Bucks County Opportunity Council

Reducing Poverty, Creating Economic Self Sufficiency

Abstract

Helping families obtain the resources to move up the economic ladder to economic self-sufficiency is a challenge that the Bucks County Opportunity Council has been taking on since 1997. Over the past twenty years, 299 families no longer rely on public assistance through participation in our Economic Self Sufficiency program. Of these graduates, 62 own their own home. With a team of Economic Self Sufficiency coaches, families enrolled in our keystone program develop a plan for education and employment. For up to five years, they work toward the ultimate goal of earning a livable wage, ending reliance on public assistance, housing subsidies, and food pantries -- becoming economically self-sufficient. Our approach addresses the root causes that keep low-income people in poverty. We help participants acquire the education, skills, and employment to permanently leave poverty as opposed to merely cope in it. An individualized, strengths- based goal plan is developed and supported with coaching, counseling, and mentoring. Every plan centers on attaining the education and training necessary to secure employment that pays a family-sustaining wage