RALEIGH - In less than a month, Wake County will launch a test program designed to help those dependent on public assistance get better educations and jobs; it's the overture for a larger overhaul of the county's social services system.

"We're going to do a program model called the Middle-class Express," Wake County Human Services Director Ramon Rojano said.

Set to begin in April, the model combines job programs with housing services, financial advice and health programs. The goal: moving 1,000 families into a middle-class lifestyle in five years.

"You can't separate physical conditions from social conditions from mental conditions. It's a one-stop shop," Rojano said.

The first participants will pledge to work voluntarily with Wake Human Services to determine a 40-hours-a-week plan for work or school.

Rojano's plan is to cross-train 25 case workers as "life coaches" to shepherd clients through existing programs and also help them develop a job or education plan.To help find jobs or education opportunities for participants, the county will partner with nonprofit groups, N.C. State University and private businesses.

The "Middle-class Express," with Rojano as conductor, is the centerpiece of Wake's push to reform the county's human services department. Human services is the county's second-largest budget item after schools. One out of every four dollars the county spends goes toward the department's programs, which include mental health, welfare and housing.

The price of the model program will be three full-time salaries, but it won't cost the county extra money because Rojano will use existing case workers and staff members to oversee it.

Wake commissioners have made reform of the county's human services programs their top priority for 2008. Last year, 120,000 people -- or about 16 percent of Wake County's population -- relied on the county's human services department for at least one service.

The pilot program draws on welfare reform initiatives of the 1990s that were designed to push clients toward steady jobs and financial stability. Instead of just providing the traditional "safety net" of social services, the program sets this goal for participants: getting off the dole.

Cutting the strings

According to one expert, the theory behind Rojano's brand of unified human services department is sound. But the difficulty lies in the bureaucratic strings attached to federal and state money that pays for social services, said Dennis K. Orthner, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Social Work who helped retool North Carolina's welfare system during the federal reforms of the mid-1990s.

Often, money is earmarked only for specific programs, such as mental health, giving the state or county agencies administering these programs little flexibility on how to spend it.

That makes following the rules attached to this money more important than offering innovative and efficient service to the clients, Orthner said.

"Everybody has to be made to look like the color of the money and not the color of the challenges," he said. "If [Wake County] figures out a way to solve that problem, that's very novel. That's likely to get a lot of attention."

To combat the bureaucratic restrictions on state and federal money, some programs in other states tap grant money from private foundations to pay for reforms.

Wake's proposed program is similar to a five-year-old initiative of Baltimore's Annie E. Casey Foundation that has seen some success. The Casey Center for Working Families program, now in 12 locations around the country, focuses on finding jobs and coaching participants in good financial management. Some of the Casey programs partner with nonprofits, while others partner with local government agencies.

"What we're really trying to do is help folks move toward economic self-sufficiency ... . Employment alone isn't enough." said Susan Gewirtz, program manager for the Center for Working Families. "Empower people to take control of their own finances, and they start thinking about their long-term goals."

Everything in one place

Wake has an advantage other North Carolina counties don't, Rojano said. It's the only county in the state with all its social services under one department. That makes it easier to cross-train case workers, he said, because employees are aware of all the services the department offers and can guide clients from one to another.

The biggest cultural change will be putting the onus of success on the clients, he said.

"What was missing from the policies was the concept of sweat equity," Rojano said.

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