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Attached are two posters to display in your office lobbies.

2-1-1 flyers will soon be available in all DPA offices. 2-1-1 is an easy to remember telephone number that connects callers to free information about critical health and human services available in their community. Until 2-1-1, there was no single, comprehensive statewide provider of information and referral for Alaskans.

Health and Social Services Commissioner Karleen Jackson recently announced the appointment of Ellie Fitzjarrald as Public Assistance director.

Ellie Fitzjarrald has served as acting Public Assistance director since June 2006.

“Public Assistance touches many lives on a very personal level, and it requires a unique kind of leadership,” Jackson said. “I am pleased to have Ellie continue in this leadership role ─ she has a great understanding of the importance of public assistance in helping people achieve the highest possible degree of self sufficiency while in the most vulnerable of circumstances.”

(U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Press Release)

This week, President George W. Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which reauthorizes the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF) program administered by HHS' Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

"The reauthorization of the TANF program takes the next step in welfare reform by strengthening work requirements and providing the assistance families need to climb the career ladder," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "Welfare reform is helping millions of people climb out of poverty. Now, we want to go the next step and help them climb the job ladder by creating more opportunities for education and job training."

According to the Associated Press, Alaska will receive more than a half million dollars as part of the congressional Low Income Energy Assistance Program. The program helps states aid low-income residents in paying for heating bills this winter. Nationally, 100 million dollars in emergency funding was approved by Congress.
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski says this should help more Alaskans pay for their heating bills this winter. She says Alaskans have seen nearly 30 percent increases in the cost of diesel heating fuel and up to 40 percent hikes in natural gas costs as a result of increased worldwide competition for energy.

by Sonja Koukel
Capitol City Weekly

As the recently hired Food Stamp Nutrition educator, Helen Idzorek works with individuals, families and community organizations to offer programs designed to assist food stamp recipients in stretching their food dollars and enjoying healthy, nutritious meals. Helen's goal is to provide educational programs that increase, within a limited budget, the likelihood of all food stamp recipients being able to make healthy food choices.

WASHINGTON -- As a hospice care worker, Aniya Witherspoon says her goal each day is to bring joy to people living out their final days.

"If I can make them smile, then I've done my job," said the certified nursing assistant and mother of two who lives in Charleston, W.Va.

To do her job, Witherspoon relies on the government to help pay for child care.

She now pays $4 a day. Without that federal assistance, her daily bill would run $36. And she only makes $64 each day.

Father Time

There’s a growing focus in welfare policy on a long-neglected part of the problem: fatherhood.

It’s a normal weekday morning in the family courtroom at Baltimore City circuit court. The docket is crowded. First up: a man who has seven children and isn’t making his support payments to any of them. Three of the mothers are present, and they are indignant. One of them says she’s seen the man driving around in a new Jeep Cherokee “He was in the Navy,” says another. “He has a good job.”

Communities need to use a holistic approach to help families whose benefits are about to expire, the director of Alaska's Division of Public Assistance told members of the Matanuska-Susitna Agencies Partnership during a recent meeting at Valley Hospital Medical Center.

MAP is a group made up of individuals who work in the social services field. Nugen's Ranch, Head Start, United Way and Love Inc. are among the agencies represented.

Increase would come as lawmakers contend with surplus built up as precaution

COLUMBUS - The state is proposing the first raise in five years for families receiving welfare and other ways to spend most of the program's balance, which has surpassed what the federal government gives the state each year for welfare.

Staff with the Department of Job and Family Services were to present the agency plan to House lawmakers. The legislature must approve spending for the federal-state program as part of the state's next two-year budget that begins in July.