Good Health Precedes Good Jobs for Welfare Recipients
 s pressure mounts
to replace welfare checks with paychecks, so do problems associated with getting
unemployed welfare recipients into jobs. One often overlooked factor is the importance of
good mental and physical health to a successful job placement.
“Most welfare-to-work programs are designed with ‘work first’ as the top
priority, even before addressing training and health issues,” said Ruth Brousseau,
TCWF senior program officer. “That’s not always the right strategy, especially
when the clients are facing multiple barriers to successful employment.”
   Two recent $100,000 grants from
TCWF are aimed at creating new models that promote health as a vital component for success
in making the transition from welfare to work.
In Escondido, the North County Interfaith Council (NCIC) is developing a survival
skills component designed to reach at least 300 of the approximately 3,550 women in the
area receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the formal name for the welfare
system.
Since receiving the grant in March, NCIC has begun offering workshops for the 100
participants already enrolled in the center’s CASAWORKS for Families project. The
workshops will also be extended to women in other NCIC programs.
“We see many women who have major mental and physical health barriers because of
histories of substance abuse, domestic violence, poverty and neglect of their own and
their children’s health, which can keep them from becoming employed,” said
Dianne Wallace, NCIC program director for CASAWORKS for Families.
“We hope these workshops will be a first step for women at risk toward improved
self-esteem and healthier lives for themselves and their children.”
Individualized follow-up will be available, along with volunteer mentoring from the
more than 240 “faith communities” under NCIC’s umbrella. The center also
refers clients to community agencies where women can get further training and develop
their skills.
 Citrus College is using its TCWF grant to
work with a similar population in Glendora, east of Los Angeles. Staff members are
developing a program that is emerging as a national model to tackle health problems that
often subvert welfare-to- work ventures.
“When we looked at the risk factors that derail efforts [of welfare recipients] to
get and hold jobs, we found that lack of physical and mental well-being undermines the
ability to function,” said Frances Collato, assistant to the Citrus College president
and director of the foundation.
TCWF funds are being used to develop health screenings, health education, counseling
and clinic services that otherwise wouldn’t be available to Citrus’
welfare-to-work student population, the majority of whom are single mothers, Collato said.
Other students at risk of becoming welfare recipients also are eligible.
“As more welfare recipients enter the workplace, we anticipate seeing increasingly
hard-core problems in those remaining. We have to find new ways to help these people. Our
success — and that of the entire welfare-to-work concept — depends on it,”
Collato said. “Health care providers must be part of this whole experiment and work
with local community colleges and other agencies to meet the need, which will only become
greater.”
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