Mandatory After One Year, Support Services and Stronger Sanctions

Beginning in October 1994, people must participate in the Social Contract at least 20 hours per week and those not meeting this expectation within their first year on assistance will be activated for the MOST program. A referral to MOST may occur earlier, but it will be mandatory at the end of the first year on assistance if the recipient is not voluntarily involved in Social Contract.

To facilitate participation in the Social Contract in some cases it is necessary to provide supportive services such as child care and transportation. We will provide:

• Child care for participants involved in self-initiated education and training;
• Child care assistance and transportation for anyone referred to MOST.

For those families mandatorily assigned at the end of the first year, we will provide intensive family intervention services to identify and resolve barriers that make compliance difficult. We anticipate that very few families will refuse participation and that some may have barriers that they are unable to overcome without the department's assistance.

Those individuals not in compliance with the MOST program at the end of their mandatory year and who failed to respond to DSS counseling will be terminated from assistance. Those demonstrating compliance with the Social Contract or MOST will continue to receive support/assistance until they have moved to self-sufficiency. We will modify the existing sanction policies for non-compliance/non-cooperation with MOST and child support as follows:

• First penalty: 25 percent loss of AFDC/State Family Assistance (SFA) and food stamps until compliance is demonstrated;
• After 12 months of non-compliance, the AFDC/SFA case will close for the entire family; Medicaid and food stamp eligibility will continue;
• During the first and second sanction steps an intensive family intervention case will remain active to attempt to actively engage the recipient and remove barriers to participation. Again, it is anticipated that very few cases will result in case closure.