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West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Chapter 18

West Virginia Income Maintenance Manual Page 1 Chapter 18 WV WORKS Activities/Requirements

18.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter describes the work requirements of WV WORKS and the services available to assist participants in meeting these requirements and maintaining independence from cash assistance.

WV WORKS is West Virginia’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is a cash assistance program funded under a block grant authorized by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) and is designed to help needy families achieve self-sufficiency. This cash assistance program replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which included cash assistance to families of unemployed parents (AFDC/U), on January 1, 1997. AFDC/U recipients were automatically eligible for Medicaid. All counties were phased into the WV WORKS Program by January 1998. Through TANF, WV WORKS provides cash assistance along with a variety of employment and education related services to low income families with dependent children. The emphasis of the PRWORA is on personal responsibility and employment. The purpose of WV WORKS is to help economically dependent, at-risk families become self-supporting. It is a work-oriented, performance-based, time-limited program that emphasizes employment and personal responsibility. Intensive interaction between the participant and the Case Manager is necessary to establish and maintain the Personal Responsibility Contract (PRC) between the Department of Human Services (DOHS) and the WV WORKS participant. PRWORA prohibited any link between the block grant cash assistance program and automatic Medicaid eligibility. Therefore, only those WV WORKS participants who meet eligibility requirements for Medicaid are eligible. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) further defined what participation activities count towards meeting the federally mandated TANF work requirements. The DRA defined specific acceptable core activities and the non-core activities that may be used to meet participation requirements over the core hours. WV WORKS expects parents and other caretaker relatives to support their own dependent children and those in their care. Every parent and other caretaker who is included in a payment and any non-recipient Work-Eligible Individual in the household has a responsibility to participate in an activity to help prepare for, obtain and maintain gainful employment.