The text below is an excerpt from the complete document. Read the full report in PDF format.
Abstract
In 2006, New York became the first state in the country to enact legislation that consists of two innovative policies that are designed to help low-income noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) find work and pay the full amount of their current child support called the Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative. This report describes this initiative and gives detailed information about the five pilot sites that are providing employment services to low-income noncustodial parents in the following New York communities: Buffalo, Jamestown, New York City and Syracuse. It is the first of several reports that will describe this initiative and its results over the next two years.
Executive Summary
In June 2006, the New York State Legislature enacted the Strengthening Families
Through Stronger Fathers Initiative, which authorizes the implementation of two
innovative approaches to help low-income noncustodial parents (nearly all of whom are
fathers) to work and pay their child support in full. The first provision of the legislation
authorizes funding for pilot programs in five sites to provide intensive employment
and other supportive services to low-income noncustodial parents (NY Social Services
Law § 335-c). The second provision establishes a state refundable earned income tax
credit (EITC) for noncustodial parents with low earnings who pay the full amount of
their current child support obligation in a given year and are otherwise eligible for the
credit (NY Tax Law § 606 (d-1)). New York is the first state in the country to adopt this
two-part strategy to strengthen families. It has since been included in federal legislation
introduced by Senator Obama and Senator Bayh in 2007 (S. 1626) and is part of
President Obama's agenda for strengthening families.
The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which
has the lead role in administering this initiative, contracted with the Urban Institute
to conduct a multiyear process and outcomes evaluation. This is the first of several
reports that will be completed by the Urban Institute as part of the evaluation. This
report describes the pilot programs and presents lessons from the first year of the
evaluation. Given the early nature of this report, much of the information collected
for the evaluation is not fully analyzed here. Subsequent reports will present findings
from the process evaluation, the Urban Institute's NYDADS database, child support
administrative data, and the Urban Institute's survey of pilot participants.
To operate the pilot programs, OTDA contracted with five large, well-established
organizations with considerable experience serving low-income adults in general
and noncustodial parents in particular. Two of these contracting agencies are the
Departments of Social Services (DSS) in Erie and Chautauqua Counties. The pilot
programs in these two counties are in Buffalo and Jamestown, New York. Two other
contracting agencies are private nonprofit employment service providers in New York
City, with service providers in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. The final
contracting agency is a public educational organization in Syracuse, New York.
Because these organizations are well established and have experience serving low-income
noncustodial parents, OTDA could enter into only five contacts and still be confident
that a relatively large number of noncustodial parents would be served with minimal
risk that any one site would fail to meet its goals. Further, even though OTDA did not
directly contract with relatively smaller organizations, most of the contracting agencies
partnered with smaller organizations. Thus, the innovation that smaller organizations
may bring to fatherhood programs is still possible to capture even with larger, more
experienced contracting agencies.
As of June 2008, the pilots enrolled 2,118 people, far exceeding the overall enrollment
goal of the first contract period. This is a major achievement compared with earlier
programmatic efforts to serve unemployed or underemployed noncustodial parents.
Recruitment has been a recurring challenge for programs serving low-income
noncustodial parents, and these pilot programs successfully addressed this challenge
through three distinct strategies. First, receiving court referrals helped some sites meet
their enrollment goals. Second, one site is responsible for operating a high-volume
one-stop career center and uses this center as a referral source, helping it exceed its
enrollment goal. Third, three sites partnered with multiple service providers located in
different parts of the community to expand the reach of their programs.
According to data reported by the pilot programs, pilot participants are a disadvantaged
population. At program enrollment, 87 percent of the pilot participants are either not
employed or working less than 20 hours a week. Sixty percent of the pilot participants
have an arrest record, and 79 percent of them have at most a high school education.
Eighty percent of the participants are African American or Hispanic. The average age of
the participants is 33, and 76 percent of them have never married.
The ultimate aim of the pilot is to increase noncustodial parents' financial and emotional
involvement with their children. To reach that aim, all the sites adopted a similar service
delivery model, which consists of case management and employment services coupled
with other supportive services. Although all sites provide a similar package of services—case
management, employment services, parenting services, and child support-related
services—the relative emphasis of each component and the specific services provided
within each component vary considerably. The employment services vary across the pilot
sites, and, in some cases, among the partner organizations associated within each site.
In general, most sites provide some job-readiness training, including help with résumé
development, interviewing skills, guidance in filling out job applications, and assistance
with job leads and referrals. All the sites have access to job developers, either through
their own organization or through relationships with workforce development programs
in their area, such as a Jobs program or a one-stop career center. Although all the sites
provide parenting education in some form, what this education entails varies greatly.
Employment outcomes for participants are preliminary since many of them are still
receiving services. With that caveat in mind, as of June 2008, 38 percent of participants
who were unemployed at enrollment have been placed in a job. However, this figure is
heavily influenced by the job placement rate in Buffalo since this site serves a large share
of pilot participants. As of June 2008, the Buffalo programs have placed 18 percent of
their unemployed participants in jobs. This lower placement rate probably reflects the
higher unemployment rate in Buffalo. (Buffalo's unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in
June 2008 versus 6.6 percent in Syracuse, 5.8 percent in Jamestown, and 5.3 percent in
New York City.) Among unemployed participants who were placed in jobs, 48 percent of
them were still employed 90 days later, and 25 percent were employed 180 days later.
Child support outcomes are also preliminary, based on data for June 2008. That month,
42 percent of noncustodial parents with child support orders payable through the New
York child support program paid child support for a total of $229,036. The median
amount paid in June 2008 among those who paid was $219. Ninety percent of the
noncustodial parents who had child support orders payable through the New York child
support program owed child support arrears, and the median amount owed was $4,745.
One outcome that the sites are not collecting monthly is changes in parents' involvement
with their children who do not live with them. Because it was unclear that the sites could
collect this information monthly, a decision was made to collect this information three
months after enrollment. This topic is also included in the Urban Institute's telephone
survey of program participants at 3 and 12 months after enrollment. After the pilot
phase, if OTDA decides to include an outcome measure regarding parental involvement
with their children who live elsewhere, it will need to decide how it wants sites to
measure this outcome and how often to collect it.
(End of excerpt. The entire report is available in pdf format.
Latest Research
Browse by Topic:
PDF
Printer-friendly summary
