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Bringing it to the Desktop: Assessing Welfare Reform Performance Over the Web

Bringing it to the Desktop: Assessing Welfare Reform Performance Over the Web. By Dean F. Duncan, Kimberly A. Flair, Rosemary Hallberg, Hye-Chung (Monica) Kum Jordan Institute for Families School of Social Work University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Suzanne Marshall

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Bringing it to the Desktop: Assessing Welfare Reform Performance Over the Web

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  1. Bringing it to the Desktop:Assessing Welfare Reform Performance Over the Web By Dean F. Duncan, Kimberly A. Flair, Rosemary Hallberg, Hye-Chung (Monica) Kum Jordan Institute for FamiliesSchool of Social WorkUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Suzanne Marshall North Carolina Division of Social Services

  2. Purpose of the Work First Project • Provide technical assistance to county departments of social services in the development and use of performance measures in administering Work First. • Provide data to a firm evaluating the Work First program. • In order to do this, we developed a longitudinal database. • We wanted to see what was happening to families as a result of welfare reform.

  3. Longitudinal Database • Developed from extracts of multiple state administrative computer systems. • Tracks the experiences of about 340,000 families and close to 800,000 individuals that have received welfare in North Carolina since January 1995. • Data are updated monthly.

  4. Creating the Longitudinal File • Administrative data is drawn from systems that don’t track changes. • We take end-of-month “snapshots” of the caseload and weave them together. • We are able to observe changes and track when they occur. • We are able to provide insight into the caseload that wasn’t previously available.

  5. Database Description • We use a longitudinal—rather than a cross-sectional— structure in order to follow the experiences of each family and individual every month. • Information includes whether they are on welfare, how much they receive, and where they live. • Also includes information on training and employment.

  6. Support to Counties • Needed to provide timely information on changes in their caseload. • Information must be easy to obtain. • Information must be easy to understand.

  7. Approaches to Providing Information • First approach was to present analysis for each county on overheads. • Information was available and easy to understand. • Was not efficient: • It required separate analysis for each county. • Analysis needed to be updated each month.

  8. Alternate Approach • Needed a system that was easy to maintain and easy to support. • Had limited personnel to conduct county analysis. • Could not visit all counties on a regular basis. • Desired an Internet-based solution. • Wanted to include data (tables) and graphics.

  9. Alternate Approach • Evaluated several products. • Many were very powerful but required knowledge of databases and queries. • Target users are sophisticated consumers of information but may not know a lot about software. • Decided on SAS/IntrNet®

  10. Why SAS/IntrNet® ? • Requires a minimal number of “static” or hard-coded HTML pages. • Most pages can be generated dynamically by SAS. • All you need is a browser and Internet access in order to use it. • Easy to maintain: • One configuration file updated monthly. • Uses a version of longitudinal file aggregated by county.

  11. Advantages of the System • Easy to support end users. • Monthly updates are instantly reflected on the web site • Users can downloaded information into a spreadsheet, word processor, or presentation package • Users can create their own graphs

  12. Example of Information

  13. Our Web Site http://ssw.unc.edu/workfirst For questions, contact: Dean Duncan dfduncan@email.unc.edu

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