved in workforcedevelopment can incorporate these strategies into their current services? well again i would say as a first answer tothat is that being involved in doing components of the workforce strategy does not necessarilyrequire that you do anything differently. that was never the intent. the intent is tofind that what you do well and then to partner

those skills, attributes, activities withothers who are also doing different things that provide a complete picture. so i m notsure what your services are, but i would say to take those services and to find where theyfit into that larger set of service providers. and then what needs to happen is if you havea deficit in some particular area where someone s not providing the soft skills in a way thatyou need or who does a good job with resume building or connecting people to job servicesif there are gaps, then i think then that provides opportunities for that network tosay, here s what we re doing and here s what we re doing well and here s what we re notdoing. maybe this is an area where i can move into. let s try to find some way to at leaststart providing these needed services. is

there some way we can find some additionalfunding to do those kinds of things? so i think taking that kind of a strategic lookat the services available and how you fit into those is probably the first step. thank you. this next question comes in frombrenda nuyton. in module #5 you spoke about incentives for employees and/or employers.and can you give an example of what that looks like for both? sure. so incentives for employees would include,typically include retention incentives. and so if you are able to maintain employmentfor 30 days, for 60 days, for 90 days, then the participants are given some kind of abonus. and this is particularly helpful for

people who are just re-entering the workforceor have challenges or need some kind of extra incentive to help them maintain. i would alsosay that to some degree, the earned income tax credit falls into that category. thatif you are a working individual but not making a lot of money, that the earned income taxcredit is sort of an incentive to maintaining that work relationship. the other side ofthe coin is really incentives for employers. and i think that takes many different shapesalong the lines of subsidized employment opportunities. so you may pay for half a person s salaryfor nine months, or you may have a graduated process. i ve seen programs that pay an employees salary completely for a month and then half of their salary for the next month and thena quarter of their salary for the next month

or not at all. and then some other programshave even a simpler strategy where they just provide a bonus to employers and say, if youmaintain this person in your place for 90 days, we ll give you x amount of dollars fordoing that. and those obviously those, many of those kinds of incentives we have shownhave been more effective with small employers than large employers where it s often moreof a hassle to kind of implement that process. but if you have a small business that hasa very small profit line, the opportunity to make a few extra thousand dollars can bea big incentive for them to hire and retain an employee. thanks matt. this next question is regardingcaseload. is there, have you, what have you

seen as an ideal effective caseload size?and is there a range for that? well i ll try to answer that. i m not necessarilyan expert on that. maybe penny can take a stab at that one. but do you want to try that,penny? i was going to say i m not sure, and i thinkit would vary from place to place. i m assuming, caterina that they re asking from a case managementperspective for a caseload? or could you reiterate the question so that i can better understand? sure, i believe it s from the case managementperspective. if anyone would like to type in a clarification. but from a case managementperspective an ideal caseload size or a range for this target caseload size.

yes i would agree that we& i think it really varies. it does vary and obviously it should varyof course with the amount of services that you re providing. and so if you have a service-richcase management process where the case manager is actually providing a ton of services youknow, going to court hearings with people and providing them with transportation youre going to be able to provide a lot less than that of those kinds of services thanif you re managing connecting people to different services and more of a referral type process.and you refer even internally to people who do the facilitation and teach the classesand provide those external supports, it s

going to be lighter. but all i can say inthat regard is that almost universally that when we go out people often feel overwhelmed in terms of being acase manager. but most often they still are able to be effective in that job, but theyalways feel overwhelmed which i find interesting. so i don t have an answer for that, but its going to vary. and yes i don t either matt. but i would secondwhat you just said that it does, it will i think depend upon the level of service thatthe case manager does provide individually so yeah& but i will say if you go into the toolkit,i m sure there is a resource in there that

would provide you the right answer. so& excellent. we got some clarification for thequestion. just as an example that in one county it s about 50 per case manager and it variesfor another county to about 75 per case manager, so different variations. i m sorry caterina. i was just going to sayi think that s true county-to-county, state-to-state, city-to-city, so yes and organization-to-organizationi think it just varies. thanks penny. thanks matt. i know that s avery nebulous question on that and very nebulous answer. a couple more questions coming through.again back to the research from kay reed and can you talk more about what research is availablecorrelating teaching relationship skills in

the context of family and personal relationshipsand its time impacts to employment and soft skills? but can you talk more about the researchwith those correlations? it s been about a year or so since i lookedat that research. so i m a little fuzzy on it at this point. i do know that there issome of that research. it may not be a random controlled trial gold studies, but there definitelyis a research base on that. and if you wanted to send me or penny an email kay, or we canreach out to you i m sure we can dig that out of the compendium and send you the relevantresources that support that statement. and that s exactly what i was going to saymatt. if you like we can reach out with that information.

thank you so much. and then concluding a littlebit more can you highlight once again where we can find the toolkit? sure, i think it s on one of the very earlyslides. it s at the website is hmrf.acf.hhs.gov. right there that link right there will takeyou directly to we ve named the actual toolkit itself is called within reach: strategiesfor improving family economic stability. okay wonderful. and then again you can alsofind that on the self-sufficiency research clearinghouse. we have a link to that as well.i believe we are just about at the end of our time unless there s any other concludingthoughts that have come through. but again on your screen are the links for where thetoolkit is housed either directly from the

office of family assistance reference or throughour self-sufficiency research clearinghouse. we have a link to it as well where you findthis and additional research and resources. so please feel free to reach out to us. youcan follow-up with us as well. we will be posting these slides on the ssrc as well asthese materials that you can follow up with. and again please feel free to reach out tothe ssrc or the speakers with any additional follow-up questions. so with that i wouldlike to thank you penny and matt, for this presentation.and i d like to thank all of our participants

as well for all of your questions. and againencourage the conversation to continue. you can tweet at us and use the hashtag and wewill follow-up with you or email us as well.

so thank you very much. ladies and gentlemen thank you for your participation.