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customer to take one or more active steps (e.g. the act of looking for a home). FS Mandatory participants must participate in the FSET program and accept any bona fide offer of a suitable job (see Section 1.9.4: Suitable Employment in this Chapter). FSET participants required to search for a job must submit a form indicating that they have made 12 job contacts each month. If they participate in work experience, they can only be required to participate for the number of hours equal to their FS benefits divided by the minimum wage. Work activities under FS can include: • job search programs, • job search training programs, • work experience programs, • programs designed to improve the employability of household members and assist them in moving promptly into public or private employment, • supported work programs, • educational programs to improve basic skills or employability, or • programs that promote self-employment.

EXEMPTIONS FROM WORK REQUIREMENTS 1.6 BOTH If an individual repeatedly has good cause for failing to participate in work activities, a determination should be made to see if the individual meets an exemption criterion. TANF The following TANF applicants/recipients are exempt from work participation: • a minor who is not the head of an assistance unit or is not a parent of a child receiving TANF; • a single custodial parent or caretaker who personally provides care for a child under six who cannot obtain needed appropriate child care because it is unaffordable or not within reasonable distance of the parent or caretaker's home or work activity; • a single custodial parent with a child under 12 months; • a recipient 60 years old or older; • a parent or caretaker in a two-parent or caretaker household who is not a principal wage earner (PWE) (if the household is eligible for TANF because of PWE's unemployment) and who is personally taking care of a child under six, if the parent or caretaker cannot obtain needed child care because it is unaffordable or not within reasonable distance of the parent or caretaker's home (See Section 1.6.1: Head of Household in Part III for definition of PWE); • a person who is ill, injured, or incapacitated as determined by competent medical evidence (and his/her condition is expected to last longer than four weeks); • a person who is needed at home because another household member requires the individual's presence due to illness or injury; • a person in a one-parent/caretaker household who is working for an average of 30 hours per week; • persons in a two-parent household who are working for a combined total average of at least 35 hours per week, or persons in a two-parent household where the family receives federally-funded child care and no parent in the family is disabled or caring for a child with a disability who are working a combined total of at least 55 hours per week; • a full-time VISTA or AmeriCorps volunteer; • a person who is granted a domestic violence waiver because complying with the work requirement would put the applicant/recipient at further risk of violence (see Section 3.8.3: Waiver of Work Requirement in Part VIII); or • a teen parent who can provide proof of school attendance or who can demonstrate that there is