Choosing a High Definition of Self-Sufficiency

• Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, CA
• Private Industry Council of San Francisco, CA
• Metro South/West Regional Employment Board, MA

Overview

The Framingham Metro South/West Regional Workforce Employment Board (WIB) includes 43 towns and cities. The Metro South/West WIB has adopted the Massachusetts Self-Sufficiency Standard to drive both program and evaluation design. At the same time, the WIB wanted to concentrate its services on low-income customers and therefore chose not to use the Standard in determining income eligibility which would have increased the pool of eligible clients without increasing the amount of services available.

The WIB uses an intensive planning process that fully engages stakeholders and partners in the development of strategic and operational plans. The central question "How can we make sure that customers get to self-sufficiency" drives this WIB’s planning discussions.

The Regional Employment Board has adopted self-sufficiency wage goals and benchmarks. The Board has also adopted a sector training approach where they have targeted sectors that are high-wage and have multiple career ladder opportunities for entry-level workers (see Practice #3: Employing Sector Strategies). The WIB also shifted its youth programming to focus on sectors which have the potential of paying self-sufficient wages.

Most recently, the WIB has convened a "One-Stop Partners Group" to develop a comprehensive plan for service delivery across program/funding boundaries. Their goal is to develop system-wide service delivery strategies that work in concert to move customers to self-sufficiency.

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History

In 2000, the WIB developed a pilot to measure the effectiveness of the WIB's low-income adult and dislocated worker programs based on the Standard, which had already been calculated for communities in Massachusetts. The ensuing report, Defining Success in the New Economy: A Case Study of Metro Southwest Massachusetts Self-Sufficiency as a Benchmark for Workforce Programs, found that while participants in the low-income adult programs improved their earnings, most did not earn enough to meet the Standard. It further found that many dislocated worker program participants were unable to maintain their previous standard of living.

In response, the WIB established a new goal of moving all WIA customers toward wage outcomes that meet the Self-Sufficiency Standard. The WIB Director credits the shift to a higher self-sufficiency standard with transforming the way the board and staff think about service delivery. "The whole idea of self-sufficiency through career ladders is firmly embedded in what we do. I don’t know if that ever could have happened when I was just using 200% of poverty [as the self-sufficiency threshold]."

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Partners and Funding

The Metro South West WIB is constantly working to engage stakeholders as partners at every point, from planning to implementation to evaluation. Creative partnerships with employers combining work and training have helped many of its sector initiatives to succeed, and has led to employers contributing funds for training as well as employer tuition reimbursement. The WIB uses a patchwork approach to funding, seeking out a range of private and public funding sources beyond WIA to support the goals and activities the WIB has identified as needed.

Challenges

Moving stakeholders to embrace long-term goals and measures of success proved to be a challenge. Historically, norms and practices in place for decades have set the bar low. Like preceding laws, WIA law and regulations target short-term strategies. As a result, WIBs place a priority on meeting specific performance goals and numbers to avoid costly sanctions.

As programs and policies evolve, new challenges emerge that cannot be known in advance. There was no funding to develop and evaluate emerging practices. Another challenge, but one that was met, was the extraordinary time and commitment necessary to develop strong working relationships and partnerships with stakeholders.

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Keys to Successful Implementation

The WIB Director’s steady process of bringing stakeholders and partners together coupled with taking the time to focus on challenges and creative strategies were essential elements to the WIB's success in fully integrating self-sufficiency into their work. The WIB Director noted the importance of listening to stakeholders’ concerns and in developing a plan for moving forward together. Knowing their concerns will be heard and responded to also increased stakeholders' willingness to try new approaches to workforce development.

Finding a group of initial investors who bought into a new idea and aided in selling it (and in some cases serve as a test case) helped promote new applications of the Self-Sufficiency Standard by the WIB. WIB staff regularly explored, analyzed, and adapted other workforce models to successfully move customers to self-sufficiency locally. This constant search for innovative and effective models is an important element of the WIB’s success.

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Model Materials

• Defining Success in the New Economy: A Case Study of Metro Southwest Massachusetts Self-Sufficiency as a Benchmark for Workforce Programs
  [PDF, 338KB]

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