An Outdated Culture Reforms

What an honor! At a recent meeting of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, gifts and beautiful certificates of merit were presented to several individuals who exemplify the success of the Ventura County CalWORKS program. CalWORKS--the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids Act--is the welfare reform legislation signed into law in August 1997.

A tough new policy based on the federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, CalWORKS established an 18-month limit on aid for new recipients and a 24-month limit for continuing recipients, with a lifetime limit of five years. During their 18- or 24-month period, individuals may participate in a variety of activities designed to enhance their employability. Those who remain unemployed at the end of their eligibility are placed in community service positions.

For many people, this is scary stuff. I clearly remember the first CalWORKS meeting I attended in 1997, just after the law was signed. I can still feel the nervous anticipation among the educators and social service personnel in the meeting room at Oxnard College, where someone from Sacramento gave us a quick course on the nuts and bolts of the new program. Afterward, the pleasantries we exchanged couldn’t disguise our anxiety over the awesome responsibility lying ahead.

Change of any kind generally doesn’t come easy--to organizations or individuals. Driving home that day, my thoughts turned to the participants--typically single moms eking out a meager existence on the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Having worked for many years with participants in CalWORKS’ predecessor, the GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence) program, I knew that many of the participants faced difficult issues in their daily lives. Some were victims of physical abuse; many had emotional problems. Some had more serious mental disorders or histories of drug addiction. Others were homeless. A few felt hopeless. Most of them desperately needed education and training, and all fiercely loved their children and wanted them to have a better life.

So many needs--so little time. Could county agencies and educational institutions forge new partnerships with the shared mission of helping families overcome obstacles to become self-sufficient? Could we learn to live and work together in new “one-stop centers,” successfully implementing the myriad new rules and regulations imposed by CalWORKS?

Most important, could we obliterate the stigma of an outdated welfare system by empowering participants to change their own frames of reference from “welfare recipient” to “job seeker”? Could we do it? Would the participants cooperate? Would the private sector be a willing partner? Would this grand experiment succeed?

After a year of working as CalWORKS coordinator at Ventura College, I can answer those questions with a resounding, “Yes!”

Working in the Ventura College Job and Career Center under the direction of Kay Faulconer, my colleagues include the creative, energetic college faculty and staff along with representatives from the Ventura County Human Services Agency CalWORKS Department, the Workforce Development Department, the district attorney’s office, the California Employment Development Department, Public Health Department, Child Resource Development, the Mental Health Department, Youth Employment Services, Ventura Adult School and scores of private employers who support the CalWORKS program by providing work-study experiences for Ventura College CalWORKS students or unsubsidized employment for CalWORKS participants.

Together, the agency partners, participants and employers are truly transforming an outdated welfare culture into a community partnership in which all individuals are respected for their uniqueness and ability to contribute to their society.

So I was honored, at that recent Board of Supervisors meeting, to join the board, the Ventura County Commission for Women and Celina Zacharias of GMAC Mortgage in recognizing several individuals who have proved that--despite the nervous chatter in that room at Oxnard College two years ago--the new system can work. These individuals have made significant, positive changes in their lives and are role models for their children. They are:

* Kristi Richards, from the East County Job and Career Center.

* Kimberly Banks, from the Ventura College Job and Career Center.

* Geraldine Torres, from the West Ventura Job and Career Center.

* Maria Ayala, from the Oxnard College Job and Career Center.

* Desiree Wright, from the Downtown Oxnard Job and Career Center.

* Nancy Holzberg, from the West Oxnard Job and Career Center.

There have been many success stories over the past 18 months of CalWORKS implementation in Ventura County. I am inspired each day by CalWORKS participants and colleagues who exemplify Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of success: “To find the best in others . . . to leave the world a better place . . . to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded.”