Summary: What Happened To The Calwork, A Case Study

A component of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) is the Welfare-to-Work (WTW) program, an employment and training program created to promote self-sufficiency. Recipients are evaluated to determine their level of participation in the WTW program, whether it is placement into a job, placement in a training or educational program, or both. All WTW clients participate in an orientation where they are evaluated for their skill set based on their education and employment background. A WTW plan is developed to assist the individual with obtaining gainful employment to sustain self-sufficiency. Additionally, participants may receive for supportive services like child care and transportation services (Chan, 2013).

The Cal-works program promotes work and employment preparation for parents in penurious families with children. In fact, through employment and community resources the program aims to reduce the number of families living in poverty. However, there are several conditions affecting the Cal-works population in the Imperial Valley County, such as the high unemployment rates, the participants’ socioeconomic disadvantages and the absence of vocational/educational programs available for this population. The goal of the Basic Computer Skills and Employment Readiness program is to fill the gap in the lack of sustainable programs for the Cal-works population created by the shortage of educational, employment, and socioeconomic opportunities within the target area. Our program’s model embodies a

Through interviews with welfare workers and recipients, Hays demonstrates the high costs welfare has had on the moral, economic, physical and mental well-being of poor women and their children due to what she considers to be the conflict between the two opposing aspects of reform: work values and family values. She believes that these conflicting values and the inherent weaknesses in the Act contribute to serious and ongoing problems for welfare recipients.

Bigger but not better. The latter half of Bridget Moran’s autobiographical novel, A Little Rebellion, provides examples of how the social work industry has grown through the decades without effecting much change around fundamental issues such as poverty. Moran (1992) examines how privatization and the contracting out of social programming created a “shadow ministry” or “para-ministry” that broadened the scope of services provided (pp. 141-142) while the number of people requiring services didn’t diminish (Moran, 1992, p. 140). As of 1991, nearly one third of the population of British Columbia accessed welfare in the form of income assistance, foster care, and services for people living below the poverty line (Moran,

In 1996, former President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PWORA), which brought reform to the welfare system. Under this act, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The enactment of this new program brought about several changes, including transferring the responsibility of welfare from the federal level to the state level, disentitlement to public assistance, and the implementation of work requirements to receive aid (Karger and Stoesz, 2014, p. 228). As social workers, it is important to understand this act and how it fits into our professional goals. While TANF does reflect many of the standards put in place by the National

The women’s agency offers a full range of services to women in the central valley community. Unfortunately, the program was affected by cutbacks and the professionals who provided the counseling were women with degrees in social work, counseling, and psychology. Research suggests that social work professionals are some of the best prepared to respond to the world’s social problems. Social workers are not easy to find in the mix of societal problem solving and for the Director of the women’s agency to have reduced the number of counseling professionals from nine to three was an error on her behalf. It would have been in the interest of the Director to support the social workers. The professionals who provided the counseling services could have taken action to assert and “stand up and embrace the straightforward business sense found in social entrepreneurship” (Germak & Singh, 2010, p. 80), the hybrid of social work macro practice and business activities. Many social workers are already exposed to the business of working in nonprofit environments, “encompassing nearly 1.6 million organizations and having an aggregate budget of approximately $820 billion, the nonprofit sector in the United States is a robust socio-economic influence” (Germak & Singh, 2010, p. 80). The Director could have researched about the growth of the nonprofit industry and competed for the funding. So, it is to the interest of social workers to

Maurice William’s understands that social workers get tired because of their relentless job responsibilities, therefore, she makes sure they don’t experience burn out since it is her responsibility to keep the families intact (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011). Since she is not out in the field visiting the homes, she puts her faith in her upper management team to be able to listen and pay attention to any problems or potential future problems (Laureate Education, Inc. 2011). Since she is unable to be out in the field, Williams uses her supervisory skills to train her staff to be able to identify potential problems and also to report back to her what the problems are. If there were problems out in the field (i.e., foster parents, foster children), she shoulders the full responsibility to make sure that the problems are addressed and resolved, or modify changes that are in the best interest of the children.

Social Work is a career that you can make a significant impact on people’s lives. Social work is a spectacular career choice. However, working in this profession as a social work it can and will be challenges that will occur. A social worker enhances the welfare of communities, individuals and societies. Furthermore, social work aims to aid social change, development, cohesion, and empowerment. I had the pleasure of interviewing Latosha McIntyre about her work duties as a social worker with Day Spring Behavior Health Service. Day Spring Behavior Health Service is a non-profit- organization that offers a variety of behavioral health services to individuals and families. This paper will enclose Latosha McIntyre job activities, professional

Another valuable direct social work practice technique I learned at SOAR Fox Cities was grant writing. Due to the fact, that grant writing is a skill that social work students learn in a social work graduate program, I am pursuing my master’s degree in social work. The Director of Development shared with SOAR’s executive director how writing grants was a strength for me and the executive director asked me to personally help her write the grant for her new startup program. This program is called Make I.T. Soar and it employs higher functioning individuals on the autism spectrum. This was also an opportunity for me to learn how to use community resources for the purpose of funding programs.

After a social worker scrutinizes every being of the applicant’s existence and gaining approval, the recipient of benefits has feelings of hope and relief. “It was like a life preserver saved me from drowning” (D. Sobolewski, personal communication November 30, 2011) is the way one of my employees put it. The future no longer seems so dark and hopeless anymore.

Social workers are heavily involved in welfare reform, which is seen behind Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Woodside, 2001). TANF provides certain families such as those

On September 21, 2015, I met with Ms. Katie, a student in the MSW program at NCSU, to conduct an interview. We met at Starbucks in Cary, in the crossroads shopping center. Ms. Katie’s responses helped me learn and think about social workers in the child welfare social field. As a prospective social worker, my questions were formed based thoughts that I was concerned about my responsibilities in the social work field..

After I graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara I was unsure what my next step would be. Of course I was anxious since I did not have experience working nor did I excel in my undergrad studies however, I knew I needed to use my newly earned degree in a positive way. Fast forward, after working for two years, I have gained the skills, knowledge and values from my work experiences that have confirmed my desire to advance my education in the social work field. I currently have my own case load of clients as a case manager at a level 12 group home but it’s time to take the next step forward. I want to ultimately advance social justice and provide services to assist individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities.

In completing this essay an opportunity was given to visit a social service agency to interview a social worker. The interview will focus on the educational background of the social worker, job duties, training, funding, organization structure, target population, recommended opportunities for growth, and the correlation between social work and course work.

“Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”.