Promising Practice #1

Choosing a High Definition of Self-Sufficiency

Overview

The Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA) uses the CA Self-Sufficiency Standard (Standard) in its planning and goal-setting process, making the concept of self-sufficiency a driving force for the WIB and one-stop center activities.

The agenda of the Sacramento Works Inc., Strategic Business Plan establishes the goal of establishing a "Workforce that Creates, Attracts, and Sustains Jobs that Pay a Livable Wage." The business plan outlines several specific strategies for achieving that goal (see model materials).

The WIB adopted income levels in line with the CA Self-Sufficiency Standard as its eligibility criteria for intensive training services, thus jobseekers earning less than $10 an hour are eligible for training. In a companion policy, the WIB identified the “working poor” as special population that should receive priority for WIA services.

Private Industry Council of San Francisco

Challenges

The policy choice of using 75 percent of the Self-Sufficiency Standard for eligibility determination represents a compromise among concerns about the impact of using too high an income threshold. San Francisco is in the unusual situation of having many customers whose incomes are relatively high, and who need WIA services. At the same time, there is a significant number of very low-income and working poor in the city. *

History

WOW’s California FESS partner, the National Economic Development Center (NEDLC) works closely with the WIB. NEDLC introduced the WIB to the CA Self-Sufficiency Standard and promoted its use in a range of applications after which the WIB adopted the Standard in its policies and programs.

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Partners and Funding

The Sacramento WIB has built a range of partnerships to further each of their self-sufficiency related initiatives. In its sectoral training initiatives, the WIB works closely with local employers and the local community college to secure capacity-building grants to increase the number of nurses trained in the region and to develop a construction pre-apprenticeship training program. In the technology sector, the WIB partnered with a technical school to establish access to state Employment Training Panel (ETP) funds. ETP is a state program that reserves a percentage of Unemployment Insurance employer premiums to fund training initiatives.

The WIB partnered with the NEDLC to develop its self-sufficiency calculator. To make the calculator fully operational and include critical local work support and programs eligibility information, the WIB engaged multiple local partners. The partners included Child Action, Inc., the Community Services Planning Council, the welfare department and local housing agency.

Challenges

The WIB found that the complexity of the full 70-family-type array of self-sufficiency standard wages was confusing for WIB members, as well as customers and service providers. In developing the income eligibility guidelines, the WIB analyzed the standard grid and developed an average self-sufficiency wage for each family size, making the guidelines manageable for customers and service providers alike.

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Keys to Successful Implementation

The WIB’s success in implementing its wide ranging self-sufficiency initiatives is grounded in their creativity in identifying partners for each venture, and then engaging their unique interests and assets. For example, in the case of the self-sufficiency calculator, they were able to engage a diverse group of partners in sharing the work by publicly crediting each partner’s contribution and providing a link to the calculator from each partner’s website. Fostering broad exposure of the calculator also enables the customer to have multiple points of entry on the web.

“The Self-Sufficiency Standard is a tool that helps us and customers who are trying to make a plan. It just makes our work easier when we embrace the standard.” -- Robin Purdy, Executive Director of the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency

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