Minutes 04-26-2018 Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 Orange County DSS plays an important role in many of our county’s disenfranchised and vulnerable citizens. Our services address the full lifespan. Many are federally mandated and others reflect local community needs. There are 12 general programs and services, which include: • Food & Nutrition services • Medicaid eligibility and re-certification, • Energy Assistance • Work First & Employment Services, • Child Care Subsidy • Adult Services • Child Protective Services • Adoption • Foster Care • Crisis Assistance • Adolescent Parenting Program • Community Outreach Among these 12 programs & services, 22,000 residents are annually served in DSS, for a county population of nearly 140,000; nearly 16% of residents are served. Staff are daily working with families to ensure access to public health insurance, access to food & nutrition resources to minimize food insecurity, enrollment in quality childcare to ensure our youngest citizens have a safe and nurturing out of home care environment, providing time limited energy assistance or crisis assistance resources to help families bridge the gap and reduce their risk of homelessness. Work- First helps families move from public assistance into employment, a veteran’s services resource office, the child welfare program ensures children are in a safe home environment that promotes their health and well-being. Whereas all of these program and services have important management consideration, have unique impact on the specific population served, and select resource allocation; there are a couple emerging issues that we, as an agency and Board, want share with the Commissioners. • NCFAST - North Carolina Families Accessing Services through Technology data platform; rolling out the child welfare component, which is a multifaceted program; data migration accuracy from the prior historical system’s data is critical, because staff need real time access to ensure health and safety and children/youth. Thus this process has become quite meticulous regarding staff time, so we Appreciate the additional support and resources that have been allocated in this transition and minimize in disruption of services • State Performance Improvement Plan for Child Welfare - new performance measures are being developed an expected to be in effect next fiscal year • NC Medicaid Transformation – wait and see what the final model will look like and its implication on local service agencies • HB 630 and Regionalization of DSS agencies: state workgroup includes discussions about performance contracts, regionalization mapping – implications on county budget, staff, county specific DSS programming • Proposed changes to federally funded programs –new Farm bill proposes cuts to SNAP, proposed work requirements for Medicaid eligibility, outcome implications on final Congressional approval decision.