Itasca Seminar: Charles Atkins - Self Sufficiency, Is It Possible?

October 22, 1986 - Charles Atkins, commissioner of welfare for the state of Massachusetts, speaking at Itasca Seminar held in northern Minnesota. The seminar’s topic was "Self Sufficiency: Is It Possible?", and Atkin’s addressed his state's efforts to place welfare recipients into jobs. After speech, Atkins answered audience questions. Mr. Atkins has developed a program in Massachusetts to move women off the welfare rolls and into jobs. 25,000 women have become employed through the Education and Training Choices program since 1983. Prior to becoming welfare commissioner, Mr. Atkins served as deputy commissioner of the addiction services agency in New York City during the early '70s. In that position, he created a program to find employment for ex-drug addicts. In 1973 and '74, he was manager of employment operations for Citibank in New York, where he found other employment within the organization for low-level employees whose jobs had been eliminated by automation. When he was in Boston's Employment and Economic Policy administration, he succeeded in obtaining a 23-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to reduce youth unemployment in Boston.