Government assistance programs are largely made up of federal money allocated to provide support in various forms to serve the public. The federal government explains assistance for families and its goals through assistance on its website as “providing states and communities with a vast array of resources to assist needy families, including cash assistance, food stamps, medical services, and social services.” The categories for these services are indeed varied and plenty. This article will focus on programs that fall under the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families and further delineated under the Office of Family Assistance. A sampling of these programs includes Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which later developed from a program into its own bureau that oversees the larger Nutrition Assistance Program including the Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) food assistance program, the Head Start program for pre-kindergarten education, and Childhood Immunizations program. Each of these will be discussed in more detail below.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
The TANF program is broader umbrella of entitlement funding programs available to qualifying families in need of assistance. It was set up in 1996 under the Clinton Administration to replace an original welfare program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). When it was fully developed it replaced not only AFDC, but also the program called Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) and another called Emergency Assistance (EA). All three had been long plagued by criticisms of misused funds and promoting out-of-wedlock marriages along with stagnant lifestyles rather than social growth. The new program, TANF, now focuses its mission on helping families to not only stay afloat during hard times, but also to achieve a self-sufficient status. The following goals are listed by the TANF website (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/tanf/about.html) as goals:
- assisting needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes
- reducing the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage
- preventing out-of-wedlock pregnancies
- encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
The program has spent the last 15 years reshaping our social perceptions of family assistance tarnished by the reputation left by the welfare program it replaced. TANF balances precariously between 4.5 million families applying for assistance and $5,000,000,000 (billion) in funds being requested by states for funding.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Food Assistance
The WIC program is also considered one of entitlement funding, meaning that women must qualify and that not everyone will be eligible to receive funds by simply being a woman, an infant, or a child. The population that this program reaches out to is the lower income community of
- women during the course of their pregnancy and up to 6 weeks following delivery (or completion)
- women who are breastfeeding up through the infant’s 1st birthday
- women through their infant’s 6th month birthday if they’ve chosen not to breastfeed
- all infants through their 1st year
- all children through their 5th birthdays
The WIC program is proud to serve 45% of United States infants born and the beautiful women who have carried them. Benefits provided through the WIC program include:
- Supplemental nutritious foods
- Nutrition education and counseling at WIC clinics
- Screening and referrals to other health, welfare and social services
Using the most current data available, the program serves approximately 9 million women and children utilizing approximately $6,700,00,000 (billion) in fiscal year 2010. For more information or to see if you or a loved one qualifies for assistance through WIC, visit http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/aboutwic/.
Head Start Program
The Head Start Program was started in 1965 with a goal to prepare pre-kindergarten children, who had not received the enrichment and social setting of preschool, for the following year of formal school through a summer program likened to preschool. Quickly realizing that a summer program was insufficient, Head Start grew to a full-fledged enrichment program that included the promotion of educational, nutritional, health, and social services, to low-income families with 3-5 year-old students. In 1995 it expanded even further with the Early Head Start program. This additional program includes services for pregnant women, infants, toddlers, and families as a whole. In doing so, they’ve furthered their efforts to enhance the lives of the people they assist and lead them in the direction of TANF’s overarching goal to develop self-sufficient families with tools to be the great parents we know they can be with services like family skills workshops.
In fiscal year 2010 there was approximately $7,000,000,000 (billion) awarded in assistance to states and territories for Head Start program initiatives that serve approximately 900,000 children under the age of 5. For more information or to see if your or a loved one qualifies for assistance through WIC, visit For more information or to see if you or a loved one qualifies for assistance through the Head Start program, visit http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/
Childhood Immunizations Program: Vaccines for Children (VFC)
The VFC program was officially put into effect in 1994 as an entitlement program to serve children who may not receive vaccinations without government assistance programs. The funding for this program is allocated through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) then distributed through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in conjunction with the Administration for Children and Families. The CDC purchases the pediatric and adolescent vaccines at wholesale and discounted prices to make available to the program. To be determined eligible a child must be considered “underinsured” through 1 of 4 categories:
- Medicaid eligible: if a child is either enrolled in the Medicaid program or is eligible for the program, they are considered eligible for the VFC program also.
- Uninsured: a child with no insurance, regardless of their parents’ income status, is eligible for the VFC program.
- American Indian or Alaskan Native: through the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (25 U.S.C. 1603) a child meeting these outlined traits is eligible for the VFC program.
- Underinsured: children eligible for the VFC program under this category may 1) have private insurance that does not cover vaccinations, 2) only covers select vaccines, or 2) limits the payments made for vaccines (upon reaching the insurance payment limit – the child is “underinsured”). **an interesting note: the healthcare plan offered to active duty military members and their dependents leaves their children qualifying for VFC as “underinsured”.
Vaccines offered by the VFC program can be given by any provider enrolled in the VFC program, including private doctors, clinics and hospitals, public and community clinics, and even schools. The 2010 budget for the VFC program was approximately $3,000,000,000 (billion) with a report of the 2009 public and private providers administering VFC vaccines and services to just over 14,000 patients. For more information or to see if you or a loved one qualifies for assistance through the VFC program, visit http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/
This is just a light sampling of programs providing a glimpse of what is offered through the Office of Family Assistance with a focus toward Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. It is aimed at clarifying how widely the government assistance programs reach out to provide aid. The number of people and categories that the assistance programs encompass reach virtually every community and industry. With effort and determination to succeed, America reestablishes itself as a land of opportunity by offering its hand to lift its citizens up after a stumble.
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