For more information on the model programs discussed, see Links.

Successes involving life skills training, remedial education, pre-employment training, job training and job placement can be illustrated by the Ford Foundation's Project Redirection, run in locations around the nation in the 1980s; the Argus Community Learning for Living program begun in the South Bronx; Argus replications, like the Capital Commitment program in Washington, DC; the Job Corps nationally; and the Comprehensive Competencies program nationally. These models are applicable to out-of-school youth as well as to welfare clients. See: Welfare Reform in Perspective. See the Citations at the end of this section. For more information, visit the American Youth Policy Forum, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Delancey Street Foundation, Inc., the Ford Foundation, the Job Corps, the Mathematica Policy Research Inc., the Manpower Development Research Corporation, the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, STRIVE, the Urban Institute and the YouthBuild USA, as well as Publications.

Project Redirection

Project Redirection invested in female welfare recipients, giving them the opportunity to secure high school diplomas, train for jobs and get placed. Funded by the Ford Foundation, Project Redirection was for mothers 17 years of age or younger who lacked a high school diploma or an equivalency degree. Most were eligible for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Implemented by nonprofit community-based organizations in 11 locations during the 1980s, this comprehensive program sought to enhance teens' educational, job-related, parenting, conflict-resolution, and life-management skills, while encouraging them to delay further childbearing until they were more financially independent.

Project Redirection linked participants with existing opportunities in the community and supported these "brokered" services by organizing workshops, peer-group sessions, and individual counseling. One to five teen mothers were paired with a female adult counselor in the community. The counselors volunteered to provide ongoing support and friendship to convey values both within and outside the normal program structure. Stipends for participation ($30 per month, with deductions for unsatisfactory attendance) were provided, along with child care, transportation and recreational services.

Five years after entering the program (and four years, on average, after leaving it), Project Redirection participants, although still disadvantaged, showed more favorable outcomes than did a comparison group of young mothers in terms of employment, earnings, economic self-sufficiency, parenting skills and likelihood that they would enroll their children in Head Start. Their children were more advanced developmentally vis-a-vis the comparison group. However, there were no differences between program mothers and comparison mothers in terms of educational outcomes, like completion of GEDs.

More positive outcomes for program vis-a-vis comparison mothers were experienced on-site, at the nonprofit host organization's facilities, rather than off-site. This finding is consistent with our suggestion that counseling may have more powerful effects at safe haven locations and one-stop-shopping community centers, rather than away from them. (See: Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, What Doesn't Work and What Works.)

Although program mothers did significantly better than comparison mothers, after 5 years the majority of program mothers did not have diplomas or GEDs, were not working, had received AFDC in the previous year and were living in poverty. The evaluation, by the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC), concluded that this outcome underscored the severe disadvantages faced by such populations of young mothers.

Project Redirection was a demonstration program which ended, even though its underlying principles have been continued in later demonstration and replication programs. However, in terms of what works for welfare recipients, one of the follow-up demonstrations, New Chance, was not been particularly successful.

New Chance operated between 1989 and 1992. Participants were young mothers who had first given birth as teenagers, had dropped out of school and were receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). A total of 2,322 women were randomly assigned to program and control groups. Participants averaged about 6 months in the program, and the cost per participant averaged $9,000. Participants and controls were assessed at intake, then after 1-1/2 and 3-1/2 years.

New Chance was implemented by 12 nonprofit organizations in as many cities and evaluated by MDRC. The program at each site was implemented in 2 phases. The first phase centered on education and personal development skills. Services were delivered mostly at the program site. This was "one-stop shopping" designed to facilitate participation. Typically, the program ran from 9 am until 3 pm 5 days a week, with daily attendance at all classes expected. Local programs were small in size, serving about 40 participants at any given time. This created an intimate and personal environment in which participants and staff could establish close bonds.

The second phase focused on occupational skills training and work experience, usually off-site. This was followed by job placement assistance.

The evaluation found that participants were more likely than controls to receive a GED degree. This was an improvement over Project Redirection. However, New Chance participants were no more likely than controls to be employed, did not increase their earnings vis-a-vis controls, were no more likely to leave welfare, and had children who were no more likely than the children of controls to be academically prepared for preschool. On these crucial measures, New Chance participants did not perform as well as Project Redirection participants. In addition, the New Chance mothers reported more stress related to their children compared with the control group, were more likely to report behavior problems among children and were more likely to suffer from depression than controls.

The Argus Community Learning for Living Program

The Argus Community in the South Bronx began before Project Redirection, in the early 1970s, has carried on and thrived institutionally, and has experienced even more programmatic success. Argus has many components. One is Argus Learning for Living, a day-time program for high school dropouts including many welfare recipients. Learning for Living is based on:

• Socialization and counseling in a drug-free and violence-free environment.
• A life skills curriculum to prepare youth to be functioning adults who can handle conflicts and manage themselves well on the job.
• On-site education and remedial education (including general educational diploma high school courses in an alternative educational setting).
• Job training, on site and before job placement.
• Job placement and follow-up to insure better job retention.

Each part of Learning for Living operates with a consistently applied philosophy. The core Argus philosophy holds that, in inner-city locations:

• There can be no political quick fixes (for example, "work first") or simple solutions with welfare recipients and out-of-school youth. Sufficient time and resources are required.
• No program will work unless it addresses drugs and violence, which foster a sense of insecurity in adolescents and must not be tolerated in program activity.
• There must be development of structure and a value system. Inner-city youth and welfare recipients must be deliberately guided into the mainstream, including areas such as dress codes and corporate etiquette.
• Distrust and alienation are normal for young people and welfare recipients in this environment, and program efforts must assume this as a factor in planning.
• Community and bonding are at the heart of program operations. Establishment of an extended family atmosphere is necessary to counter an extremely stressful and threatening external environment.
• Staff should ideally come from the same background as the participants so that they have a personal understanding of the lives of the participants.

This philosophy extends far beyond the assumption that high-risk youth can be turned around by volunteer mentoring. (See: Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America and What Doesn't Work.)

Evaluated Success of Learning for Living
The Eisenhower Foundation evaluated a cycle of out-of-school youth who participated in the Learning for Living Center. Out-of-school youth, including some welfare clients, were assessed throughout 20 weeks of training and a follow-up period. Preprogram and postprogram measures were taken 9 months apart on 100 high-risk Argus youth and 100 comparable youth who did not receive training. Among other outcomes, Argus youth received higher salaries and more job benefits than did comparison youth. The results were statistically significant. These quasi-experimental design outcome findings have been complemented by process evaluations undertaken by others. For example, in 1992, Argus was one of 18 New York City programs funded by U.S. Department of Labor job training grants to exceed all evaluation, training, and placement goals. Audits of Argus job-training programs have found that no students were involved in criminal activities during these training periods and that 87 percent were placed successfully in training-related jobs. An earlier study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice found that Argus had the best outcomes among 50 New York State programs surveyed in terms of criminal-justice involvement and drug involvement among program youth.

ACT I
A related Argus initiative is called ACT I. Whereas Argus Learning for Living is for out-of-school youth, some of whom are welfare recipients, Argus ACT I is entirely for welfare recipients. ACT I has not yet been evaluated in a scientific design, but has provided evidence of high retention rates. Welfare recipients are trained and placed as drug abuse counselors. Table 1 shows the percentage of welfare recipients who have been placed and who still remain working, after different lengths of time. These retention rates appear higher than many other nationally recognized welfare-to-work experiments, like the Local Investment Commission (LINC) in Kansas City (which retains about 40 to 50 percent of welfare recipients placed after about 16 months, even when the program "creams" the best clients). Argus retention rates appear much higher than many state-level welfare reform experiments on which there is information.

Why is retention so critical? Often welfare recipients pass the technical training needed for employment. Not uncommonly, however, they don't last long on the job because of problems with non-technical aspects of work, such as not being on time, missing too many days, dressing inappropriately, using inappropriate speech, having poor reading and communications skills, relating poorly to supervisors, resenting directions, being unable to solve workplace conflicts and having substance abuse problems. Operating in drug-free, alcohol-free and crime-free environments, Argus is strong and cost-effective in counseling on corporate etiquette, life management skills, communications skills, conflict resolution skills, child care issues, health issues, housing issues, and transportation to work issues. Most of these issues need to be resolved if a trainee is to stay on the job. This Argus counseling begins during training and continues as part of post-placement follow-up.

Argus experience and training appears tougher than the New Chance follow up to Project Redirection in terms of self-discipline, character development, commitment and responsible personal conduct. Argus also implements life skills and corporate etiquette training more systematically and intensely than did New Chance. Argus training lasts longer than did New Chance. Argus job training usually is onsite, which was not the case with New Chance. Argus has more follow up after job placement to insure retention, compared to New Chance. (See: Project Redirection.) In terms of lessons for national welfare reform, we believe that these differences are important. (See: Welfare Reform in Perspective.)

Well-Developed Institutional Capacity
Argus Learning for Living as well as Argus ACT I appear to be successful because they have good programs and well-developed institutional and management capacity. For example, Argus has multiple income streams that it is able to administer well, despite the fact that funders, especially public-sector bureaucracies at federal, state, and local levels, often create problems and hinder solutions. In speaking of funding agencies, Elizabeth Sturz, the founder of Argus, has praised many bureaucrats but warned that "one compulsive neurotic or one sadist can play Russian roulette with kids' lives and set our administrative department boiling, hissing and thumping its lid."

Argus has been able to bring on tough, dedicated, and talented staff as well as install management systems to deal with funding bureaucracies. But the time and expense for such competence is an additional demand on a nonprofit community-based organization that works in the South Bronx with the most troubled youth and with persons trying to get off welfare. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the Argus program is comprehensive. Yet most funders have narrow, categorical requirements for success -- what Ms. Sturz calls "slivers of programs." So Argus must piece together categorical funding in innovative ways from diverse funding sources in order to come up with comprehensive interventions. The Argus fiscal officer must simultaneously keep track of multiple income streams, each often with complicated reporting requirements, sometimes administered by an unsympathetic contract manager. Such insensitivity to innovative organizations like Argus merely serves to frustrate and complicate unnecessarily the good work they perform.

Argus is strong not only in financial management but in staff development. For example, there is a weekly session with all staff, run by a senior manager, that deals with staff frustrations, possible burnout, aspirations and opportunities for the future.

In terms of implications for national welfare reform, the management capacity of Argus appears considerably greater than that of many of the nonprofit organizations that implemented the New Chance follow up to Project Redirection. Also see Welfare Reform in Perspective.

Capital Commitment

Argus has been replicated for out-of-school youth (some of whom are welfare recipients) in 2 other locations: at the Model City YMCA in Des Moines, IA, and the nonprofit Capital Commitment program in the Anacostia neighborhood in Washington, DC.

A comparison group evaluation by the Eisenhower Foundation followed 3 cohorts. For cohort 1, program participants in both sites were more likely to be employed and earned higher wages than the comparison youth. For cohorts 2 and 3, program youth at Capital Commitment in Washington, DC were less likely to use drugs over time than their counterparts. At the YMCA in Des Moines, the program youth from cohorts 2 and 3 were less likely to use drugs, get arrested, or to rely on public assistance over time. Taken together, these findings support the Argus program model.

At both Capital Commitment and the YMCA, the Argus program model was successfully replicated and youth participating in the Argus program were better integrated. socially and economically, than their comparison group counterparts. Participants in the first year of the program at both sites showed significant improvements in employment and wages over their comparison groups. The findings for cohorts 2 and 3 also were significant because employment stability and advancement over time require a foundation of behaviors that contribute to the ability to obtain and hold a job and do well. The program in both cities was able to demonstrate improvement in key prosocial behaviors -- less drug use and almost no criminal justice problems during the program. More importantly for future employment, these effects remained strong after the program as well. The significant decrease in public assistance found at the YMCA in Des Moines, and the low levels of public assistance of program participants relative to the comparison group at Capital Commitment in Washington, DC can be expected to be a precursor of increased employment.

Future replications and evaluation need to take into account employment rates and types of employment before entry into a program, and the short-term as well as long-term effects of the program on employment rates. It can be expected that program participation means temporarily decreased rates of employment, but that prosocial effects, combined with the time to find and advance in employment will lead to measurable employment outcomes.

Since replication has proven possible and successful, the next step is to implement the Argus model at more sites with a thorough evaluation research design in place, including a larger sample size, more control of pre-test employment rates compared to a control group, and collection of post-test data for at least two years beyond a participant's leaving the program.

The connections among prosocial behaviors, decreased reliance on public assistance, and increased and better employment that we found need to be further tested.

The Capital Commitment replication of Argus holds particular promise. Capital Commitment was begun by a husband-and-wife team with over 20 years experience in the telecommunications field, having worked with Pacific Bell, AT&T North American Communications, SPRINT and MCI. The focus of the program is on disadvantaged inner-city residents, homeless individuals, persons on welfare, single mothers, out-of-school youth and individuals in need of re-training. Capital Commitment provides classroom and lab instruction in telephone installation, maintenance and repair -- before placement in jobs. Graduates of the program have expertise in all areas of residential, commercial and central office installation. Graduates have historically secured jobs earning more than minimum wage, generally $10 to $15 per hour or more. Capital Commitment graduates often move on to positions where they can develop careers in the industry. The organization has continued to secure contracts for telecommunications installation and maintenance from large employers, like the United States Department of Defense.

The long run mission of Capital Commitment is to increase minority employment in the telecommunications industry. Although telecommunications is a $700B industry, less than one percent of employees are minorities and women. Providing more well-trained minority job applicants is a necessary first step to changing this situation.

Capital Commitment wanted to refine its program with some of the socialization, counseling, youth development, remedial education, pre-employment training and corporate etiquette training components of Argus that help insure job retention. Accordingly, the replication merged these Argus components with Capital Commitment's placement in a high tech industry with upward mobility.

The successful Capital Commitment replication has important implications for welfare reform, we believe. More likely than not, states are placing welfare recipients in any available jobs. For example, in its contract with the state of Texas, the Lockheed Corporation may be creaming the best candidate for such jobs, because Lockheed is paid for the number of persons it places, not for the quality of the jobs or their potential to provide a liveable wage with upward mobility and the potential growth of the industry in which the job was placed. By contrast, Capital Commitment has recognized the need for "training first" and not "work first," identified an industry with great potential and succeeded in placing minorities in it in good jobs with good wages and considerable future upward mobility. Similarly, Argus Act I stresses "training first" and places welfare recipients in good drug counselor jobs that in great demand. There is a waiting list for the drug counselor graduates. These successes show the potential for a demand side training first welfare reform job placement strategy in which growth industries are systematically identified and strategic plans for placement then are developed.

For the complete evaluation of the Argus replications, see Replication of the South Bronx Argus Learning for Living Center, under Publications. Argus is a training first model that fits both welfare reform and reform of the Workforce Investment Act. See also, Welfare Reform in Perspective.

Job Corps

Job Corps is an intensive and comprehensive public sector program that takes seriously the need to provide a supportive, structured environment for the youth and welfare recipients it seeks to assist. Job Corps features classroom courses, which can lead to high school equivalency degrees, counseling, and hands-on job training for very high-risk youth. Hence, as in individual community-based, nonprofit programs, like Argus, Job Corps carefully links education and training first, placement, and support services.

Job Corps centers are located in rural and urban settings around the country. Some of the urban settings are campus-like. Others essentially are "street-based." In the original design, a residential setting provided sanctuary away from one's home. Today, nonresidential variations are being tried.

Job Corps participants are high school dropouts, usually about 16 to 22 years old, and often at risk of drug abuse, delinquency, and welfare dependency. The average family income of Job Corps participants is less than $6,000 per year, 2 of 5 come from families on public assistance and more than 4 of 5 are high school dropouts. The typical participant is an 18-year-old minority high school dropout who reads at a seventh-grade level.

In the 1980s, evaluations sponsored by the U.S. General Accounting Office and others included a representative sample of participants from 61 program sites. Participants and comparison youth were matched on age, race, poverty status, and educational level. During the first 6 months after the program, Job Corps participants were 5 times more likely to have earned a high school diploma or general educational diploma than comparison youth. In contrast to comparison youth, program youth experienced improved health, employment, and earnings outcomes over a 4-year period after the program. The program also was associated with reduced criminal behavior. During the program, participants had arrest rates significantly lower than comparison youth, and in the 4 years after the program, participants had significantly fewer arrests for serious crimes than comparison youth.

A later, 1991, evaluation by the Congressional Budget Office calculated that for each $10,000 invested in the average participant in the mid-1980s, society received approximately $15,000 in returns, including approximately $8,000 in "increased output of participants," and $6,000 in "reductions in the cost of crime-related activities."

According to one evaluator, then-Howard University researcher Robert Taggert, "Naysayers who deny that labor market problems are real and serious, that social intervention can make a difference, or that the effectiveness of public programs can be improved will find little to support their preconceptions in the experience of programs like Job Corps."

There have been criticisms in the 1990s of too much violence and drug abuse in Job Corps Centers. Such problems must be taken seriously. But the success of Argus in a drug-free, alcohol-free and violence-free environment demonstrates that Job Corps can refine itself with Argus-type solutions. Another criticism of Job Corps in the 1990s was that the success rate -- of youth who move on to a job or full-time study -- was too low in some centers. Individual centers can vary. But the overall success rate in the 1980s was 75 percent. Graduates retain jobs longer and earn about 15 percent more than if they had not participated in Job Corps. Given that Job Corps takes the most troubled youth and that the cost of Job Corps (about $22,000 per year for the residential version) is lower than prison, a 75 percent success rate appears relatively high. For example, compare the 75 percent Job Corps success rate to the success rate of Ted Williams, the last baseball player to bat .400. There may be a need for a clearer national dialogue on relative standards of success.

The most recent evaluation of Job Corps was very positive. Written by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., the report is based on a nationwide thirty-month follow-up study of 9,409 participants who had been accepted into the Job Corps program, and 5,977 applicants who were eligible for, but not enrolled in, the residential program, which generally lasts eight months. According to the Mathematica report, Job Corps participants were 20% less likely to be arrested, charged or convicted of a crime. If convicted, they served less jail time than control group counterparts. They received more post participation non Job Corps academic instruction and vocational training than control group members, received less in federal benefits than control group members, received less in federal benefits than control group members, and were less likely to describe their health as "poor" or "fair". See Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

Comprehensive Competencies

Comprehensive Competencies is a computer-based individualized instruction approach to teaching basic skills. It is based on extensive research with disadvantaged youth, dropouts and welfare recipients. The franchised system, marked by USA Basics, includes computerized management and testing techniques and is being used in over 250 schools and community-based agencies in combination with other education and job-training methods.

The package includes self-paced instructional materials that allow participants to work one-on-one with the computer without risk of the kind of embarrassment that can occur in a classroom setting. The package also integrates all modes of teaching, workbooks, and audiovisual materials. Teachers are encouraged to spend as much time as possible with individual students. Multiple evaluation studies using comparison groups have shown that participants make significant gains, for example, boosting achievement test scores by a 1.0 grade level in reading and 1.4 grade levels in math for every 28 hours of instruction.

The documented success of Comprehensive Competencies, and the implications for replication, are all the more important based on a new study by the Educational Testing Service, which has found that the nation's poor and minority students have significantly less access to computers in their classrooms than do more affluent children.

"Welfare Reform" in Perspective

Today, the top national priority when it comes to employment for low-income populations is welfare reform. It therefore makes sense to summarize how the successes of Project Redirection, Argus, Capital Commitment, Job Corps and Comprehensive Competencies can be applied to welfare reform.

Welfare reform legislation, passed in 1996, abolished Aid for Families with Dependent Children and replaced it with capped funding, time limits on program eligibility and demanding work requirements. The requirements include "work first." No training is allowed until a person is placed on a job.

In our experience, "work first" appears to be modeled in part on the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) for out-of-school youth -- a population that includes welfare mothers. JTPA for out-of-school youth failed -- because there was inadequate training prior to placement and because that training essentially involved placing "trainees" in low-skill work rather than investing in improving their skills. The results were high turnover in dead-ended employment and low job retention rates. In terms of earnings, young men under 22 who were in the program had earnings of $854 lower than their comparison group, with significantly greater deficits for those who undertook "work first" on-the-job training. See: What Doesn't Work?

Combined with the other requirements of current welfare reform, "work first" can mean that, on an average day, a welfare mother with little or no prior work history might, for example, need to rise early, get the children off to day care (which may be inadequate) or school, go to work (which can take a long time), work in a dead-ended job and train at the same time, travel back, pick up the children, make dinner and get everyone to bed. With such a day in mind, Mary Anderson, a "work-first" mother in Wisconsin (which is considered ahead of other states in "work first") wrote this in a letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

It's better [according to the governor of Wisconsin] to go to work at a non-living wage, leave your children, suffer stress every moment of the day, worry constantly, and not be able to make ends meet. But at least [the mother] is not on welfare.

I'm sure she [the mother] sees the benefits. They're readily apparent to me. Sure she's exhausted, sure she's scared, sure she may topple off the edge into homelessness at any point. But, she's off welfare and that's all that counts. Isn't it?

What's ironic to me is the thought that [the governor] most certainly enjoyed a marvelous, picture-perfect Christmas. I'm sure he was able to buy all of the presents he wanted, and had a beautiful tree to put them under.

And yet he presumes to tell thousands of Wisconsin women, who certainly do have jobs raising their children, that their lives are improving under ["work first"].

Let him do what those women do for a while. Better yet, let [the governor's wife] come to my house, work both of my jobs, inside and outside the home, at my wages, and see what she tells her husband when she comes home.

Of course, he would never do that to his wife or his family. But he has done it to me and mine.

In addition, "work first" does not acknowledge the evaluated successes of programs that have put training first, like Argus, Capital Commitment, Project Redirection, Job Corps and Comprehensive Competencies. Programs like Argus and Capital Commitment give priority not to placement in dead-ended jobs, but to jobs with living wages in sectors like telecommunication repair and drug counseling, where there is demand and the potential exists for mobility up the job ladder.

Almost all welfare reform evaluations are of "work first." There is a pressing need for new, comprehensive evaluations that, for a comprehensive design across many sites, compare "work first" variations to training first variations. Such scientific evaluations need to look at ultimate outcomes -- like whether there was more employment and income, how long workers were retained on the job, whether they learned skills that were transferable to other employment, whether they were placed in industries with genuine job ladders and real upward mobility, whether the family was stable and whether trainees and children were involved in crime.

Welfare originally was designed to reduce child poverty. Above all, therefore, when we evaluate, the measure of success is not less welfare but less poverty. Today, 22 percent of America's children, ages 1 to 5, still live in poverty. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has shown, over recent years in the 1990s, the poor are barely better off -- in a time of great prosperity -- and the extremely poor are worse off.

While trumpeted by some, a 1999 report by the Urban Institute is not necessarily reassuring. Since 1993, welfare rolls have been cut in half, from 14 million to 7 million. From 1995 to 1997, two thirds of the former welfare recipients interviewed were working. However, of those working, 75 percent lacked medical benefits in the study by the Urban Institute. From 1995 to 1997, one third who left welfare rolls had returned by the end of the period. Studies of individual state programs that put welfare recipients to work without much training show that earnings typically rise by very little. In addition, federal government data show that the poorest 20 percent of American families lost more in welfare benefits than they gained in earnings. Collectively, these studies and data therefore raise questions. For example, will former recipients who go to work be trapped in low-paying jobs with little chance of advancement? Will recently employed welfare recipients lose their jobs in a recession? Our experience is that the answer to both questions will be yes -- unless we reform welfare reform to include real training first like that provided by proven, Argus-type successes. Even if, belatedly, we recognize this need for training first, there presently are no guarantees that Argus-type training first can be replicated on a scale great enough to absorb the million of welfare clients who the 1996 welfare law will force off the rolls by 2002. Hence, the need for communicating what works and creating will to act.

For perhaps the best ongoing critique of "welfare reform", see the National Campaign for Job and Income Support.

Additional Examples:

1. Preschool
2. Public School Reform
3. Youth Investment and Development
4. Job Training, Placement and Retention
5. Community Development Corporation and Training
6. Problem-Oriented and Community Equity Policing
7. Comprehensive Interdependence
8. Contacts

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