Public Administrators in Work First Family Assistance Program
The Role of Public Administrators in Work First Family Assistance Program
Competency 1: Summarize the Findings of the Analytical Framework
Designing an analytical framework is possible and is seen because the Act was passed into law in 1975 by the federal government. The aim of implementing the child support policy in all states was to reduce the expenditure of the public on social welfare. The North Carolina welfare is an example of child support programs where the Division of Social Service disburses funds, and 100 counties use the program. Remember, TANF program is a block grant. The assistance provided by the state is for five years only to ensure that the family stays together, and a reduction of teenage pregnancies is adhered to especially because teenagers need their parents guidance and counsel.
TANF program was created after the passing of legislation in 1996 with the aim of improving the livelihood of families with low income and addressing health disparity problems in the U.S. The program was trying to make self-sufficient people and by so doing, the role of the welfare declined and skepticism arose regarding the program's effectiveness. Nevertheless, self-sufficient people needed to be employed, and since the program does not give job training and education to the parents or recipients, it delivers a service that is employment-related. The first requirement of TANF Work First is that they need to be a needy family requiring assistance to care for their respective families. As a result, these families will enhance safety, achieve well-being and be self-sufficient at the end of the five-year program. In short, the program does not want to have children entering into foster homes because it will mean an item of expenditure of the country's budget (The European Union, 2012).
The unemployment rate in North Carolina stands at 6.3% with a population of 102,331 hence, high rates of poverty in the state. As such, the TANF program looked at reducing poverty levels in the state of North Carolina and the ineffectiveness of the program is attributed to the dependence of people on the government. Moreover, other arguments assert that the program has encouraged behaviors that make it hard for poverty and other related challenges to be addressed. Statistics given show that one-third of North Carolina's families below the Living Income Standard (LIS). The program has issues of eligibility especially with AFDC replacing TANF, which had set requirements that worked well for determining the families that needed the financial help. These programs also implement federal government rules and regulations because they want to work together in seeing families stay together, and parents raise their children thus minimizing the birth of children out of wedlock. The other problem facing TANF is with accommodation where finding an affordable, and decent housing facility is a challenge.
The program has seen a drop in the number of cash recipients but the poverty level remains to be high among the recipients of TANF. The reason for this is that it falls on the purchasing power due to the state's inflation rate hence reducing the recipients' purchasing power rate. The research uses various documents to analyze the problem. This corroborates and convergences the different sources of data. Hence, bias is reduced, research credibility is delivered, and researchers develop understanding, meaning is uncovered, and insight into the research problem is provided. Since 1996 to-date, the cash grant has not been increased, and this has eroded the value of the program's benefits to the society and or community. Therefore, the federal government needs to consider integrating vocational training programs for the recipients to help them gain full-time employment. The training offered will help them escape their current poverty line and the cash benefits need adjusting (Fischer, Miller, & Sidney, 2007).
Competency 2: Apply Tools of Analysis to a Public Issue
The tools of analysis in the TAFN program include the address of good governance by looking at the virtues of procedures and rules making administrative behavior reliable and stable. Under the rule of law, universal standards contribute to public administration competence and efficiency and thus, improved rationality about decision-making will increase legitimacy, effectiveness and predictability of public administration (European, 2012). Good governance will also look at the bureaucracy of the organization concerning implementation of programs in North Carolina TAFN Work First Programs that aim at reducing poverty. Additionally, the tool of analysis to public issues will be applied to show the public the relevance of the program and encourage them to participate in them because...
Therefore, they can get steady paying jobs that lead to the improvement of their lives and the future of their children and future generations.
In looking at the standards of public administration personnel, it is critical for them to have a commitment concerning the advancement of the interests of the public. In this case, TAFN Work First Program considers the public interest of the individuals. Hence, it has ensured that it builds a democratic institution where programmatic activities are available at the regional, local, international, and national levels. In essence, the value of these individuals is advocated for and looks at creating a participatory culture in the community. Additionally, responsiveness, commitment, and accountability are advocated in the organization they interact with, and hence self-efficiency is promoted in the community and society (Ammons & Riverbark, 2008).
The training and education given to the public administration need to be purposeful and responsive to a given curriculum and with a coherent mission, they will be able to meet the needs of their population without discriminating. The inculcation with commitment enables the public administration personnel to make a difference when it comes to giving service to other people in the community. When it comes to evaluation of the tools, it is wise to look at what the community or state has achieved from the program. Here, public administrators will consider when the program was implemented and compare with the current time to give relevant information and support it with evidence (Wright, 2007).
Competency 3: Engage in Scholarly Discourse with Diverse Local and Global Experts in The Field.
Scholars in the field of public administration assert that administrative ethics is important in applying ethics due to the nature of the field that gives emphasis to how public administration official should behave when they are carrying out their duties in the public arena. In public administration, ethics needs to be emphasized because it contributes to the value of projects or programs implemented. Regarding TAFN programs, public administrators need to be ethical when performing their duties because it will contribute to the succession of the program in meeting objectives of the program (De Vries & Kim, 2011). The alignment of the topic relates to reducing poverty levels in North Carolina and looks at fostering families where both parents are there to raise the children. By so doing, the children will not be born out of wedlock because values will be instilled in them at an early age and resulting in the reduction of early teenage pregnancies and other health related issues.
According to Sheely, after the welfare reforms were passed in 1996, both the states and local governments gained the substantial power to design and implement programs that would benefit their citizens (2013). However, devolutionists under the local government argue that these programs would be tailored better by public administrators who loom at meeting the economic needs of the local population. Other critics raised the issue of transparency and accountability when it comes to handling cash or funds and therefore, their approaches would limit the access to welfare. Thus, many researchers look at the relationship between the economic conditions of a given state and the exclusion of administrations that have made programs fail. By assessing this relationship, a new image is given to the public administration department that looks at the role they play when countries face economic distress. Ideally, they contribute to the unemployment changes, fiscal constraints, and child poverty present in America and hence, scholars need to give focus to the devolved safety for poor families around the world (Wright, 2007).
The topic of public administration has gained popularity in many public and non-governmental organizations because they are related to the success of projects and programs. It is paramount for North Carolina State to look at how the individuals in the public administration contribute to the design, implementation, and completion of the TAFN programs. Thereby, the methodological approaches applied in this paper relate to looking at online data from known resources like journal articles and books. The information found in these books and articles give clear illustrations on how TAFN programs can be improved and what has succeeded so far. The relevance of the data given is that they show statistics of the number of people and the changes that have taken place in the society with the implementation of the program (De Vries & Kim, 2011).
From the research conducted, it is evident that public administration is applied and not basic since it lacks cumulativeness and the…
