OK. As everyone comes in, we're just giving it another 30 seconds or so before we start because we understand everyone's coming back from lunch. So just bear with us. And we will start in just a couple seconds.

OK. Well, at this point, I don't want to delay their presentation. So I will go ahead and begin the housekeeping, and other people can join.

Good afternoon. My name is Holly Clark. I'm with the CAEP Technical Assistance Project. I will be the tech host for this presentation today. I just want to go over a few things before we get underway.

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And I think that covers all the housekeeping for now. So with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Dr. Carolyn Zachry with the California Department of Education. Carolyn?

Thank you, Holly. Thank you for all those great tips, everyone. Diana Batista is going to be monitoring the chat and the Q&A sections. And if a question comes up that is pertinent to what we're talking about right at the moment, she may interrupt us. Otherwise, we'll try and save a bunch of time of the end for all of your questions.

So today, on our panel, of course me from the California Department of Education. We also have Jennifer Hernandez from the Department of Social Services and MaryAnn Pranke from the Verdugo-- sorry, MaryAnn-- Workforce Development Board, and Diana Batista who's with the Conejo Valley Adult Education Program.

Diane is running the slides today also. We're going to talk about several areas that relate to how we can work together with our other partners for our students, for outcomes, to improve outcomes. And we'll talk a little bit about the CAEP outcomes and barriers to employment, how you can strengthen the programs with co-enrollment, and the importance of partnering especially with social services, that include CalWORKS, CalFresh Employment & Training.

Then MaryAnn is going to give us some examples of what it looks like for GlendaleLEARNS. As we wrap it up, we'll have time for some questions and answers. And I know that you know that I'm sitting outside It's cold in my house, and I have no power. And so if you hear a generator running, it's my neighbors. We don't have a generator. We can do it old school here, as my husband says.

Let's talk about Adult Education Program and the outcomes associated with CAEP. You know what these outcomes are. We want to make sure that we're improving literacy skills that we're helping students to earn their high school diploma or earn an equivalency, and also that we want them to have the opportunity to perhaps move on to postsecondary education to complete certificates, degrees, if they're AA degree, or any other type of a training program that we'd be using--

As we're using the definition of the WIOA definition for certificates and training. Chris, we're always looking for job placement for our students and improved wages, which we discover through our data matches that we do with EDD, as well as that transition to postsecondary, again using data matching and self-reporting from our students.

These are the outcomes that we're looking for our students. All of you know these, and you're very familiar with them.

Next slide, Diana. Thank you.

Now you're also probably familiar with these barriers that your students have. The reasons that your students might not be as successful as themselves or you would like them to be. These include access to health care, physical and mental health issues, living expenses and utilities, especially right now during COVID-19, so many of our students perhaps having their hours cut, having lost their job.

So they're having these barriers of their living expenses, housing and their rent, food insecurities, all those brought together in related to our students who have hours cuts have lost their jobs.

We also have another barrier for students. This is the large one right now because child care has always been a barrier. Right now during COVID-19 many parents have their children learning at home beside them.

And having to understand and get on the sharing technology devices that they have. The other issue that we're seeing is a barrier related to COVID-19. It is the digital divide the ability to access technology. Access to internet

We currently have a student intake survey, and I saw a couple of people in, who are participating were on that group JoDee Slyter and Will Nedderson from Tuston. They both were on a group that helped put together a student intake survey that's going to review technology so that we can get a better understanding--

Sorry. I am not sure why I keep cutting in and out. Let me put in another earbud.

Carolyn, I think you muted yourself. Could you try again?

Carolyn is somehow muted. I think she's trying to work it out. But she was talking about the student survey that many of you may have participated across the state, giving us some of the feedback. And this was some of the information that we got there.

And child care and transportation has typically been a problem that we've had. We've added in some of the newer things that came up through that survey. That's what Carolyn was just talking about students' access to technology, not only devices but also access to the internet.

And then as many of you are experiencing, the lack of student digital skills. So for example, at my school we're using Google classroom. And we're trying to get everyone on board with learning how to manage that.

And other schools are using Canvas and other LMS systems, and the students really need a little bit of training in order to be able to do that.

So bear with us just for one moment.

Diana, you muted yourself.

I just realized I'm trying to read the message in the chat. But if you haven't already accessed that survey, it's still available. Let's see. You can go to the caladulted.org site.

Carolyn, are you able to speak now? OK, she's going to probably check something.

The other thing that was shared when MaryAnn and Jennifer and I spoke were the problems that students are having with living expenses. And many of them maybe have been able to postpone their rent, but they still have their utility bills. And they're still trying to keep up with everything although many times they are not working as much.

A problem with being able to work is not only that somebody services are closed, but also that everyone has their children at home. You're trying to homeschool your children while you're working.

As we heard Brit this morning, with her child in the background, I think that a lot of us are experiencing that as well as our students.

MaryAnn, did you want to add anything to that while we're waiting for Carolyn? Nope. We're good.

Sorry, I was on mute. And I did want to add that living expenses, even though some people are not having to pay their rent, they're really worried because their rent payments are piling up. They're still trying to access assistance and trying to get assistance for a rental payment so that when they do go back to work, they're not stuck with a bill of six, seven months of rent that have piled up.

It's still very much a concern even though they have a reprieve from it.

Yeah, I agree that's probably going to be-- that's going to be very scary for them when they get that bill. The other thing we talked about was food insecurity is across the state. I think we've seen a number of new food banks or different resources like a food bank that have been popping up. And that was something else that MaryAnn had shared in the Glendale area that they have been serving--

And I think you said it's tripled what you were previously serving. Jennifer through the CalFresh System, she's going to talk about it a little bit more. But these are a number of the areas that I'm sure you're having your students experience as well.

Carolyn is continuing to try to resolve her problems. So I'll just go on to the next slide for now. This was part of the survey that we were just talking about, where we ask students to report information about what sort of supportive services would they request. And one of the reasons we're doing this presentation is because we see that they have so many support services that they need. And it doesn't mean that your school has to provide all of these services. We know that you can't.

And that's why we're going to share with you some different agencies that you can connect with that will help you support your students with the things that they need the most.

On the previous slide I had put that the physical and mental health are one of the highest things that students are experiencing, and the anxiety level as the pandemic continues just keeps getting higher and higher.

So public housing and resources for undocumented immigrants, you'll notice that the lettering is a little bit larger. I think that those were some of the things technology tools and internet-- those were things that we kept seeing again and again. So it was really obvious that the students do need support even more now than they have in the past.

One of the things when the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act came with the new Title II-- Oh, good. She's coming back. They put together a program where WIOA Title II would work with WIOA Title I.

Carolyn, I'll let you talk about the work groups.

Great. Thank you. Can everyone hear me better now?

Yes.

OK. I was trying to turn up the microphone and then completely lost all sound. All right.

In California-- this was a couple of years ago. The California had the opportunity to participate in a US Department of Labor National Work Group. And we jumped at this chance to really get involved as a state, and as a big state. California is so big. And I think our thought was, if we can tackle this, the issues of co-enrollment in a state as big as California, then we can certainly set an example and lead the way for other states.

Now I'll tell you, we've been working on this for a couple of years. And we have multiple work groups. I think the work group that MaryAnn and Diana and I are on is probably one of the last ones that's still really plugging along. Our work group's goal was technical assistance and professional development.

And we've been really trying to hone what that professional development is going to be looking like. With participants from across state agencies from Title I, of course Title II, Title III, and Title IV, as well as Social Services, Department of Rehab which is part of Title IV, our goal was to really find a way to align all together.

The big picture was to align all of our service delivery so that we would have, in our case, students not have to tell their story over and over and over. So how many of you have been on the phone, like your cell phone is having problems, or your cable is having problems, and you get on the phone and you tell them what's wrong, and they say, OK, well, let's try this, this, and this, and then it doesn't work.

They say, well, I'm going to transfer you to the tech department. And you get to the tech department, and you have to say everything all over again. Right? And then if they can't solve your problem, you have to go do it all over again, right, to the next person.

So our idea was to not have to have students do that, to have students only have to tell their story, so to speak, once and then be able to help find them services that will reduce their barriers to education.

You can go on to the next slide, Diana. And I'll talk more about what our work group did in a little bit. So we really wanted to look at how we can increase what's called co-enrollment. And that is where our students are co-enrolled in multiple programs and services, again, to help them, those students to reach their goals of breaking down those barriers that they were having to reach their goals in education, to get a better job, to help their students, to learn English.

Whatever their goal was, we wanted to do this so that we could help them help themselves. The next slide.

The idea of co-enrollment in this system is to serve as an all-inclusive access point for education and employment programs that provide demand-driven skills attainment, especially those with barriers to employment. And the idea was that I think we're going to look at our common intake piece on the next slide.

Yes. And one of the areas we really wanted to make sure that we were focusing in on was how to do some integrated service delivery. And what are the common goals for all of the multiple organizations and services that our students or clients could be eligible for?

Well, what we found was we're not very knowledgeable about each other's services. We're not very knowledgeable about all the services that EDD has or about CalFresh or SNAP EBT or Department of Rehab. And they weren't as knowledgeable about our adult education services. So we needed to find a way to help all of us to learn about the services.

When I mean all of us, I mean those of us at the state level, but then also down to the local program, field office, Local workforce development board level. And that's what our team was charged with, with professional development.

So we have been working to put together recorded PowerPoints that will be shared at the state level agencies for them to gain knowledge about what we all do in each one of our program areas, and then those are going to be made available on the-- I hope I'm correct still, the California Workforce Development Board website-- Thank you, MaryAnn.

And they'll be available there. And we'll be pushing out notices to say, hey, these webinars are available. Please go check out what Title I can offer for your students, or please go check out what Department of Rehab can offer for your students.

So we really want these to be usable for all of you. That's what our goal is. We're almost there. We almost have them-- I think they're all done. They're just not all recorded, 508 compliant-- again MaryAnn shaking your head.

They're not all 508 compliant yet, so we're getting there. COVID-19 really slowed us down because many of our agency partners, their work got shifted to other work. And so they weren't able to finish in our timeline. So we've moved our timeline.

I think we're hoping to be done by the end of this calendar year. That's my hope. Again, because we're one of the few groups that is still meeting.

The idea, though, is that if you know about all the services that your students could be eligible for, then we would reduce those barriers to employment. And we want to make sure that as those students enter the AJCC, that AJCC, especially at the AJCC, that those individuals that are working there know all about Department of Rehab, adult education, Wagner-Peyser, EDD, and all those services.

The key to this co-enrollment piece of ours was really to get that knowledge down to those local levels, to the Workforce Development Boards, AJCCs, to our adult schools so that we have a greater understanding of what our partners are doing. Next slide.

So some of the key concepts that we were really looking at was where to create a delivery system that is focused on how can we improve our programs and help to change the status quo for our students. We didn't want to state how our students just stay where they were. We want our students to improve. And we want to be able to have them have access to many programs.

I know that Jennifer is going to talk a little later about a couple of programs that I think we underutilized for our students, that we don't refer our students as often to these programs, again because we don't have the full knowledge base about them.

The next slide. One of the areas that was undertaken in this whole big project was to look at our intake forms for all of our different programs. I can't remember the agency. They've done some work for four CAEP. Who did the research starts with an H, can't remember it.

Hanover Research. Thank you. Hanover.

Yeah, Hanover. Hanover Research, we had Hanover take everyone's-- go back one slide, Diana-- take everyone's intake forms and look at all of the data points that are in those. There were thousands of data points. They were looking for the common data points that we all have.

So of course, personal identifying information we all have. But we wanted to find a way to ensure that we're asking for that information in the same orders so we can develop a common intake and referral form that we're all using. That is still in process.

And I think we're getting there. And I don't know if Jennifer's going to talk at all about-- perhaps at some point, we're going to get to something called CalWIRE which will allow for all of this to take place in an online environment and really streamline this data sharing between our agencies.

I think the vision really is that we have an adult student who comes in to your office or online, and when you're talking about barriers, they say that child care is one of their barriers. And so you know that you can make a referral for them, or that food insecurity is a barrier.

You can make that referral, and that next agency is going to be waiting for that student to call them. And that student is not going to have to go into all of their barriers again, because all of those barriers the WIOA barriers are all the same. All of those barriers are going to be there, and this next agency is going to know how to help that student with the resources that agency has.

So that's really what we're looking for. That's one of our real outcomes of all of this work, which is probably down the line a little bit due to funding. Next slide, Diana.

The other area that we believe that this will help is not just our students but we think it's really going to strengthen your programs because you'll have a better you have better connections, improved connections within your community, within your local Workforce Development Board region. You'll know how agencies can support each other. And you can also tie-in this community based organizations that provide different services for our students.

So the idea is that it will strengthen your program, hopefully strengthen outcomes for our students because their barriers are being reduced, and they're getting the services and the programs that they need to reach their goals to improve their lives and that of their families.

And next up, we have Jennifer Hernandez who's going to talk about CalFresh E&T.

Thank you, Carolyn. A lot has happened over the last few months. And when we initially started this conversation of co-enrollment, we were in a different place, right, as a state, as a country for that matter. But I think the need is still the same. It really is intended to get at the issue of recognizing that people don't live in silos.

Oftentimes, they are suffering from multiple barriers to employment, and no one program can fix at all. And that couldn't be more true today. I think the reality is that we also recognize that the folks that are coming into adult education may already be in a lot of these programs.

Oftentimes, we aren't gathering that kind of data or for whatever reason in many cases, there is still stigma associated with participating in a lot of these programs. So that's a real issue. And I think the opportunity comes and making it more about the services that people need in building the right partnerships to build that trust and to get people where they need to be, depending on wherever they're starting.

So next slide. The first program I'm going to talk a little bit about is CalFresh Employment and Training. And I think the big thing is that this is-- we call it our little hidden gem, and it shouldn't be a hidden gem. I think part of the struggle is that many of the federal programs are very limiting in that a lot of them have very specific requirements around income and legal status.

CalFresh employment and training is certainly one of those. So this program if an individual is receiving CalFresh and their county opts into having an employment and training program, they would be eligible for CalFresh Employment and Training.

I think part of the opportunity is that over the last two or three years, the Department of Social Services has certainly been scaling up the number of programs. Now we're probably in about nearly 40, or if not more, counties operating these employment and training programs. So there's still a lot of growth to go in terms of being able to operate across the state. Next slide, please.

In terms of what is CalFresh Employment and Training, I think it's really unique in that it mirrors a lot of the services that are also offered in WIOA I. But I think the opportunity is that oftentimes it can create additional resource streams to complement resources that may not be available or available in a large manner in adult education. So that's a real opportunity.

If we had a hierarchy of services that are available through CalFresh Employment and Training, one end of the spectrum is to provide job search. And for better or for worse, it's essentially what it sounds like. It literally is having individuals that do job search in a manner in which we can know how long they're searching for employment.

That's not necessarily as impactful as receiving a coach, but this is a federal program, and so that is one of the services that is covered.

Another is work experience, and that's sort of a step up. There's also opportunities for on-the-job training, subsidized employment, self-employment and training. And then obviously it is very much geared at employment as an outcome. And so education is certainly a big part of that along with job retention.

Again, I think the way to look about co-enrollment and to look at a possible partnership with CalFresh Employment and Training, which is administered at the county level, is to think about what currently do you have in your adult school, what are the partnerships that you do have.

Maybe you work with students that are in CalWORKs. Well, how about you use that as a jumping point to get to know the folks on the CalFresh side? If you want to know more about what that particular county's plan is for CalFresh Employment and Training, those plans are made available publicly. And so I'll put my email in the chat later on so folks can get to me for additional information, or if they want an introduction to your local county partner. We're happy to do that.

Again, it's a federal program. So plans have to be submitted that the scope of the partnerships. And so if folks are interested in working with counties on these particular issue areas, then it's an opportunity to leverage those partnerships to provide these services.

Again, for those individuals that are already or come into CalFresh, and that would be eligible for CalFresh Employment and Training. Next slide.

OK. So more about the specifics. Eligibility for CalFresh, as I said is these programs are administered by the county. And so the person would have to be eligible for CalFresh in order to be eligible for CalFresh Employment and Training.

I think the limiting factor is that a person cannot be receiving CalWORKs if they're eligible and receiving both CalFresh and CalFresh Employment and Training. And the reason being that, again we'll talk about it next, but on the CalWORKs side, we offer cash assistance, but also a whole range of employment and training skill services. And so you can't be receiving both. It's one or the other. And so that's why that limitation.

Next slide. OK. So here's a little graphic that gives you a sense of how this all works. So again participants may be receiving services from a number of different partners. And so at the local level where you sit, you have your local County Welfare Department, right?

And so within that, you also have your local Workforce Development Board and other WIOA service providers. Whether they're Title I, II, III, IV, or maybe they're a nonprofit that is contracted to do any range of services.

And then you layer in the educational piece where you have your community and your technical schools, vocational programs, so on and so forth. You have other supplemental community partners that are doing work. And then you have employers.

So this is the spectrum of partnerships that you have. And I think the way that co-enrollment was intended to operate is to identify how you can leverage partnerships in each of these areas, because again thinking about some of the English learners that we serve in the state and the high number of English learners that we have in the state, it is really critical to think about, well, maybe I don't have the expertise in developing a program that will meet the needs of a particular community.

Maybe it's a language issue, maybe it's a cultural issue, that you need some sort of assistance. You can lean on community-based organizations to bring them in and to help inform you and help structure partnerships that make sense.

Well, maybe you live in a rural area, and a lot of the jobs are in agriculture. Well, you should be bringing in employers to help you offer opportunities for on-the-job training or offer a partnership where maybe there's a particular work that you require long hours. And maybe you want to have a partnership where you bring classes to the worksite, whatever that may look like.

So it's about thinking about all of these different partnerships and piecing it all together to be able to provide the most responsive comprehensive sets of services that the community needs. And these will certainly vary from community to community, but the intent is for you to think about them not in silos, but more as a collective to be able to be more responsive to the needs.

Next slide. OK. In terms of how CalFresh Employment and Training is delivered, again the local level is the county. There are many counties that administer their own CalFresh Employment and Training services directly. It's like this tiered approach where maybe they promote a certain set of services that are more low touch, so job search would be one of those where they provide the technology.

In the environment when people could come into offices, maybe people would come into the office, do job search, get on the computer, go on CalJOBS, and look for employment.

Given the situation now, that's not as likely. But there are other low-touch services that are still offered directly by counties. The next layer or tier would be those services that are offered by contracts or contracted partners. So a great example of this would be where a county supports a local organization.

In some cases, they're are local Workforce Board, or in some cases, they're community nonprofit. And they specifically offer the services that are paid for by the county. And so there's a mechanism to ensure that as that partner enrolls people into the program, that they are constantly monitoring that that person is still eligible for those services on a month to month basis and continuing to be eligible for CalFresh Employment and Training. And so that's a really critical piece.

The third model that we have for delivering these services is those that are offered by a third party partner. So one of our new partnerships that is coming on board is a partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities, an organization that operates statewide that has a long, rich history of serving individuals that are re-entering to society.

Folks that have been formerly incarcerated that have been out of the workforce that maybe lack technology skills, maybe lack literacy or numeracy skills, and so they have all these comprehensive supportive services that they offer and the additional support of CalFresh Employment and Training. And so that's another approach to be able to deliver services.

And I think where the opportunity lies for our Adult Education partner could be potentially the third party partnership, but most certainly at the county level, partnering with counties and leveraging OK, of the demographic that is being served within CalFresh Employment and Training, how many of those are in your programs, doing as part of a normal surveying that you're doing in your Adult School, identifying how many of these folks are in are receiving CalFresh and then working with the county to see how you can leverage those resources.

And again we're happy to facilitate that, but it is certainly an opportunity. Now the bottom line there says that 50% reimbursement is only available for cost paid using non-federal funds.

I think this is another unique opportunity. And I don't want to get bogged into the details. I would say the biggest challenge and hurdle of this CalFresh Employment and Training is that it's a reimbursement model.

And so it's really challenging for smaller organizations to leverage the resources because you get paid for the items as you're expanding them. Sometimes that cash flow can be really difficult. However, there is this 50% reimbursement where if you are using non-federal dollars, you get your reimbursement plus the 50%.

It's an incentive to use non-federal funds to be able to draw down additional resources. And so I would flag that the California Adult Education Program, the CAEP dollars are non-federal. Those are state dollars.

Obviously, WIOA II is federal dollars. So we can't use those as a match. So that would be an opportunity for us to really think about how can we be creative to draw down these resources to be able to offer services to students that are likely already on CalFresh and that you're likely already serving.

And so why spend your CAEP dollars on supportive services if you could be more coordinated with the county to be able to meet those needs. So just an idea of how this can actually be operationalized.

Next slide. All right, so let's move into the CalWORKs. It's the tentative program, but in California we like to call our programs something special. So here it's CalWORKs, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids Act.

Next slide. So as I mentioned earlier, CalWORKs has two elements to it-- two key elements. And the first is obviously the cash assistance to families in need. Our families are low income, and typically they have at least one child in the house. Oftentimes they experience multiple barriers to employment. And that's why the second piece to the CalWORKs cash aid, is what's known as the Welfare-to-Work program. And that's a bunch of services that have the intent of getting people prepared for employment, training, education, opportunities, to promote self-sufficiency.

Next slide. So who's eligible? And I will say that the CalWORKs' eligibility is a little bit more complex because there are some very subtle nuances in terms of the eligibility. So again this program is entirely really aimed at serving families that are able to meet various income and asset tests.

And so oftentimes it's children that are lacking parenteral support of care due to incapacity, the death, or absence of a parent. Maybe there's unemployment, and they're not receiving unemployment benefits. Oftentimes even unemployment benefits will make someone ineligible for CalWORKs. So that gives you a sense of the level of income and how low income folks must be to be eligible for this program.

So again, a lot of it is dictated by the federal requirements, but it is a program that serves the most vulnerable. In this particular case, for those that are parents or caretakers that are receiving assistance, they are required to be US citizens or meet certain residency requirements.

Obviously they must be residents of California and have at least one child under the age of 18. So again that spirit of helping families to lift themselves up out of poverty.

Next slide. So I think part of what makes CalWORKs a really fascinating partner for adult education is that collectively it really helps to meet all of the basic needs of an individual. Think about Maslow's hierarchy especially right now, like people are trying to survive. It is not yet at the point of self-sufficiency, but it is very much about trying to make sure that folks survive, the current environment of distress, and uncertainty.

The place where we can get to self actualization and all that, we're not there yet. For many families. And so what CalWORKs does is when someone is deemed eligible, there's an upfront appraisal. And part of that opportunity is if you think about the level of assessment that happens in CalWORKs, A lot of it will get at issues around mental health.

If there is substance abuse, if there's domestic violence in the household, all of those barriers would be identified. It also goes very deep into work history, into education, and trying to go to the next phase of assessment, because an individual that goes into welfare to work will need to have some sort of assessment to see where they're at, like what's the baseline, do they have a GED, what's their numeracy literacy skill level.

And then from there, a plan is established, a welfare to work plan to put this person on a pathway towards whatever their goals are. And oftentimes folks will start in adult education, and thinking about the folks that we're serving in CalWORKs, many of them are English learners. They are not native English speakers. So there is that clear overlap in the families that we are serving.

Another range of services that we offer are what's called family stabilization. It can mean a few different things, but at its core it's really trying to maintain families intact.

So oftentimes we'll have situations where a family is being visited because maybe they have a child that is at risk of going into the children's welfare system. To prevent that, they receive a whole host of services to make sure that they can get on track and be supported and deal with any of the court issues that are driving some of those challenges.

Then we have the whole range of employment related activities. Again anything from education, vocational school, and other sort of education and training related issues in addition to the barrier removal. Again, if a person suffers from substance abuse, being able to support them to get in a treatment program, or if a person is lacking transportation providing for a child for transportation subsidies.

If a person is lacking child care because they are not able to go to work part time or do their studies, those are some of the supports that CalWORKs can offer to help make sure that families can continue on their track to education and training.

That's really critical to think about all of these and collectively to be able to help individuals that are likely already within your student population to leverage these to meet their needs.

Next slide.

Before we go on to the next slide, it's amazing how comprehensive these services are, but you do have one question. Can a person be on CalFresh and CalWORKs at the same time? And I think I know the answer, but I rather defer to you.

And I'm not the expert on eligibility. So I don't even want to answer that. Typically they are, but who's receiving what is a little bit different. Oftentimes there's the cash assistance or there's CalFresh and certain level of services. So they can coexist, but it's very limited. It cannot be answered in a general way. It's certainly a little bit more complicated. So I won't even go--

It sounds like maybe they should go through the application process, and the caseworker will help them. And I think MaryAnn can talk a little bit more about that. Thank you.

OK. Sounds good. Next slide.

OK. So I already addressed some of these-- again I think a unique opportunity is the child care subsidy. Earlier, Carolyn mentioned, or maybe it was Diana, about the reality right now is that many folks aren't able to-- if they're not working in the traditional sense, like going into an office or whatever the case is, child care is still an issue, especially if folks have been able to pivot, maybe it's a CalWORKs student who has online classes.

And before they had the luxury of-- maybe there was a Child Development Center on campus, and they were able to take their child there. Now that may not exist as an option. There is still the child care subsidy system. And in many cases, there are opportunities to still continue to leverage assuming there is availability of child care.

What we've seen in this period of COVID is that oftentimes families are still leaning heavily on child care providers because if they are working from home, they still need care, or if they're front line workers, if they work in the grocery store, like those folks have to go to work to make ends meet. So they're still relying on the child care system.

So it is still a possibility to be eligible and to receive subsidies in the child care space. Availability certainly is an issue, but it can be done. I would say on the transportation, we have continued to see those continued to be leveraged because again a lot of the people that we're serving are still doing some level of employment or have other needs that require transportation.

And then the one I will flag here is some other sort of range of services that we provide. So if someone is going into an apprenticeship program, they want to be a construction worker, we can provide the support for the tools if it's some specialized clothing, like you're in a CNA program and you need scrubs, we could pay for those as well.

So any of those items related to their education and training are covered with CalWORKs. And the same goes for CalFresh Employment and Training.

And I would say that, just other note, that tuition is not considered an ancillary expense, which is a good thing, right, because it can be leveraged from a different funding stream. Or again if we're thinking about the co-co-enrollment context, imagine if you work with your local Workforce Board, and maybe they cover the tuition for education and you leverage the supportive services from social services, there's a good way to-- just a broader range of people more comprehensively if you're picking the strengths from the different programs.

Next slide.

Before you go on, we do have another question. And I think this is a good time for it, is how can Adult Ed use the CalWORKs funds that they get? What services can schools provide that would help support the learners?

That's a really great question. So one of the areas that we've been talking within the Department that we want to best leverage is in the assessment space. So we have the initial comprehensive assessment that when folks come in to receive CalWORKs benefits, they're assessed.

In terms of opportunity, it's maybe more around thinking, OK, how do we partner with students that are in Adult Ed that come into your system to better use, like the costs assessments, as an example, or whatever assessment we're talking about, and make sure that we're working together to make sure that individuals are on this track and that we're working together to keep them on track for whatever their education and training goals are.

Oftentimes if students are on CalWORKs and they're not in the community college environment, I feel like there's a lot of coordination there. There isn't as much structure. There isn't CalWORKs office, per se, within Adult Schools. So maybe that's one way that we can better connect.

There is the CalWORKs association that serves the community colleges. And it seems to be a really good model for coordination around the policy issues that folks are tracking around CalWORKS but also coordinating amongst each other to leverage best practices and learn how to leverage the funding streams in a way that can best meet the needs of the students.

Because even within the community college context, there are different programs. And it's been thoughtful about, OK, well, is the care funding in my local community college, what I should leverage. Maybe it's EOP. Maybe it's the technical assistance, Strong Workforce dollars.

So there's different ways to do that. And I think that the community colleges have figured it out. We've not taken advantage of that opportunity in Adult Ed with the understanding that a lot of the students in CalWORKs are lacking the high school diploma. So Adult Ed is where they likely will start.

And so I think that's an opportunity for us collectively to think about how we best address that.

OK. And a follow up is beside self-identification, should adult schools ask or keep other documentation regarding our CalWORKs students? I think he's probably asking about maybe some of the follow-up data as they progress to the program. Is there an opportunity to share that with the CalWORKs caseworkers?

Yeah. And I'm going to give you an example of how we're doing that later. But I think I would be interested in following up with some of the folks asking the questions to think about how we can maybe dig in into a few places and test it out and figure out what makes sense, what doesn't, and then be able to scale up some best practices. But that's definitely something that we would welcome.

All right. So digging into some of the employment related activities, again job search is a common one, job readiness, skills training, vocational, adult basic education, secondary school. The GED secondary education piece tends to be a really big one. As I said earlier, we do have a very robust partnership with the community colleges. But the reality is that we have to recognize that not everyone will be at the place to be able to enter a community college, or that may not be the direction in which they want to pursue.

So the opportunity is if folks are interested in vocational training, how do we beef up these partnerships with Adult Ed to make sure that families can have these short-term credentials more readily available to them so that they can take this staggered approach to getting where they need to be.

Next slide. I think I mentioned this earlier. I think part of the benefits of the CalWORKs partnership is this real commitment to addressing mental health and substance abuse services. There's a lot of really strong partnerships across the state. I think one of the things that COVID has really made us think about is how do we make these services more accessible when you can't do them in-person.

And so it's really required us to pivot and think-- re-imagine how we deliver services still in this culturally competent way, that's mindful of language. And that's mindful of the digital divide. And so those are things that are evolving and practices that are evolving. But I think overwhelmingly thanks to the advances in telehealth. We've been able to make some progress.

And there's a few things that we're working out to make the mental health services more readily available in a bigger way, especially thinking about communities that are rural and maybe don't have enough providers in the area. And so I think that's a really critical point that we're going to be thinking about how to expand.

Next slide.

We do just have one other question. I'm not sure if this is-- maybe I'll save this for the end because this has to do with coding and data collection.

OK.

I'll hold on to that.

Next slide. OK. So to summarize, then why should you partner with social services? So obviously the CalFresh E&T piece is a really strong opportunity. Again it serves low-income, limited English individuals, many of whom you probably are already serving. The barrier removal support is a really critical piece, whether it's transportation, child care, subsidized employment, tools, books-- you name it. There's likely one or the other programs or maybe even both could cover them. Again not at the same time because that's not allowable.