FROM WELFARE TO WORK:
SERVING AMERICA'S VETERANS

April 1997

In response to President Clinton's call for federal agencies to identify employment opportunities for persons on welfare, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has identified more than 400 potential employment opportunities for fiscal year 1997 at VA facilities across the nation. The President's challenge offers VA the opportunity to link its primary mission of serving the nation's veterans with the welfare-to-work initiative by focusing on veterans who are welfare recipients and their families.

VA's Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) and Vocational Rehabilitation & Counseling (VR&C) Programs are already successful in moving veterans from dependency to self-sufficiency by providing job training and vocational rehabilitation. In fiscal year 1996, the CWT Program helped 2,900 veterans become self-sufficient and competitively employed. VA has identified 2,000 veterans who are receiving both some form of welfare assistance and VA services under the VR&C Program, which prepare veterans to enter the competitive job market.

VA's Welfare-to-Work Plan:

• Encourages facilities to appoint local Welfare-to-Work Program Coordinators.
  
• Provides guidance on recruitment, networking, employee assistance and employee development.
  
• Permits VA facilities to restructure positions and to use a wide variety of appointing authorities.
  
• Encourages facilities to recruit graduates of the CWT and VR&C Programs.
  
• Encourages contractors to hire welfare recipients and VA grantees to participate in this initiative.
  
• Encourages VA facilities to host state welfare recipients in training and work experience programs.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown is committed to supporting the welfare-to-work initiative. Secretary Brown will:

• Send a memorandum to all VA leaders, managers and front-line supervisors expressing his personal commitment to the program and his expectation that they will work with local community resources to develop opportunities to recruit and retrain welfare recipients.
  
• Issue messages about the program on employee Earnings & Leave Statements and through the Secretary's Daily Broadcast Message, which is received at every VA facility.
  
• Include articles about the Welfare-to-Work Plan implementation and its successes in Vanguard, VA's official employee publication.

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