The city of Chattanooga’s Youth & Family Development Department is rolling out a new initiative, the Office of Family Empowerment, a transformation of the department’s former Social Services Division providing coordinated social services to Chattanoogans in need. The revamped division officially opened its doors Jan. 12.
In the past, the Social Services Division was focused on providing assistance to families in crisis – such as immediate help paying utility bills or purchasing medications – which did nothing to help eliminate poverty in the long term, said Lurone “Coach” Jennings, administrator of the Youth and Family Development Department. But in the last five years, the agency has been undergoing a process of transformation, moving away from solely filling immediate needs and moving toward a case management model that connects families with resources that can help them reach positions of long-term stability, said Rachel Howard, director of the Office of Family Empowerment.
“Families can still come to us for help when they’re in need,” Jennings noted. “[The Office of Family Empowerment] offers more wraparound services to help bring them out of poverty so they won’t keep repeating the cycle of needing help.”
The new services are basically upgraded and improved versions of what the Social Services Division was already providing. Using Community Services Block Grant funds from the state, the former Social Services Division built the employment and self-sufficiency programs now used by the Office of Family Empowerment, said Howard.
Through those programs, built over the last six months, the division almost doubled the number of families it moved toward self-sufficiency last year – from 79 in 2016 to 142 in 2017. Self-sufficiency is defined by the agency using the same method as the state, a requirement due to the state grant funding the department receives. People are scored based on their education level, and whether they can provide child care and adequate food, and must receive an aggregate score of 6 or greater to be considered self-sufficient, she said.