Introduction
While there appears to be ample literature on workfare policies in general (e.g. Piven and Cloward, Reference Piven and Cloward1993; Shragge, Reference Shragge1997; Mayson, Reference Mayson1999; Seccombe, Reference Seccombe1999; Chappell, Reference Chappell2001; Herd, Reference Herd2002; Mitchell and Morrison, Reference Mitchell and Morrison1999; Lightman, Reference Lightman2003; Chunn and Gavigan, Reference Chunn and Gavigan2004; Mosher et al., Reference Mosher, Evans, Little, Morrow, Boulding and VanderPlatts2004; Herd et al., Reference Herd, Mitchell and Lightman2005), research on the Learning Earning and Parenting (LEAP) program in the Canadian province of Ontario remains relatively thin. This qualitative study incorporates the findings of three focus groups conducted with teenage mothers from three cities in Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa and a smaller city setting (that will remain unnamed to protect the identity of the participants); providing the first examination of the adequacy and efficacy of LEAP from the perspective of its participants.
The article is organised as follows. First, the background of the LEAP policy will be provided, followed by a review of the literature outlining the context of workfare in Ontario today. Second, the methodology of the study will be discussed. Third, the findings regarding the adequacy and efficacy of the policy will be examined, as well as how LEAP mothers view themselves vis-à-vis other participants accessing social assistance benefits. The article concludes with the limitations of the study, and general recommendations for how the Ontario Works policy in general, and LEAP in particular, can be modified in order to better assist young mothers in the program.
Background
Replacing the extant General Welfare Assistance Act (1990) and Family Benefits Act (1990), the Social Assistance Reform Act (1997) instituted Ontario Works (OW), a workfare system in the province of Ontario, Canada. As with other workfare systems abroad (e.g. Ohio Works First, Washington Works), workfare, an activation measure (Skevik, Reference Skevik2005) of welfare reform, has sought to contend with the purported rise of ‘welfare dependency’ (sic). Principally, the message propagated by workfare is that social assistance is no longer a social entitlement of citizenship (Marshall and Bottomore, Reference Marshall and Bottomore1992) but rather relief tied to the condition of work (Orloff, Reference Orloff2002; Lister, Reference Lister2003). The LEAP policy (‘program’ used interchangeably) embedded within the broader OW policy, akin to programs such as Ohio's LEAP and Wisconsin's Learnfare programs in the United States, was introduced by the Government of Ontario for teenage parents who have not yet completed secondary school and require social assistance. Under Directive 39.0, LEAP candidates are required to participate in three fundamental components of the program. First, the Learning component is designed to assist parents (primarily teen mothers) in achieving a basic level of education: secondary school graduation. Daycare subsidies, funding for school tutoring, counseling, education trips and graduation fees, school clothing and supplies are ostensibly made available to LEAP candidates to meet this objective. The second component, Earning, focuses on the promotion of employment skills through a variety of employment and training opportunities. Third, the Parenting aspect of the policy is geared towards helping teen parents become better caregivers to their children, demonstrated by the completion of 35 hours of parenting classes. Upon graduation from LEAP (fulfillment of the three components of the program), participants receive a $500 bursary to be directed to their individual education or to be held in trust for their child's future post-secondary education via a Registered Education Savings Program (Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, 1997).
The eligibility requirements of the LEAP policy stipulate that 16–17 year old recipients are obligated to participate in the program in order to receive social assistance. Parents, aged 18–21, are also entitled to the policy benefits voluntarily if they have not yet completed secondary school. Teen parents living at home with their parents (also in receipt of social assistance) may be added to their parents' financial plan (Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, 1997).
Literature review
Although researchers cite that Canada has seen a decline in social assistance usage over the 1990s (Finnie and Irvine, Reference Finnie and Irvine2008) and an improvement in the earnings and unemployment rates of lone mothers (Myles et al., Reference Myles, Hou, Picot and Myers2007), it is important to examine how participants have actually fared in their involvement with workfare. Few recipients, not involved in LEAP, have had any praise for the social assistance system. Herd et al. (Reference Herd, Mitchell and Lightman2005: 73) interviewed one workfare participant that referred to OW as ‘dehumanising, degrading and demoralising’. Similarly, Mosher et al. (Reference Mosher, Evans, Little, Morrow, Boulding and VanderPlatts2004: 3) discovered that abused women accessing OW have had ‘profoundly negative’ experiences with welfare administration, one asserting that OW is ‘misused by abusive men to enhance their power and control over women’, thereby mimicking abuse encountered by a partner (Laasko and Drevdahl, Reference Laasko and Drevdahl2006). What are the experiences of teenage mothers involved in the LEAP program of OW?
As explicitly stated in policy, the purpose of the LEAP program is to ensure that participants become self-reliant or sever their dependence on the state.
The purpose of Learning, Earning and Parenting (LEAP) is to help young parents aged 16–21 years old complete their education and to help them and their children become self-reliant. (Ontario Ministry of Community, Family and Social Services, 2001: 5)
Lightman (Reference Lightman2003: 74) observes that, ‘If the intent is to minimise dependence, then it may be desirable for service provision to be coercive.’ Correspondingly, Chunn and Gavigan (Reference Chunn and Gavigan2004) point to the harsh fiscal and moral regulation wrought on welfare recipients, allowing the government even greater regulatory powers over the lives of the poor. The population of approximately 1,200 teen mothers in Ontario (Chisholm, Reference Chisholm1999), for example, must comply with regular re-assessments about their private lives, demonstrated by the inclusion of home visits in the policy, an experience paroled criminals commonly undergo. While in practice, home visits may appear to offer greater convenience for parents with young children, the intent underlying the practice is uncertain. During a caseworker's visit to a participant's home, she (or he) may be asked where specific items were acquired; who resides in the house (as any employed male on the premises could be considered the family wage earner regardless of his relationship to the mother, thereby reducing the mother's financial eligibility); and why there may be any unreported appearance of excess (perhaps, a car in the parking lot, a stocked fridge, etc.) (Little, Reference Little1994). How is the thrust towards self-reliance demonstrated in LEAP?
Ontario's Family Responsibility Office (FRO) responsible for ‘enforcing family support obligations’ (Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, 2008), among other things has in its purview the tracking of fathers who default on their child support payments. Little (Reference Little1994) finds that workfare policy maintains the male breadwinner ideology by curtailing lone mothers' access to financial support, as any child support payments procured are seized by the FRO and do not supplement the OW benefits of the mother. Moreover, the prerogative to obtain dues (via mothers' identification) of ‘dead beat dads’ trumps the safety of mothers and children that may be in flight from fathers due to violence or incest (Mosher et al., Reference Mosher, Evans, Little, Morrow, Boulding and VanderPlatts2004).
Herd et al. (Reference Herd, Mitchell and Lightman2005: 3) draw attention to a review of welfare reform (conducted by Human Resources Development Canada, 2000) which asserts that, ‘administrators use a range of strategies such as quasi-contractual agreements, case plans, and orientation sessions to scare people away from applying for welfare’. The prevalence of ‘bureaucratic disentitlement’, Herd et al. argue, limits people's eligibility for benefits due to lengthy and complicated application forms, the inability to provide necessary information, and rigid verification processes. The system is unclear about its entitlements and the rules with which participants must comply (Mosher et al., Reference Mosher, Evans, Little, Morrow, Boulding and VanderPlatts2004). Thus, in an effort to ward off potential applicants, the system is deliberately set up to be onerous and difficult to comprehend, let alone access (Herd and Mitchell, Reference Herd and Mitchell2003; Herd et al., Reference Herd, Mitchell and Lightman2005).
Once accessed, the financial allocations of LEAP (via OW benefits) are barely enough to scrape by. Workfare benefits emulate the less-eligibility principle of the British Poor Laws (Piven and Cloward, Reference Piven and Cloward1993), whereby financial provisions are intended to be lower than the rate of pay of the ‘able-bodied’ worker (i.e. the minimum wage). Hence, the once purportedly generous provisions of welfare have been cut to such levels that the Daily Bread Food Bank (2008) reports that food bank usage has increased 90 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area since 1995, the year social assistance rates were cut by 21.6 per cent. Not only is the rift between the rich and poor widening (Fudge and Vosko, Reference Fudge and Vosko2001), but the poor have seen a proliferation in the intensity of poverty, such that, ‘there is strong evidence that such depths of poverty produce new barriers to progression in the form of poor health, social isolation and an inability to meet the costs of transportation and clothing necessary to look for work’ (Herd et al., Reference Herd, Mitchell and Lightman2003: 21). Social assistance access thus generates a vicious cycle of poverty, unemployment and underemployment increasingly more difficult to escape (Evans, Reference Evans2007).
Furthermore, there are definite tensions with the ideological impulse for mandatory parenting courses. As with other aspects of workfare policy aimed at reducing welfare dependency, parenting classes were deemed a logical venture in order to instill parenting skills in young parents, implicitly indicating that working parents are better role models for their children and are more likely to be financially self-sufficient. Indeed, there is research that finds that adolescent mothers lack the parenting information and skills that would promote the social and intellectual development of their children (Dickinson and Cudaback, Reference Dickinson and Cudaback1992; Dahinten et al., Reference Dahinten, Shapka and Willms2007). Huang and Lee (Reference Huang and Lee2008) claim that the single most important factor in predicting children's outcomes is maternal parenting practices.
However, other factors are also at play in the determination of future outcomes of child and mother. Fessler (Reference Fessler2003: 178) notes the proclivity to blame ‘all difficulties a young woman with problems has on her age’, even though poverty has been demonstrated to be a better predictor of child outcomes than maternal age (Brooks-Gunn and Furstenburg, Reference Brooks-Gunn and Furstenberg1986; Fessler, Reference Fessler2003). Dahinten et al. (Reference Dahinten, Shapka and Willms2007) also recognise that adolescent mothers, although often treated as a homogeneous group, present different parenting knowledge and skills at younger versus older ages. Moreover, Silverstein (Reference Silverstein1996) asserts that maternal age must be considered in tandem with the conglomeration of socio-political variables in mother-headed families that create adverse outcomes for child development, not simply the absence of the father. In terms of parenting education, Coren et al. (Reference Coren, Barlow and Stewart-Brown2003) postulate that such education is effective in promoting positive outcomes for both parent and child, whilst admitting that there exists a paucity of rigorous research in the evaluation of parenting education programmes. It is therefore difficult to definitively point to success of parenting education given the wide array of diversity in course material and focus.
In addition, the oppressive legacy of shame and stigmatisation surrounding welfare usage pervades in Ontario society. Depictions of the ‘welfare diva’, ‘welfare cheat’ underscore the accepted criminalisation of poverty, exemplified in the overrepresentation of women in the prosecution of welfare fraud. Martin (Reference Martin1992: 55) argues that: ‘In the case of welfare fraud it appears that the power of deeply entrenched negative attitudes toward welfare itself operates to blunt sympathy and mercy.’ Likewise, Chunn and Gavigan (Reference Chunn and Gavigan2004: 219) highlight the ‘shifted public discourse and social images from welfare fraud to welfare as fraud, thereby linking poverty, welfare, and crime’. With such weighty characterisations borne by workfare participants, do any mothers find merit in LEAP?
Methodology
The study incorporates the findings of three sets of focus groups with LEAP participants during the summer of 2003. In order to ascertain whether service delivery was consistent across Ontario, it was important to include participants from both urban areas (Toronto and Ottawa) and a smaller city setting. The author used convenience sampling to garner the select sample for the study.
Principals of schools (geared to teenage mothers) were contacted to request permission to conduct the study on-site. The sample comprised women only (primarily of Caucasian descent, ages 15–17) as there were no males attending the schools contacted. Each school was forwarded informed consent letters, which were made available to interested students. Students wishing to participate were requested to meet at a specified time and room at the school for a one-and-a-half hour focus group. Participants received a cash payment of $25 in recognition of their contributions to the study. In all, 26 mothers participated in the study.
Focus groups were the modus operandi of the qualitative study. Focus groups make it possible to gather different perspectives, while offering a forum for mutual encouragement and support (Rothe, Reference Rothe1994). The research questions centred on three primary areas: namely, the adequacy of LEAP provisions, the efficacy of the program and the perceptions of the participants. The author used a critical feminist (Rothe, Reference Rothe1994; Rose, Reference Rose2001) and naturalist paradigm (Lincoln and Guba, Reference Lincoln and Guba1985) as lenses for the study. In order to get at the rich and thick descriptions of participants, the author employed grounded theory to analyze the data (Glasner, Reference Glasner1992; Strauss and Corbin, Reference Strauss and Corbin1997, Reference Strauss and Corbin1998). In-depth, semi-structured focus groups were conducted, the analysis of which rendered transferable themes (Lincoln and Guba, Reference Lincoln and Guba1985) valuable in assessing the overall OW policy and its embedded policy of LEAP.
The author's own social location of growing up with a lone mother ‘on the cheque’, has fuelled an understanding of what it means to live in the perpetual ‘survival mode’ associated with the grind of welfare. Moreover, since the study data were collected, the author gave birth to two children while working and completing post-secondary studies. The complexities and harried pace of everyday life while trying to work, raise children, and complete one's studies, make work/life balance immensely difficult.
Findings: the adequacy of the program
In terms of the adequacy of the financial benefits attached to LEAP (accessed via OW), all of the participants agreed that the monetary provisions (shelter allowance, clothing and school supply funding, and basic needs amounts) are entirely insufficient to provide for a family in today's economy. Securing accommodation on the meager shelter amount ($511 per month) relegated participants and their children to dangerous and/or unhealthy housing arrangements. In urban centres, where rental costs have soared in recent years, participants admitted to paying $700–900 in rent alone, leaving a dearth of funds to cover other basic needs. Participants were also uneasy about their inability to save, not simply because the money they receive barely covers their monthly costs, but also because any savings they are able to accumulate are deducted by OW.
Another concern expressed was for the plight of mothers who do not meet the specified age requirement to participate in LEAP (under 16 years old). In this case, caseworkers made the assumption that the parents of mothers living at home would financially provide for their needs and the needs of their grandchildren. However, this is simply not always the case. For two of the women interviewed, neither their parents nor OW afforded them any support (as they were 15 at the time), leaving them and their children exceedingly impoverished.
Findings: the efficacy of the program
In many ways, the LEAP program appears ineffective in achieving the prescribed objectives identified in it. Glaring inconsistencies between what some participants were eligible for vis-à-vis other participants in other regions (or under other administrators) were readily apparent. What some caseworkers made available to their clients differed greatly from other caseworkers that seemed unwilling or constrained from conferring to their respective clients. For example, some mothers received all the ‘start-up funds’ allegedly available ($1,500), a few received some, while others did not receive any at all. ‘What you receive or do not receive is simply dependent on the mood of the caseworker’, remarked one participant.
Sentiments regarding LEAP administrators (caseworkers) ranged dramatically. One of the mothers described her caseworker as ‘awesome’; although for the large majority, caseworkers did not receive any accolades. The reasons for the negative opinions varied, although there were some key issues that repeatedly surfaced. These include: one mother stated she was treated poorly by her caseworker who continually ‘put her down’; another remarked her caseworker was ‘difficult to get along with’ and would not grant her the resources she felt she was entitled to; while others stated, ‘our workers are supposed to phone us back within 48 hours, I think, and they don't phone us back, ever’, and ‘they treat us like kids, they treat us like crap’. Hence, for a plethora of reasons, caseworkers were generally not held in high esteem.
In all focus groups, there appeared a tremendous lack of awareness of what the program entailed: its components and benefits. Most participants were completely unaware that there are three components of LEAP, many admitting they did not know there was an employment aspect of the program. ‘This is our job, we're getting paid by friggin welfare to go to school’, stated one respondent. It is at this juncture where we find the paradox of LEAP, a program couched within workfare policy. The manifest objective of workfare is to steer welfare recipients into work activities. Participants revealed, however, that LEAP administrators did not explicitly promote the employment component of the program (except during summer months). Neglect of this fundamental component is expressed both during mothers’ participation in LEAP and also in the preparation of participants for the future.
What prospects do participants have without access to post-secondary education? While there appears some recognition that education is important (as evidenced by the Learning component), the focus of the policy on the achievement of secondary education without the requisite provisions available for post-secondary education, apprenticeships, and real training (as opposed to the predilection for job-readiness measures) ensures the perpetuation of a pool of low-wage labour undesirable to the ordinary citizen. All participants indicated they wished to continue their post-secondary education, albeit they were aware of the great costs associated with further study. A number of mothers, in fact, noted the absurdity of the LEAP graduation incentive ($500) to provide for future education. Handler and Hasenfeld (Reference Handler and Hasenfeld1991) assert that there is a general consensus that educational failure leads to ‘welfare dependency’. If educational attainment was deemed paramount in disentangling recipients from the welfare rolls, student loans would be available concurrently with the receipt of OW (a lesson tragically learned by Kimberly Rogers, a woman who died during house-arrest for welfare fraud, as she furtively attempted to obtain government loans for university while receiving OW) (Committee to Remember Kimberly Rogers and the Sudbury Community Legal Clinic, 2002; Chunn and Gavigan, Reference Chunn and Gavigan2004). Does the LEAP program thus perpetuate ‘welfare dependency’ by not providing the requirements for educational (and hence, economic) success in the current knowledge economy?
While the employment component was not enforced during the school year, some participants described how they had been urged by caseworkers to find a job during the summer months (if they were not enrolled in summer school). Attempting to find part-time work was not the only worry. Part-time, seasonal jobs require specific hours of work that do not necessarily correspond to the daycare provisions offered at school facilities (offered only during school hours). What were mothers to do if their shift ended at 7pm but their subsidised daycare ran out at 4pm? The logistics of finding childcare (with wait lists exceeding a year-and-a-half) that fully correspond to a part-time work schedule adds to the mother's already cumbersome load.
The first priority for OW participants is the obligation to work. LEAP participants, however, are legislated to perform the tasks associated with full-time school attendance (in a more abstruse curriculum), participation in mandatory parenting classes, while balancing the responsibilities of raising children and the domestic duties of the home, yielding a weighty schedule for teen parents with no relief and limited access to resources. The angst associated with living in poverty (often in substandard housing arrangements), while carrying myriad responsibilities and fears for the future, add to the stress of LEAP participants, not fully experienced by say an older male accessing OW (not in LEAP).
Moreover, the handling of fathers was considered particularly alarming to participants. Many mothers did not wish to keep in contact with their ‘baby-fathers’ (a term commonly used in the focus groups). However, many stated that their caseworkers insisted, upon threat of having their benefits discontinued, that mothers provide the contact information for the father of their child. One woman vividly described her worry over her ‘baby-father’ knowing her whereabouts, as the father was abusive to her during her pregnancy. The mother avowed that correspondence with her ‘baby-father’ put herself and her child at risk of physical abuse, as he desired retaliation for what he perceived was the mother's attempt to secure money from him. Despite such fears, mothers felt coerced to provide contact information (or pressured to lie) so that the FRO could pursue the father for child support. Participants were keenly aware however that all child support payments garnered in a court settlement were not rendered to supplement the mother's financial benefits.
Participants also felt subject to an array of punitive regulations. Every three months, participants engage in re-assessments, a process interpreted by respondents as a means of intrusive questioning about their lives, finances and relationships. These caseworker−client conversations were deemed to be repetitive, with the same questions posed each time. One mother felt the repetitive nature was intended to ‘catch her doing something wrong’ and penalise her for it. Another related that her caseworker insisted she continue living at home (thereby reducing her OW amount as her parents would then be obligated to provide for her and her child) regardless of her desire to live independently with her baby. A different participant explained how her caseworker asked for every detail about her baby-father, including ‘whether he had tattoos’. Although appearing to obtain identification of the father, it is unclear whether these questions might also be intended to elicit information about the behaviour of the mother, possibly demonstrating moral regulation on the lives of teenage parents.
The parenting aspect of the program was considered highly problematic for participants, both practically and ideologically. The compulsory parenting classes were rigidly calculated for the participants in the smaller city setting and in Toronto, although they were not tracked as fervently in Ottawa. Many of the Ottawa participants admitted that they had never taken the parenting classes offered at the school and did not engage in other activities meriting ‘parenting hours’. Mothers in the smaller city setting, on the other hand, regularly kept track of their parenting hours in classes offered at their school facility. The courses offered were highly repetitive, however, using the same content as ones previously offered. ‘Every year, every semester. And it gets boring. Same things, same books, same movies’, one participant claimed. In contrast, mothers in Toronto were given credit simply for coming to school early and playing with their kids a few minutes before class. What is creditable of parenting hours was therefore questionable and varied by location.
The paucity of research on the long-term implications of parenting classes (particularly those offered by LEAP) on parent/child outcomes makes this aspect of the policy difficult to assess. Do parenting programmes (inconsistently tracked and repetitive in nature) serve to promote positive outcomes for the children of adolescent mothers? Or, is it true as one mother stated, ‘I could be seventeen and know how to care of my child, you could be 45 years old and not know a thing about parenting, so it doesn't matter the age’? Certainly, the tension surrounding this expectation is also exacerbated by the government's expressed desire for ‘welfare moms’ to be better parents, without providing them the supports necessary to parent well. Additionally, the program appears androcentric in its absolution of fathers in the parenting process (if situated outside of LEAP, men are not required to attend parenting classes), buttressing the traditional breadwinner model with men solely responsible for financial provision, in this case directed not to the mother but to the government (perhaps as penance for their transgression).
Findings: participants’ perception of themselves in society
Undeniably, participants had a distinct view of themselves vis-à-vis participants of OW not involved in LEAP. Interestingly, many respondents held the same negative preconceptions and stereotypes of welfare recipients shared by the general public. One of the mothers described the ‘lazy’ welfare recipients she was aware of that ‘live off the system, simply so . . . they do not have to work and can stay at home and take drugs or drink’. In contradistinction, however, these mothers viewed themselves as strong women trying to make a better life for themselves and their children. Unequivocally, these women do not classify themselves as welfare recipients as traditionally depicted.
While not espousing the belief that they are similar to other OW participants, all of the participants keenly felt the stigma associated with social assistance access. Many described the negative comments and disapproving looks they have received from family, friends, and the general public as a result of their status, both as young mothers and as OW participants. For example, one respondent described how her pediatrician talked only to her mother (present during a routine check-up) and did not share any of her child's vital health information directly with her. Another mother stated: ‘They frown upon us because we have kids at such a young age; I get judged a lot because I'm a young mom.’ The stigma (also invoked in stereotypical language) associated with being a ‘welfare dependent’ (McLanahan, Reference McLanahan1988), ‘teen out-of-wedlock’ (An et al., Reference An, Haveman and Wolfe1993) or ‘wrong girl’ (Kelly, Reference Kelly1996; Rains et al., Reference Rains, Davies and McKinnon2004) must be eradicated in order to thwart social constructions which reinforce the formation of a negative self-concept in participants, while perpetuating prejudice and discrimination in society.
Limitations of the study
The sample strictly comprised participants from school facilities geared towards teenage mothers and did not include LEAP parents in the general population. The study also did not include individuals from the far North, reserves or remote, rural areas; attempting to locate these individuals might prove onerous, although would likely provide unique insight into the lives of participants in these regions.
Also, the literature needs to be expanded to assess how LEAP participants fare over time. Are LEAP parents effectively able to navigate the system to accrue the education and aspirations many desire? Are they able to garner real employment experiences and circumvent ‘McJobs’ which only perpetuate the prevalence of poverty? A longitudinal study is needed to effectively answer these questions.
Policy recommendations
LEAP is a policy enmeshed within the extant OW workfare policy framework. These policies however ought to be discussed disparately in terms of how each might be modified or fine-tuned to better serve its clientele. Study participants were very much in favour of the Learning component of LEAP, as they felt it provided them with incentives to finish secondary school. ‘I think it's really good. Like, I said it's just like going to school and getting money, it's good’, stated one respondent.
Many participants did not wish to see the LEAP program completely overhauled. Rather, a number of suggestions were provided in order to fine-tune the program to ameliorate its current deficiencies. Suggestions ranged from: (1) publication of a book to be used by participant and caseworker alike, delineating all of the benefits and expectations of the program; (2) the distribution of vouchers that would enable participants to bring their children to activities in the community (i.e. the zoo, museum), allowing them to provide the same well-rounded education that children from other socio-economic backgrounds are privy to; and (3) mandatory training sessions for caseworkers, particularly on how to mitigate some of the inconsistencies in service delivery and to positively interact with clients.
The LEAP program has not been fully implemented as originally mandated (i.e. the Earning and Parenting components are not enforced). Therefore, participants seem to be in support of the program largely due to the fact that these components are not verified, and thus do not impose additional responsibilities that would be expected of them if the program were implemented in its entirety. Thus, the Learning component of the program left on its own, without the substantiation of completion of other components of the program, was favoured by participants.
In juxtaposition to the relatively moderate views towards LEAP, all of the participants had extremely negative views about OW. OW has many flaws, the financial inadequacy of the policy being the most pronounced. Hence, the first recommendation was an increase to all financial amounts of LEAP/OW (the shelter amount; basic needs provisions; money for clothing, school supplies and start-up funds). Participants also addressed the government's penchant for job-readiness activities (résumé writing workshops, etc.), which many felt should be replaced with ‘real’ skills training. Furthermore, access to student loans and OW must be available concurrently in order for participants to attain post-secondary education, and avoid a life of cycling in the system.
Moreover, LEAP does nothing to allay the marginalisation experienced by teenage mothers. The regulatory nature of re-assessments, unilateral decision-making and poor treatment of LEAP mothers attest to continued systemic discrimination of workfare participants, also applied in the media's portrayal of teen parents today. A concerted effort to dispel the negative stereotypes against social assistance participants would carry great weight in helping this population cultivate a healthy self-esteem.
Conclusion
Although imperative, more than monetary improvements are needed to make the experience of LEAP more humane and user-friendly. The way the program is administered, the provisions available and the inconsistencies in program delivery must be addressed for an improved version of LEAP to be realised. The way society perceives people accessing workfare must also be radically altered. Mosher et al. (Reference Mosher, Evans, Little, Morrow, Boulding and VanderPlatts2004: 2) assert that, ‘What is needed most urgently and most profoundly is a fundamental paradigm shift; a shift from viewing poverty as the failing of individuals, and those who are poor as lazy, unmotivated and deceptive.’ The notions enshrined in the Poor Laws, upon which the workfare system ideologically rests, must be discarded. A transformed LEAP program (reflected in a radically modified OW policy) and a societal paradigmatic shift are key elements for mothers to be liberated from the shackles of poverty to garner the education and employment opportunities many so desire.
