The Child and Family Policy Institute of California supports the work of county Self-Sufficiency Services programs that are delivered principally within the Human Services Agencies of each county. Self-Sufficiency Services support families and individual by providing cash assistance and other financial aid, employment-related services (including welfare-to-work services), and an array of additional services that help financially dependent families achieve independence and self-sufficiency.

CFPIC has worked in collaboration with Speiglman Norris Associates, Berkeley Policy Associates, and other partners and stakeholders in the design and implementation of the CalWORKs Child-only Study. While at its onset the vast majority of CalWORKs cases included an aided adult, over half of CalWORKs cases now provide aid just for the children because the adults have been excluded from cash aid and receipt of services. Concern has been expressed about self-sufficiency status of the parents and caregivers in these cases and also about the well-being of the children.

Report #1 When Adults Are Left Out: CalWORKs Child-only Cases in Seven Counties, analyzes administrative data from seven Northern California counties to answer questions about the prevalence of five major subgroups of child-only cases, the characteristics of family members comprising those cases, and parents and caregivers' dynamics of history of receipt of aid.

Report #2 Barriers to Work: CalWORKs Parents Timed-out or Sacntioned in Five Counties, and accompanying policy brief, Addressing barriers on the path to self-sufficiency, utilize data from face-to-face surveys with sanctioned and timed-out CalWORKs recipients to report on the composition, characteristics, and needs of those households in five California counteis and to address essential policy questions.

A product of Reports 1 and 2, "TANF child-only cases in California: Barriers to self-sufficiency and well-being," by Speiglman, Brown, Bos, Li, and Ortiz, appears in Journal of Children and Poverty, Vol. 17, No. 2, pps. 139-163 (September 2011).

Concerning another group of child-only cases, in preparation is a manuscript provisionally titled, "Welfare reform's ineligible immigrant parent cases: Program reach and enrollment barriers."

Additional study phases, focused on child well-being, are in the design stage. For information email Richard Speiglman, project director, at richard.speiglman@cfpic.org.

Spending on County Human Services Programs in California: An Evaluation of Economic Impacts
This report by Beacon Economics and Berkeley Policy Associates found that county human services programs play an important role in our economy, generating on average $1.32 in economic activity for every $1 spent. In addition, federal matching funds currently available through the American Recovery and Reconciliation Act make cuts in state spending especially costly. Further, the results indicate that the hidden and indirect costs of reducing these expenditures are also substantial. Methods of analysis include an input-output analysis of program expenditures, and a literature survey of the hidden costs of expenditure reductions.
Download the report.