Policy & Practice | Winter 2023

generation supports like human-centered design, com munity power-sharing, resiliency training, data literacy, and how to ethically leverage automated technology in carrying out their work. The invaluable, everyday contributions of people who work in human services is widely understood and the front-line workforce is no longer shouldering the blame when the system does not meet expectations. Opportunities abound for people interested in the business of humans helping humans. The future is bright.

Automated technology/AI has transformed the delivery of human services by automating time inten sive tasks, and providing workers with an on-demand, holistic view of family strengths and needs. The work force has real-time access to disaggregated data to understand who is benefitting from services and who is not. Analytics-aware data models help program managers quickly spot gaps in service availability and prevent disparities in outcomes. The use of AI as a tool is widely adopted across the sector, with clear parameters as to its ethical use in the delivery of human services. For both people participating in services and the workforce delivering them, these changes mean that the historical weight of outdated, misaligned services has been lifted from their shoulders, allowing much more time for actual human connection with people. The human services workforce feels heard and seen for the important work. Large vacancy rates are a thing of the past. Staff at all levels has the modern tools to carry out their work, allowing them to focus their time on the business of people not paperwork. Staff is skilled in next

Can you imagine this future? How are you advancing it? Let us know the steps you are taking to get there. Contact Jessica Garon, Director of Communications, at jgaron@aphsa.org .

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE continued from page 5

requirement frameworks, which is very likely to lead to reductions in their TANF caseloads—and consequently, as the aforementioned study suggests, potentially higher rates of foster care placements, neglected children, and other negative child welfare outcomes. Navigating the New TANF Landscape Do changes to state cash welfare policies mean that state child neglect and foster care rates will definitively increase? The research can only point to correlation, not causation. But it is an important context as agencies begin reexamining their TANF programs and look at potentially shifting many more benefits recipients off the program. With each state taking its own approach, it is critical that human services agencies that administer programs like TANF, and manage in-state child welfare assistance, are taking a holistic approach to families and children. If a family is going to lose their TANF benefits, knowing that and knowing the resilience of the family and their situation will enable the agency

to proactively offer needed support. This approach requires team collabora tion across benefits and services, and a platform solution purposely built for understanding these human services nuances to help make collaboration and data sharing easier. This study is an early warning on the importance of agencies taking a holistic, collaborative approach with supporting families. There is no one-size-fits-all way to navigate the new TANF landscape. As states embark on their own journeys for creating benefits experiences and mitigating child welfare outcomes, they must also adopt, deploy, and cus tomize these solutions in a way that best meets the unique needs of their agencies and their constituents.

resulted in more than 29,000 fewer children being admitted into the foster care system. NewTANF Requirements This research was released in July 2022, less than a year before Congress passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act. What does that mean for TANF recipi ents? As The Washington Post notes, 2 while states design their own programs for administering TANF benefits, they are “required to make sure that at least 50 percent of recipients are working.” Previously, states were allowed to reduce that threshold based on how caseloads had fallen since 2005; the new law changes that comparison year to 2015, which will mean more states will now “have to boost their work requirements accordingly.” States will have two years to put the new requirements into action, and can reduce the work participation requirements by directing more state funding into their TANF programs. But the fact is, every state will now be embarking on discrete methods for overhauling their TANF work

Marina Pascali is a Product Leader at Cúram by Merative.

Reference Notes 1. https://www.healthaffairs.org/ doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00743 2. https://www.washingtonpost. com/business/2023/05/31/ snap-work-requirements-debt-ceiling-deal/

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