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December 11,1995
- The BEST program: public assistance recipients gain experience and training;
private companies gain workers
In a spacious warehouse filled with thousands of small plants, Sherry
Forester set up her work table at one end and quickly moved from plant
to plant. She was debudding" mum plants, taking buds off the lower
part of the mums in order to let the remaining buds on the top and sides
grow bigger and fuller flowers.
I love it here," Forester said of her work at Moncrief's Greenhouse just outside Baxter Springs in far southeast Kansas. It's relaxing for me. I get a clear head; I let myself think."
For the last nine years, Forester has received public assistance through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. Until last month, she had not worked during that span, but cared for her three children, now ages 11, 10 and 5. Her husband, James, is disabled and cannot work.
But Forester's stint on public assistance, which she called depressing," is gradually ending as she begins a new job and brings home a paycheck.
Forester, who lives in Columbus, is the first public assistance recipient in Kansas to become part of what is being called the BEST program, or Building Employment Success Together.
Under BEST, the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services develops work experience sites for public assistance beneficiaries with private businesses across Kansas. The primary goal of BEST is to give recipients a work environment that will teach work skills and work habits. Companies do not pay wages to BEST recipients; they provide the training and supervision public assistance recipients need to join today's work force.
In Forester's case, however, the company that chose to bring her on initially as a BEST participant did not wait to even get the minimal BEST paperwork completed before deciding to hire her full-time.
We needed the help so I just hired her," said Stan Moncrief, owner of Moncrief's Greenhouse. I'm all for the BEST program, but truthfully, if they are the kind of people we want, I will hire them and be done with it. Sherry is a very nice woman. She's eager, she's punctual...I cannot say enough good things about her."
BEST is part of an initiative called KANSAS WORKS based on studies that show a work-based system of support offers the best opportunity to help low-income families attain self-sufficiency and escape poverty. It will focus on moving public assistance recipients quickly into employment. Under KANSAS WORKS, public assistance benefits will no longer be viewed as a permanent entitlement but as temporary assistance on the path to employment.
We must establish a close link to private-sector employers and help recipients locate work," said SRS Secretary Rochelle Chronister. Moving people quickly toward employment is the most effective use of public funding."
Key features of KANSAS WORKS include the following:
*KANSAS WORKS program participants will be required to work a minimum of 20 hours per week.
*Able-bodied public assistance applicants for cash assistance will be required to look for work as a condition of eligibility.
*Seeking employment will be the first component of KANSAS WORKS participation.
*Education and training plans will only be supported when job search and other work-related components are not successful.
*Child care will be guaranteed for all participants.
Page Last Updated: May 29, 2001