Community Work Experience and Publicly Funded Jobs--Helping the Hard-To-Serve Meet Work Requirements.

This document explains how community work experience programs (CWEP) and publicly funded jobs (PFJ) can be used to help hard-to-serve welfare recipients meet the work requirements imposed by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The document begins with a brief overview of available options for helping hard-to-serve welfare recipients meet work requirements. Section 2 discusses the following policy and program issues: (1) the purpose of CWEP or PFJ for hard-to-serve clients; (2) identification of the most appropriate form of subsidized employment; (3) characteristics of hard-to-serve welfare recipients; (4) identification of eligible hard-to-serve recipients; (5) determining when to place hard-to-serve recipients in CWEP or PFJ; (6) types of jobs appropriate for CWEP/PFJ participants with multiple barriers to employment; (7) ways programs can avoid displacing current workers; (8) ways of ensuring that programs are productive partnerships for employers; (9) support services needed by CWEP/PFJ participants; and (10) components that should be integrated into CWEP/PFJ positions to help employees make the transition to more permanent employment. Section 3 reviews the findings of research on CWEP and PFJ programs. Section 4 profiles eight innovative CWEP programs. The bibliography lists 12 resource contacts and 22 publications. (MN)