Service Delivery Area: Benefits
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Policy Top Insights From a Moment in History
APHSA's President and CEO reflects on lessons and opportunities the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and constructs a national narrative around the moment.
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Toolkit: Moving through the Value Curve Stage
Human services is experiencing many of the same challenges that all modern systems face, including rapidly changing economic forces, social structure, demographics, communications and technology. Leaders from all sectors of our field must be able to adapt to this changing environment, and lead a culture change within their organization that supports a more collaborative, creative and innovative way to deliver services in communities across the nation. Indeed, it is impossible to deliver a truly holistic platform of solutions and supports to people, families and communities in need of them, without a highly collaborative partnership approach. This approach results in more efficient and effective intake and eligibility platforms, more effective casework and engagement practices that respond well to any and all root causes for the challenges faced by the people we serve, and more powerful, far-reaching advocacy and capacity-building efforts that are much larger than the needs of any individual or family case.
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Policy SNAP Waivers and Adaptations During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Survey of State Agency Perspectives in 2020
SNAP Waivers and Adaptations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of State Agency Perspectives in 2020 is a study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Social Policy (IHSP) based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA). This research seeks to understand perspectives from state SNAP administrators on the successes, challenges, and lessons learned from waivers and flexibilities used to preserve equitable access to SNAP during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on state agency survey responses, this report summarizes key findings from the first calendar year of pandemic response and provides policy considerations for the future of SNAP. This research was supported by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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Policy Early Insights on SNAP Modernization through American Rescue Plan Investments
This brief shares findings from a November 2021 survey of state SNAP agencies about their use of the SNAP ARPA funds in fiscal year 2021, and their initial planned activities for fiscal year 2022 and 2023. This brief also draws from learnings from work groups conducted with states in early 2022. The brief looks to explore the following questions: 1. How did state SNAP agencies use 2021 SNAP ARPA administrative funding? 2. What factors influenced how states used 2021 SNAP ARPA administrative funding? 3. What are states aiming to prioritize in 2022 and 2023? 4. What do early insights on implementation convey about national SNAP priorities?
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Policy Benefits of Interoperability in the Health & Human Services System
The A-87 Exception presents a unique opportunity to transform the health and human services delivery system. It delivers an integrated funding mechanism which allows good business design to apply across a broad range of programs and services. It also provides benefits to states, customers, and federal partners, ranging from cost containment, to improved customer service, enhanced security and privacy, program integrity, and better outcomes for children and families.
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Policy Aligning Systems to Advance Family and Community Well-Being: A Partnership Playbook for Community Action and Human Services Agencies
This playbook outlines the ways Community Action and human services agencies worked together to meet the pandemic challenge—what worked well, obstacles and difficulties, and lessons learned to inform the path forward, partnering to achieve a more equitable recovery. It also explains how communities have leveraged opportunities to partner on approaches that hold the promise of deeper, longer lasting changes for families—work shaped by families’ wishes and strengths and designed to advance both family-level and systems-level change.
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Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports
Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports (CSNS) is a cohort program funded by Share Our Strength, No Kid Hungry and administered by the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) with the goal of aligning the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with other federal, state, and local nutrition supports to combat childhood hunger.
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Policy Core Principles for TANF Modernization: A Legislative Framework for TANF Refo
Working with TANF administrators and human services leaders across the country, the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) embraces the call to reimagine how TANF can work in support of the families it serves and has established a set of TANF Modernization Core Principles to guide our vision for the future of TANF. Grounded in these Core Principles, APHSA’s members have laid out a legislative framework to unlock the potential of TANF. We call upon Congress to use this framework as a starting point to build common ground to achieve a TANF reauthorization that promotes a more equitable and prosperous future for all Americans.
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5 Things to Know About SNAP Employment & Training
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is well known for providing nutrition support for individuals and families with low incomes. The lesser-known SNAP Employment and Training Program (SNAP E&T) helps eligible participants develop skills to achieve economic mobility. SNAP E&T provides employability assessments, training, case management, transportation, child care and other services and supports to help participants attain sustainable employment. State legislatures have an opportunity to support economic recovery and decrease food insecurity among individuals and families by investing in the SNAP E&T program, including with American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
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Policy Changes in State TANF Policies in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
As the US economy shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state administrators for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—the nation’s primary program for helping families with low incomes meet basic needs while supporting their transition to economic mobility through work opportunities—faced new challenges operating the program and meeting their clients’ needs. For families previously or newly receiving TANF, the pandemic made it harder to meet the work and activity requirements necessary to continue receiving benefits. Many state TANF administrators and agencies responded to the pandemic and stay-at-home orders by adjusting their policies to meet their states’ and families’ unique situations, needs, and challenges. In this brief, we describe how some of these agencies adapted their policies during the early months of the pandemic.
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CSNS New Mexico: Improving Online Infrastructure to Expand WIC’s Reach
This report outlines how the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) and Department of Health (NMDOH) are working to maximize WIC participation among SNAP families through automated referrals and streamlined application and enrollment across agencies.
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Human-Centered Design Laying the Tracks for an Equitable Recovery and Long Term Repair
In this brief, APHSA outlines its commitment to addressing the causes of structural inequities by first illuminating structural root causes of race inequity within the context of human services. The brief outlines approaches to doing the intentional and systematic work that is required to counteract the structural barriers human services systems have fostered.