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November 2001
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Matching Applicants with Services
Initial Assessments in the Milwaukee County W-2 Program
Susan Gooden, Fred Doolittle, Ben Glispie
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The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 ushered in an era of time-limited
cash assistance, with a clear expectation for welfare clients to participate
in employment-related activities. Welfare reform in Wisconsin presaged
this national change and culminated in the implementation of the Wisconsin
Works (W-2) program in the fall of 1997. The staff (often called case
managers) who work directly with applicants and participants are vitally
important to the successful implementation of Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF) programs. Case managers perform two important administrative
functions. First, they must ensure that the TANF applicant meets the financial
and nonfinancial eligibility criteria and complies with required work
or work-related activities in exchange for cash and other, noncash services.
Second, they must provide a service plan (commonly called an employability
plan) to help the parent get and keep employment. In short, they must
make sure that a participant meets the criteria (or continues to meet
the criteria) to receive program benefits while also developing a plan
so that the participant can obtain employment and exit the welfare rolls
in a timely fashion. These two functions are important because they directly
influence the client’s likelihood of receiving targeted and appropriate
services to facilitate job placement and promote job retention.
I. The Scope and Methods
of This Study
This report examines client assessment through the lens of the Wisconsin
Works program in Milwaukee County. W-2 is unusual in establishing distinct
categories, or tiers, of participants, as shown in
Figure ES.1: those assigned to unsubsidized employment, trial jobs,
community service jobs (CSJs), or W-2T (transitional) activities; and those
in several other categories who are not subject to any participation requirements
because they are caring for an infant (CMC) or are ineligible for cash assistance
but do receive case management services (CMS) or follow-up (CMF). W-2 has
an overall time limit of five years but also includes two-year time limits
on participation in the CSJ and W-2T tiers. Initial assessment of applicants
is particularly important in Wisconsin, because W-2 policy generally requires
that the case manager (called the financial and employment planner, or FEP,
in W-2) choose an appropriate tier placement within seven working days after
a client has enrolled in the program. State policy calls for an informal
assessment at application, though it allows agencies to conduct more formal
assessments if they wish and to reassess clients’ needs throughout
participation in the program. This time line means that the initial assessment
and tier assignment are required before the case manager may have had an
opportunity to develop rapport with the client, conduct extensive formal
assessment, or observe the client participating in program activities. Further,
participants’ tier assignments affect both the level of cash benefit
they can receive (only those in the CSJ and W-2T tiers receive a grant)
and the participation expectations and time limits they face. Of additional
interest, in Milwaukee County this assessment process is conducted by staff
at five private nonprofit and for-profit agencies selected through a competitive
procedure to administer W-2 services in six regions of the county.
In order to develop an appropriate initial employability plan, case managers
must first assess their clients to obtain baseline data on job readiness.
For example, they must consider how such factors as basic reading and math
skills, soft skills, employment and educational background, and mental and
physical health issues may affect program participation and the likelihood
of job placement. Key questions for this report include: How is the initial
assessment of clients envisioned in welfare policy and in W-2 agency administrative
guidelines? How do caseworkers actually implement client assessment? What
decisionmaking patterns and practices have emerged in client assessment?
How do changing state policies, agency practice, and the flow and characteristics
of applicants influence the assessment process?
This report examines how W-2 case managers perform their initial assessments
of applicants. We observed 100 FEP-applicant intake interviews; discussed
with FEPs their decisionmaking process in each of the intake interviews
observed; examined administrative data to understand how characteristics
of the entering caseload and their initial tier placements may have changed
over time; and conducted focus group sessions and interviews with FEPs and
other agency staff to understand their approach in assessing clients. The
study’s results emerged within the context of dramatic declines in
the W-2 caseload; the emergence of a caseload with more subtle and more
complex barriers to employment; and an evolving agency focus on providing
more substantial services as they gained experience with the early cohorts,
who were gradually approaching the two-year time limits on participation
in the CSJ and W-2T tiers.
This study is being conducted under a cooperative agreement with the State
of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development and with funding by the
Joyce Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and
the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
II. Key Findings in Brief
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The
initial tier placements for W-2 applicants changed substantially over
the first two years of the program, reflecting changing state policy,
agency practice, and applicant characteristics.
Using administrative data, we compared three groups: early entrants (those
coming onto W-2 by March 1998, many of whom were converting from Aid to
Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC); middle entrants (who enrolled
between April and October 1998); and late entrants (who enrolled between
November 1998 and October 1999). Four noticeable trends emerge. First, the
percentage of entrants initially assigned to the CMC category (taking care
of a newborn up to 12 weeks old) has increased, reflecting a change in the
demographics of applicants. Second, the percentage initially assigned to
community service jobs has declined, from 58 percent in the early cohort
to 45 percent in the late cohort, although the CSJ tier is still the most
common assignment. Third, there has been a gradual increase in the percentage
initially assigned to the W-2T tier, the placement designed for the least
job-ready clients. Fourth, the percentage initially assigned to the unsubsidized
employment tier (which has no cash benefits) declined, reflecting a complicated
series of counteracting changes among the various subcategories within this
tier.
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There
are some agency differences in approach to client assessment, but
much of the variation is by case manager.
The greatest variation in early assessment practice among W-2 agencies is
the difference in how they use formal assessment measures (testing, detailed
evaluations of skills and employment barriers). FEPs at one W-2 agency rely
heavily on formal assessment tools prior to making an initial tier placement,
while those at the other four agencies rarely conduct formal assessment
prior to the initial placement. Except for the use of formal measures, most
assessment differences seem to reflect case manager style rather than agency
philosophy.
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Case
managers rely primarily on informal assessment to make initial tier
placement decisions.
In making an initial W-2 tier placement, FEPs rely heavily on their informal
impressions of applicants during the intake interview, and they have developed
guiding practices based on applicants’ education, work history, and
family considerations to assist them in decisionmaking. In addition, FEPs
may require formal assessments of the client after initial placement, to
determine whether the tier assignment is appropriate.
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Case
managers face multiple demands on their time when conducting the initial
intake interview and assessment.
Within the W-2 intake interview, which typically lasts about an hour, FEPs
must juggle their time between establishing the client’s eligibility
for the program and planning employment development services. They need
to introduce and discuss specific aspects of the W-2 program, enter applicant
data into the management information system for eligibility determination,
and initiate in-depth discussions to ascertain the applicant’s employment
goals and barriers. For example, 85 percent of the intake interviews we
observed included a discussion that promoted work as the means of securing
economic self-sufficiency, although other programmatic areas ― such
as sanctioning (reducing the cash benefit because of nonparticipation) and
time limits ― received considerably less coverage.
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Case
managers respond to the complexity and time pressures of assessing
applicants and making tier placement decisions within the seven-working-day
time frame by relying on some simple guiding practices.
Some FEPs narrow the range of placement options (using a process of elimination);
develop guiding practices based on fairly general client characteristics
(such as education level) and initial impressions during the intake interview;
make an initial tier placement decision, fully intending to adjust it later;
and/or assign activities that allow staff to conduct a more formal assessment
after the applicant is enrolled in the program. Still other FEPs rely less
on the W-2 tier guidelines and instead focus on the specific activity assignments
that are allowable within the tiers.
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Case
managers have no clear road map for assessing applicants with multiple,
complex, long-term barriers to employment.
FEPs reported that making early assessment decisions for
this group of applicants is especially challenging. Yet early assessment
is a feature of W-2 policy and is designed to ensure timely case management
and avoid administrative delays. When FEPs encounter more complicated
cases, early assessment may not be possible or purposeful. Staff may need
to rely more heavily on formal assessment measures or to have extended,
multiple informal discussions with an applicant before making tier placement
and activity decisions.
This report on the W-2 intake process in Milwaukee County and the resulting
tier and activity assignments for clients illustrates the complexity of
the tasks involved, the typical guiding practices in place, and the changes
over time in the resulting initial tier assignments. Much of the description
of the “nuts-and-bolts” of the intake process may strike readers
as familiar and more similar to what is happening in other welfare reforms
than do other aspects of W-2. Indeed, in any assistance program, the basic
administrative processes involved in the required intake tasks do have a
strong homogenizing influence on what daily life is like for the frontline
agency staff. There are differences, though: W-2’s strong emphasis
on work and economic self-sufficiency, its effort to shift the focus toward
the assets that an applicant brings to a job search and away from an emphasis
on employment barriers, and its requirement for a relatively quick initial
assessment are distinctive.
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Funders
The Wisconsin Works (W-2) implementation study is being funded by the Joyce Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation.
The findings and conclusions presented in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions
or policies of the funders.
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