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MFIP Employment Services Manual

MFIP Employment Services Manual


11.3 Unpaid Work: Definition & Limits

ISSUE DATE: 01/2023

Unpaid work must meet participant or community needs.

Activity

Definition

Unpaid Work Experience.

Done to provide participants an opportunity to develop skills and experience increase the possibility of getting a job in the competitive labor market.

Community Service (also called Community Work Experience).

Fulfills a useful public purpose and provides meaningful, productive work. Examples of the sort of needs community service projects may address:

  • · Health.
  • · Social services.
  • · Environmental protection.
  • · Education.
  • · Urban or rural development.
  • · Public assistance.
  • · Recreation.
  • · Public facilities.
  • · Public safety.
  • · Community service.
  • · Aged citizens.
  • · Citizens with disabilities.
  • · Child care.


    • This can include:

  • · Placements the employment services agencies arrange.
  • · Volunteer opportunities that the participant identifies.
  • · Court-ordered community service.


    • Providing child care for another parent working in a community service program.

    Provides child care when another parent receiving MFIP is doing community service work.

    Do not count child care work in this category if the participant is paid for the child care. Instead treat it as self-employment. See 10.12 (Self-Employment: Described).


    An unpaid work experience can occur in all types of work sites:

  • · Public.
  • · Non-Profit.
  • · Private Sector.


    • Definitions of these sectors are available at 10.21 (Paid Work Experience: Described).

    Limitations on unpaid work or community service include the following:

    Unpaid work done for political purposes cannot be part of the employment plan.

  • · This means any work done to directly or indirectly influence voting in public elections.
  • · Child care assistance cannot be authorized to cover hours in political work.

    • Unpaid work can be part of an employment plan only if:

  • · The participant agrees to do unpaid work.
  • · The participant has been unable to get or keep a job in the competitive labor market.
  • · There are no paid work experience programs available.
  • · The unpaid work experience offers specific skills and experience that the participant could not get in other activities that are available in the local area.
  • · The skills or experience will result in higher wages than the participant would earn without the unpaid work experience.

    • Do not place a participant in community services unless these 2 conditions are met.

  • · The participant has exhausted all other employment opportunities.
  • · The participant has been given an opportunity to choose to participate in other work activities.

    • Unpaid work or community service can be done for religious organizations – but it cannot include religious activities.

    Examples of non-religious activities that might occur in a religious setting:

  • · Food shelf work.
  • · Preparing or serving meals for community members.
  • · Clothes closets.
  • · Staffing overnight shelters for the homeless.
  • · Office work.


    • Examples of religious activities:

  • · Worship or prayer services.
  • · Religious instruction.
  • · Attempting to convert people.

    • Periodic assessments are necessary.

    Re-assess the participant’s needs and revise the employment plan as necessary:

  • · At the end of a community service assignment.
  • · Every 6 months.

    • Unpaid work cannot displace other workers.

    See information on:

  • · Non- displacement, see 23.27 (Non-Displacement).
  • · Criteria for unpaid work, see 23.30 (Criteria for Unpaid Work).

    • PREVIOUS REVISIONS

    DateNotes
    08/2020

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