Through the dissemination of this paper, we hope to develop liaisons with individuals in states across the country who will be pivotal in influencing welfare reform that will drastically affect the lives and well-being of poor women and children. We are working with state representatives from our psychological associations, with other key coalitions concerned with the topic, and with the Public Policy Office of the American Psychological Association. Our second goal is advocacy, and we hope to influence legislators, policymakers, and caseworkers who will implement the welfare reform bill. Each part of this position paper briefly summarizes a special area of concern for women on welfare, such as education and training, domestic violence, work structure, child care and health care, and focuses on translating research into practice with specific policy suggestions for implementing PRWORA. The task force provides information on key areas of welfare reform that need to be addressed, sympathetically interpreted, or amended in the current legislation in order to ensure the long-term goal of self-sufficiency for women on public assistance. This position paper represents our joint efforts to summarize and disseminate this research for state policymakers who will be implementing the new welfare reform bill, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), in the coming years. We formed the Task Force on Women, Poverty, and Public Assistance to disseminate facts and research about women and welfare and the key supportive structures that must be in place for them to succeed in the work world. We are a group of psychologists who have been working in the area of women and poverty for many years as researchers, clinicians, and social policy analysts with individual expertise in the areas of education, job training, child care, health care, housing, domestic violence, and social service delivery. The American Psychological Association's Division of the Psychology of Women has been very concerned with the psychological, social and economic effects of welfare reform on the lives and futures of poor women, families and children.
0 kommentar(er)
