|
|
|
EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS COMMITTEE
11/3/04
Marva Scott, Co-Chair of the committee welcomed attendees. She passed around attendance roster. Minutes from the 10/13/04 meeting were approved with minor revisions. On the first page under #2, “Work First Development Conference” was corrected to “Work Force Development Conference.” Also, corrections were made to the 10/13 attendees list. Deanne Singleton is from Catawba County . Karen Peters is not from Rutherford County , but no one was sure what county she was from. Also, John Carroll, Karen Adams and Denise Clemmer were present at the October meeting from Rutherford County .
Dean Duncan, research professor from UNC-CH did a presentation on the web-based Work First and Food Stamps data bases. The addresses for these two data bases are:
One can look at data for the State as a whole, by individual counties, or by groups of counties by size. There are caseload dynamics that show rates that recipients come into the programs, rates that they leave, and rates of reentry. The data are also divided between Diversion cases and non-diversion cases. Graphics images can be saved as word documents for printing and distribution. They are about to release a better version on child only cases and are working to map data for all cases in the SIS system to EIS. The want to track 200% services data from SIS. They have earnings data from ESC and can track information on 24 month and 60 month time clocks. The Food Stamps data base began with the first group of Career Start families and a new release is expected by the end of the year.
Old Business
• Marva Scott shared that the Work First caseload for the month of November 2004 decreased by 65 cases. Regular cases were down by 93 cases and two parent caseloads increased by 28 cases. Benefit Diversion cases are down by 79. Applications for October were down by 739 and terminations down by 67. Marva states that altogether statistics appear normal. She commented that there were not a lot of changes.
• Sara Mims updated the group on the Department's project to determine how to track transportation services by funding stream and informed the group that this is still a work in progress. One suggestion from the group was to add this to the 6908 in EPIS where hours are keyed.
• There was brief discussion about the draft revision of the Work First Medical Form that had been sent out for review earlier in the week. Feedback was due by the 5 th .
New Business
• TANF Planning Process from the County Perspective – 98 out of 100 counties had returned their responses to whether they would be standard or electing counties. The 9 counties that were already electing requested to remain electing. Catawba and Stokes counties have been added to that group. 57 county plans had been received by the state office and 43 remained outstanding. The Division is developing the review committee and as that committee reviews the county plans, there will be attention paid as to what recommendations need to be addressed with the State's TANF plan. There was some question about what had happened to the Marriage Workgroup that Wilbert Morris had been working with some time back. A recommendation from the group to the Division was to list any innovative ideas that came out of the county TANF plans as they are reviewed and that such a list be shared with EPC.
• Sara Mims summarized the conference that she recently attended in Sacramento on their CALWORKS and Child Welfare Project. She noted the similarities to the efforts of the Family Net Initiative and the work being done in Multiple Response System. Out of the discussion, one suggestion was to rewrite the definition of “temporary absence from the home” in Work First to allow services to be provided to parents whose children were in foster care.
• The Final Report on “Children in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Child-Only Cases with Relative Caregivers” from June 2004 was distributed to the group. This report was prepared by RTI International and Dean Duncan from UNC-CH. Since Mr. Duncan was still present from his presentation earlier, he summarized the findings of this report. In this research project, they looked at every state's TANF plans. Some states did not even address child only cases. Focus groups of relative caregivers showed that services to them were all over the map. In Wisconsin , CPS intake workers handle the child only cases but hardly any services are provided once the case comes in. Washington State and Oklahoma are working on plans to provide services to this population. Grandparents were found to not want to see their children go into the child welfare system, but have lots of trouble finding dentists, therapist, etc. that will take Medicaid, where as children in child welfare more often were able to access these services. As discussion proceeded on this topic, one county shared that child only cases don't fall into their priority list for day care, where as another county shared that these cases were included in their priority list. Relative caregivers have issues with having the money to provide adequate food (especially for teenagers) and clothing for children going through growth spurts. Their child only allotments from TANF funds just don't cover the costs of caring for children. Housing was also mentioned as an issue, as these families need to have some preferential treatment for Section 8 but typically do not. Wayne Black suggested that as more counties join the Family Net initiative, this may become a good place to focus on this population. Dean Duncan agreed to put this report on the Work First Evaluation website. See address above.
• Sara Mims introduced her new Work First Policy Consultant, Sharon Moore, who came from Durham County and welcomed back Tania Segers who had been on maternity leave. The Work First Policy Consultant positions are now fully staffed.
• David Prince announced that he would be having staff development training in December in Clemmons , NC .
• The group decided to invite Chris Howell to come to the next meeting to talk about Family Net, and the decision was made that if there was nothing pressing to warrant a December meeting, that EPC would wait until January to meet again.
• It was announced that Karen Taylor George had announce that Martha Early was available to do training on Substance Abuse for Social Workers. Her e-mail address was given as EARLYM@mail.ecu.edu .
• Finally, Sara Mims announced that the new Sanction policies from the last State TANF Plan would be effective January 1, 2005 . Inserts would go out to clients in their December checks and the Manual Change Notice and new policy would be going out in the next week or two to the counties.
The meeting was adjourned. Unless communications are sent out otherwise, the next meeting will be January 12, 2005 from 1:30 to 3:30 .
Respectfully Submitted,
Sara Anderson Mims
EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS COMMITTEE
11/3/04
ATTENDEES
Wayne Black, Co-Chair Surry County
Marva Scott, Co-Chair Columbus County
David Prince State DSS
Sara Mims State DSS
Sharon Moore State DSS
Tania Segers State DSS
Terry Keene Johnson County
Denise Clemmer Rutherford County
Cindy Wilson Cumberland County
Susan Parker Wilson County
June Medford Wayne County
Linda Allison Alamance County
Lula Jackson Anson County
Alecia Williamson Pender County
Barbara Harris Wake County
Deanna Singleton Catawba County
John Carroll Rutherford County
Daren Adams Rutherford County
