Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities TANF Task Force

TANF Reauthorization Policy Priorities

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) is a coalition of approximately 100 national consumer, advocacy, provider and professional organizations headquartered in Washington, D.C. The CCD advocates on behalf of people of all ages with physical and mental disabilities and their families through organized Task Forces on such issues as housing, health care, education and welfare reform. The CCD TANF Task Force is comprised of over 20 member organizations and works collaboratively with other entities offering different perspectives--not typical of most other CCD Task Forces. The CCD TANF Task Force seeks to ensure that families that include persons with disabilities are afforded equal opportunities and appropriate accommodations under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant program.

Studies demonstrate that families with an adult or child with a disability comprise a substantial proportion of the families receiving TANF cash assistance. While some families have exited TANF and entered the workforce, others remain on the caseload without access to the assistance they require to be successful. Alarmingly, studies confirm that adults with disabilities are disproportionately represented among the former TANF beneficiaries who have lost assistance due to a sanction.

The CCD TANF Task Force strongly believes the reauthorization of the TANF program should be consistent with the principles developed by CCD, which reflect national policy articulated in the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding persons with disabilities (the Principles are attached). More specifically, the reauthorization must include provisions that ensure that individuals with disabilities on TANF receive all of the services and supports they need to succeed; are not arbitrarily sanctioned; and that states and counties have the experience, expertise, and resources they need to properly assist parents and children with disabilities in their TANF programs.

Screening and Assessment

• Ensure that TANF beneficiaries have access to screening carried out by trained personnel who use appropriate tools to identify barriers to employment, including cognitive and learning disabilities, physical impairments, mental health and substance abuse disorders.
• Ensure TANF beneficiaries that are identified as having such barriers to employment have access to comprehensive assessments by qualified professionals.
• Ensure all screening and assessments are voluntary on the part of TANF beneficiaries; TANF beneficiaries should not be subject to a sanction or closure for failing to participate in a screening or assessment.
• Ensure that case workers inform TANF beneficiaries of the purpose of screening and assessment including the possibility that modification of requirements may be made to accommodate identified disabilities.
• Ensure results of screening and assessments are maintained in accordance with professional standards of confidentiality.
• States should consider other documentation of the existence of a disability in a family.

Services

• Ensure qualified professionals are responsible for the development of tailored Individual Responsibility Plans for families that have been identified as including a person with a disability. Such plans should include a list of services the state must provide to ensure people with disabilities have the access to services, supports and treatment that will allow them to address their barriers to work and be successful in the workplace, consistent with their abilities and capabilities.
• Encourage agencies administering TANF to facilitate inter-agency collaboration and explore co-location of services to facilitate access to the services, support and treatment that TANF beneficiaries require to address their barriers to work.
• Repeal the provision in current law that prohibits those convicted of a drug felony from receiving TANF assistance.
• Require states to ensure that an adequate network of service providers with specialized experience and expertise are available and accessible to meet the needs of TANF beneficiaries with disabilities.

Work Requirements/Work Participation

• Provide flexibility to states and qualified professionals to ensure reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities by allowing activities that address employment barriers to count towards meeting work participation requirements.
• Activities should include substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, education, vocational training, provision of child-care, and other activities considered appropriate by the state.
• Modify work participation requirements to address and accommodate the impact that variations in types and severity of disabilities have on work and support needs, including the reality that some persons with disabilities currently may not be capable of meeting the generally applicable work requirements and for some persons with disabilities the ability to work varies over time because of the episodic nature of disability. Flexibility must be provided to take into account that some individuals with disabilities are currently not capable of working. Others are capable of working only on a part time or limited basis that may not meet the generally applicable work requirements. Still other are capable of meeting the generally applicable work requirements but not within the timeframes, or given the nature of the services, supports, and treatments available. Others may not be capable of meeting generally applicable work requirements because the individual is a parent of a child with a disability and the individual is unable to obtain appropriate child care services.
• Ensure that states receive appropriate credit for providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities and ensure that states are not penalized for failing to meet work participation rates due to (1) the state making reasonable modification for persons with disabilities, (2) the state making reasonable modification for a parent with a child with a disability, and (3) the reality that certain individuals currently are not capable of meeting the generally applicable work participation requirements.

Time limits

• Ensure that a state makes reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities regarding TANF time limits. More specifically, the provision in the statute concerning time limits should be modified to require a state to disregard months of assistance received by an individual identified as having a significant barrier to employment during any period in which the state did not provide necessary services and supports to the individual. Significant barriers include physical or mental impairments (including substance abuse disorders) that substantially impair an individual’s ability to engage in generally required levels of work and a parent of a child with a disability if the child’s need for parental care results in the parent being unable to engage in the generally required level of work.
• In addition, the state should be required to disregard months of assistance during which an individual is unable to engage in the generally required levels of work.

Sanctions and Closures

• Remedy the disproportionate sanctioning of people with disabilities and prohibit states from sanctioning individuals with identified disabilities who have not been accommodated. In other words, states should be prohibited from sanctioning an individual if the state fails to offer appropriate screenings and assessment or fails to provide an individual with necessary services and supports that the state knew or should have known were needed to work or comply with other requirements in the individual’s plan.
• Require states to adopt procedures to ensure outreach and assistance is provided before and after the implementation of a sanction or a closure to help a family become compliant and prevent people with disabilities from losing access to the services, support and treatment they may require to successfully transition to work.
• Require states to restore benefits immediately to a family who has been sanctioned as soon as they become compliant with agency requirements.

Ensuring Continued Success For People in Transition to Work

• Require states to ensure people with disabilities have access to transitional benefits, work supports, and other on-the-job support services and training to enhance the likelihood they will remain stably employed. Medicaid coverage should continue for a minimum of 12 months for TANF leavers and states should have the flexibility to extend this further.
• Require states to plan for the successful work placement and responsible termination of TANF benefits for families that include a person with a disability by ensuring families have access to on-the-job support services and training and/or other community-based services to help them succeed.

Civil Rights

• The statute should be amended to require that a state describe the "methods of administration" it plans to adopt to ensure compliance with the civil rights statutes, including the ADA, so as to ensure consistency among job training programs in the state. The Department of Labor regulations implementing section 188 of the Workforce Investment Act already require the adoptions of methods of administration.

Client Assistance/Ombudsman

• Require agencies administering TANF programs to have a designated, independent entity that can serve as a client assistance advocate or “ombudsman” to serve those families that include an adult or child with a disability.

Participation in Program Design

• Require states to have client representatives (including adults with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities) participate in developing the state TANF plan.
• Require states to establish Advisory Panels, whose membership includes former and current TANF beneficiaries with disabilities, which are responsible for monitoring how the state can improve how it serves people with barriers to work, including people with disabilities.

Qualified Service Providers & Technical Assistance

• Require states to define 'qualified service providers' within the TANF block grant program and set minimum education, training, and/or certification or licensure standards.
• Require that state and local agencies develop a plan to provide on-going training to service providers to improve the delivery of services to people with disabilities.
• Direct the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide on-going training and technical assistance to state and local agencies to improve the delivery of services to TANF beneficiaries with disabilities, including grants to states and counties interested in supporting initiatives to achieve systemic improvements in addressing the needs of persons with diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities.

Research

• Provide resources to DHHS for research that will examine families’ services and support needs and whether they are receiving those services to ensure people with disabilities are being appropriately served under the TANF block grant program. This should provide states and counties with examples of effective best practices in services, assessment tools, and programs designed to address the needs of parents with barriers; including disabilities, and parents caring for a child with a disability.
• Provide additional resources to DHHS for competitively awarded demonstration projects to test the effectiveness of strategies to help TANF beneficiaries with disabilities.

Funding

• It is essential that the basic TANF block grant be maintained and adjusted for inflation. Failure to do this will mean erosion in the value of the block grant and reduction in what states can do with the funds. The services and supports that parents with disabilities need to successfully move to work are often long-term and intensive. Without an increase in the block grant, it will be difficult for states to meet the needs of these parents and families.