In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded pilot grants to 10 States--California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington--to test innovative strategies for providing employment and training services through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP…

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded pilot grants to 10 States--California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington--to test innovative strategies for providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP E&T). As part of the pilots, all grantees…

This practice brief profiles three programs, two statewide and one local, that provide work opportunities to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients who are participating in vocational education programs. The authors selected programs that combine vocational education and paid work because this strategy reinforces the emphasis of…

Context: Prescription opioid abuse has emerged as a public health problem, particularly in rural America. Purpose: To examine temporal and geographic trends in rates of controlled-release oxycodone (OxyContin) prescribing for Kentucky Medicaid recipients. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was completed in which the state was divided into 3…

This report attempts to answer the questions: do social services help welfare recipients achieve self-support or reduced dependency? can this goal be realistically achieved given the present nature of services, the method of finding out who should receive certain services, and economic constraints? The General Accounting Office (GAO) conducting…

A one-stop resource center in rural Sandy Hook (Elliott County, Kentucky) helps local women find the confidence to move from welfare to work. The center provides adult-education classes; assistance with housing, transportation, and child care; and classes in life skills that build self-awareness and self-esteem. Three women's success stories are…

Morehead State University conducted inservice workshops in home management for 42 social caseworkers in eastern Kentucky. The subjects covered were community resources; family planning; clothing, gardening, and nutrition; and environmental sanitation and home nursing. Teaching methods included lectures, field trips, buzz sessions, questions and…

This paper reports on attitudes toward welfare and poverty among male and female students at a university in rural eastern Kentucky. The area has high poverty rates and low educational and employment levels, particularly among women. A 60-statement survey covering a wide range of social issues was completed by 390 undergraduates. About two-thirds…

This report discusses the results of a qualitative evaluation of the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) project which served over 500 low-income women from 1982 through 1990. The MIHOW project provides outreach services to low-income families in rural communities in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Working in…

Public investment in technical assistance to limited-resource farmers may be completely consistent with hard-headed taxpayer self-interest, because such investment provides a way for the impoverished to raise their incomes so they will no longer draw public-assistance benefits and will contribute more to financing public services by paying…

The paper explores whether the taxpaying public and limited-resource farm families who receive public welfare assistance to supplement meager farm incomes would be better off if some of these welfare funds were used to help the farmers help themselves by more efficient and profitable use of their farm resources. Data from an eastern Kentucky…

The returns that Kentucky can expect on its investments in higher education were examined in an analysis that identified some of the social benefits accompanying earning a degree from a four-year college and established a value for those benefits. The analysis was based on 12 models that were estimated by using datasets from semiannual surveys of…

The new emphasis on welfare reform, self-reliance, and individual accountability and the new time limits imposed by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program have resulted in large numbers of people between the ages of 18 and 24 entering the work force. The three main career options for youth in transition from school to work are…