Family Violence and Displaced Spouses

The emergence of a strong network of voluntary groups providing various responses to women who are victims of family violence has prompted the ACTION Agency to sponsor ten pilot centers, one in each Federal region. These centers will provide a focal point for the exchange of information and the development of "how-to" manuals. The centers will also utilize volunteers to work in the community both to develop volunteer resources and to identify activities designed to reduce family violence.

The agency has also funded a demonstration center for services to displaced homemakers. These are women who have been forced to move from dependency to self-sufficiency in their middle years. Because they had expected to make a career of homemaking, they find themselves ill-prepared for the sudden transition and generally ignored by services provided by existing programs. The demonstration center will work with both the women and the agencies to case the transition through the use and recognition of volunteer activity.

These two programs are themselves being recognized in separate legislation authorized by Senator Cranstan and being reported by this committee (S. 2759 and section 301 (b) of S. 2570).

Short-term Volunteers

In an effort to provide varying types of volunteer experiences, the agency has developed intensive short-term models both domestic and overseas. The short-term health project is designed to aid, complement, and support on-going Peace Corps projects in Health/Nutrition need areas, or to initiate new efforts in critical need areas such as vector control, immunizations, and the training of village medical assistants, and to engage non-traditional types of volunteers such as mid-career medical professionals, medical or dental students, or other skilled health professionals.

Domestically the agency is giving visibility to existing short-term volunteering, such as week-end neighborhood clean-ups, or summer gardening. New projects, often building on VISTA or RSVP programs, are also being initiated to provide citizens with opportunities to give of themselves for community betterment.

Deinstitutionalization

Seminars on deinstitutionalization are focusing on four areas: mental health/mental retardation, criminal justice, nursing homes, and handicapped persons. The ACTION Agency is participating in an HEW interagency liaison group on the subject. A major study to develop models on deinstitutionalization is being undertaken. The results of this study will provide information that will assist in integration of deinstitutionalization concerns in the agency's operating programs. The new "Helping Hand" program established in new part D to be added to title I of the act includes a major emphasis on deinstitutionalization.

Mental Retardation and Handicapped Persons

The ACTION Agency is continuing a demonstration project serv ing 11 counties in the Harrisburg, Pa., area in which volunteers serve as personal advocates for mentally retarded persons. It is also funding

a project in the Salem-Eugene, Oreg., area which will be administered by a private, non-profit, self-help/self-advocacy organization of handicapped persons. The results of this demonstration should substantially increase the number of handicapped persons serving as volunteers.

Criminal Justice

The agency's previous efforts in criminal justice were based on the utilization of full-time, stipended volunteers who would serve as a catalytic effort in mobilizing community volunteers. A new demonstration is designed to test the processes and mechanisms among community groups and elected and appointed officials in developing a program emphasizing the cooperative public and private voluntary organization approach. Pilot projects will be funded in three cities. Economic Development/Income

A planning grant has been awarded to design a program to use volunteers in job development and placement programs for low-income people. The grant will also determine the kind of local conditions. necessary to launch a successful program. A "how-to" manual will be developed as part of a funded project.

Energy

The primary purpose of the energy demonstration is the development of a model system for self-help community efforts to conserve energy by disseminating information to those requesting it. Training materials and a modest training center are being designed to prepare volunteers to serve in programs in energy conservation.

Office of Voluntary Citizen Participation

To increase the Government's ability to relate to the private voluntary sector, the ACTION Agency recently established the Office of Voluntary Citizen Participation (OVCP). This reorganization of formerly disparate Agency functions is intended to provide an integrated base from which to promote, encourage, and advocate voluntary action in the United States and overseas. OVCP will utilize the experiences of voluntary groups which meet national and international challenges consistent with the agency's commitment to meet basic human needs. This Office will also permit the agency to take full advantage of its unique ability to act as a focal point for domestic and international communication, coordination, and assistance to national as well as international voluntary service programs.

The major missions of the Office of Voluntary Citizen Participation are to advocate the continued growth of volunteering in its many manifestations; participate with other agencies and organizations to foster self-sufficiency of the private volunteer effort; cooperate with other Federal agencies to guard voluntary citizen participation from inadvertent government interference; and stimulate and promote intergovernmental cooperation in the effective use of volunteers.

To accomplish these objectives, the following Agency functions have been brought together as the initial components of OVCP:

Program Operations Division:

Statewide offices-The State volunteer services coordinator program is expected by the Agency to be a major stimulus in developing and strengthening a partnership among State and local agencies and private volunteer organizations. Through skill development and information sharing, these groups can be better equipped to respond to the basic human needs of the community. With this partnership, the statewide program has been a catalyst to provide and encourage access for the people to their government.

Minigrant program-This program provides perhaps the most effective way to demonstrate what can happen when small amounts of money are made available to local groups in response to a specific human need. Grants ranging from $300 to $5,000 are awarded to local, public and nonprofit organizations to mobilize part-time volunteers to work on basic human needs areas, social, and environmental problems.

Interagency cooperation-This program aims to develop an improved working relationship with other Federal agencies to encourage voluntary action at all levels.

International Operations—the Peace Corps

Since the creation of the ACTION Agency on July 1, 1971, the Peace Corps has followed two different overall strategies, though both took as their starting point the three legislated goals of the Peace Corps, namely, "to make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower, and to help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served and a better understanding of peoples on the part of the American people."

In the early 1970s, the Peace Corps decreased in size and endeavored to recruit and place overseas more highly trained technical specialists than before. While the intent of this program shift was to satisfy perceived technical requirements abroad, problems arose in the implementation: Recruitment of such persons in the United States turned out to be difficult, with the result that large numbers of assignments remained unfilled; individuals selected were often technically overqualified for their host country jobs while some also lacked the neces sary cultural sensitivity and language capability that had become the Peace Corps' hallmark; large numbers of Americans who were willing to serve were precluded from doing so by the very strict selection criteria; and the Peace Corps was increasingly perceived as a mini-AID, shorn of its special aura and sense of people-to-people

mission.

Since 1977, the Peace Corps has shifted in direction-not entirely back to the 1960s model, and not totally away from the early 1970s recognition of the need for increasing technical competence. Rather, the Peace Corps is now in the process of attempting to revitalize itself as a unique expression of the American people and spirit while also

professionalizing its developmental capabilities, particularly in terms of a new focus on helping the poorest groups of host country people meet their basic human needs. Through a new set of program criteria, and taking into account congressional foreign aid mandates since 1973, the Peace Corps is now shifting away from ad hoc high-level manpower gapfilling assignments toward programs in health, nutrition, agriculture, and other areas that more directly improve basic living conditions for the poor.

Efforts to cooperate with host country voluntary groups as well as with multi-lateral assistance programs are also being intensified in order to make maximum development impact.

The Peace Corps has been different from other U.S. Government foreign assistance agencies in that it has been at the forefront as an articulator of the best that is in America to people in the Third World and of the best that is in the Third World to people in America. During the past years of increasing awareness of global interdependence, this objective of the Peace Corps is being increasingly emphasized. Greater efforts are being made to involve some of the more than 70,000 returned Peace Corps volunteers in continuing community efforts on development issues that closely affect the United States, at the same time that a broader recruiting effort is being mounted to attract a larger cross-section of Americans into Peace Corps service in the first instance. These Americans are then trained by the Peace Corps for the specific skills needed to perform their specific tasks.

To accomplish this shift in program direction, the Peace Corps is for the moment holding steady in terms of volunteer numbers (at approximately 6,800) in order to allocate badly needed funds for improved programing and training-areas that were sacrificed under early 1970s budget cuts. While Peace Corps programs will likely be established in the near future in some new countries, other programs are likely to be phased out where basic human needs criteria suggest a lower priority. The overall number of Peace Corps countries is thus likely to remain at approximately 60-65, as at present.

SCORE/ACE Programs

SCORE, the service corps of retired executives, and ACE, the active corps of executives, initially were to be co-managed by the Small Business Administration and the ACTION Agency. The ACTION Agency was charged with providing recruitment support as well as seeking to identify new service opportunities for SCORE/ACE volunteers.

The SCORE and ACE programs were transferred back to SBA by Executive order on July 18, 1975. The ACTION Agency retains authority to establish, coordinate, and operate national volunteer programs to assist small business and promote volunteer service by persons with business experience.

COST ESTIMATE

In accordance with section 252 (a) of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 (Public Law 91-510), the committee, based on information supplied by the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that the

5-year cost resulting from enactment of S. 2617, as reported, would be as follows:

2. Bill title: Domestic Volunteer Service Act Amendments of 1978. 3. Bill status: Ordered reported by Senate Committee on Human Resources on May 3, 1978.

4. Bill purpose: To extend the authorization of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 as amended, and to create a new part of title I for urban neighborhood volunteer programs.

5. Cost estimate: The titles below refer to the titles in the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 as amended.

The costs of this bill fall within budget function 500.

6. Basis for estimate: Specific authorization levels were written for title II in the legislation. Net costs were calculated using CBO spendout rates for ACTION programs. This estimate assumes full appropriation.

Authorization of such sums as may be necessary were written for titles II, III, and IV. For purposes of estimating, authorization levels were assumed to equal agency requests for fiscal year 1979 and were adjusted for inflation in fiscal years 1980 and 1981. Net costs were calculated by using CBO spendout rates for ACTION programs. These spendout rates reflect the spending pattern of new authorization. This estimate assumes full appropriation.

According to the Senate Subcommittee on Child and Human Development, the committee intent is to include separate authorization for urban neighborhood volunteer programs equal to the President's request for fiscal year 1979. In the Senate bill, this new program becomes part of title I. For purposes of estimating, this assumed authorization level was adjusted for inflation for fical years 1980 and 1981. Net