The Present Welfare Reform and Human Service Policy - Term Paper Example

? Human Service Policy Time is the crucial factor that brings in major changes in a system. If welfare system is discussed in this regard, time limits are intended to reduce long-term dependence with a presumption that families remain on assistance for generation after generation (Crowell, 2001, p. 157). Therefore, imposing time limits seems unusually harsh. This is because earlier attempts at reformation involving comprehensive programs just only produced modest results in helping families to gain self-sufficiency. Often people raise this issue as a fundamental question. Will the present welfare reform be more effective in relation to the previous programs? Especially when taking into consideration the work component or plans to intervene in the job market by providing opportunities for persons who were unable to find a steady employment? By eliminating the entitlements and concentrating on employment opportunities, presuming that there are sufficient jobs available. In addition to this, welfare departments of the state are also developing and trying to accommodate by implementing welfare reform plans. Therefore, there are greater chances for the recipients in prospective fields. The theory of time limits is applicable to all families regardless of their usage patterns. This ‘one size fits all’ policy doesn’t take into consideration the diversity of the welfare population, especially indicative to those who leave the system quickly and never return and also those who use it when there is a crisis temporarily. This is indicative of those who use it between low-paying jobs and those who do not have inner strength to become self- supporting. These major changes in policy also eliminate the concept of entitlements, and focuses on employment that presupposes that there are enough jobs for able-bodied recipients (Crowell, 2001, p. 159). In the time span of nearly 30 years, i.e. between the early 1950 and the middle of l980, the urban American economies shifted from being goods producing centers to information processing centers. These corresponding changes in the size were accompanied by the change in composition of the urban base of employment as well. Manufacturing activities could be marked with a pattern of dispersion. The mass departure of people from the suburbs, exurbs, non-metropolitan areas, and also from abroad was in vogue. The shift was mainly brought about by the middle class community from urban centers. This progressively decreased the number of blue collar service job attendants such as maids, gas station attendants, and the delivery personnel. During this particular period of time, referred to as in the stage of “employment base hemorrhage” of the blue-collar service and manufacturing jobs, the economy driven service holders helped create numerous white collar employment opportunities. These jobs were generated not only for the managers, executives, professionals, and clerical employees as well as for the low-skilled service people that includes fast-food workers and retail clerks in both urban and rural areas (Caputo, 1989, p. 85) By the end of the seventeenth century, it was evident that poverty was a naturally occurring phenomena and it was closely associated with urban growth. Although the number of people below poverty line increased in greater number during this time, skilled administration also began lacking. In this respect, the common reason was that the general communities mostly started feeling genuinely sympathized with the needy and tried to provide them facilities to improve their standard of living. Most of the communities in this regard started to point out that the issue was the reason out of the problem with a high degree of civic responsibility (Trattner, 1999, p. 26). Later in the late nineteenth century, there was not much provision for people to continue to engage themselves in health and welfare works between the meetings of the National Congress. Each of the official proceedings contained in it, was the best delivered papers. In response to this, concerned persons were caught up in charitable and reform work. In this regard, reference can be made to works directed for charitable reforms in Boston, New York and Chicago. They subsequently founded journals to inform the executives and board members of agencies that provide services about their welfare activities (Trattner, 1999, p. 246). As each of the states make a move to implement new welfare laws, the policy of ongoing analysis and advocacy broadens the scope. With the delegation of welfare laws, policy analysis as well as advocacy needed to maintain a dual focus on both state level and national level policies. On a national level, it can be said that the guidelines and regulations are now being developed for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). With the passage of the welfare scheme termed as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s welfare system for poor people especially women and their children could be seen as a fundamental transformation. TANF needs to be reviewed in terms of the legislative intent, in which the parameters established should be used for calculating work participation rates, and the criteria for exemptions from this scheme of service, TANF requires the hardship or domestic violence (Beimers & Fischer, 2007, p. 398). The goals of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) include assisting families to care for children in their own homes and thereby reducing welfare dependence considerably. With the context of increasing the state flexibility and to accomplish the desired goals, the federal government has made alterations in the structural components in order to provide for the funding of the state welfare programs (Hagen, 1998, p. 596). There have been profound changes dramatically in this potential aspect to alter the nature of state and local welfare agencies. That has been a relevant idea to create new and expanded roles for the human service workers, including those social workers, both within the public welfare agencies and also belonging to the other community developmental agencies. Specifically the roles for human service workers in public welfare domain portray or transform for the direct practice of managing the staff development policy guided by the principle analysis and advocacy in research (Hagen, 1999, p. 78). Although there are a number of merits of developing connections associated with high-wage employment sector, it should be also acknowledged that connecting the TANF recipients with a good-paying job is not only a matter of contacting employers. Barriers and limitations include, the geographic parameters like relocation of the employers to fringes of urban area, then creating spatial mismatches that limit the access of TANF recipients (and also including the employment services agencies) to account to many employers. Constructing the mechanisms for TANF recipients not only means to access such jobs, but there must also be such occurrences at other levels as well. From the perspective of policy making, agencies of employment service providers should also focus on assisting the welfare of the clients in obtaining higher quality of jobs that will progressively enhance their long-term prospects in this way. However, there is however very little research existing in the field of evaluation of the literature on the specific effectiveness of job development by the agencies employment service providers in the TANF environment and there is greater scope for additional research in this area. In raising the facility of such modules, greater accommodation and working is needed (Beimers & Fischer, 2007, p. 398). Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) however also gets tougher for states to work on, only by laying out on expectations that may well be beyond their meeting capacity. In the essence of this, it can be said that, states should be able to meet two major work participation requirements in order to receive their block grant funding in totality. Firstly, the states must be able to meet the overall participation rates based on all the families receiving assistance excepting those children belonging to the age group of less than a year if the state so chooses. The participation rate in 1997 began at 25% and shows a gradual increase by 5% each year until 2002. In 2002, the rate of participation has reached around 50% of the entire cases loaded so far (Hagen, 1999, p. 80). For instance, for families with two-parents, this rate is higher. The rate has been said to begin at 75% as estimated in1997 and increased constantly within a span of two years to 90% in 1999. Secondly, the states are required to have recipients of which all of them are adults. They received assistance for the participation of two years for work activities. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by the end of 2002, about 70% of the cases loaded will be receiving welfare for the least two or more. Committee on the Ways and Means has stated this. The experience of the states’ in operating the JOBS program suggest to these expectations, that it may very well exceed the states’ capacity to implement these activities. In 1994, the JOBS program is reported to have served the adults in only 13% of all welfare families. In addition to this, accounted reports say that only ten states met the requirements to serve 40% of two-parent families as estimated by the Committee on Ways and Means (Hagen, 1999, p. 80). References Beimers, D. & Fischer, R.L. (2007), Pathways to Employment: The Experiences of TANF Recipients with Employment Services, Families in Society, 88(3), 391-400. Crowell, L.F. (2001). Welfare Reform: Reforming Welfare or Reforming Families? Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Sciences, 82(2), 157-164. Caputo, R.K (1989). Limits of Welfare Reform, Social Casework, 70(2), 85–95. Hagen, J.L. (1999). Public Welfare and Human Services: New Directions Under TANF? Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, 80 (1), 78-89. Hagen, J.L. (1998). The New Welfare Law: “Tough on Work”. Families in Society, 79(6), 596-605. Trattner, W.I. (1999). From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America (6th edition). New York: Simon and Schuster. Read More