Talking Yourself Into a Job

What would 13 mothers trying to get off welfare do with $1 million each?

The women jot down their fantasies in government-issued assignment books, under the enthusiastic eye of their instructor, Grace Mapp.

Cathy Lopez, 32, of Whittier dreams of a three-bedroom house--plus college money for her two kids, a vacation home in Puerto Vallarta and a boat.

Lopez has never worked before. In truth, she says, she would be happy with a job that just pays more than minimum wage.

Mapp, who sports a button proclaiming, “I’m allergic to negative people,” will have none of that. “We may have to work the two jobs right now to save up the down payment for the car and the down payment for the house,” she says, “but we won’t have to do that forever.”

In their efforts to push welfare recipients into the work force, government officials such as Mapp are borrowing techniques and language from the world of late-night infomercials. The aim is to build self-esteem among the downtrodden, a goal that proponents see as innovative but that critics say can become soft-headed.

In Los Angeles County, thousands of enrollees in welfare-to-work programs attend a series of lectures and workshops intended to give aid recipients the confidence needed to impress a recruiter.

The tools range from tutorials on job etiquette to aromatherapy and guidebooks to success written by the author of the best-selling “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Those who need what is known as “Enhanced Motivation” can expect a steady diet of the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

For welfare recipients, these are hard times to be happy. The five-year time limits imposed on aid under the 1996 law kick in next year in many states. The economy is sluggish, and unemployment has jumped to its highest point in years.

As if that were not enough, the Los Angeles County workers whose job is to accentuate the positive may find their own jobs shuffled off to private contractors. County supervisors are scheduled to decide Tuesday whether to hire a corporation that promises to motivate the jobless for less taxpayer money.

So after a hard day of reassuring people who have never held steady jobs that the workplace is not that scary, the men and women in the county Office of Education polish their own resumes and calculate whether they have enough seniority to avoid the ax.

“This is our time to practice what we preach,” says job developer Noemi Uribe.

Positive Attitude Not Always Contagious

The county does most of its welfare-to-work motivating at a nondescript building in Downey.

Bright-colored posters cover the walls. “Be the change you’re trying to create,” one demands, quoting Mohandas K. Gandhi. Another arrays its words in a circle: “A job”; “A better job”; “A career.”

Seemingly every surface--from the room dividers to the pencil-holders on work tables--is festooned with uplifting stickers and cheerful drawings of leaves and flowers. Instructors sometimes break out lavender-scented candles to soothe stressed students.

But the surroundings don’t relax Whittier resident Veronica Maytorena, 26.

It’s the second day of “Job Club,” a four-week program in which welfare recipients learn the do’s and don’ts of the workplace while they search for employment. Reluctant to speak of her experiences, Maytorena nevertheless finds something negative at every turn.

First, she complains, job applications always ask whether the applicant has a criminal record. “Everybody makes mistakes,” Maytorena says. “Sometimes you want to start over.”

Instructor Nancy Kim replies that some companies give convicts a chance; one of her former students, a convicted felon, is now earning $12 an hour at Vons.

Next, Maytorena frets about how one can take a sick child to the doctor while working.

“It seems like you have to choose--money or happiness, or your kids,” she says. “Should we regret our kids?”

The two dozen other people in the class cry out: “No!”

“You may feel bad, and you may want to spend that quality time with them,” a woman chips in, “but you’re getting them a better life.”

“You’re buying their love,” Maytorena shoots back.

Then she reveals what has been fueling her anxiety--she was in foster care and is terrified of leaving her children with anyone else. “I’m scared the things that happened to me will happen to my kids,” she says.

“Hopefully it won’t,” Kim begins, talking about child care centers across the county.

The class breaks without resolving Maytorena’s fears.

Children are at the heart of almost every discussion in the Office of Education’s welfare-to-work program. In the fantasy exercise that opens the curriculum, aid recipients often dream of being able to put their kids through college. During Job Club, parents learn how to tell employers they need time off to help their kids.

In the “Enhanced Motivation” workshop--a voluntary weeklong bout of optimism for those who cannot land work--instructor Elizabeth Kennedy-Lewis asks her four students to write down ways they build their children’s self-esteem, then turn those techniques on themselves.

Kennedy-Lewis, whose previous job was motivating people on workers’ compensation, says she savors the challenges of trying to cheer up welfare recipients.

“A lot of it is pumping them up,” says Kennedy-Lewis, who plays 1980s pop tunes--including the optimist’s anthem “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” on a portable stereo in her class.

Some of the women--and it is mostly women--who come to her turn out to be battered wives, or drug abusers, and are referred to special mental health counselors.

“Some things I hear, I’m just floored,” she says. “I could never be in those shoes.”

Others simply have no transportation, no work experience, no family support structure. Those, Kennedy-Lewis says, she can try to help.

“Most of the time they’re lost and don’t know where to go until you push them,” she says.

Some Experts Prefer ‘Tough Love’ Approach

Not everyone thinks that welfare recipients need bucking up.

“The average welfare recipient needs to be motivated, [but] the motivation needs to be firmer than just ‘I love you, I want you to succeed,’ ” said Doug Besharov, the Joe Jacobs Scholar in Social Welfare Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.

Besharov added that programs must take a “tough love” stance and cited research that one program in Washington state was so welcoming that women moving through it were less likely to get off welfare because they did not want to leave.

“Some of these programs that are really successful mirror the world that the rest of us live in,” Besharov said. “The ones that don’t can be insulting.”

Other researchers say broad-based motivational programs serve a purpose.

“I talk about some of these people as being borderline agoraphobic,” said Jacob Klareman, director of the Rand Center for the Study of Welfare Policy in Santa Monica. “They’re scared of going out into the world of work. . . . These programs are intended to help people get over that fear, and the evidence is solid that people who go through these basic motivation programs are more likely to get jobs and higher earnings.”

LaDonna Pavetti, a senior fellow with the Mathematica Police Institute in Washington, recalled one job-hunting program in which all the participants would gather and applaud every time a welfare recipient landed a job. Pavetti said one woman, who had just found work, broke down in tears.

“You know, for a lot of these women, they’ve never gotten that sort of attention,” Pavetti said.

Maximus, a Virginia-based company that runs welfare-to-work operations in 35 cities, counties and states, rings a bell whenever one of its aid recipients lands a job.

“It does wonders,” said Akbar Piloti, president of the company’s Workforce Services Division. “It’s very touching.”

In San Diego, Maximus contracts with a local day spa where clients can get make-overs before job interviews.

“It’s all services that make a big difference in the morale of the job-seeker,” spokeswoman Rachael Rowland said.

Maximus is the company poised to take over most of Los Angeles’ welfare-to-work motivation program. Last year the company won a contract to run 40% of the county offices that process applications for welfare. In May, Maximus won a bid for the motivational component, with the county Office of Education coming in second. But county supervisors have yet to vote on the contract. The union that represents county employees is fighting to derail the effort.

Maximus is fighting back. Last year, it gave $25,000 to a political fund run by associates of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the swing vote on both their prior contract and the one under consideration.

‘Chicken Soup’ Writer’s Materials Are Used

When Los Angeles County became one of the first agencies in the nation to set up a welfare-to-work program in 1988, it turned to Jack Canfield to write the pep talk. County education officials recall chortling as Canfield, who later wrote the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books, maxed out his credit card while finishing the book and, practicing what he preached, got himself through the hard times by visualizing himself cashing a $1-million check.

Thirteen years later, the GOALS book and accompanying audio tapes are still distributed at every welfare-to-work office in the county, in classes like the one Grace Mapp leads in the city of Industry.

There, the mothers sit at tables amid baskets of paper sunflowers. Mapp leads them through the “10 Keys to Success,” the hallmark of the program. The first key is “Acknowledge the Positive Past.”

Mapp pushes the women to list successes in their lives--from learning to read to opening their first bank account. She switches on a video in which a petite woman who once weighed 428 pounds tells the audience: “If there is life, there is hope.”

Marlo Childs, a mother of five who lives in a Lynwood apartment, is going through the class a second time. She entered the work force in the early 1990s, but just lost her nursing home job and is back on the welfare rolls. She’s happy for a refresher in optimism.

“It helps you focus,” she says. “Young mothers like me need more opportunities.”

Then Mapp’s positive patter again commands the women’s attention. She reminds them to stress their successes. They may think they have accomplished little, but that’s not true. They’ve raised children. They’re working to make things better for their families.

“Are you successful people, ladies?” she asks the mothers.

“Yes,” they reply faintly.

“Say it like you mean it,” Mapp demands.

The mothers keep their voices soft, but their reply now ends on an enthusiastic hiss: “Yessss!”