EDITOR'S
               CORNER         

LOOKING      FOR WORKERS?

In September our publisher, Jim Bacon, wrote about the success of welfare reform in his monthly column. He wrote about high job-placement rates for welfare recipients -- as high as 75 percent in some places. Readers swallowed it up, then logged on to one of our web pages in record numbers to track the progress of welfare reform across the state. While it's true that people will be placed in nonprofit agencies if they can't find private sector jobs, it's also true that without support from the business community, welfare reform would die. And the support is there, as you will see in our cover story.

But there's more to be done. Reform, which has been implemented in phases across Virginia since 1995, is just now reaching some rural parts of the state. Bridget Livesay, job developer in the Wise County Department of Social Services, is helping run the welfare-to-work program that began in her community in October. A big part of her job is getting businesses involved in the effort.

Managers ask what reform means locally: What types of individuals are looking for work, and what are their qualifications? What type of barriers exist, such as child care or transportation?

"Transportation is a major issue," Livesay says, but not an insurmountable one. Last month the agency learned it won a special state grant covering Lee, Scott and Wise counties. Money from the grant allows the social services agencies to use the fleet of a local senior citizens' agency to help get people to work in an emergency. The department also got a budget increase to help cover day care.

Our story isn't about Wise County, but it is about business involvement in welfare reform, particularly in those communities further along in the process. What they're doing may inspire you to get involved.

"I would challenge employers that the next person they're going to hire, that they consider hiring a person and taking them off the welfare rolls," Livesay says. Companies can get started, she says, by posting job openings with social services departments and with the local office of the Virginia Employment Commission.

Nothing right now? Then consider something like Wise County's job-shadowing program. Livesay wants her clients to look over someone's shoulder and get a sense of the demands of a particular occupation. She's also asked members of the business community to serve on advisory boards or to help with job fairs.

Wise County and other rural communities across the commonwealth are just getting started. But numbers from regions with more mature programs indicate that welfare reform is working. Better still are the individual success stories those numbers reflect. On this month's cover is Lois Burwell, a 36-year-old mother of three. She held a low-wage job, but applied for food stamps after a family medical crisis. At the social services agency, she connected with Gateway 2000, where she now holds a much more promising position loading software into computers.

Businesses will continue to play a pivotal role in these success stories. Livesay speaks for reformers everywhere when she says: "We're going to need all the help we can get."

Leigh Anne Larance
Senior Editor