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June 2016
Policy&Practice
37
for All-Family participation and in
July 2015, it reached the 90-percent
threshold for Two-Parent WPR. As
of January of this year, FCDJFS’s
All-Family WPR was 72.62 percent,
marking 14 straight months topping
60-percent participation. Today,
Franklin County regularly exceeds
statewide averages and ranks first
among Ohio’s eight metropolitan
counties in TANF work participation.
As the central Ohio economy has
improved and WPR has increased,
the agency has also seen a significant
reduction in caseloads—much of it due
to participants obtaining unsubsidized
employment. Since August 2013, more
than 3,500 TANF participants have
obtained employment. Last year alone,
the program saw more than 1,500 job
placements, with an average wage
of $9.90 per hour at an average of 32
hours a week.
Although it has achieved and main-
tained its WPR targets and made
a substantial impact through job
placements, FCDJFS has constantly
sought to improve outcomes for TANF
participants. The agency is currently
undertaking a new initiative, dubbed
“From Rate to Great,” that is exploring
and implementing new strategies to
place participants in jobs and on career
tracks that pay a living wage so that
ultimately, they are able to move off
cash assistance and become economi-
cally self-sufficient.
Today, Franklin County’s TANF
program has become a statewide and
national model. FCDJFS frequently
provides guidance to other counties
and even other states’ human service
agencies that find themselves facing
many of the same work participation
issues that had plagued the agency just
a few years earlier.
Chelsea Klosterman’s life also looks
vastly different today than it did six
years ago. Since leaving her job to
become a full-time mom, she had given
birth to a second son, but conditions
within the home had worsened, so
much so that she and the boys were
forced to leave.
Suddenly she found herself respon-
sible for providing for her 6-year-old
and 18-month-old on her own, but with
a substantial employment gap in her
résumé, job prospects were limited.
Figure A
FCDJFS
• Determines Eligibility
• Makes AppropriateWork
Assignments; all WEP participants are
assigned to ResCare
• Enters monthly hours in Client
Registry Information System—
Enhanced (CRISE)
• Applies sanctions as needed
Community Consortium
• Develops and manages all WEP sites
• Assesses and assigns all WEP
participants to each work site,
managing participation on a daily,
weekly and monthly basis
• Makes appropriate sanction referrals
to FCDJFS
• Responsible for non-core hours
through online ResCare Academy
• Facilitates the Applicant Job Search
assignment
With nowhere left to turn, she came to
FCDJFS in April 2015 and began par-
ticipating in the TANF program. As it
happened, she was assigned to work in
the agency’s mailroom.
“My boss in the mailroom, she
normally interviews her ‘WEPs’ (work
experience participants) but I kind of
just got thrown on her,” Klosterman
said. “But she accepted me like I was a
member of their family, and I treated
this [work assignment] like it was a
full-time job.”
Within two months, Klosterman was
working full time, and today she is an
official FCDJFS employee, though she
still carries the “client perspective”
with her.
“I understand that there are many
different things that can bring
someone here,” she said. “It’s not that
someone’s lazy—they just may be in
a really rough spot at that point in
their life… There are lots of people
out there that want to work or do work
full time, but even with their full-
time salaries still qualify for public
assistance.”
That reality is not lost on FCDJFS,
either, which is why the agency
continues to pursue innovative strate-
gies and community partnerships to
improve participant outcomes. And it
remains committed to people it serves,
not numbers, in its mission to improve
opportunities for all Franklin County
residents.
Mike McCaman
is the assistant
director of the Franklin County
(Ohio) Department of Job and Family
Services.
“I understand that
there aremany
different things that
can bring someone
here,” she said. “It’s
not that someone’s
lazy—they justmay
be ina really rough
spot at that point in
their life…There are
lots of people out there
that want towork
or dowork full time,
but evenwith their
full-time salaries still
qualify for public
assistance.”
– CHELSEA KLOSTERMAN