Minors must live with an adult. EWs are also often involved in arranging child care, transportation, and treatment for mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence. Finally, workload has increased because of expansions in the WTW program. Under CalWORKs, a Greater Avenues to Independence program that often included only a quarter of all adults receiving assistance was made nearly universal. Doing so requires being able to make the following assessments in terms of the CalWORKs program model shown in the figure.
Delays can indicate insufficient capacity.
If this work is being done by county employees, it in-creases the need for additional staff. Finally, beyond the staffing issues related to the model shown in the figure, the ways in which counties organize to provide services have staffing implications. For example, many counties are moving toward team concepts in which high-risk families are handled by teams of employees from welfare, child welfare staff, probation, and public health. Arranging for such complicated handoffs requires additional staff time. If, however, the short-term surge has been handled and the caseload continues to decline, there may be an opportunity to reassign staff or cut positions.