It s an ongoing process to get folks into stable employment. Many clients are a hairbreadth away from returning to welfare. Barriers to employment can include low literacy, learning disabilities, substance abuse, mental illness, mental retardation, domestic violence, or physical disabilities. These cases are connected to the issue of kinship foster care, she said. We need to have child protective services and family independence working together.
Prevention is a major factor in helping break the welfare cycle.
We must see if we can prevent them from needing welfare in the future. DSS, in 1995, was directed by the General Assembly to help welfare families attain social and economic independence. More than 35,000 families have left welfare in South Carolina since 1995, but complete social and economic independence still eludes many of these families since many depend on food stamps, Medicaid, and child care assistance to make ends meet. Participants at the retreat broke into groups to discuss pre-selected questions on identifying problems and coming up with solutions.