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Arkansas Transitional Employment Assistance (TEA) program has the following key welfare strategies: work requirements sooner than 24 months, lifetime limit less than 60 months, denial of TANF to drug felons, over 12 months of transitional child care after leaving TANF, family cap, diversion assistance, and subsidized employment.
To accomplish the goals of evaluating TEA implementation across the state and its effects on recipients and their families, we will conduct an evaluation with two main components: a process study and an outcomes study. The process study will address the implementation of the program at both the state and local level. Through interviews with multiple state and local respondents, client focus groups, and observation of program activities, we will document the progress of TEA implementation and how it has varied across counties in the state. We will select a random sample of counties to include in the process study, ensuring that we include counties that accurately represent the diversity of the State of Arkansas.
The outcomes study will provide an analysis of the effects if the TEA program by examining clients’ experiences with the program and their subsequent outcomes after leaving it. Linking four administrative data sets collected by the state, the outcomes study will profile clients during their TEA participation and track their post-program activities and outcomes. We will also compare TEA clients’ outcomes to those of their predecessors in the AFDC program.
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