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North Carolina

2 Ultimately, North Carolina’s goal is to help all families move to self-sufficiency. Most are able to successfully leave the Work First program and never need to return. Others, because of hardship or disability, may have a harder time becoming self-sufficient. With those families, the role of the Work First program is to ensure that families receive all of the services for which they are entitled, such as Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, etc.

North Carolina’s success thus far at helping families move from cash assistance to work has led to a broadened focus for the Work First program. No longer is the focus just on helping those families who receive cash assistance move off the rolls. While North Carolina remains committed to continuing assistance to those families, the state has added the flexibility and program structure for counties to provide former Work First families with job retention and child and family enrichment services designed to help ensure families experience long-term success. Further, since child support is critical to ensuring families’ success, North Carolina has expanded the Work First program to allow counties to provide work-related services to non-custodial parents of Work First children.

Ensuring optimal health and well-being of all North Carolinians is of the utmost concern. Toward that end, North Carolina has taken advantage of the opportunity offered by the TANF Block Grant to enhance our efforts in this area.

STATE WELFARE REFORM LEGISLATION

One provision of North Carolina’s law provides for TANF program development by local county governments. The law refers to counties as Standard or Electing. Standard Counties operate the State’s Work First program while Electing counties have additional flexibility in program design. See Appendix D for a summary of Electing Counties’ eligibility policies.

All counties have maximum flexibility in designing their employment programs to meet local needs. However, State law provides that Electing Counties, when combined, can contain no more than 15.5% of the State’s Work First cases (at September 1 of each year). The State’s and each Electing County’s eligibility criteria are described later in this document. (Throughout this plan, all references to “Electing counties” refer to those counties that have been approved as Electing, which may allow them to design their county’s Work First program including certain eligibility criteria and benefit levels.)

PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION

The N. C. Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for establishing, supervising, and monitoring the Work First program. At present, all services and benefits are delivered locally by county departments of social services/agencies in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties, although Electing counties may choose to designate an alternative service delivery agent.

Electing counties developed a county Work First block grant plan, including descriptions of strategies to achieve the measurable statewide outcome goals and performance measures described in this plan. Development of Electing county plans must involve a broad range of public, private, and nonprofit groups. See Appendix A for further discussion on county plan development.