State uniting social services at single sites

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Aug 7, 2008 - Page: 20A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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State officials say they are within weeks of starting the first “one-stop shop” in Louisiana that would give residents a central location for assistance usually gathered from several separate state agencies.

Legislation passed this year mandates that the departments of social services, education, health and hospitals, the Louisiana Workforce Commission and the Office of Juvenile Justice work together with communities to serve families from single locations — called Neighborhood Places — that will be established across the state.

The law requires the state have at least one operating Neighborhood Place by July. East Baton Rouge has not yet chosen a location, local officials said.

But the state will likely have at least two locations established by the deadline, said Terri Ricks, Department of Social Services deputy secretary and chairwoman of the group of five agencies partnering on the project.

Core services expected to be part of every Neighborhood Place include housing assistance, food stamps, work-force development, and access to Medicaid and the state’s child health insurance program.

Optional services that could also be incorporated include addiction counseling, English as a Second Language classes, family planning and immunizations.

The Sabine Parish School Board in central Louisiana  agreed this week that it would  add a Neighborhood Place in at least one of its schools, Ricks said. That location could be operating in a matter of weeks, she said.

Louisiana’s Neighborhood Places are based on a Kentucky model, which began as a way to improve the educational achievement of students in Louisville, Ky.

Louisiana Department of Education Assistant Superintendent Donna Nola-Ganey said that by tending to a family’s health, economic and social needs, the state also is addressing a student’s academic needs.

“It eliminates a lot of barriers that students have to learning,” Nola-Ganey said.

In the Orleans Parish school district, a Neighborhood Place is expected to be part of the renovated Early Childhood and Family Learning Center at Mahalia Jackson School, which should open by January.

Orleans Parish School Board member Phyllis Landrieu, who represents the central city district, said children from the area, which has high rates of poverty and crime, start school at a disadvantage and traditionally have a very low percentage of success.

Though there have been many programs dedicated to solving the academic problem, none have comprehensively addressed the economic, health or social problems that factor in to a student’s learning abilities, she said.