TRANSCRIPT: Achieving Economic Stability: Strategies for Successfully Connecting Dads to Jobs, April 26, 2012

Moderator: Patrick Patterson: Manager, National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse
Presenters
• Ben Seigel: Deputy Director of the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor
• Dr. Ronald Mincy: Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, NY
• Brad and Kathy Lambert: Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors, Connections to Success, St. Louis, MO

Webinar Transcription (Provided by PGi)

Operator:   Good day.  And welcome to the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, April 2012 webinar.  Today’s conference is being recorded. 

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Patrick Patterson please go ahead sir.

Patrick Patterson:  Thank you, Clint.  Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse April webinar entitled "Achieving Economic Stability, Strategies For Successfully Connecting Dads To Jobs."

We are delighted that this is our first webinar for this fiscal year and we have a power packed hour and a half of research, practice tips but also priorities from the Department of Labor because we do know, we’ve heard from a number of you, but also around the country that we want to try to find ways to connect fatherhood to work, connecting fathers and their families to work to have sustainable wages to support their families.

My name is Patrick Patterson, I am the Manager for the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse and I will facilitate today’s webinar.  Before we get started I want to introduce and invite Robin McDonald from the Office of Family Assistance, our funding agency to provide a few welcome comments, Robin?

Robin McDonald:  Thank you, Patrick, and good afternoon everyone, I’m very excited that you’re all on and to participate in this webinar.

I am the Division Director in the State and Territory TANF Management Office here at the office of Family Assistance and it’s my division that oversees the 120 healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood grantees.  I also oversee the National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families and the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse in addition to other work that we provide on TANF related topics, that’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

But one of the Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse responsibilities is to serve as a repository for information and resources that are designed to support efforts in the Responsible Fatherhood field and as a part of that, we also develop those tools and provide that assistance to those who are out in the field.

Now many of you know that OFA funded very similar healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood activities from 2005 to 2010.  For this round of grantees and for the Clearinghouse, the administration has decidedly focused these initiatives around the community-centered approach and fostering economic self-sufficiency for fathers and their families.  That is one reason why our first webinar topic today addresses fathers and economic stability.

Now while there appears to be some improvement on the economic front, we do know that employment and family stability remain concerns for many Americans and their total wellbeing is an important factor in ACS mission and its desire to emphasize the movement of families and individuals towards self-sufficient – self-sufficiency.

The webinar is designed to encourage that connection between work and fatherhood and the support programs that fathers may need to successfully obtain and sustain employment and move along to wage progression.  We are pleased and very thankful to have great panel here to present to you, they include Ben Seigel from the Department of Labor, Dr. Ron Mincy from Columbia University and Brad and Kathy Lambert from Connections To Success in Missouri.

Now they’ve all joined us to share their perspectives regarding helping fathers become economically stable, I know they have a wealth of information to provide for you.  So right now, I’m going to thank you all again for joining us and turn it back over to Patrick.

Patrick Patterson: Thank you, Robin, and thank you OFA for allowing us this opportunity.

I don’t want to assume anything so I’m going to do also just a very brief overview of who the Clearinghouse is, for some of you that might be first-time listeners on our webinar or new to the Clearinghouse, so with that being said I’m going to provide just a brief overview of who Clearinghouse is.

Matt, if you can pull the slide up – the Clearinghouse is an Office of Family Assistance funded National Resources of Fathers, practitioners, programs, federal grantees, states and the public at large who are (seriously) interested in supporting strong fathers and families.

Our leadership tem consist of a number of partners but our primary leaders include our Director, Kenneth Braswell Sr., I’ve listed here his e-mail address in case you have questions or comments and myself as the Program Manager.  We have both (labored in the venue) for a number of years in the fatherhood world and have touched or seen a number of these programs either directly or the administrators are now very excited with the opportunity to lead the Clearinghouse in support of OFA’s guidance but also the needs based on the fatherhood field.  Next slide Matt.

Our goals are to provide, facilitate and disseminate current research through in an innovative strategies that will encourage and strengthen fathers and families and provide as a services field the following priorities and these are just some of the things there are number of other things that we’re going to offer and do but either some other things.

Before I go into the – I want to just say that the Clearinghouse is not Kenny’s or mine or OFA, it’s really a resource for the field at large, so if anyone is touching, serving, or interested in serving fathers and families.  We anticipate – we invite you to consider this to be your Clearinghouse as much as it is an OFA-funded resource.

Our desire is to always make this as current as the field is and so without you guys the Clearinghouse is not as effective as it can be and so when I mentioned these couple of things I want you to feel free to e-mail myself of Kenny at the end of this webinar I’m also going to give you the Clearinghouse’s e-mail address, just things, resources, information that you think keeps us current with respect to what’s going on in the field.

I must mention there is always going to be a vetting process of things that we can actually add to our website that clears our federal offices but I want to invite you again to make sure you keep us abreast of activities, events but also new information that comes across either your depth on your experiences because again we want us to be a national resource center, Clearinghouse that benefit not just us but also the field and more directly the children of fathers and their families that we’re hoping to serve at the end of the day.

Our priorities primarily include delivering a robust website, that website address is www.fatherhood.gov again you can leave here after today’s webinar and check the sites, again it’s several places on there where you find – find a program, there’s a blog spot there, we’ll also include weekly, sometimes by weekly update of information of activities that are going on but the website is one of our priorities, it’s our main primary interface with the public, almost a – annually we deliver a robust and media campaign that generally speaking promotes responsible fatherhood, the field but also the efforts of local programs, so it’s considered, you can consider this a media campaign that represents the field at large.

Our third priority is social media new for us, new for the Clearinghouse, so later in the year we’re going to be releasing and launching our name and the Clearinghouse in various social media platforms that most of our practitioners live but also hopefully where our fathers and families live, to really deepen and broaden our connection.  Next slide Matt.

We also anticipate the Clearinghouse theme, a resource for developing and disseminating written products that will advance the responsible fatherhood practice and research agenda’s naturally and so that’s the ongoing process but allows to continue to lead to the field with current, new and innovative information that helps you and your day to day work with the fathers and family that you serve.

Fifth is outreach and presentation at conferences and events not only are we a resource that it’s based in Washington D.C. but we anticipate having our fingers and our feelings, our understanding of the work that goes on across the county so each of our years, we anticipate having a physical presence at a number of events and conferences that again will advance the work that you’re doing but also informs what the Clearinghouse needs to know in here from the field.

And then last and not the least these last two things and one of them just spend a second on is a national call center, in the past the call center has been devoted to be a resourceful practitioners in this new wave, this new form of the Clearinghouse, we’ve added a partner that allows us make the resource center of the Clearinghouse a resource for fathers, for dads or families.

And so the 1-877 number here that’s listed is a resource that as you leave today’s webinar you can feel free to get this number to providers that you know who have questions but also in the hands of fathers who have questions about the various activities or events that are in (count) in their lives and so please take this number, if you go to our website you’ll also find it but also I’ll just raise, this number is a critical resource that allows us to have a national resource for fathers and families directly.

And then last but not least, virtual trainings, is a resource that the Clearinghouse makes the priority, we are as like this webinar hoping to find ways to support, encourage, mobilize the field by giving them the best, latest and greatest information around fatherhood and support for families like today’s webinar, so with that said – next slide, Matt.

I want to get us into today’s webinar, we have a power packed agenda as Robin mention we have three dynamic speakers, our first will be Ben Seigel, the Deputy Director of the Center for Faith-based and neighborhood partnerships of the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington D.C.  Dr. Ronald Mincy Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, New York and Brad and Kathy Lambert co-Founder, co-Executive Directors of Connections to Success in St. Louise Missouri – next slide.

Our objectives for today are fourfold, the first is to have our attendance – our audience, understand the Federal Department of Labor priorities and programs again this is a very work focus webinar connecting fatherhood, father service delivery and work.

Our second is have you guys understand employment partnering opportunities for Responsible Fatherhood programs, very key, you’re going to be impressed I believe but also enlightened by what Ben Seigel will be sharing with you in a few moments.

The third is to share practical ideas from research to help fathers find and keep jobs and then finally is to hear promising practicing and the lessons learned from the field with respect to helping fathers’ identity and secure employment.

I’m very excited while we spend some time preparing for this webinar and hopefully that it meets the expectations of our audience.  So with that said, I’m going to introduce our first presenter.

Our first presenter is Ben Seigel, Ben is Deputy Director, the Center for Faith Base and Neighborhood partnerships and also the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor, in this role Ben leads the offices workforce development activity including the job clubs initiatives which builds partnerships with employment support programs across the country.  Ben’s background is in program development and non-profit management, prior to joining the Obama administration in 2010, Ben spent eight years with CICO a national non-profit workforce and economic development organization in New York.

He holds a Bachelors Art degree in political science from Swarthmore College and a Masters of Public Administration from the Robert F. Wagner school of New York at New York University.  With that I’ll turn it over to Ben, Ben.

Ben Seigel:  Hey great, thanks so much, Patrick, and good afternoon to everyone or good morning if you’re in different time zones.

I’m really excited to be with you all today and I’m you know really honored to be on a fantastic panel of this webinar with Dr. Mincy and with the Lamberts.  And you know before I jump in I think I have to start with a little bit of a confession, I think as all good and responsible parents know today is bring your child to work day and I unfortunately did not know this so I was not a responsible father today and I didn’t bring my five year old with me to work but believe me if he was here with me it would be a lot more difficult to follow what I what I’m about to say, as he’d be bouncing off the wall, so it’s a real privilege to be here.

I don’t have a lot of time but I’ve got a lot of information I want to share to everyone about priorities and programs here at the U.S. Department of Labor, so let me make sure that everyone jots down my e-mail and phone number, that’s on this first slide and I know we’ll have some Q&A at the end today but I’m you know more than welcome and open to filled calls and e-mails from folks you know part of my job here at the Department of Labor is to serve as a liaison with non-profit organizations, whether they be faith based or secular and so please be sure to connect with me and then I can kind of help serve as a liaison with you and all of DOL’s programs, so hopefully everyone can get that info down.  Okay let’s go to the next slide.

So let me just begin by giving a very broad overview of DOL’s priorities and kind of our key agencies that everyone should just be aware of, so begin with my boss our Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, when she came into this job years ago she laid out her long term vision for the department of labor and for this country which is good jobs for everyone.  It’s a pretty simple maxim but it’s something that all of our agencies across DOL are focused on at this concept that’s not to the job but good jobs and for everyone, you know we very much bring kind of spirit and focus of inclusiveness into our programs and the work that we’re doing here to make sure that all Americans are served and especially those who are most vulnerable and underserved by the work that we do.

So let me just quickly run through the three main categories of work that the department of labor is responsible for and it’s in these red, green and blue colors here and just some of the key agencies within each of those areas of work.

So you know it’s not well-known but the Department of Labor is actually the second largest law enforcement agency in the federal government and we’re responsible for enforcing the wide range of federal labor laws and so worker protection is a big part of what we do and just three agencies that folks should be aware of because you know this is very important especially you know for people who are working to make sure that when they are working you know they’re protected, you know their health and safety is protected, we certainly want that to be coming home safe back to their families at the end of the day and we want to make sure that they are able to keep what they are.

And so a couple of agencies to be aware of and some of the big things they’re working on right now is our wage and hour division, is responsible for enforcing the range of federal wage and hour allowed, the minimum wage, overtime, prevailing wage laws that are out there and so they work through a network of regional and district and local offices, they have outreached staff, they have investigators who are there to protect workers.

And a couple of a big initiative that I think relate directly to dads that their working on are the following, one is that their doing a lot of work right now on the issue of misclassification.  Misclassification is a situation where a worker is classified as an independent contractor rather than a payroll or wage and hour employee and this you know there are certainly many workers who are independent contractors and that’s how they should be classified but in many cases employers will classify workers as independent contractors when they should not be.

And this has a really big impact in a number of ways in terms of worker’s pay and their eligibility for a worker’s compensation and a whole range of benefits, you know let alone payroll taxes that the employers pay on behalf of these workers.  So we’ve doing a lot of work to make sure you know that we’re working with employers and that workers are properly classified, I raise it because you know it’s often in sectors that have a lot of men in their employment where we see a lot of misclassification, it happens a lot in the construction industry, a lot in logistics and warehousing and commercial driving.

Another big area of work that wage and hour folks is on, is the issue of work life balance, obviously important for responsible fathers, the wage and hour division is responsible for enforcing the family Medical Leave Act, FMLA and we’re actually in the process of doing for the first time in 10 years a survey of how FMLA is used and one of the questions that we’re looking at in the survey is the issue of paternity and maternity leave so we’ll provide some good information on how fathers are using paternity leave in the work place through FMLA.

Second agency that’s valuable to know about in our worker protection sphere here at Department of Labor is the occupational safety and health administration, they’re responsible for ensuring that all work places in this country are safe and healthy.  And one of the things where groups can connect is that at the local level, local level, local OSHA offices will develop alliances with non-profit organization and as part of this alliances OSHA can come in and help our organizations develop materials that can be delivered to clients on specific health and safety issues in workplaces and can even focus on specific sectors, so folks are interested in the alliance program, I’d be happy to connect you.

And then finally our Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, serves as a civil right to agencies for all of the federal contractors and subcontractors, ICF International being one of them and it’s a little known fact but actually one in four workers in this country is employed by a federal contractors, subcontractors spoke to huge amount of workers to who come under the OFCCP programs and one of the big focus areas for OFCCP is working with the federal contractors and subcontractors to improve diversity among the ranks of employees with these agencies, with federal contractors and subcontractors.

So they do a lot – our OFCCP offices across the country do a lot of outreach into communities of color, across diverse communities to ensure that job opportunities with federal contractors are getting widely disseminated and a good pool of candidates are coming in.  So again if folks are interested we can connect there, to connect you to your local OFCCP office.

Second area is workforce development, that’s why I’m going to spend the bulk of my time on here, our two key agencies there, the Employment and Training Administration and our Veterans Employment and Training Service that has programs specifically for veterans.

The final piece of broadly of what Department of Labor does, locks on on data, so we do a lot of labor market information, lot of data about the work places and about jobs, the monthly jobs report comes out of the Department of Labor and it’s our view of labor statistics that track all of that, they have a wealth of information on their website about national, local, regional labor market information, so you know as you’re designing and looking at employment program, it’s all useful to use these statistics.  Let’s jump to the next slide.

So I want to spend the next couple of slides specifically focused on the work of our employment and training our workforce development agencies, I want to talk first about some of our broad priorities so you kind a get a sense of how we approach kind of our work and then I really want to run through kind of a laundry list of programs and websites that I think could be useful for you and your work with fathers as it relates to employment, so a couple of kind of broad priorities here that are employment and training administration focuses on.

And a lot of these priorities cut across you know our administration as a whole.  First and foremost here, lots of focus on evidenced based you know a lot of the work that we’re doing, a lot of the programs that were funding have a real big focus on the valuation, on making sure that you know what we’re doing and what these models are, are effective and are leading to good results as it relates to job placements, credentialing, job retention and career advancements.

And so that’s been a big focus over the past couple of years, I think it’s a nice complement to what Patrick was saying earlier in terms of what the Clearinghouses really looking at in terms of data and using evidence and really all of programs here, you know have this evidenced based component and to really kind of get that point across, our secretary, Secretary Solis when she came in, she created a new office here in the Department of Labor called the Chief Evaluation Office and we have a chief evaluation officer who’s responsible for you know setting the research agenda and seeing through all of the research and evaluation for our work and many of you in the field might know who our Chief Evaluation Officer is, she’s a legend in the field of human services and employment evaluation Demetra Nightingale, she’s been here since October of last year and she’s really putting together a great evaluation plan for the coming couple of years.

Second big focus is priority is we’re doing a lot to look at systems reform and integration, you know the workforce development field can be pretty fragmented when you get through a local level so we’re really paying a lot of attention on how we can work with states to you know better align systems.

A couple of examples are just last week, we issued a new guidance letter to state on a demonstration program that we’re going to be doing competitively with 10 states to come up with some innovative models for reforming the unemployment insurance system.  And so the idea behind this is that as the President has talked about to try to make the unemployment insurance system more of a reemployment system, so we’re going to identify 10 states that are going to look to – come up with some innovative ways to you know help move people from unemployment insurance back into the workforce and so that’s going to be exciting.

We also have many programs for the workforce innovations on that will provide competitive grants that has a focus on connecting workforce development programs and systems with other systems like adult basic education, GED and I can even include reentry in fatherhood at the local level. 

Lots of focus for us on community college and employer partnership, you know as we’ve been following the news and the President’s travel, you know he’s very focused on you know building that the capacity of community colleges and calling on community colleges is to partner with employers to train up local workers to meet the demands of the new economy and employers.

We’re doing a lot of work with technology, so lots of focus on how technology can be used and kind of the distance learning, distance training setting but also how we can get you know as much and as effective information on jobs, on labor market information and on careers through technology to connect to all workers.

And the bottom two slides – final two points are, couple of areas that we focus a lot on with our grant, so one is sector you know we’re very focused on sectors, you know, high demand, high growth industries, healthcare manufacturing, renewable industries and clean technology, those industries that have growth but then also have a clear career pathway, so that’s a big focus of a lot of our programs.

And second of that, we also have a big population focus on our work, so a lot of our programs as I was mentioning earlier, you know make sure that we’re prioritizing services to those who are underserved, or are vulnerable and that includes formally incarcerated individual, returning veterans through our vet agency, and I'm (going to give) you a couple of examples of priority populations that we serve through some of our programs, so let’s jump to the next slide.

So I just want to run through the laundry list now of first kind of focusing on some of the key websites that I invite you to check out you as you’re you know connecting folks job and as you’re looking to build out some of your own programs.  So these websites here are the example of kind of our priority around technology and how we’re trying to use technology more to provide information and access to job, so the Department of Labor Employment Training administration has a sweep of website, the portal called career one stop and on that Career One Stop portal we have a whole bunch of websites that most of these sites are on and so let me just run through a couple of them.

The first one is called service locator and these are right, these are all .org not .gov website, service locator.org is a fabulous resource for the folks on the local level to find all of the one stop career centers in your community as well as other programs that are out there. You can even – I can work with you to get your own programs on service locator if you’re interested and you know because most of our employment and trading funding goes to the states and local areas in the form of formula dollars, that’s really where all the action is happening, so you know the one stop system is you know kind of a key part of our workforce investment system, we have 3,000 one stop career centers across the country and you know it’s very important that folks are aware of these one stop and they’re able to work with them.

A couple of other quick websites that will useful for folks that you’re working with who are looking for jobs, my skills, my future and my next move are both new websites that provides a lot of great resources for folks to enter previous employment or interest and it can line up skills with jobs.

Workforce 3-1 is a really great website, if folks haven’t use it for practitioners, we have a number of communities that practice, focus on different areas such as green jobs, reemployment and it’s a great way to act as resources and information for running programs and then finally we’re doing a lot of work now on experimenting on how to use the social web to connect folks to job so we have many partnership with Facebook, the social jobs partnership that’s exploring the use of social media for jobs, so let’s turn to the next slide.

I know my time is running out I want to make sure I want to get to some of these key slides, some of the key grant programs that we have are listed here, I have websites for all of them so you can check them out, our reintegration of extra fenders, it’s our reentry grant program, we currently just closed our recent round of competitions for the adult program and the youth program but there is currently a couple other grants that are open for that, obviously there’s a big over last year which reentry in responsible fatherhood.

Our second program the enhanced transitional jobs demo, this is a onetime program where we supported transitional jobs initiatives run by non-profits in seven cities that are specifically focusing services on non-custodial fathers.  So the seven cities where were working are Syracuse New York, New York City, Atlanta, Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Milwaukee and San Francisco, so if any of you are in those cities and you’re not already connected please do connect with those programs and you can go to that website to find out where they are.

My mention that workforce innovation fund, we’ve got some veterans grant program, I’m in the trade adjustment assistance community college program, that’s our big community college training program where there are opportunities to partner there.

All of our funding opportunities can be viewed from the website at the bottom there, so please feel free to check those up and follow up with me if you have questions.  I know my time is short I want to get on the next slide really quickly so let’s go to the next one.

These are a couple other programs that are really important for you to be aware of if you are already the work opportunity tax credit, it’s an incentive for employers to hire vulnerable population, there is a specific focus in the work of many tax credit on, people with the criminal record, have been released from prison within the past year, employers can get up to $2,400 back in the form of a tax credit.

The federal bonding program is another key employer incentive that basically provides an insurance policy for vulnerable workers including those with criminal records.  And then another one that I did not put up here but I want to make sure folks are aware of, there’s a federal inter agency reentry council that includes a number of federal agencies focusing on a whole range of reentry issues.

Their website is – you can go to National Reentry Resource center, all one word, nationalreentryresourcecenter.org to find out about the work of this group but one of the specific things I wanted to mention is that just yesterday the EEOC equal employment opportunity commission released some new guidance on the policies of employers relating to hiring practices of ex-offenders, formerly incarcerated this is really critical guidance where the EEOC is calling on employers to clarify policies, they’re kind of hire and policies as it relates to folks with criminal record.

Check out eeoc.gov but some of the key things that they’re making sure employers understand that is the issues of disparity impact, the issues of arrest versus conviction record and how it all relates to similar rights act and so there is a big case earlier this year where Pepsi bottling company was entered into a settlement with the EEOC to totally change their hiring policy because there was bound to be you know in violation of the civil rights act and so there’s a big issue and that something that folks really need to know about and be able to communicate through employers.

okay so I know my time is done, I’ll just give to you the last slide here just to introduce my final topic but I won’t go into it and this is the initiative that I can directly running out of my office around job blogs.

We’ve been working across the country with congregations, with libraries, with community groups who are bringing together support groups of unemployed people to help them expand their network and connect to new job.  You know there is some research out there that shows and especially in low income communities, people tend to have fewer than five individuals in their networks of friends and family who can help them find work and in for some population, including non-custodial dads, non-custodial fathers, African American non-custodial fathers, the number are two or a fewer – two or a fewer people in their networks of friends or family who can help them with the job in the formal economy.

So the jobs, what they’re doing a lot of great work at African American churches and community groups across the board, to help folks extend their networks to deal with some of the kind of emotional stresses of being unemployed and looking for a job and to learn some of the new techniques for looking for job like using social media like LinkedIn.  So this is an initiative that I’m running directly of folks are interested in learning more, we have a website at dol.gov/jobclubs that’s on the next slide.

Feel free to connect and you know you can reach out to me if you want to learn more about it, if you’re running a job club, how you can connect in with that, that should we go one more slide you’ll see that their website – there it is.  You know so we’re happy to work with you if you want to create a new one or expand an existing one and develop new partnerships with the workforce investment system and other systems out there.

So you can go to the last slide and that’s my contact information, a lots of information I know and sorry I took a little longer than I should have but again I’m more than happy to follow up with anyone who’s interested in more information – Patrick, back to you, thanks.

Patrick Patterson: Thank you so much, Ben, that was very, very resourceful information and I think it gives us at least a prelude to how we can start looking at connections between our work but also to prioritize the DOL, so that was very, very instrumental.

I want to take a commercial break for one second, we’re getting questions coming in and I think we have many return visitors to webinar technology but there may be some folks who first timers on webinar, so I’m going to ask Matt to do a brief overview of how do you submit a question because I want to make sure everybody has the same information, Matt.

Matthew Crews:  Great, thanks Patrick again for those of you who aren’t familiar with the Microsoft Live Meeting software, please note the next few slides so you can get the most out of today’s webinar.

A question can be asked by anytime during the presentation, you’ll receive a standard answer to let you know that your question has been received and will be submitted to Patrick to ask presenters during the Q&A and if for some so reason you didn’t get the answer that you anticipated, you can e-mail info@fatherhood.gov at the duration of today’s webinar.

So if you look in your upper left hand corner, click on the Q&A tool, type your question in the top box and then you click on the word ask to submit your question, we receive it and again we sent you a standard message to let you know it’s been received and all questions will be addressed at the end of today’s webinar.

A couple of other items if your screen is too small, if the slide need to be bigger hit F5 better to enlarge it, same thing to bring it down if it’s too large hit F5 again and just keep in mind that when the screen is at its largest you need to have the – if you want to ask a question you need to hit F5 again so that you can bring it down, also if you having trouble hearing you can send us a message with the Q&A tool and for some reason you didn’t get the slides that when out this morning, e-mail info@fatherhood.gov and we’ll get those right over to you, thanks.

Patrick Patterson: Thanks Matt.  Our next presenter and so feel free as the presenters are talking just send your question I’m already picking a couple of sheets of paper to record some of those questions.

At the very end of our last presentation we’re going to actually do a rapid fire Q&A with the questions that you’ve asked, so feel free as they’re talking to submit them, we’ll not be distracted to them at all, we’ll get them offline and we’ll be able to facilitate as many of the questions that we can at the close of today’s webinar.

Our next presenter is Dr. Ronald Mincy, Dr. Mincy is the Maurice V Russell professor of social policy and social work practice at Columbia University school of social work and director of the Center for Research on Fathers, Children and Family Well-Being.
He’s also a co-principal investigator for the fragile families and child well-being study.

He came to the University in 2001 from the Four Foundation, where he served as senior program officer and develop the Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative.  He has published widely on the effect of income security policy on child and family poverty, family formation, child well-being, responsible fatherhood, the urban underclass and urban poverty.

With that, Dr. Mincy, the time is yours.

Ronald Mincy: Thank you, good afternoon.  Could you go to the next slide please?

So we’ve experienced trends in marriage and non-marital birth as well as the distribution of fertility among men by education, all of which implied that they’re going to be an increasing proportion of children who will be born to unwed and disadvantage fathers.

Moreover the effects of this recent recession are ongoing, they’ve been specially severe for men that’s been true of all recessions since 1980 that have been leading to increasing in child support default in the recent period and all of this makes finding jobs and increasing child support of compliance among NCP’s, a really critical issue.  Next slide please.

For these reasons the recently announced pathways and transitional jobs demonstration projects are really timely and what I want to think about today is what can we hope to learn from them, what are their prospects for success and for this reason I want to review the history of multisite responsible fatherhood program demonstrations to get a sense of where we’ve come and where we might be going.

Next slide please.

So this chart shows the history really of federally-funded multisite responsible fatherhood demonstrations dating back to the early 1980’s, the red line – the squiggly line on top looks at the unemployment rate over this period and the series of boxes that shows the tenure of different responsible fatherhood program demonstrations and the colors are indicative of how these demonstration projects were evaluated, so the most important thing is that the yellow, the parent fair share project in the mid 1980’s and both the pack and traditional jobs demonstrations that we’re just going into were or will be evaluated using the most reliable techniques namely random assignments.  And so the evidence from this is in some sense of the most important because we really are able to attribute the program impacts to the program as opposed to other factors.

You will note that historically been there’s only been one demonstration that’s been evaluated using random assignment.  The other demonstration projects are important in on themselves but most of that have been evaluated using outcomes assessments where researches measure what the employment and child support and earnings outcomes have been but it’s not possible using this techniques to know whether the results of the programs are due to the programs themselves or to other factors that might have been operating and then there is an office of child support you know enforcement demonstration project in the late 1990 and then a family that work demonstration that was evaluated using (quality) experimental techniques.

So we have a fair amount of evidence it’s a – and then we have the most recent DRA responsible fatherhood programs that ran from 2006 to 2010 and unfortunately there were no evaluations of these programs.

The other thing I want to point out before we go to the next slide is that that except for the teen fathers collaboration back in the early 1980 we have never had a responsible fatherhood program operating under such severe periods of unemployment and that means following the unemployment rate that for men reached 10 percent over there on (that) on the right hand tick and we are sort of operating in the recovery from such a high level of employment, this is really unprecedented.  Go to the next slide please.

So the important points to all of these that the economic climate for this demonstration projects is not at all favorable, the most credible evidence we have again is for parents fair share from the early 1990’s or mid 1990’s and fortunately this is evaluated using the most reliable message and therefore we have real confidence in what these results show.

So the next several slides I’ll walk through quickly, they really point to the results of this demonstration projects in the summary form on both on employment, on earnings and on child support enforcement and then I’ll close up by suggesting what we can learn from these and what their implications for programs of practice are.  Go to the next slide please.

So focusing first on employment outcomes so majority of programs reported increases in employment but these increases tended to be small and the overall unemployment rates – rather employment rates remain low.  Parent’s fair share which again was in the early 1990’s where we had really favorable labor market conditions did significantly increase employments for the sub sample of the most disadvantage men, those who lack the high school diploma or GED or those with little work experience but there was no significant increase in employment for the full sample.

Next the office of child support and enforcement demonstration projects were also in the late 90’s again with a very favorable labor market, this was not evaluated by random assignment but it did report increases in employment for most of the site and the sites with the most significant increases in employment were also the sites with the lowest pre-employment of employment rates, this is again suggesting that in this demonstration the best results were obtained for the workers who were most disadvantage.  Go to the next slide please.

As far as earnings outcomes although they were driven by different factors at each of the programs, earnings tended to increase more substantially than employment, in parents fair share, the average earnings for the full sample, we did see an increase there but the increase was driven largely by the greater numbers of more disadvantage men becoming employed rather than higher wages.

There were also increases in the earnings of more disadvantage men they were particularly striking for men who were interviewed in a special survey toward the end of the demonstration.  Now I remember this quite well, there were two sets of results released in parents fair share, the early result for the whole study and then the subsequent result for the more disadvantage men and the early release indicating that there were little employment or earnings impacts really saw their color, the reception of these demonstration projects in the field and that’s what most people remember of parents fair share and that memory unfortunately is in accurate.

They – we did have stronger earnings results overall, again employment and earnings result especially for the most disadvantage men but again this came from primarily moving men from unemployment to employment and as a result earnings growth. 

The OCSC demonstration projects again in the late 1990’s they saw an increase in the average earnings that was also driven by previously unemployed fathers becoming employed and there were significant pre-post differences seen in only four of the seven cities and so we know that some programs operate better than others and therefore my colleagues will talk about this practice.  It’s really clear, important to focus on what we’re learning about how to operate programs for fathers who are unemployed so that we can utilize the best practices and disseminate them widely.

Next slide please.

The employment and earnings impact of fathers at work which is a demonstration project in the early, in the late 1990’s and early 2000, this is important because Fathers at Work focused on young who (had) – who are formally incarcerated and here using a non-experimental design we saw substantial increases in earnings, for example the average Fathers at Work participants earned a little over $5,000 at a 12 month follow up, that was much higher than the comparison group and these differences receive for fathers at work participants who are more likely to be employed and they will also work more hours.

So here we got you know increases in the employment rates, increases in hours of work and there were approximately twice as many men employed full time and worked you know more than substantial numbers of time during the year – next slide.

Now the child support results really trump, all the results that we’ve had on employment and on earnings, despite relatively small gains in employment and earnings most programs across this 30 years history or so, most programs thought increases in child support compliance and this point is really critical.  The increase compliance came largely from increases in the numbers of fathers who paid anything on their child support rather than increases in the amount that they paid on your child support orders.  Go to the next slide so for some details.

The parent’s fair share demonstration participants were more likely than control group fathers to pay child support with significant differences observed five to six quarters out so these are fairly long term results.  Evens so over 50 percent of the fathers who are enrolled in the demonstration did not pay any child support and in addition the increase percentage was largely driven by increases in just three of the seven sites and so at present, as in the past these multisite demonstrations tend to have variations across the programs that are involved and therefore it’s important to not think about the overall results but also what is being achieved site to site and to make sure that we’re collecting information from site to site and demonstrating again where best practices are present.

Moreover there was an increase in the percentage of fathers who are paying child support but it was accompanied by an increase in the amount of child support paid.  In the office of child support demonstration we saw fairly substantial increases in the percent of father paying child support rave from four percent in one site to 31 percent in another, however most still paid less than the full amount due with the cross site averages from 36 percent to 73 percent of the total amount due which meant that even though more fathers tended to pay their orders then had done so prior to their enrolment in the project, it was still the case that they were not in compliance in full and therefore their arrears continue to grow even though they were making better efforts to pay then what’s the case before.  Next slide please.

I’d like to close in on two other demonstration projects one of which I haven’t mentioned was the partners for fragile families demonstration, this took place in the late 1990’s and early 2000, 2001-2002 during the Bush administration recession.  So here we had child support outcomes for PFF, we’re generally positive particularly given the modest employment and earnings gains in that demonstration.

The partners for fragile demonstration was also important because it was focused on non – low income non-custodial parents who had not yet establish paternity and so we learn different things about these different demonstrations, here on one of the key findings was that there were relatively low numbers of fathers who actually establish paternity and then got child support orders and so by the eight quarter after enrolment, the percentage that had actually acquired child support orders had double from 14 percent to 35 percent, so there’s an important step here from actually establishing paternity on the one hand and then getting a child support order on another, despite this gain the majority of fathers did not establish a child support order and a significant percentage were not making any child support payments.

With the Fathers at Work demonstration as I mentioned already, the number – there was increases again in the number who paid any child support but there was a substantial increase, a tripling of the amount of child support paid compared to the quasi experimental design comparison group.

Furthermore a follow up on you again there were increases in the child support paid, the Fathers at Work participants were 53 percent more likely to make any formal payment and they paid – they tended pay $52 more per month on their orders but the increase in earnings was what accounted for this increase in child support payment.  So then again we’re going from transitioning workers or fathers from not working to working and as a consequence of doing so we got increases in the amount of child support paid.  Let me go to the next slide.

Then our current situation again is that past fatherhood demonstrations have occurred at various points in the business cycle but never following unemployment rates as high as we see.  At the peak of this past recession the unemployment rate for men was at 10.2 percent, the unemployment rate overall is decline, however recent projections by the federal reserve suggest that the unemployment is going to remain much higher than full employment way out until 2014 and so none of the currently federally funded demonstration projects will be operating in the period of fill employment, certainly nothing like we saw with parent’s fair share where we got fairly good – we got some employment results.

We also know the adverse effects of cyclical unemployment are most severe for less skill workers who tend to be over represented among non-custodial parents.  Let me just give you another number, about 73 percent of men who are high school dropouts are fathers and so we’re in this peculiar situation where the less capable men are of making a decent living, the more likely men are to be fathers.

And so we know that again the least advantage workers on the ones that were hit hardest by this particular recession, particularly men and therefore this is going to be a tough period which to operate these demonstration projects.

Furthermore in 2008 young men, black men and Latino men and to a lesser extent white men who are less than 32 years old had very little work experience going into as they graduated from high school and left education and went into the labor force and therefore even as the employment rate declines we’re going to have a lot of young men who are fathers and – but they will not have had, much work experience prior to the recession and therefore helping them find their first job is going to be a difficult task as the economy goes back towards full employment.

And then finally studies show that it can take up to a decade or more for young workers to fully recover the earning losses that they experienced during recessions.  So I’m about to wrap up, next slide.

So these things suggest first of all that we can expect modest gains at best in impacts on employment and earnings, more substantial gains with respect to child support and really larger gains as a consequence of these demonstrations on child support if we do the following things.  My last slide, please – and so I think it’s really important for the programs to focus on again connecting fathers to job particularly in the transitional jobs programs and making sure that we use that period of subsidized employment to get fathers straight on their child support orders and so forth and maybe we can talk a little bit about this during the question and answer period, thanks.

Patrick Patterson: Thank you Dr. Mincy.  Again another perspective we’ve heard from DOL to get the federal labor perspective and priorities, we heard the research that supports at least history but also where we are currently in the economy and how that might be affecting the fathers that we either serving, are hoping to serve and our last presentation is going to be on the practice.

And we’ll going to look at hear from two experienced program providers who have actually done this work and their successful in helping that to connect, so you’re going to hear practice perspective at the end of this presentation.

Our next presenters are Brad and Kathy Lambert, Brad and Kathy Lambert are co-founders and co-Executive Directors of Connections to Success in St. Louis Missouri.  Connections to Success is a current OFA responsible fatherhood grantee.

Brad and Kathy founded the Connections to Success, a non-profit organization in the late 1990, after leaving the corporate world to pursue their passion of helping economically-disadvantaged family fund hope and a pathway to achieving their dream.  Since then they have developed a holistic rehabilitative approach to provide a structured transition from poverty to economic independence.

Thousands of families have benefited from this life transformation model which is also including homeownership, career employment with living wages and children attends in school, going to college and breaking the generational cycle of poverty.

The U.S. Department of Labor offers a faith based neighborhood partnerships, awarded Connections to Success the Touching Lives And Changing Communities Award in 2004.  With that, I give you Brad and Kathy Lambert, the time is yours.

Kathy Lambert:  Thank you, Patrick, and thank you to all of you who are on this webinar today.  It’s exciting to share with you some strategies and resources and simply what we’ve learned in the field over these past several years, especially working with low income men and to help to create economic stability.

And starting with, with our first slide on one of our first steps and something that we learned early on is when – in regard to our pre-employment training and what we have done is we have combined and made a blended curriculum to include relationship skills and with our pre-employment relationship many of the dads and what has already been talked about is that to know that they have low reading skills, they have low numeric math skills.

So the training that we do, the pre-employment workshops and the training, is experiential and it has to hands on, not a traditional setting.  And with that we put together, we did a tour for example going out into employers and giving them tour of a manufacturing plant, so they can see what is possible.  And help them to see outside of their world of influence, the possibilities along with that we do career assessment, one in particular that we use is the FTS, which the holing code but also you can look you workforce development and then share some great websites, for example O-net and that’s a great resource as well.

We also combine personality profile simplified Myers Briggs or DISC assessment and combining those together to help them and as you give them a contextual learning experience, so it really has meaning to what it is that they want to do.

We put together a life plan, the life plan looks at their life holistically to include education, employment, housing, transport, health, their family finances and social and with that plan we break it down to where we they are today, where do they want to go and then we help them to attach marked goals with that.

The training is done every day for two weeks in the morning from nine to noon, in the afternoon of that’s where we incorporate the relationship training, the fatherhood training, the relationships that’s when we also bring in our partners of domestic violence and child support and it’s really an integrated approach.  After the two weeks class we helped them further on with employment so we also have one night a week where we continue with our healthy relationship classes.

For example they come let’s say it’s a Tuesday night, they come at 6 o’clock, we have dinner together and that’s a great time for the mentors to come in and building that community, the mentors come in, the men meet with men reaching out to men and after we have dinner then they break off in 2 o’clock with a healthy relationship.  After they completed that we then have various classes to continue on with GED, with parenting skills, financial obligation.  Also every week on Friday, for example Friday mornings we have what’s called the breakfast club which is some like a job club and they come every week and if you can go to the next slide please.

It’s a great opportunity that we bring in employers and employers can come and we have mind interviews and there’s a key component with bring employer then not only just of the participants and for the men to have a good experience but it also gives the employers a great experience.

We have our employment specialist that are always out there, working with the employers and bringing them in so they can also answer different questions and so on.  We have a saying and you see a quote right here from an employer but we also have a saying at connections that health plus opportunity equals the success.  We can help to provide the HOPE and the employers what they up doing, is they provide help but also the opportunity.  The next slide please.

Our point of specialist as I mention is out there targeting the employers and we also do this by identifying the skills gap across different industries and again I’m going to refer back to Ben and his wonderful website, to look on the local one stop and to find out also what are some of the market trends within you area.

We work a lot with economic development, we find out what are the high growth industries within our areas and then we help to see what are the skills that are needed to fill those gaps, work keys which is also a great resource again, with their local one stop getting online at the workforce development.  We also – we ask the employers, what do you want, what do you need and then we have to build training programs according to that.

We build a relationships with the employers and we want to see what type of certifications are needed and we help to identify a pathway for individuals to get certified, again to help them not just to get a job but to help them to get on a pathway to a living family wage.

We build again the relationships with our employers through – we have a job retention specialist and we continue on also with the mind interviews.  The next slide please.

One of the selling points and working with employers is that we’re providing them a qualified pool of talents, so rather than somebody just office straight coming in, filling out a job application with them, we can provide a qualified talent that we’ve already have set, we can show them, they’re going to request, we know that they’re going to show up on time and another outset is that we provide the wrap around services that are ongoing, so we help them to number one also to reduce their turnover cost and we follow up at the employers as well as with the employee on an ongoing basis and help to – help them with the coaching and again to help them to continue to move forward to that family living wage.

Brad Lambert: Okay I want to continue on by talking about a few transitional employment models, next slide please.

That we have used the Connections to Success and are continuing to develop, transitional employment is designed to help those who may not be ready for full time private sector job.  It offers a short term work assignment that combines skills training with the wage paying job while continuing to receive the full wrap around services that Kathy mentioned from our agency and from other service providers.

It can look a number of different ways and you’ll see on the screen, I want to identify a few of the industry sectors that we have used transitional employment projects for.  The first one is home remodeling, this involves a three year relationship now we have with Jackson County where we actually go into the urban core, we get access to an abandoned single home and through a grant – a supplemental grant that provides for labor and materials, we take six to eight men out and rehab that house.

It’s short term employment, the average home takes between 90 and 120 days, it provides some basic skills training in home remodeling projects such as painting carpentry, drywall, plumbing and most of all it gives them an opportunity to learn some healthy work habits to work among their peers, to take directions from a supervisor, again while we’re carefully monitoring them almost in an incubator environment and at the end of the job obviously they now have some skills plus a job reference.

The second one is manufacturing, we have a large warehouse employer in the region that we utilize frequently and again it’s an opportunity for them to go in, learn some basic skills in warehousing, hopefully forklift driving, followed by an opportunity then for a full time job when the transitional employment period ends.

And then at general maintenance, we’ve been able to place a number of people in the transitional jobs through lawn care and landscaping, we’ve also had some success in the food service industry working with some local restaurants and in the auto mechanics industry – next slide please.

Just a few words about what we’re calling here, a formal partnerships, I can’t emphasize enough the need to be in total alignment with your local social service agency and child support offices, we began this relationship even before we submitted our application for the fatherhood grant, we reached out to the Kansas social rehabilitations services which is the state life agency responsible for child support.  We were able to put together an MOU that really defines how we were going to work with each other including how we’re going to work together in participant recruitments and assessments.

Also they agreed and this has been a great opportunity we actually hold our two week workforce readiness and relationship class inside various SRS offices so that eliminates some of the transportation barriers and it also have those SRS folks right there with this, they come into the class on a regular basis, meet the guys, build more relationships.

The other thing that I want to say about child support enforcement and I’m sure all you know this, one of the biggest detriments to employment for our men is the thread of ways garnishment, once they become employed due to their child support arrearages.

When they we said we they went back and forth with child support and thought about, what we can do that could have an impact on this, we came to an agreement that child support will provide a $50 credit for each hour of class that they attend in one of our programs and that number is capped at $1,850.  We’re anxious to see how this measures overtime and what the impact it has, so far I would say that our employment rate is looking good and we are getting a lot of referrals, again it’s about building that relationship, thinking out of the box and coming up with creative ideas.

The final one is the one stop center which you’ve heard us talk about already, you need to reach out to your local one stop, find out what it is they offer that could be a benefit to this project whether it’s labor market trends or available training opportunities.  Kathy mentioned the work keys assessment which they do and also just potential job opportunities that they word off in the committee, so they can be a good resource and I would encourage you to reach out to them and see how they might be able to enhance your efforts – last slide.

Finally impact on community and family, Ben talked about early one the theme of good jobs for everyone and we know that good jobs mean a family living wage and not an entry level wage, so we’re committed to see our participants grow from that entry level wage to something that will be economically sustaining to them and that could occur through a number of ways.  Just helping them find other opportunities to move to, getting them into a high growth industry that has more opportunities for growth or maybe it’s adding on a particular community college curriculum o vocational training program which we’re also able to offer.

So it’s really about helping them make that transition and being able to become economically independent.

The other thing that I want to bring to your attention is agencies need to recognize that there is a financial return on investment for what we’re doing here.  When you look at the employment rate that you’re able to produce and how that creates new income tax revenue which overtime will reduce the level of government assistance, obviously if they’re coming from incarceration there’s a reduce incarceration cost, you can actually sit down and do a calculation and I would encourage you to do that and to be able to talk to funders and show them that look there is a program cost to what we’re doing but there’s also a return, not only a financial return but also a social return or what we call a double bottom line with what we’re doing for our communities in making them safer, providing more law abiding citizens.

And then finally I just want to show you a few of the outcomes and measurements that we’ve been able to achieve through our (Rexel) grant, we are one of the generation one grantees and you can see there the job placement rate, retention, recidivism and then the final thing here that we’re very proud of is that 86 percent of our participants had at least one earnings increase in the first six months of employment.

So again this is about moving to that family living wage and with that I’m going to turn it back to Patrick and thank you all for your time.

Patrick Patterson: Thank you Brad and Kathy.  We’ve heard three perspective, we heard the priorities is on the federal Department of Labor, we heard the research that gives us a lease history but also the implications for today and the fatherhood that we’re working with in this economic time and then last but least we heard very practical day to day operational strategies for how you can connect that to work looking at three different models.

I’ve got sheets of paper of questions that have come in, I’m going to try my best to get as many of them asked and answered as possible so I’m going to ask our speakers if they would, just try to be succinct in their responses, and get to as many questions as possible.

The first question that I’ll offer is for Ben – could you say more about the job clubs and how would programs to a certain father’s direct unemployed fathers to those clubs, should that be hand over, walk them over or how do we actually connect that to those local job clubs that’s there in those communities?

Ben Seigel:  Sure, thanks Patrick so if folks go through the website that I mentioned dol.gov/jobclubs, on that website if you click on the resources section we have a State directory, see you can click on your state and then from there you can see the list of all the job clubs in your state with the cities that are in that, we’ve connected to our self.

So they should have contact information so you could check out you know those in your own state and just reach out to them and then you know they tend to be pretty grass roots, very community based and so you know it’s a matter of you know just working out a relationship with them.

You can also use servicelocator.org to find your local one stop, a lot of the one stop has job clubs as well, you know and if you’re interested in starting up your job club you know they’re pretty, you know kind of easy to start up, you know they tend to be very much driven by volunteers, I’d be more than happy to work with folks to do that so you can contact me directly.

Patrick Patterson: Excellent, thank you.  Dr. Mincy question for you, what kind of data did you guys collect that show pre-imposed the increase in earnings, I know a number of these programs but they’re fairly funded or not, I’m hoping to show some type of outcomes.

What are your – what’s your advice around how do we track where folks are, are they coming to outdoors and afterwards and best report out the findings?

Dr. Mincy are you still there?  We might have lost him.

Ronald Mincy: No, no I have my cell phone on mute.

Patrick Patterson:  Okay.

Ronald Mincy:  You want to collect data at least six months prior to their enrolment in the program and then you want to follow up data at six and 12 months thereafter because clearly you want to be able to show that what your change in earnings was over a period that was sort of beyond the immediate time in which they enrolled in the program.  So I would say six months back and then 12 months I mean 12 month – six months after enrolment and 12 months after enrolment.

Patrick Patterson: Excellent, excellent.  I would say for there are a number of folks on the phone who are federal grantee for any of the data collection, got it, make sure you clear it through your FDL’s to make sure that you’re within compliance, but I want to make that note heard.

The next question is for Brad and Kathy a number of folks are new or still learning how to approach businesses in their community.  What tends to be your initial pitch when you go into a new business regarding hiring fathers that might have completed your program?

Kathy Lambert: We just generally going out and number one finding out first what their need is and identifying and researching what are some of the high growth industries and where are the high demand jobs.

And then we go and we meet with them one on one and we find out we do basically find what are their needs, so before we ask them to hire the dads that we’re working with, we first find out what their needs are then a we find out how then we can meet the needs that we educate them on the men that we’re working with and we find out what are some of the challenges that they’ve had and what is their turnover rate.

And so we by asking those questions it’s up to us for us to be able to present the men that we’re working with, that we can address their turnover rate, we can address that you know if they’re going to show up on time, we can address that if they lack certain skills.

Many times what employers really want are the life skills and that’s what we found is the biggest skill gap I think in – that they are looking for just general life skills.

Brad Lambert:  And I would say also one of the distinguishing factors that we try to bring to their attention is that when we bring a person in or give them a resume this is the person that’s been thoroughly bedded, has gone through a workforce readiness training, somebody that we have a relationship in place with and there’s an umbrella of support around that person in helping them with the issues outside of the employment arena such as transportation and housing and health.  So I think those things given assurance that the person is going to be able to come to work and focus on the job.

Ben Seigel:   Patrick this is Ben, can I throw in one or two additional things to these?

Patrick Patterson:   Absolutely.

Ben Seigel:   Those are great points and those are great strategies, I applaud you guys for approaching it that way.  I also want to add a couple of other things that folks should consider, I mention this briefly in my presentation but you know we do have some employer incentive program, not maybe necessarily kind of how you want to start your conversation with employers but definitely the federal bonding program which has been around for a number of years has a 90 percent success rate and what that bonding program does is that it kind of requires the candidate to get character references, so it’s part of the process.

And so we could signal to the employer a lot of kind those soft skills you know that the (Lambert’s) were just talking about and you know it’s a federal program, it’s proven and on top of that it provides a little bit of an insurance policy up to $25,000 for the employer in case of theft of anything.  So you know if you go to the federal bonding programs website, bonds of the number.four.jobs.com you can get a list of all of the state representatives for the federal bonding program and you can reach out to them.

And another good thing to connect with your state federal bonding program contact is find out you know what employers are using these bonds and that could be a good target for you, you know the work opportunity and tax credit and other incentive I mention and one other program that I just want to throw out there for folks to think about is our H2B foreign visa worker program, so the H2B visa’s as used by a lot of employers in the landscaping industry, hospitality industry, offer for seasonal job, we’ve been making a big push to make sure that employers are doing in an exhausted search to find American workers who can take those jobs rather than using foreign guest workers.

So you know please find you know those industries in your community and you can look up online employers who use those H2B visas and you can go to them and say hey I’ve got some really great workers you know right here who are willing to do those jobs that you’re going overseas to get.

And then the final thing is our office of federal contract and client program you know federal contractors and subcontractors are really good employers, they make a really good effort to you know have diverse workforces, to make sure you know they’re looking at all candidates so you know be sure to connect with your local OFCCP office and work with them to develop relationships with federal contractors.

Patrick Patterson:  Excellent, Dr. Mincy, question for you, you mention during the parent fair share there was an increase earnings for the full samples.

Was any of that attributed to entrepreneurship that and if so what advice would you give to our audience today around entrepreneurship?

Ronald Mincy:  Well first of all, no it was not, most of it was due to job placements as opposed to increases in earnings among those who are already employed and I don’t know of any again I think it’s important to emphasize that what we’ve trying to do over this long haul is to develop evidence base practice.

To my knowledge there has not been a rigorously evaluated employment program targeted those who are self-employed and so the best answer I can tell you is I don’t know and it’s been certainly an area for innovation but we don’t have any evidence on the effectiveness of such things targeted at the kinds of NCP’s that we’re talking about but to think it through one of the things that we have to be concerned about is that most of these that are targeting fathers the courts have real difficultly thinking about what fathers who can’t pay their child support are unable to do so because they have – because they don’t have a job and what portion of the fathers who claim to be able to – unable to pay their child support are not doing it because they don’t want to do so and I think in the whole area of self-employment this is where the gray area is.

In New York New York where I’m form, New York City has a huge informal labor market, lots of people working as it were under the table and it becomes very difficult to negotiate this to get child support modifications and to basically get the cooperation of the court if the person in front of you, you know doesn’t have a job in the formal labor market.

So the entrepreneurship part of it, it’s going to be a reach, not an insurmountable one but one that’s presents or in complexities to the courts and anyone on this line has got to be concerned about that because we’re talking about fathers and their ability to meet their child support obligations.

Patrick Patterson:   Excellent, we’re at a point now where we ask as many questions as we could. The next few minutes I want to ask questions from our audience, we’d like to find out from you the pluses and minuses from today’s webinar, so we’re going to post a few poll questions to get a sense of your satisfaction or direction regarding improvements during our next set of webinars.

Ben Seigel:   Patrick can you give me another one of the issue have it and when available.

Patrick Patterson:   Go for it now.

Ben Seigel:  One of the things I didn’t say is that there are – those of you who are doing subsidize employment programs, it is really, really critical for you to take advantage of the subsidized employment period to get into the child support enforcement and begin working with the father around, helping him understand what the system is about, modifying his order and the like.

One of the real possibilities of innovation in the transitional job theory is at that point he has a subsidized job, you have a period from a couple of weeks to a couple of months where you know he has earnings, getting him in there to renegotiate his child support obligation is critical, I’m done, thanks.

Patrick Patterson:   Excellent, excellent, I wanted to say also the questions that we’re not able to ask we’re going to develop a frequently asked questions document with responses from our panelist and we’ll post that onto the Clearinghouse website within two weeks along with the recording of today’s seminar and so if I didn’t get a change to ask your questions, it was just power packed hour and half but we’ll get to those in our follow up document regarding the frequently asked questions.

The next few minutes I want to go through a couple of questions that are going to give us feedback on what you thought about today’s webinar, so I’m going to read the questions, no one else can see your responses, you change them while it’s on the screen but once we move to the next screen it’s a done deal.

The first question, I have a better understanding of federal Department of Labor priorities.  I have a better understanding of federal Department of Labor priority.  Next question Matt.

The information presented on partnership opportunities for the fatherhood programs, employment services and other local resources was helpful.  The information presented in partnership opportunities of fatherhood programs, employment services and other local resources was helpful.  Next question Matt.

I learned practical strategy and ideas of ways to help fathers find and keep jobs.  I learned practical strategies, ideas and ways to help fathers find and keep jobs.  And last question Matt.

In general I receive good information that I can use in my work with fathers and family.  In general I received good information that I can use in my work with fathers and families.

Please join me in thanking our panelist, Dr. Ronald Mincy, Ben Seigel, Brad and Kathy Lambert and then finally I want to as if you have additional feedback beyond these questions if you could submit those to info@fatherhood.gov to Patrick Patterson attention or Kenny Braswell’s attention, info@fatherhood.gov, any feedback, suggestions for improvement from today’s webinar, we’d appreciate those.

Our goal is to make this again a Clearinghouse that you can be proud off but also feel part of and so we invite you to submit any feedback and comments, post today’s webinar.

As I mention earlier we’re going to post on our website the recording along with the frequently asked questions document from today’s webinar and so in a matter of week you’ll see a list of announcements that allows you to download as well as listen to today’s webinar and see the frequently asked questions document.

Again I want to thank our panelist and I thank you all for participating and we’ll talk to you at our next webinar, thanks so much.

Operator:   This concludes today’s teleconference, you may now disconnect.

END