Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 29, 1990 TAG: 9003300278
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: YOLETTE NICHOLSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Her daughter, now 9, already had been a victim of sexual molestation and with self-imposed guilt weighing heavily on her mind, Proctor picked up her children and ran.
But when she got here, she quickly ran out of money and could find no job. Like 3.7 million other Americans, Proctor ended up on welfare.
Today, Proctor, 33, is on her way to becoming self-sufficient once again. Through TRADE, a federal public assistance program operated by the Roanoke Department of Social Services, Proctor has found the perfect job as a claims technician at the Community Care Network, a company that handles insurance for hospital employees.
"I love this job. If I could have painted a job and said this is what I want to do, this would be it. This is it," she said.
TRADE is a program that replaces the welfare check with a job without immediately taking away the benefits, such as food stamps, day care and Medicaid, that come with financial welfare assistance.
Zelda Stanley, a supervisor with the Roanoke Department of Social Services, said both the employer and the employee benefit from the program.
"The state sends an incentive check to the employer in exchange for that employer hiring our registrant and giving that registrant all the benefits they give all their other employees," Stanley said.
The employer also agrees to keep track of participants' income and keep track of the hours during the time the worker is in TRADE.
"The advantage to the registrants is that they also can keep their Medicaid during the time they're in TRADE. And they also get to keep the day care. And those are two big issues for the people that we work with, " Stanley said.
Proctor said she volunteered for the program because of the benefits.
"If you had gotten just a straight-out job, and then you went to your case worker and said `I got a job now,' [the benefits] just cut off," she said. "It kind of puts you in the red."
With the program, the transition period takes up to nine months, enough time to get the recipient settled and secure in a new job before taking the safety net away, social services officials say. "When you get into [TRADE], you get the feeling that you're letting go of the hand that's been holding you up," Proctor said. "At first, it's scary. You're cutting all the benefits off. But then you have to ask, do I really want to keep this forever?"
Stanley said follow-up studies of the 19 former TRADE participants show that most of them have kept jobs with the same companies where they were placed while in the program. Only two members have returned to ADC, one of them to pursue her education. The other still has a part-time job.
"Once they complete TRADE, they don't usually come back. Their jobs are pretty secure," Stanley said. The results are heartening in view of the high rate of reapplications to the Aid to Dependent Children program.
Approximately 86.2 percent of all applications to ADC in Roanoke are reapplications from those who had attempted to re-enter the work force on their own and found they could not survive.
The program is not perfect, however. Job security depends on the employer after the TRADE program is officially over and the former recipient is on his or her own.
Cynthia Manns, 33, and her 11-year-old daughter were welfare recipients for more than 10 years. Last year, Manns joined the TRADE program and found a job. This year, Manns is on the brink of returning to public assistance once again.
Manns' employer, Conrad Claytor of Valley Podiatry, cut her hours when her TRADE term expired. While she was on the program, Manns was making $666 a month. Now she makes $435 a month.
Claytor said his circumstances just didn't call for Manns' services any more on a full-time basis.
Although Manns said she does not regret having gone through the program and is grateful for the skills she learned from it, she is slightly disenchanted.
"It's just been hard. I've been trying to be nice, to do what's right, to dress good going to work every day, to feel good about myself. And when the show is over, it don't add up to anything much."
Manns says she doesn't want to reapply for aid and is combing the newspapers for other job opportunities, but if she isn't successful, she may end up back on the dole.
Regardless of the success Proctor and others have had in TRADE, others seem to be more reluctant to give up their safety net. Although TRADE is available to all 471 Aid to Dependent Children recipients in Roanoke, only six people are enrolled in the program.
"Some of our people are in school, and we're working toward referring them to TRADE. I really can't see why there aren't more people in TRADE except that they've got to want to be ready to go to work."
Stanley said the program finds jobs for recipients through a contract with the Jobs Training Partnership and the Fifth District Employment and Training Consortium.
Stanley said the consortium tests applicants to find out what kind of work the person is interested in doing. The consortium then contacts potential employers in that particular field.
Sometimes clients find their own employer who will hire them through TRADE. Manns, for example, told her employer about the program when she went to the interview.
Claytor said he thought TRADE was an effective program.
"Cindy . . . would probably have gained employment on her own merit. They really prepare them very well, her resume was top-notch, her interview went very good. The fact that they add an incentive to train the applicant was just another plus in her favor."
Sometimes employers will approach the program looking for potential employees. Proctor's employer, Paula Kraus, was one of these.
"I was more willing to go to JTPA because I knew these were people who were in a position where they wanted to work, and they were more likely to be here and interested in improving themselves," Kraus said.
"We had contacted [the Virginia Employment Commission] before, because we thought that'd be another place to get people who are really looking to work, but most of the candidates just didn't show up."
Prospective employers who look to the program are often small businesses, Stanley said.
"The large companies usually don't want to do it. It's the small-business person who is interested in getting the incentive," she said.
by CNB