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1000.8 TANF MANUAL 10/22 PAGE 22

1000.8 VIEW INITIAL ASSESSMENTS

A. Overview - Local Agency Responsibilities.

Each local agency will establish a process so that the initial assessment of VIEW clients includes the following:

1. An identification and evaluation of the participant’s job readiness skills, occupational skills and interests, education, work history, and family/life circumstances including disabilities. 2. A determination of the participant’s functional literacy if the participant does not have a GED, associate degree, or bachelor’s degree. 3. An initial identification of the program activities that will be needed if the client does not find full time employment. 4. A detailed evaluation of child care and other supportive service needs. 5. The signing of the Agreement of Personal Responsibility (APR).

B. Scheduling the Initial Assessment Interview

1. The ESW will assess the participant within 10 calendar days if possible after assignment to the queue, but in all cases within 30 calendar days of assignment. 2. The assessment will take place during an individual, face-to-face, telephone, or virtual interview between the participant and the ESW. The assessment interview will be scheduled at a time that does not conflict with work hours, or with previously scheduled medical or mental health appointments, whenever possible. When necessary, the worker can meet with the participant at a mutually agreed upon location outside the agency.

If the initial assessment is conducted by telephone or virtually, the ESW should document the case file specifying the date on which the Activity and Service Plan was discussed and agreed to by the participant, mail a copy of the Activity and Service Plan and all other required documents to the participant to sign and return, and key the assignment information into the ESP module in VaCMS. The Activity and Service Plan is valid even if the client does not return a signed copy. The participant should be advised that the program assignment must be carried out even if she does not return the signed Activity and Service Plan.

3. The ESW will send the participant a letter informing her of the date of the assessment interview. The letter will explain that appearance for the assessment interview is a condition of continued eligibility for TANF and that failure to attend the interview and sign the Agreement of Personal Responsibility (APR) may result in termination of the TANF payment. The letter will also tell the participant how to contact the ESW if she is unable to attend the interview and needs to reschedule it.

Note: When the VIEW client is a refugee in a locality served by a Refugee Resettlement agency, the local agency should initiate contact with the resettlement agency to coordinate employment and training services. (See Appendix I for refugee resettlement agency contact information and local agencies served.) The resettlement agency will be responsible for sending the local agency a copy of the refugee’s Individual Employment Plan (IEP) which details the employment services the resettlement agency will provide. Some of these services may count toward the client’s VIEW participation requirement, but the overall responsibility for insuring that the refugee meets VIEW program requirements, including assignment of additional hours if needed, and verification of participation, remains with the local agency.

Refugees who receive Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) rather than TANF or TANF-UP are not eligible to participate in VIEW and are not referred to the VIEW program. The responsibility for meeting their employment and training needs rests solely with the refugee resettlement agency serving the locality.

C. Client Failure to Attend the Initial Assessment Interview

If the recipient requests the closure of her TANF case prior to the scheduled date of the initial assessment appointment,

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