Settlement Houses Employment Development, Inc. - Testimony for Senate Subcommittee On Manpower, Employment and Poverty

"poor motivation" continue.

As the program is administered at present, the employer who cuts down on the services described in the proposal or eliminates them entirely, is not penalized in terms of reimbursement. The funds from the Labor Department are based on a "Progress Report-Invoice" which the employer files each month and which does not call for any specific data about supportive services. Whether he subcontracts these services or uses his own personnel, it is quixotic to expect trainers to enforce the proposal's provisions. One of our settlement houses, in fact, recently lost its largest subcontract by pressing too hard for released time. We know of several instances, incidentally, when the company has been willing to pay the trainers for doing little or nothing because of subcontract provisions. Thus, the only "losers" are the trainees, who are unaware of the training to which they are entitled. They never see the contract; they receive no statement from the Labor Department as to its provisions in respect to released time, supportive services, etc.

How can the Labor Department monitor contract performance and, simultaneously, preserve the flexibility and freedom from red tape which participating employers insist upon? One simple, if partial, answer to this dilemma is to permit some of the training to take place after working hours, 1.e., during the evening and on week-ends. Underemployed and unemployed youth and adults are willing to use "their time" for supportive services especially if related costs such as supper, extra carfare, baby-sitting fees are covered. Supervisors have been similarly cooperative when appropriate practical incentives were offered. Consultation with trainers, trainees and supervisors would disclose other pragmatic steps which could, without adding to total contract costs, overcome many of the abuses which the Committee has discovered.

These simple changes, however, must be accompanied by more formal

Settlement Houses Employment Development, Inc.- Testimony for Senate Subcommittee
On Manpower, Employment and Poverty

accountability requirements. Employers, at the very least, should certify (on the
Monthly Progress Report) the number of hours, on and off-the-job, devoted to each
of the proposal's components. The additional paper work will take very little
of the employer's time. Although it is of course possible to give false information,
most businessmen will report the facts accurately. The Labor Department, again
with minimum time, can check the data against the proposal, as funded, and hold
back reimbursement if necessary.

Certification by employers as to the quantity of job-related basic education, counseling, health care and other services each month is only a first step. Improving the quality of services presents a far greater challenge. The complex issues involved in evaluating hire-and-train technology cannot be addressed adequately in these hearings. The Committee, the National Alliance of Businessmen, the Labor Department, organized labor and socially concerned training

- groups such as ours must focus their attention on these matters in the months ahead. The settlement houses will continue to commit their expertise and

STATEMENT OF LEZA GOODEN. DIRECTOR
FRANKLIN COUNTY DEPARTIENT OF WELFARE, COLUMBUS, OHIO

OF THE SENATE COMITTEE ON LABOR A'D PIPLIC WELFARE

My name is Leza Gooden. I have been a staff member of the Franklin County Department of Welfare for 15 years and director of the Department since February, 1969. In this statement I wish to emphasize the relationship with the National Alliance of Businessmen and other organizations which has enabled the Department of Welfare to conduct a rather unusual employment program which we believe you would like to know about in considering Senate Bill No. 2838 on Manpower.

We believe the results we've obtained in this coordinated program say loudly and clearly that county welfare departments belong in the forefront of any effective manpower endeavor. I'd like to make two main points about our Franklin County program:

1. It works. In less than ten months we've been successful in moving some 500 men and women off welfare and onto jobs,

2.

It works primarily because the National Alliance of Businessmen (NAB) and other public and private organizations that are seeking jobs for the unemployed have channeled their manpower

:

efforts through one focal point

of Welfare.

the Franklin County Department

It started as so many worth while things start, with a crisis back in April, 1969, Funds to continue payments to 900 families on the general relief rolls were nearing the vanishing point, and our staff searched desperately for some way to avoid cutting these people off without financial support.

Out of a series of emergency staff meetings and consultations with the NAB, the Urban League, Bureau of Employment Services, other agencies, and concerned community leaders emerged a special division in the Franklin County Welfare Department which we called the Employment Coach Team.

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who concentrated

This was a team of coaches -- professional social workers who were relieved of their regular duties exclusively on working with and coaching welfare clients. They talked informally with them in obtaining their job experience and When we first set up the Employment Coach Team in May last year, it had seven members Now there are 33. We could use a team of about 75.

Before going into more detail about the achievements of the team, I'd like to emphasize the fact that without the cooperation of the NAB and other manpower development agencies, our program could not have worked. The NAB. for example, established a coordinator right in the Welfare Department offices, and job orders turned up by NAB were funneled immediately through the coordinator to the Employment Coach Team.

Nor could the program have worked as well as it has without cooperation from private employers. We assured them we would stand back of our people and act as their "advocates" to make as sure as we could that they would work out. The employers responded by relaxing their recruiting standards and agreeing to give welfare clients a chance to work and develop on the job, even though they had to start with inadequate skills, insufficient education, physical problems, or other shortcomings. In the majority of cases, I'm

glad to say, the employers have been happy with results.

Since their formation in May last year, and through February this year our Employment Coach Team has interviewed and worked with every new welfare applicant a total of 2 104. Of these, they considered 912, or 43 percent, unemployable because of age disability, health, attitude, and a variety of miscellaneous