Random assignment of approximately 40% to program group (with access to PESD services) and the remaining 60% to a control group (with access to regular JOBS services).

Social/Support Services: Child care provided for AFDC recipients and recipients who leave AFDC through earnings disregards, direct services, provider contracts, vouchers, cash payments, or earnings disregards. Eligible recipients are entitled to 12 months of transitional care.
Transitional Medicaid provided for 12 months for eligible recipients who leave AFDC for employment.
Extended case management is a key component of PESD at all sites. Case managers can serve clients for up to 2 years to help them stay employed or become re-employed, regardless of AFDC status (six months in Riverside). Case management includes ongoing monitoring, support, counseling, and advice; mediating with agencies to resolve eligibility for financial benefits; helping find jobs; and providing financial support to cover temporary expenses.
All programs allowed for increases in the amounts of payments that can be made to cover expenses associated with employment, job search, and emergencies that could affect employment. In all sites, case managers were given greater latitude in determining what kinds of expenses could be paid for participants.

Telephone survey conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

"A large minority of those who found jobs had trouble maintaining stable employment" (p.1).

"Many clients found jobs with low pay, poor benefits, and little room for growth" (p.1).

"Most jobs required only modest skills, leading to poor job attachment. Consequently, it was easy for employees to be fired or quit" (p.1).

"Several factors made the welfare-to-work transition difficult… including child care, transportation, new pressures to budget money and understand workplace requirements, limited personal resources and meager support from family and friends" (p.2).

"Six key findings have emerged from the implementation experience of the four PESD sites:
1.) In order to detect and address employment- related problems, case managers need to establish rapid contact with clients and maintain ongoing communication;
2.)The most valued intervention is the personal attention of case managers;
3.) Case managers must be creative and flexible to gain clients’ trust;
4.) Child care funding and availability must be accessible to clients;
5.) Effective communication within the bureaucracy is important; and
6.) Promoting reemployment requires balancing persuasion and pressure" (pp. 10-11).

"Establishing contact with [newly employed AFDC recipients] was especially important because the concept of post-employment services was new in all four sites, and case managers were the only source of information about what PESD had to offer.

"Four factors affected the continuity of clients’ employment:
1.) The financial and non-financial costs associated with the transition from welfare to work;
2.) The performance, cultural, and emotional demands of the workplace;
3.) The challenge of dealing with negative reactions from family and friends; and
4.) The difficulties of finding another job" (p.xiv).

"Methods for dealing with clients’ employment-related problems can be grouped into four broad activities:
1.) Counseling, advice, and moral support;
2.) Help paying expenses;
3.) Help accessing benefits; and
4.) Reemployment services, including job search and development" (p.xv).

Extensive outreach and rapid follow up enabled program case managers to reach most clients and establish prompt communication.

Service needs of clients vary, but PESD programs did not effectively target clients with different needs for different types or levels of services.

Overall levels of employment among sample members (in both the program and control groups) were fairly high in all four sites. Welfare receipt among sample members varied across the sites and reflected the high level of generosity of the welfare programs in each site.

Overall, the programs had little effect on increasing earnings, reducing welfare, or promoting the move toward self-sufficiency. Many control group members were able to maintain high levels of employment, partly due to strong economic conditions and partly because programs enrolled less disadvantaged individuals into the demonstration. Obtaining program impacts under such conditions can be difficult.

The program context and services available to control group members influenced the magnitude of estimated program impacts.

"Extended case management is a promising way to support job retention. PESD shows that it is feasible to provide case management services to newly employed welfare recipients. However not all clients need or use these services, and the challenge is to identify those who will benefit from them" (p.2).

Simplifying service delivery mechanisms can enable program staff to focus more on service coordination and on meeting other needs of clients.

Programs should form closer links with employers, so that case managers or other staff can help resolve at least some work-related issues.

Programs considering adding job retention assistance to their current set of services should carefully assess what services their programs currently provide and make changes to fill gaps in their current system