Needs Statement. 1. Besides funding, what is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services? The single biggest challenge facing St Louis County in financial assistance services is complex policies that conflict between programs and systems, and are not written nor interpreted in ways that make them easily apply to the complexity of real-life situations. Mandatory verifications, how income is counted, and other policies vary across all programs despite the previous attempt at policy unification, and the systems are not designed to cope with these differences. More and more situations are identified where the coding for CCAP directly conflicts with the coding needed for MFIP or SNAP, and result in incorrect household composition and eligibility errors on both sides due to the two systems interfacing. Our MFIP teams and IV-E teams frequently run into situations in which the coding for MFIP and Xxxxxx Care directly contradict. It is difficult to get the different policy areas at DHS to communicate with each other to resolve the issue when such a conflict exists. MFIP/DWP and SNAP have different household composition rules and read panels, such as the ABPS, differently, making it easy to make errors regarding household composition when both programs are open on the same case, or as families frequently move between programs. Household composition between MAXIS programs and MAGI healthcare are entirely different, resulting in very complex, confusing situations as household members need to move between healthcare being entered in MAXIS and METS. These issues make financial work extremely complex, increasing error rates and worker burnout.
Needs Statement. 1. What is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services besides funding? Hiring and maintaining a full complement of staff. During this past biennium, we have experienced considerable staff turnover due to resignations, retirements and medical leave requests. Coupled with major policy changes in healthcare services and an increase in caseload sizes, maintaining consistency and meeting required timelines has been difficult.
Needs Statement. 1.What is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services besides funding? Financial assistance services are challenged by addressing the needs of the African refugee/immigrants to Kandiyohi County. Challenges include language barriers and determining eligibility when large families sometimes need to split the household living arrangement or double up with other households. We are now seeing a surge of secondary immigrants and sponsored immigrants. It is a challenge to identify and locate sponsors and determine their contribution to the sponsored immigrant.
Needs Statement. 1. Besides funding, what is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services? On going case management of MnSure requiring a lot of time spent on meetings and trainings. ABAWD eligibility determinations and case ^ management. Our County is experiencing an increasing diversity population which requires additional staff time and resources. * 7739 characters remaining
Needs Statement. 1. Besides funding, what is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services? The biggest challenge for Eligibility Workers is navigating the complexity of the MFIP program policies. characters remaining
Needs Statement talk about the needs of the community you’re serving (this is NOT about your organization)
Needs Statement. The needs statement is a short paragraph that explains why the project is necessary. Simply not having something is not a need; it is necessary to explain what problem exists and why addressing the problem is necessary and timely. Provide facts that support your claim when possible, and try to talk about things on the level on which the program will be implemented. For example, don’t just mention that access to clean water is a problem in Ghana, mention that in Adaklu specifically this problem exists. Really explain the need in the context of the target population using evidence. This can mean citing interviews/focus group discussions with community members or quantitative measures that have been collected. This is also the section to emphasize that these problems were identified by the communities themselves. This is an important distinction of HCDP-Ghana’s methods. It also helps to justify the need. Simply state that the needs were determined through a community needs assessment or interviews with community members. Be specific in the methods of data collection.
Needs Statement. 1. Besides funding, what is the single biggest challenge you are facing in financial assistance services? The availability of resources to meet the demands for services and the complexity of the programs we administer. 7887 characters remaining
Needs Statement. 1. Identify challenges in financial assistance services that are prohibiting you from properly serving MFIP/DWP families in your community.
Needs Statement. 1. Identify challenges in financial assistance that are prohibiting you from properly serving MFIP/DWP families in your community? The unprecedented effects that came along with the COVID‐19 pandemic impacted all of us, and not surprisingly, it has had disparate negative impacts on our customers. Families in need of public assistance already faced a multiplicity of obstacles, and the pandemic created a host of challenges in rising to meet their needs. Rapidly changing program rules and finding new ways to engage while we began working remotely caused an already marginalized segment of our population additional worry, uncertainty, and frustration. While Washington County has adapted, adjusted, and maintained an excellent safety‐net for our customers, there is still not a clear picture of how many ways the pandemic may have contributed to the challenge of serving MFIP/DWP families in our community. The pandemic has also exacerbated pre‐existing challenges as described in previous agreements. Capacity has been a growing challenge for our Economic Support programs in Washington County. The Economic Assistance Supervisors overseeing public assistance programs (five) manage 65 staff, five different units and over two dozen programs. Supervisors provide management to up to as many as 15 staff each, in four separate locations, in several complicated programs. The high number of staff, locations and programs per supervisor is currently a challenge while maintaining daily contact with other divisions/units including, Child Support, Social Services, Community Corrections, Sheriff’s Office, County Attorney’s Office, Workforce Development and Department of Human Services. During the pandemic, we have still been experiencing significant staff turn‐over and several extended staff leaves which added increasing challenges such as large caseloads. While this is obviously an administrative concern, it is also a concern regarding the quality of service we are able to offer our customers. Lastly, we have spent the entire pandemic managing the ever‐changing landscape of emergency assistance programs. Washington County has been a leader in leveraging federal assistance funding to address the emergency shelter, housing, and other crisis needs of our customers. We anticipate we will continue to be able to process requests effectively and efficiently and utilize a maximum amount of our allocations supporting the needs of our residents.
