Federal Funding for Integrated Service Delivery

Toolkit

Due to low wages, lack of benefits, and inconsistent employment, many workers are unable to meet their own and their families' basic needs through employment alone. The Annie E. Casey Foundation developed the Center for Working Families® (CWF) concept as a response to the challenges facing such low-income working adults and their families. Built on years of experience in the field, the CWF approach acknowledges the problems faced by low-income families who must navigate a fragmented system to obtain critically needed work-supporting services and benefits. CWF offers a framework for delivering key services and financial supports to low-income workers using an integrated approach designed to foster new economic opportunities.

CWF logo The CWF approach revolves around offering clients a set of focused bundled services in three overlapping areas:

Employment and career advancement - including assistance with job readiness, job placement, occupational skills training, education and career advancement.
Income enhancements and work supports - helping clients gain access to public benefits, tax credits, financial aid and other benefits to improve their financial security.
Financial and asset building services - workshops, classes, one-on-one counseling and access to well-priced financial products and services to help clients improve their household finances and build assets.

A key aspect of the CWF model is that programs bundle and sequence services rather than offering just one component, or offering multiple components but leaving it up to participants to discover and seek out additional services. The hope is that the services will have a more-than-additive effect in promoting economic security, enabling clients to resolve immediate crises, acquire skills and credentials, get better jobs, and build the savings needed to prevent the next crisis and build for the future. Early evidence indicates that clients who receive bundled services are three to four times more likely to achieve a major economic outcome (such as staying employed, earning a vocational certification or associate's degree or buying a car) than clients receiving only one type of service.

Delivering integrated services requires well-planned program design, the hiring and training of staff with strong skills and backgrounds, and the thoughtful use of technology and data collection. In 2010, the Annie E. Casey Foundation asked CLASP to conduct a scan of federal programs that could potentially be used to support integrated service delivery in these three areas, recognizing the need to access public funds in order to bring this approach to scale.

The following briefs describe the federal funding programs we identified, with a focus on the components of the integrated strategy that might be publicly supported, the eligible populations and use of funds, and possible issues that might arise. Not every funding stream will be appropriate for every CWF-type program, but we hope that this will be a valuable resource to program seeking to leverage public funding in support of integrated service delivery.

Funding Integrated Service Delivery: Federal Funding Streams At-A-Glance provides a quick summary of which funding streams can be used to support which elements of integrated service delivery

Overview of Federal Funding Streams identifies whether grants are formula, competitive, or matching, who can receive funding, and the administering federal agency.

Full Toolkit compiles all of the program descriptions into a single PDF file.

Program Descriptions

Cross-Cutting Programs

Education and Training Focused Programs

College Access and Success Including Financial Aid

Benefit Access

Financial Services

Assets for Independence (AFI) Demonstration Project

Special Populations

Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) Case Management for Public Housing Residents

For more information, contact Abigail Newcomer at anewcomer@clasp.org