Healthy South Carolina Initiative

Women work, train to leave welfare behind

by Ruth Orman, Special to The Catalyst

For women who want to leave welfare behind, the uphill road to success should be a one-way street. But all too often it's not.

College of Nursing's Sandra Brown, R.N., heads a program that offers these women an innovative alternative to public assistance. With two classes already graduated, it appears the program, which adds real-world dynamics to job training, is working.

“The door is never closed,” says Brown, the executive director of Innovative Alternatives for Women. The invitation is a mantra for the program, already embarking on its third round of holistic health and occupational skills training for single head-of-household women living in Charleston's Enterprise Community.

Brown co-founded the project under the aegis of Rev. Dallas Wilson, executive director of Agape Ministries, from whose headquarters the program currently operates.

Funded in part by a three-year grant from MUSC's Healthy South Carolina Initiative, Innovative Alternatives for Women begins with job training and then extends to information that seldom finds its way into instruction. Students learn about the workplace culture, preventive and treatment-oriented health care, parenting, sound nutrition on tight budgets, trouble shooting and coping skills, and financial strategies. The ultimate goal is to move women off public assistance permanently by empowering them with the practical and psychodynamic elements of success.

The program, which began in December 1997, has graduated two classes, a total of 27 women between ages 20 and 47. Still early in its development, it is already yielding successful results and unexpected findings.

“We started out focusing on welfare recipients,” Brown says. “And we still are. But we find that there are groups of women who qualify for welfare and are choosing not to get welfare. Usually, they're trying to do that through some minimum wage job, and it is hard to justify not helping them.”

According to Brown's research, 19 inner city neighborhoods, collectively known as the federally designated Enterprise Community, have a poverty rate of more than 45 percent, three-and-a-half times the average rate. Moreover, 20 percent of all those households receive public assistance, and two-thirds of all the families with children under 18 are headed by females with no husband living at home.

Building on assets rather than inadequacies is the fundamental obstacle for Brown's students, whose efforts to change course are often undermined by the very sources of support closest to them, both systemic and personal. Their challenge is to rechannel the resilience, perseverance and other innate skills they've displayed as single mothers, working through the labyrinthian welfare system, into self esteem-building sources of financial independence and social and emotional support.

The program is tantamount to a full-time job, meeting Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for 12 weeks. Late arrivals and missed classes aren't tolerated. The expectation is one of mutual respect in a working group environment that provides an entirely new frame of reference for the women, many of whom have had to scrounge around for solutions in isolation from resources or support.

“They need to be taught in an environment in which they are respected," Brown said, "and where it's O.K. to ask questions and not have all the answers. The messages they got from the school system were critical. Many of them had not done well in school. Many of them had always felt deficient, and they internalized the message that they couldn't possibly succeed. And this is what they believed.”

Moreover, they are often confronted by a lack of support from those closest to them. “The lack of support by friends and family was an eye-opener for me,” says Brown. “When middle class people go back to school, our families are supportive, but a lot of times these women don't encounter that. Their families feed into their feelings of failure. A lot of them lose their friends. They can't do the things they have traditionally done with them. And they also begin to think differently. Initially, their friends may sabotage their efforts, and eventually their friends leave them.”

Which brings Brown to the long-range question she seeks to answer through this venture: “Can we prepare women for the workplace long-term and can they make more money than they did on welfare?”

Brown knows that if the women change their outlook, they must be given some type of long-term support system or risk failure. “They're going to have to go back to what they're familiar with, if they don't have a support system to keep them.”

To that end, monthly follow-up sessions take place with the graduates. Even now, Brown's students return for counseling when the unexpected occurs. The program's abundant returns are based on the rewards of connecting—both interpersonally and professionally—with mentors, friends, and colleagues in the community.

“One of the best things about the program is the network we've created,” says Renee Gailliard, a graduate of the second class and mother of one. “That web of support has to be there for this to work. When you're in the position of being a single parent, you become used to doing it on your own. The network has given me physical, emotional, and professional support...and has reinforced my belief in my leadership skills. And now that we've been taught, it's time for us to branch out and bring our skills to the community.”

The program's long-term vision is located just across the East Bay Street location, in what is currently the old city incinerator, and before that a rice planter's estate. About to undergo its own rejuvenation into the program's main headquarters, complete with day care, teaching, health, legal, and financial aid clinics, it is an apt symbol of the program's goal of an empowered quality of life rising from adversity.

Thirteen local businesses assist in the program's ongoing development: Agape Ministries; MUSC; Bank of America-NationsBank; First Union Bank; Wachovia Bank; Norrell Staffing Services; the city of Charleston; the Enterprise Community; Charleston Computer Center; Moore Computer Center; Habitat for Humanity; Sears; Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough Law Office; and Embassy Suites. In addition to MUSC, other funding sources include the Enterprise Community, the City of Charleston, Heritage Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Coastal South Carolina.

Brown is pragmatic in her outlook for her students. Welfare reform, she points out, hasn't touched rent subsidies or food stamps, “but that's coming.” In the matriarch-dominated culture of welfare and the projects, the shifting welfare foundation must be replaced by something more solid, if the program's preliminary results are to last. Innovative Alternatives for Women is providing that sure footing for its students.

“Knowledge is power and you've got to know what can hurt you. The system that these women knew and relied on isn't there anymore,” Brown said. “We operate on the premise that when the women come in, we will never ask them to leave. If they work hard, they will be successful at this program. We know that for a certain group of women, this place is always going to be here to rely on. We will follow them for as long as they need us.”

For more information on Innovative Alternatives for Women, including the next session, call 958-0078.

Catalyst Menu | Community Happenings | Grantland | Research Grants | Research Studies | Seminars and Events | Speakers Bureau | Applause | Archives | Charleston Links | Medical Links | MUSC |