For those with particularly intensive and/or multiple barriers to employment, there are work subsidy programs that offer promising alternatives to more traditional work experience and subsidized employment models (for which an ultimate goal for workers generally is competitive employment). These programs may be best characterized as compensated community service—such compensation is usually limited, as is the commitment of time and energy required of participants. These programs may represent useful components of strategies to reduce poverty and deep poverty among individuals with serious and/or multiple barriers to employment.
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Parent Mentor Program, Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) – Chicago, IL
The Logan Square Neighborhood Association’s (LSNA) Parent Mentor Program “build[s] leaders in the home, the school[,] and the community” by placing parents, many of whom experience multiple barriers to employment and lack social capital, in volunteer roles within their community classrooms.384 The program relies on strong partnerships between community organizations and schools.385 Participating parents, most of whom have “less than a high school education— some have 3rd or 5th grade—and a few of whom are not literate or strong in English,” gain access to OJT, connect with their community and child’s school, and develop soft skills.386
Parents must apply to be parent mentors, and most are placed in a preschool-3rd grade classroom. After completing an initial 15-hour training, the mentors provide two hours per day of social and emotional support in the classroom, for the first four days of the week, and receive two hours of skills development and other training and support outside the classroom on the fifth day.387 Once a mentor has worked a minimum of 100 hours, he or she is eligible for a $500 stipend, which ordinarily results in one stipend being awarded at the end of each semester.388 In addition to the stipend, experienced parent mentors are often referred for job openings and other opportunities within the school, and many former parent mentors remain involved with the program and schools in other capacities.389
Promise: LSNA started the Parent Mentor Program over 20 years ago in partnership with its neighborhood schools. Ten years later, the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) in Chicago replicated the program. Together, the two organizations now run the Parent Engagement Institute, which provides guidance and training materials for communities looking to adopt the program.390 Eight organizations have successfully replicated the Parent Mentor Program in seven other states across the country, in communities that are diverse both geographically and demographically.391 The program appears to have potential for further growth, and as LSNA staff indicated, “there is a lot of interest in other [additional] states.”392 The program has promise as an effective community-based approach for reaching those with the lowest incomes, as about “90 to 95 percent of women in the [LSNA] program are actually TANF-eligible by their income.”393
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Project Match – Chicago
In 2010 and 2011, Project Match developed and implemented a subsidized employment program for “motivated non-workers”—low-income adults who were outside the labor force and had limited work experience but were looking for opportunities to engage in activities related to their children or community.394 Public housing residents were targeted with opportunities “in an afterschool safety patrol, a grounds-keeping crew, and a community garden,” always in close partnership with community schools.395 Though these positions are perceived by the project leaders as one step short of subsidized employment, the opportunities are structured.396 Project Match founder Toby Herr indicates that strong supervision was crucial for the program’s efficacy.397 The stipend positions paid participants no more than $120 a month (2010 dollars), and payment took the form of retail store gift cards.398
Many Project Match participants were parents and grandparents caring for children facing behavioral, developmental, or academic challenges.399 Advancing in an extracurricular activity—such as dance or sports—to develop a talent is particularly challenging because of a lack of in-community opportunities for children in very low-income households.400 Thus, a separate initiative was imagined to focus on incentivizing families to cultivate children’s development.401 That idea, somewhat similar to conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, would focus on how parents spend their time—and extend beyond the health and education domains that are the typical forms of existing CCT programs. Toby Herr has indicated that the effort was conceptualized in response to a finding that parents often struggled to maintain employment because they were spending time on and with their children.402 This program was never implemented.
Promise: The Project Match target population likely includes people with disabilities, single mothers, and men (and some women) with criminal records. No evidence of impacts from this intervention is available. A major premise of this effort is that typically half or more of participants in welfare-to-work or other workforce development programs—regardless of the nature of the intervention—never become year-round, consistently employed workers. Thus, the intervention attempts to aim for more modest goals for workers who are unlikely to be helped by known models.403
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Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP)
The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), which has existed in some form since the 1960s, aims to employ low-income seniors (ages 55 and older) with barriers to employment in community service projects, with the goal of providing training and skills development to ease their transition back into competitive employment. SCSEP, the “only federal employment and training program targeted specifically to older Americans,” provides participants with part-time, paid (with grant funds) community service opportunities at public agencies or non-profit organizations.404 Participants also have access to additional skill training and supportive services.405 Notably, amendments to the Older Americans Act in 2000 and 2006 increased the emphasis in SCSEP on self-sufficiency and unsubsidized job market performance.406
Promise: While the program has not been evaluated rigorously, a process and outcomes evaluation showed that the 2008-2009 program years had higher-than-average American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores compared with other federal programs.407 The 2012 report also notes that budget cuts may have undermined elements of the program focused on training and skills development.408 In 2009, 46 percent of program participants entered unsubsidized employment in the quarter following participation, with 70 percent of those retaining employment for at least six months. It bears noting that these numbers varied considerably depending on individual characteristics and employment barriers.409