People in the nonprofit world have long known that the personal intervention from a competent, concerned caseworker can help today's welfare recipients get a leg up. Take Chicago's Project Match, for instance, a private nonprofit program that began in the city's infamous Cabrini-Green public housing project. Once retrained, workers help women develop concrete skills such as the ability to adhere to a schedule or to deal with supervisors. These workers develop a plan that might start out with a welfare recipient taking a child to an extracurricular activity once a week, or volunteering in a class. If the client succeeds in fulfilling this requirement, the caseworker will, like a tough coach, gradually add more activities and responsibilities to the schedule until the client is declared job-ready.
Failure is considered part of the learning process.
If the client fails, the caseworker is there for her to fall back on and will work with her to fulfill a different task or to identify the obstacles keeping the client from succeeding. Caseworkers keep computerized diaries to keep track of the progress of which there is plenty. But the key to the success, says director Toby Herr, is the front line worker. The social work approach isn't just a bunch of squishy New Age psychobabble, either. A 1996 Urban Institute study found that many hard-core cases on welfare needed more time to acknowledge their difficulties, and then to be willing to seek help for them.