New Demonstration Project Grant Focuses on Streamlining Access and Strengthening Families

Through a new demonstration project grant from the Ford Foundation and its’ partners, a select group of states will have an opportunity to design, test, and implement streamlined approaches to delivering crucial supports for low-income working families. With $15 million in funding over a five-year period, states will be asked to streamline and integrate key supports such as health care coverage and child care subsidies. The Work Support Strategies: Streamlining Access, Strengthening Families initiative has three main goals:

• Improve the health and well-being of low-income families, stabilize their family and work lives, and enable them to progress in the workforce by increasing the share of eligible families (and, in those states that choose to include them, individuals outside families) that receive and keep the package of work supports and benefits for which they qualify;

• Deliver benefits more effectively and efficiently, reducing state administrative burdens as well as the burden on clients, through technologically savvy and customer-driven methods of eligibility determination, enrollment, and retention; and

• Glean lessons from the experiences of the demonstration states to inform broader state and federal policies through a rigorous evaluation component.

When discussing this opportunity with state leaders, communities should note that this initiative will be implemented in two phases- a one-year planning phase and a three-year implementation phase. The current call for proposals are for states interested in participating in the one-year planning phase.

Timeline: Call for proposals will be available this Friday, September 17, 2010.

More information can be found here.