Below is a transcript of the above video.
Erin Lukoss:
Hi, I’m Erin Lukoss, the CEO and executive director of the Bucks County Opportunity Council.
Tammy Schoonover:
And I’m Tammy Schoonover, training consultant for the Bucks County Opportunity Council.
Erin Lukoss:
Today we’re going to talk with you about moving under-resourced households to economic self-sufficiency and how BCOC (that’s our agency) takes people to the next level. Are you ready, Tammy?
Tammy Schoonover:
Yep.
Erin Lukoss:
Okay, so let me just start with a little bit about the Opportunity Council. We are a community action agency, established in 1965. Our mission is to reduce poverty and partner with our community to promote economic self-sufficiency. Several years ago, our board created a vision of communities where all people can achieve economic security and have opportunities to create their future story. And much of our funding is from a foundation, but we also have state, local, public, and private dollars. We are about 60% government-funded, 40% private-funded at this point. BCOC has several programs that we consider stabilization programs, including housing services, transportation services, and food. We’re the lead food agency for our county. We’re working hard on ending hunger in our community.
We also do home energy and weatherization services, as well as volunteer income tax assistance. That’s a fully volunteer-run program that helps up to 1,300 households complete their taxes each year for free. These are just some of our emergency stabilization programs. On the next slide, I want to talk about our investment programs, which is the next step. After we work with people on helping to stabilize them, we offer longer-term case management and coaching through our economic self-sufficiency program. That is a long-term strategy to move households out of poverty permanently. That includes employment and education planning and financial assistance to meet basic needs. We have an asset-building program, which is called our ES Match Savings Program. That’s dollar for dollar we match people that are saving for an asset or a goal.
We partner with private banks to fund that program. And then our last program is our newest program: Coaches on Campus. That’s a partnership with our community college where our self-sufficiency coaches, which we call ES coaches for short, are part of the student services division of the college and offer coaching, financial support, and resources to students struggling to stay in school.
Tammy Schoonover:
In our economic self-sufficiency program, which is our long-term case management program, we’re serving individuals that are coming out of generational and situational poverty. We have an income threshold for eligibility under 200% of the federal poverty guideline. It’s important to note that ES is voluntary. People enroll as they’re interested. Participants are also people who are seeking change in their lives and want to make their way out of poverty. You’ll see here that our core beliefs come from the Bridges and Getting Ahead material. We believe that people in poverty are problem solvers. Two things that move them out are education and employment. And relationships are the key to success. I’ll talk more about the relationship between the participant and the coach a little bit later.
And we also know that it takes time. Moving out of poverty takes time and effort, and our ES program is up to five years, and there are certain times when that five-year timeframe is extended based on a case-by-case basis. There is a signed agreement of mutual respect between the coach and the participant. We have an introductory period just to gauge motivation and persistence, and we also offer a financial support plan based on the goals and objectives that have been set.
Erin Lukoss:
We wanted to talk about the benchmarks. So how do we measure success? How do we determine that someone has achieved economic self-sufficiency? And we have established these benchmarks. All of our coaches are utilizing a software program that we’ll talk again about later to measure progress. We expect that all people would be free of all cash welfare subsidies, including food stamps or SNAP benefits, cash assistance, and housing vouchers; that earned income based on household size exceeds 200% of the federal poverty guidelines; that they have a balanced household budget, an acceptable credit rating, or an approved credit repair plan, which many people exiting our program have a credit repair plan in place because it takes a long time to reestablish credit; that they live in safe, affordable housing; that they have a health insurance plan for all family members; that they have reliable transportation; that they’ve established strong social capital and have knowledge of and ability to access appropriate community resources to prevent future crises; and that they have acquired employability skills so that they’ve gained some sort of educational and or employment skill to be able to always access employment in the future.
This past year I realized this slide might be a little bit small, but I guess about a year to a year and a half ago, we wanted to acknowledge people’s progress a little bit more along the way. So five years is a long time to be in our program. We recognize that there are people that we are working with that may not be able to achieve all of those benchmarks that we established, but we wanted to celebrate the progress that people make along the way. And so we created these ES achievement levels, with monetary awards at each level. Some people will progress from level one to two to three to four and achieve graduation, and other people might make it to level three. We still celebrate their success, and we still celebrate the stability that they’ve gained.
And maybe they’re in five years that we’re working with them—that’s the highest achievement level they can gain. And they’ve said, “This is where I’m going to go, I need to keep my housing voucher. I have a larger family and I need to keep the voucher because affordable housing is a real challenge in our community.” And so these are some of the reasons why we came up with the achievement levels. We wanted to be able to celebrate success, so we’d be happy to talk more about those should you have questions about that.
Tammy Schoonover:
Again, these are voluntary, motivated individuals. They have to be a Bucks County resident, they need to be employed or have employment history, or they need to be willing to get employed and/or willing to enroll in an educational training program. There’s the income threshold, and they also have to be willing to meet regularly with the coach. Moving out of poverty doesn’t happen unless there are regular face-to-face phone connections frequently, particularly in the beginning and once the client is establishing their plan. We do, like I said, have an introductory period of 90 days. A lot of assessment is being done during that time. And again, we assess motivation and persistence. The last bullet focuses on Getting Ahead. We do try to offer Getting Ahead curriculum, definitely once annually, hopefully twice annually. In an ideal world, it would be nice to do these on a rolling basis, but for right now, that works for BCOC. They need to be willing to participate in Getting Ahead.
And here’s some more detail around the self-sufficiency coach, and I can’t stress this enough: The coach is a fundamental component in all that we do. Whether you’re coming in for emergency services, stabilization, or long-term services, progress is measured on this one-on-one relationship that the participant develops with the coach. It has to be one of listening and has to be one of trust and accountability. That time and space is necessary not only for participants but the community and the colleagues that we work with in helping participants identify what they need to do to achieve stability— what resources they’re going to need, what action steps are necessary to achieve that goal, and what support they need not only from BCOC but from the community and the resources at large. There has to be insistence on accountability. We do goal plans, and we know instinctively that we’re not going to be around forever, so we want to help clients build that social capital in their community and make those connections.
The coach really is playing a multifaceted role, and I want to specifically speak on four of these. Coaches provide guidance, and there’s a trust there. We’re the sounding board for participants. We want to create that safety so that we can work through some of the challenges that will come up. And I want to share a quote from a participant. She said, “My coach was a great sounding board for me, and I trusted their advice. She helped me move out of the thicket where I was stuck.” And you can picture yourself in that thicket, and if they have someone there guiding them through it, it is an advisor.
We require accountability. That is very, very important. We want to connect people to the resources that they need in the community, to get those linkages connected. We want to advocate, and this is key as well: As clients make their way out of poverty, there are setbacks with basic needs like rent and utilities, but often misunderstandings between other agencies that they’re getting resources from. The coach is kind of that go-between smoothing the way and helping to resolve any misunderstanding that happens. And we step in and advocate and make sure they get the resources that they need. And we’re also the encourager. We’re not really cheerleading so much as we’re offering careful, constructed encouragement designed to help clients stay the course. Effective encouragement happens when the encourager draws on what they know about the individual, their strengths, and their goals.
So much of the work is done through case management. That’s a term that’s thrown around and has been around since the late 19th or early 20th century. It’s a collaborative working relationship between the coach and the participant, and it includes these five elements. BCOC and the Bucks County community have historically been the leaders in providing case management. We know what it is, and I feel we’re effective. And we know that in case management, the key component is that relationship. We know that no change occurs without it. We prioritize services to clients above our own personal thought because we want to stay focused on their goals. We plan, which means we do a goal plan; we write them out, people sign it, I sign it, the participant signs it. We seek out community services that can meet some of the gaps. Again, we advocate and then we monitor. We follow up with clients. We redo the goal sheet. We’re always monitoring and assessing and evaluating those services.
And when we look at best practice elements in case management, this is what we aim for. We want to set the high expectation, and that’s a part of relationship building. We want to make sure that both of us are motivated. They have to be dynamic in their assessment of their progress, and they need to have that flexibility to change when needed. One client said, “I wholeheartedly would recommend ES to other people facing circumstances like myself, but with one caveat: You need to be motivated and really cannot enter the program or stay with it unless you show that you have the motivation to go after it.” We want to tailor services for each client, focusing on their strengths and the resources that they have. There really isn’t a cookie-cutter approach. It’s all client centered. In education and employment, BCOC measures progress in 10 dimensions, and Erin’s going to talk a little more about that later.
But a major part of ES is career development and linking clients to employment and training and educational services. We’ve estimated that 82% of our clients who are enrolled in ES are enrolled in some type of education or training programs, and we can’t do any of this work without community partners such as the community college and the career link. And we also know we cannot do the work without providing emergency services, getting those basic needs met. And another best practice element that is very near and dear to me is the use of mental models in this opportunity to move clients forward toward self-sufficiency.
Erin Lukoss:
A little bit about the supportive services that we offer. As Tammy said, we can’t really do any of this work or help move people forward without being able to provide additional resources. We tap into all the resources in the community, but what the Opportunity Council looks for are things that are missing, gaps in services, gaps in resources. We created the ES Scholarship, which is financial assistance that is in support of education and/or their employment plan—that is, as Tammy said, individualized. It’s really tailored to each participant in the program where the coach and the client go through the budget, look at what is needed in order for someone to be successful, and then develop a financial assistance plan that is approved by the supervisor and obviously approved by our budget, so we make sure that we have resources available to each of our participants.
We don’t take on more participants than we have resources to help them. The Match Savings Program I already talked a little bit about. CareerWorks is a program that we have with employers where our ES participants go through the regular interview process, but we share with employers, and we have a few employers that work with us through this, so people are involved in this case management or coaching program. And so when an employer engages with us, they know that there is support for the person. We make sure that childcare needs are met, that there’s transportation assistance available, all the things that might cause someone to not be able to get to work or not be successful in employment. We try to help them and help work through those things.
Gateway Scholarship is a scholarship program that we have with the community college. It is a special scholarship. We raise private funding for that in collaboration with the community college and offer it only to participants in the ES program. The unique thing about that scholarship program is that it’s not only for the for-credit programs—it is also for training programs and certificate programs. For instance, right now we have people who are interested in office management programs and QuickBooks learning programs. So if they are interested in those programs, we can help to support that. One of the things that we’ve learned in our history of doing this is that those trainings, those certificate programs, are relatively inexpensive, but when people are in poverty or in low-income situations, living paycheck to paycheck, that might as well be a million dollars. And so that’s why we created the scholarship program to help bridge that gap and get people into those training programs and help them.
The home ownership award is up to $1,800, and this year we increased that to $2,500 to help someone with a down payment or closing costs if they utilize that award within three years. I have often extended that an extra year. Sometimes it takes people three or four years before they’re ready to buy a house, but we are contributing to that and helping. And then just some of the things while people are in the program, we offer holiday assistance and back to school. These are things that people will sometimes break the bank or break their family budget for because they don’t want their children to go without. We wanted to create meaningful holiday assistance and back-to-school programs. We utilize volunteers and donors from our community to adopt families and adopt children at back-to-school time, providing gift cards so that we’re still giving our families power to be able to purchase and buy the things that they want, but we’re utilizing the assistance from the community to help meet those goals and meet those needs.
In a couple of new and innovative strategies that we are utilizing to move people toward self-sufficiency, we have partnerships, partnerships, partnerships. That’s the most important piece for us being able to move people forward. We cannot do this on our own, and if we tried to, we would fail. So we utilize all of our community partners as much as we can. They’re the key to community health and wellbeing. So a couple of examples. At the community college, as we said, we are utilizing a new program called Coaches on Campus. That is, our ES coaches are directly on campus and are a part of student services. We are meeting students where they are, helping students beat barriers that may otherwise cause them to drop out of school. With things like transportation, food insecurity, housing (when they’re being evicted), how can they focus on school if they can’t pay their rent?
We’re trying to help mitigate all those types of barriers that might cause someone to drop out of school and then also help them focus on their education and getting more connected to community college resources. We have developed a relationship with the behavioral health and developmental programs department in our county and are working with them on a couple of projects. One is called the STEPS program and the other is called LYFT Concierge. It’s a combination of utilizing managed care funds for case management, or the lingo right now is called CBCM, community-based case management, or Care Management. They, the MCO’s, the managed care organizations are able to pay for the care management, and then we’re utilizing funding from Medicaid reinvestment funding to pay for the other pieces, the financial assistance that people might need.
The Housing Stability program pairs people with a mental health diagnosis and a qualified coach. This is a little bit different than an ES coach but is still working on those ES benchmarks with people. So if they’re people who have a mental health diagnosis, they’ve had an acute stay in a hospital and we are working with them on stabilizing and helping them stay in the community, to build community tenure, to get to their appointments, to make sure that they have the correct resources and people in place as we help them work toward a more economically stable plan and help them move toward self-sufficiency. The LYFT Concierge program is a little bit of Tammy’s baby along with mine. We worked with our behavioral health department to create a program that we started as a pilot, and now it is funded through the managed care organization.
We built a Lyft business contract, and it’s a simple contract to get with Lyft. You then are able to build rides all throughout your area. You could really give someone a ride anywhere that a Lyft driver is willing to go. You can do that, and all it is a simple email or text message to the person’s phone, and they are able to get a ride. If the person doesn’t have a phone but they have a case manager, the case manager can get the text and get the ride set up for someone. We’re able to build equity where people weren’t able to access basic community resources because they could get to medical appointments, but they couldn’t get to the housing authority to get a housing voucher. Or they couldn’t get to Walmart to pick up their prescriptions. Basic things that people weren’t able to get to they now can access. And our county certainly is not different than many others with transportation challenges.
Erin Lukoss:
We talked about how we collect the data and what the dimensions are BCOC coaches track. We utilize an online database platform called Communities to Success. And we track these 10 social determinants of health: income, education, employment, housing, transportation, health insurance and medical insurance, food, parenting and social functioning, and mental health and substance use. This platform combines case management, fund management, and reporting all in one platform. So it is a key to our success. We have been using the previous version of this called Clients to Success since 1994. And within the last few years we have partnered with a company called Next Shift, a software development company to help us bring it up to current standards and to be web-based. All those social determinants of health, it’s kind of a built-in interview process and a built-in assessment that when a coach opens up one of those dimensions, there’s a series of questions that help them better understand where someone currently is, and then that helps us build the path forward.
Tammy Schoonover:
For economic self-sufficiency graduation, each year we throw a party because getting out of poverty is a celebration for sure. And so annually we hold an ES graduation and even during COVID we did it virtually. We didn’t really miss a beat. We have been throwing parties for 26 years and I’m proud to say I’ve been at every one. We want to celebrate not only with clients and staff but with the community. The tremendous achievement that a client has achieved by moving out of poverty, it’s just incredible. Our community looks forward to it. It’s an evening of inspiring stories and you see motivation, persistence, tenacity—all demonstrated. Clients speak, they share their journeys, and it’s quite remarkable.
This is just a snapshot of our 2022 graduates, 13 graduate households, 24 people, nine children. And since 1997 we have graduated over a thousand people. This is remarkable as well. The income at time of enrollment was $14,000, and at graduation we’ve moved up to $50,000 or plus, and that’s about a $35,000 increase in income from the time of ES enrollment to graduation. The average time in the program is about 35 months. And then you can see the types of jobs here that these graduates represented. And you can also see the certificate programs. Several of these are through our community college, so it’s a good partnership.
Erin Lukoss:
So just a little bit about the outcomes. As Tammy just said, we average about 15 annually, and 86% of people who enroll in the program graduate. Some of the things that they share with us is that it strengthened their sense of security and being cared for. They had developed feelings of trust and hope, and they developed planning skills and goal orientation. They developed confidence to achieve their goals, and they gained self-esteem and resilience. They improved their communication and soft skills in working with people. And they gained a career focus and job searching skills. These are all things that we know people need to live a quality life and to gain employment at a living wage for their family.
Kate:
My coach, she had me draw a picture, and that picture haunts me. It really does. I drew a mountain and a huge boulder, and I drew myself trying to push this boulder up. On the other side of the picture, I was supposed to draw where I wanted to be. And that was something that also haunted me because I really wanted to be where I saw myself when I started this program. And I got there and I’m not at that mountain anymore. I’m not pushing that boulder up. I am at the top and I am waving my flag. And now I want to reach down and help other people get to the top as well.
Tammy Schoonover:
I’m proud to say that I was here at the launch of the ES program back in 1996 or 1997. We brought staff together and wondered what this is going to look like.
Mark Worthington:
We were able to get the program started, and it’s really the only program that I know of that succeeds in taking people who are on public assistance and leading them to self-sufficiency and independence. It’s that intensity of support and the constant encouragement that really works.
Nikki:
What’s so special about the program is the care. Something I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older is how much care, knowing someone cares, affects what you do for yourself.
Erin Lukoss:
Our coaches kind of fill that role of just the supporter.
Kate:
It’s a life coach, it’s a mentor, it’s a boss.
Joe:
It was like having a friend.
Nikki:
It is like having the supportive family member there.
Kate:
I don’t come from a huge family. I’m not married. So having somebody cheer for me was really, really important. And I learned how to cheer for myself.
Jen:
I had Tammy rooting me on and telling me I can do it. She gave me so much confidence that just because I had a hiccup in the road that it wasn’t the end.
Joe:
I never felt like I was going to drown or get too over my head. I just felt like I had the proper guidance.
Erin Lukoss:
The more people who are engaged in healthy, productive coaching, the healthier our community will be.
Kate:
Honestly, I’m just completely grateful that such a program existed for me to find my footing and have someone hold me accountable and really helped me reach for the stars.
Erin Lukoss:
People don’t always realize in the ES program is that all along you had the power, but you needed the support.
Jen:
It made me feel like I can do it and I did do it.
Kate:
I think it’s really important that we take time to celebrate ourselves, each victory that we have along the way. I’m going to take this and I’m going to cheer myself on and I’m going to cheer on everybody else. I’m really excited to celebrate the next 25 years of graduates.
Erin Lukoss:
That’s the impact of 25 years, is that we’ve interrupted the pipeline to poverty because once you’ve been coached, once you get on your feet, you’re able to help others.
Kate:
I’ve become one of those people. I’m a resource now for others. It’s part of being something bigger than myself. It’s being part of a bigger picture.
Joe:
I feel really special to be a part of the 25th graduating class, even though this is graduation, the journey never ends. Now, I’m not alone.
Erin Lukoss:
To the graduates, I am just so inspired by all your accomplishments and your hard work, and we are incredibly proud.
Mark Worthington:
Year after year, I’ve heard stories from you that have touched my heart. You have overcome many obstacles, but you met them head on with persistence and determination, and you should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished.
Tammy Schoonover:
We value your resiliency, and former graduates and graduates always have a friend at BCOC.
Jen:
If I can make it, you can make it, but you have to be determined and have strong willpower and believe in yourself and you will achieve your goals.
Nikki:
I know where you’re at now, and you should feel so proud and so excited for the future. I’m an ES graduate, and I’m determined to break down barriers to self-sufficiency.
Jen:
I am an ES graduate, and I am free from poverty.
Kate:
I am a fighter.
Joe:
I’m proud. I’m happy. And even 25 years down the line, I hope the 50th-year alums can feel even more special than I do.
Tammy Schoonover:
As you make your way in considering partnering with an under-resourced individual or family to make their way out of poverty, these are some things to keep in mind. There’s no cookie-cutter approach. Always maintain a sense of urgency in everything. And the third bullet is my favorite. We are the folks at the dinner table and we want to communicate hope, goals, confidence and relationship building and develop a growth mindset.
Erin Lukoss:
A little bit about lessons learned. Tammy, you want to start?
Tammy Schoonover:
Relationships are important. There’s just no way around that. And to develop that trust and mutual respect, there’s no quick fix. On average, it takes three to four years, and the recidivism that we have is about 17%. We did that in a study in 2018, which isn’t too bad when we’re looking at the long view.
Erin Lukoss:
True. We also have learned over the years that one of the most important things to move people out of poverty is to be creative and to allow our coaches and the participants to think outside the box, to think there’s nothing off the table. Problem solving and creative solutions are necessary to help move people forward, and we want our coaches to be empowered to think that way, to have the flexibility to help people and meet people where they are. And we want our participants to think creatively about how they can solve their own problems. And then they can tell us what supports they need, and we’ll help to put those things in place. We tell our coaches all the time that nothing’s off the table and that we’re willing to entertain really anything that’s legal and ethical to help move somebody forward. And Tammy, this insistence and high expectation are your bullets.
Tammy Schoonover:
Again, relationships of mutual respect that involve insistence, high expectations, and support. There needs to be mutual accountability goal plans. Together we accomplish it. And encouragement. It can be hard, but all things are possible with the right support at the right time.
Erin Lukoss:
Absolutely. Thank you for listening to us, and hopefully we’ve given you a little bit about how we move people forward and how we move people out of poverty.
Lynn Jackson:
Thanks to both of you for sharing today. It’s casting a larger vision for ways to stabilize and move individuals into a life that looks like a greater meaning and just really helping these families. It was interesting to continue hearing about the respect for individuals, which is so important to us here at Bridges Out of Poverty. And the collaboration within your community and sectors is amazing. Thank you for this very comprehensive approach to the work that you’re doing in Bucks County.
The aha! Process Getting Ahead program engages investigators (participants) in exploring the realities of poverty in their communities and how those realities impact them. They also explore the causes of poverty, the “hidden rules” of economic class, and ways to develop resources and build stable lives. Getting Ahead graduates build relationships across class lines and often join the decision-making tables in their communities.
