Navigating Higher Education Through CalWORKs: An Exploratory Study
at UC Berkeley

Kimberly Bates


Mentor: Professor Julian Chow
Graduate Student Instructors: Allison DeMarco, Michael Barnes

Abstract

This exploratory study examines the knowledge of supportive services, specifically child care subsidies, transportation benefits and textbook vouchers, among UC Berkeley CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity Responsibility to Kids) participants enrolled in educational programs as part of their welfare-to-work activities. Research data was gathered through nine demographic background surveys and in-depth interviews of current and former CalWORKs participants who attend or have completed undergraduate degrees at UC Berkeley. Most participants were unaware of transitional supportive services, and those who did know about the services available to them acquired this knowledge through their personal social network as opposed to programmatic outreach.

Research Questions
The primary research question for this study was: how much do UC Berkeley CalWORKs participants know about supportive services — specifically transportation benefits, child care subsidies and textbook assistance — that could enhance their educational program? Typically, CalWORKs participants are seeking higher education while navigating welfare reform and are therefore in urgent need of these services.

Literature Review

In 1996 President Clinton and Congress implemented the Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) shifting the emphasis of welfare programs from entitlement to temporary assistance. This welfare reform act implemented transitional assistance, work programs and time limits aimed at long-term elimination of welfare in its totality.
Transitional work programs are classified as “temporary, subsidized employment or direct services” that provide support to clients who lack work experience, education or training (Carnochan, et al., 2003). Transitional assistance and work programs include child care subsidies, transportation assistance, Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, housing assistance and the Food Stamp Program, which aim to provide additional support in order to ease families and children from welfare to work (Carnochan et al., 2003).
It is estimated that by 2006, nearly one third of all new jobs will require education and skills beyond those of a high school graduate, yet only 7 percent of welfare recipients have such skills (Carnevale & Desroches, 1999). CalWORKs prepares clients for competitive job markets through educational training programs. Smith, Deprez and Butler (2002) found that recipients pursuing post secondary education significantly improved their self-esteem, economic stability, sense of accomplishment and their children’s aspirations to attend college. Therefore the denial of services to eligible participants could hinder their ability to take full advantage of opportunities for higher education provided through CalWORKs programs (Corcoran, Danziger, & Kalil, 2000).
The average monthly cost for infant care in Alameda, California is $907, which exceeds the average monthly cash grant of $333 per capita. In particular, the average cost of child care exceeds the average cash grant for a CalWORKs participant. Further, welfare recipients have little disposable income for child care and transportation costs. Without subsidized child care or opportunities for greater income, participants find that work and training are difficult to sustain.
By providing cash assistance to needy families, CalWORKs enables them to pay for food, rent, and clothes, in addition to other needs. As a condition of eligibility all adult CalWORKs recipients must participate in work activities during the entire time they receive assistance. Exemptions are granted to victims of domestic violence or for medical reasons (Gabor & Pastore, 2001).
In California, counties have delegated the decision-making responsibility regarding who receives supportive services from management to frontline workers. These decisions were implemented to ensure timely and individualized services, but because all 58 counties in the state of California administer different welfare programs, tracking the effectiveness and outcomes of welfare reform is difficult. Thus, improving the quality and delivery of support services has become a central theme in welfare reform debates (Anderson, Halter, & Schuldt, 2001). Analyses of support services often focus on a single service; however, a more comprehensive package of support services, such as those outlined by the county would better aid needy families.
A case proceeds through CalWORKs in the following ways within Alameda County. GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) Program employment counselors determine if CalWORKs participants who have signed welfare-to-work agreements are eligible for supportive services. Employment counselors must meet with a participant at least yearly or every semester for participants enrolled in an educational program for the duration of their eligibility in the CalWORKs program. Employment counselors also assess their clients’ needs to determine the appropriate combination of ancillary services and provide information to the participant about the available service before writing a referral for child care services, transportation assistance and textbook vouchers.
Based on their assessments, Alameda County provides transitional assistance and supportive services for 18 to 24 months. UC Berkeley CalWORKs recipients are given 24 months to allow time to finish their education program. Once the recipient finds employment or upon completion of an education program, Alameda County requires a final assessment which consists of an exit interview between the employment counselor and the client to determine the continued need for supportive services. If a participant is eligible, according to state income limits, supportive services are available for an additional 12 months (Gabor & Pastore, 2001).


Methodology

Participants in this study were solicited through email and the Internet for a period of four weeks. In framing the analysis, the researcher utilized Erickson’s theory of analytic induction to formulate interview questions and generate “assertions drawn from multiple perspectives found in the data” (Harrison, 1999, p. 67). By using analytic induction, vignettes create paradigms that generate a framework for case study analysis. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) research software was used for the demographic information analysis and 122 variables were used to code the data. The researcher looked at the frequency of variables and analyzed interview questions in determining the participants’ knowledge of supportive services.

Discussion

Demographics
The mean age of participants in this study (n=9) was 28.4 with a standard deviation of 7.9 years. All participants were female and all had at least one dependent with an average of two children. Most participants were first generation college students, although two participants had a parent who had earned an undergraduate degree or higher. All participants planned to advance to a higher degree in the future.
All participants had at least three years of college experience and one participant had a master’s degree from UC Berkeley. Two participants were African American, one participant was Guatemalan, one participant was Vietnamese, two were of mixed ethnicity, two were white and one participant was Mexican.

Emerging Themes
Two themes emerged from this case study. First, UC Berkeley CalWORKs participants reported using social networks to gain information on supportive services. The second interdependent theme pertained to the lack of uniform dissemination of information to participants by the county agency or caseworker.

Social Networks
The researcher employed Cecilia Menjivar’s theory of social networks to: (1) analze the process by which CalWORKs participants obtained assistance and its timeliness, and (2) examine the place of social networks and quality of ties (Menjivar, 2000).
Most participants had little or no knowledge of supportive services upon completion of their welfare to work plan. Participant #9 claimed she “had to find out from other people” about transportation benefits. Participant #3 stated, “I have not seen the worker in 14 months”, and her welfare to work plan was due to end in December 2003.
UC Berkeley is unique in that the institution has student support services tailored to the needs of UC Berkeley parents. Yet, the implication of this finding is that if educational institutions do not provide student support services that can foster social networks, CalWORKs participants enrolled in educational programs may not be able to access needed services.

Dissemination of Information
The researcher asked study participants, “Do you or did you receive child care, transportation or textbook voucher assistance?” In their responses, most recipients expressed that they did not receive them or did not know about them. Participant #5 stated, “I didn’t receive book vouchers because I was never told how I could receive them.” Participant #4 stated, “I didn’t know transportation and book benefits existed.” Participant #7 stated, “I was not aware of any services.” Finally, Participant #6 stated, “Because of my experiences with them while I was trying to go to college, I have not asked them [CalWORKs] for assistance though I need it.”
The researcher asked study participants who were told they could not enter an educational program at UC Berkeley to speculate on why the county took such a position. Participant #5 stated, “They [the worker] said very little about what I was eligible for.” Participant #4, “I was told one parent needed to work and only one could go to school.” Participant #7 stated, “I was told to get a job and don’t do it”, meaning go to UC Berkeley. Most participants knew very little about textbook assistance, and very few knew about transitional child care and transportation services. The degree to which participants felt their families’ well-being had improved with supportive services was most often “not much.”
The implication of these responses and findings is that participants who need services are not receiving information about them. They may feel, as one participant stated, “frustrated” and give up on their educational goals leading to increased hardships and welfare recidivism. For this theme, the researcher consulted a study conducted by Bay Area Social Services Consortium (BASSC) on the frontline worker and the notion of the street level bureaucrat. BASSC reports that information about supportive services may not be conveyed by welfare agencies because of their flawed and complicated organizations, their obscure rules and regulations, their limited knowledge of supportive services, their professional training, and the worker’s perceptions of their jobs (Carnochan et. al. 2003).
The following tables illustrate the participants’ knowledge of which supportive services were available to participants. Only Participants #3 and #9 knew of all supportive services available to them.

Table 1: Participant knowledge of supportive services availability


Frequency
Didn’t know
3
Knew one service
2
Knew two services
2
Transportation, child care and book vouchers
2
TOTAL
9

Note: Scale for question: 0=None; 1=Knew one service; 2=Knew two services; 3=Knew transportation, child care and book vouchers

Participant experiences varied with regard to employment counselor interaction and treatment; however a central pattern was the lack of uniform delivery of services. For example, Participant #9 received two supportive services, child care and book vouchers, despite her efforts to gain transportation services after learning from other participants that they existed. She requested the service, but “had to prove” the service was needed. During our interview, this participant also indicated that the family mode of travel was public transportation.
Two participants were not comfortable with their child care arrangements and all participants found their own child care arrangements. More child care subsidies were not initially offered to participants and those who knew about them gained this information from their social network. None of the participants received transitional child care from the county and none of the participants knew of any transitional services upon leaving the CalWORKs program or at the completion of their welfare to work plan.
Table 2 illustrates the knowledge of specific supportive service among CalWORKs participants during the first 18 months of welfare-to-work participation. None of the study participants utilized supportive programs such as domestic violence counseling or mental health services.

Table 2: Participants (0-18) months knowledge of service
Frequency
Knew none
3

Child care
1

Book vouchers
1

Transportation and book vouchers
1

Child care and transportation
1

Transportation, child care and book vouchers
2

TOTAL
9


Note: Scale for question: 0=None; 1=Child care; 2=Transportation for self; 3=Transportation for child(ren); 4=Book vouchers; 5=Transitional services; 6=Transportation and book vouchers; 7=Child care and transportation; 8=Book voucher and child care; 9=Transportation, child care and book vouchers


Conclusion

The purpose of this study was exploratory in nature. It draws upon the present findings and previous studies to make inferences about a select population of CalWORKs participants, localize and identify problematic aspects of their welfare experience, and begin to develop ameliorative structural solutions for future implementation. Due to the small n of 9, the findings of this study have limited scope and cannot be generalized as an accurate representation of people’s experiences with state and national welfare programs. However, two things must be noted regarding the nature of this study: (1) the number of CalWORKs students at UC Berkeley is presumed small and (2) the findings of this study are consistent with the aforementioned BASSC Study that was conducted in 2003.
As a case study, the results although inconclusive, show significant issues with welfare-to-work programs. Further, the descriptive analysis of participant responses yielded themes that can lead to future areas of research. Research conducted in the future could will include interviews with social-work practitioners, whose answers to future surveys on educational program objectives would lend insight into the program’s effectiveness.
Participants in this study pointed to transportation needs and the lack of information disseminated by county agencies as the primary barriers to receiving supportive services. The implication of this finding is that CalWORKs participants do not know of all of the services for which they are eligible.
The lack of uniform delivery of supportive services to eligible and low-income families may hinder long-term and gainful employment. The organizational shift in county agencies toward front-line worker discretion to determine supportive services was intended to provide individualized attention to serve a client’s needs. However, this study found that information about supportive services was disseminated through social networks rather than the frontline worker.





References

Anderson, S. G., Halter, A. P., & Schuldt, R. (2001). Support Service Use Patterns by Early TANF Leavers. New Directions for Evaluation (91), 87.

Carnevale, A., & Desroches, D. (1999). Getting Down to Business: Matching Welfare Recipients' Skills to Jobs That Train. Princeton, New Jersey: Educational Testing Services.

Carnochan, S., DeMarco, A., Abramson, A., Johnson M., Ketch, V., Lery, B., Nielsen, J., Shaw, T., Svihula, J., Taylor, S., Woo, T., Wu, S., Chow, J. & Austin, M. J. (2003). Welfare to Work Services in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Exploratory Study on the Perceptions of CalWORKs Participants and Staff. University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley.

Corcoran, M., Danziger, S. H., & Kalil, A. (2000). How Welfare Reform Is Affecting Women's World. Annual Review of Sociology (26), 241-269.

Gabor, P., & Pastore, C. (2001). Students and CalWORKs: A Guide to Educational Opportunities in the CalWORKs Program. Los Angeles: Western Center for Law and Poverty.

Gooden, S. (1997). Race and Welfare Report: Examining Racial Difference in Employment Status Among Welfare Recipients. Virginia: Applied Research Center.

Harrison, Patricia L. (1999) Transition Experiences of Community College Transfer Students: A Qualitative Study. Dissertation Abstracts International, A60/05, 67. (UMI No. AAT9930078)

Haskins, R., & Sawhill, I. (2002). Welfare Reform and the Work Support System. Brookings Review, 17.

Menjivar, Cecilia. (2000). Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran immigrant networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sawhill, I. (2001). From Welfare to Work: Making a Way Station, Not a Way of Life. Brookings Review, 19(3), 4.

Smith, R. J., Deprez, L., & Butler, S. (2002). Parents As Scholars: Education Works. Maine: Maine Equal Justice Partners. Retrieved May 9, 2003, from http://www.mejp.org/PDF/pas.pdf