$1.1M grant to help ‘Needy Family’ recipients with jobs training
By American staff
ARCHS has been awarded a $1.169 million grant from the Missouri Department of Social Services to assist Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) recipients who have been sanctioned for not adhering to benefit requirements.
The grant will fund ARCHS’ Successful Work Incentives for TANF (SWIFT) Community Partnership.
SWIFT will use a transitional jobs model to help 300 St. Louis City and County TANF recipients remove the barriers (including unemployment) that have led to their benefits being sanctioned by the state. SWIFT will create an action plan and then track the progress of the recipients in their progress towards job training and placement.
“We are just starting an intensified community outreach effort to find those who have been sanctioned and had a portion of their TANF check reduced,” said Les Johnson, vice president for partnerships at ARCHS.
“Then we will work with these individuals to identify job training programs and employ opportunities and to train them to help them achieve success in the workplace. Then we will refer them back to the Division of Workforce Development so their sanctions can be removed.”
SWIFT’s case management will focus on job/life skills training, housing and transportation assistance, child care referrals, health care access and financial literacy. Special services related to mental illness, substance abuse and domestic violence will also be available.
In addition to the grant, SWIFT’s partnering organizations will add an additional $82,000 in services. ARCHS’ SWIFT community partners include:
* ARCHS (Managing Partner and Fiscal Agent)
* Provident, Inc.
* West End Mt. Carmel Community Outreach
* The Women’s Safe House.
Johnson said that Provident, Inc. will serve as “the primary social service organization, working door-to-door to identify barriers to employment, whether physical, mental disability or the need for additional job training or access to employment.”
Reached on Monday, Cassandra Pinkston, director of grants administration at Provident, said the organization was still finalizing the contract and that Pamela Stallings would be a primary contact at Provident.
Created in 1997, TANF is the successor to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, providing cash assistance to indigent American families with dependent children through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
There is a maximum of 60 months of benefits within one’s lifetime (some states instituted shorter periods), and there is a component requiring clients to attempt to find employment. Unmarried minor parents have to live with a responsible adult or guardian. Paternity of children must be established in order to receive benefits.
TANF sets forward the following work requirements necessary for benefits:
* Recipients (with few exceptions) must work as soon as they are job ready or no later than two years after coming on assistance.
* Single parents are required to participate in work activities for at least 30 hours per week. Two-parent families must participate in work activities 35 or 55 hours a week, depending upon circumstances. Failure to participate in work requirements can result in a reduction or termination of benefits to the family.
Anyone who thinks they might benefit from the program should contact Les Johnson, vice president for partnerships at ARCHS, at 534-0022 ext. 210 or johnsonl@stlarchs.org.