HRA Back to Work Support and Accountability Initiative: Technical Assistance/Training, Monitoring/Assessment, and Evaluation Background: From 1999 to 2006 employment services for work-ready mandated welfare recipients have been provided through the Human Resources Administration (HRA) Employment Services and Placement (ESP) Program. Nine vendors were contracted to provide job readiness, job search, and job placement services at various sites across the City. A report released in July 2005 by Community Voices Heard, The Revolving Door, called into question the effectiveness of these programs.  While the primary goal of the ESP System was to move people into jobs and off of welfare, less than 1 in 10 (only 8%) welfare recipients referred to the system were placed in jobs within six months. Within another six months, almost 1 in 3 of those individuals return to public assistance.  Even though a lack of education and training was identified as a major barrier for a vast majority of ESP clients, only 18% of clients were able to access education and training programs; 1 in 3 clients did not know that education ad training might satisfy a portion of their work requirements or that vouchers were available to cover the costs of these programs.  The large majority of those referred to the system never receive the services intended: 30% Fail to Report, 14% are sent back to HRA each month due to a wrong initial referral, and 46% end up in receipt of a Failure to Comply (FTC). HRA recently finalized contracts for a new set of employment services vendors. The contracts for the new program, now called the HRA Back to Work Program, were awarded to the same vendors [Goodwill, America Works, Arbor, FEGS, N-PAC, CEC, and Wildcat] that operated the earlier ESP program. Contracts were signed for a period of three years beginning on July 1, 2006 and ending on June 30th, 2009. With $53 million in annual funding allocated - totaling up to $159,626,148 over the three-year period - to service an estimated 12,800 people per month in this new program, it is important that the City think seriously about how to maximize the impact of the investment.

Initiative Description: The HRA Back to Work Support and Accountability Initiative would set aside 6-8% of the yearly allocation ($3-4.5 million1) for three distinct purposes: 1. Technical Assistance/Training: to provide resources to an intermediary organization that could work with the contracted vendors to: build their capacity through training (collectively for all vendors and/or customized to a particular organization’s need) and organizational consultation; develop materials and curriculum to help structure the content of services (assessment, case management, job readiness, etc.) and enhance vendor performance; facilitate peer learning/networking opportunities (events and seminars) across vendors; and document best practices and lessons learned for broader sharing. 2. Contract Monitoring & Assessment: to provide resources to an outside entity to assure quality control through checks on program services (assessment procedures, case management services, job readiness sessions, job search support, etc.), periodic reviews of reported figures (placement, retention, etc.), occasional focus groups with clients and providers, and the release of yearly reports on the findings with the aim of promoting programmatic improvements. 3. Program Evaluation: to provide resources to an outside entity to conduct an impact assessment of the program, a rigorous evaluation of the program to determine the value added of the approach – are welfare recipients being assigned to these programs better off than those not assigned at all or assigned to a different type of program? Concerns Addressed:

1 The amount necessary would depend on whether or not all elements of the initiative were enacted. The Technical Assistance and Contract Monitoring & Assessment components are estimated to cost $2 million and the Program Evaluation component another $2.5 million. The HRA Back to Work Support and Accountability Initiative would address a number of concerns that emerged in past welfare employment services contracting:  Providers tend to be so caught up in the day-to-day running of their programs that they have little time to reflect upon their practices and develop materials and trainings to support their staff and advance their program.  Past providers were rarely – if ever - brought together to share challenges and successes and to learn from each other’s experiences and enhance their programs as a result.  While HRA regularly collected job placement and retention data from vendors, on-site program checks were limited, if done at all.  Evaluations of past programs showed that services varied across sites in ways that were neither consistent with contract parameters nor consistent with equitable treatment of clients.  New contracts will be awarded without clear past program evaluation and this can only be avoided the next time if an evaluation of the new initiative starts now.  There is currently no hard data to show whether this type or programmatic approach is effective or if another type of approach would be a better investment.

Initiative Objectives: The HRA Back to Work Support and Accountability Initiative has the following objectives: 1. Improve the capacity of employment services providers to deliver services to welfare recipients. 2. Enhance the peer learning taking place across sites and the likelihood of best practices being shared and implemented. 3. Increase the consistency of service provision across the system. 4. Ensure adherence to contract agreements and/or support the adjustment of contracts to better serve the population at hand. 5. Research characteristics of participants: who is being served by the program, the type of services they are being provided, and how well people are being served. 6. Determine the effectiveness of the HRA Back to Work Program approach as a means of moving welfare recipients into family sustaining employment. 7. Evaluate whether or not City resources are being appropriately invested.

Potential Initiative Process and Contractors: The City Council Welfare and Contracts Committees should jointly oversee the HRA Back to Work Support and Accountability Initiative as the two Council Committees with interest in the HRA Back to Work contracts. Funds would initially be transferred to an intermediary organization to manage the initiative. Three separate Requests for Proposals (RFPs) could next be drafted, one for each different part of the initiative, and then distributed. Examples of groups that might be interested in and equipped to perform each part include: Public/Private Ventures (www.ppv.org), the Workforce Professionals Training Institute (www.workforceprofessionals.org) or SeedCo/N-PAC (www.seedco.org) for the technical assistance component; Abt Associates, Inc. (www.abtassociates.com), Community Voices Heard (www.cvhaction.org), the NYC Independent Budget Office (www.ibo.nyc.ny.us), or the NYC Office of the Comptroller (www.comptroller.nyc.gov) for the monitoring/assessment component [another option is to approach this portion as implementation research: www.urban.org/pubs/implementationresearch/]; and MDRC (www.mdrc.org), the City University of New York (www.cuny.edu), or the Urban Institute (www.urbaninstitute.org) for the program impact evaluation component.