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One of the most critical roles a community collaborative can play is to engage the community in strategies to achieve the goals of welfare reform.
Community collaboratives can take a lead role in helping their communities define what it will take to make welfare reform a success. They can frame the conversation about what their communities need to ensure parents are working in stable jobs at a living wage and that children are healthy and safe. Community collaboratives can offer citizens a safe, comfortable setting for thoughtful dialogue about the balance between personal responsibility and society's obligation to create the conditions for people to succeed.
The goals of this kind of community engagement are threefold: (1) to help community stakeholders learn what they need to know to help keep welfare reform on a productive track; (2) to mobilize volunteer and private resources to support parents' successful transition from welfare to work; and (3) to educate the general public about the implications and impact of welfare reform.
A possible strategy
Each local collaborative knows best how to communicate with its community. Possible activities include the following:
- Working with the media to ensure that they publicize the facts about welfare, rather than the myths. The public should know, for example, that the majority of current welfare recipients are children. They should know that many parents on welfare move in and out of the low-wage labor market. They should have up-to-date information about barriers to employment. The collaborative could help the local press focus, for example, on the challenges of finding safe, affordable child care in the community for low-income mothers entering the workforce.
- Producing brief fact sheets or pamphlets outlining the basic facts and challenges of welfare reform in your community. Most people still do not know who is being affected, or how.
- Organizing community dialogues to explore the opportunities and challenges welfare reform presents. These dialogues can offer new information and perspectives on what the state plans are designed to do. Collaboratives can engage the business, civic, religious, and service communities in these dialogues, help the public overcome stereotypes about TANF families, help people understand what families are hoping to achieve, and shed light on the complexities of helping families make the transition from welfare to sustainable employment. These kinds of dialogues can also provide a valuable forum for the community to examine its own values with regard to poor children and families, welfare recipients, and low-wage workers.
