First ‘one-stop shop’ agency opens in La.
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The first “one-stop shop” that will give residents a central location for assistance offered by several separate state agencies opened Monday.
Legislation passed last 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. The Sabine Parish School District has two Neighborhood Place locations, both on school campuses.
Another Neighborhood Place is being planned in New Orleans.
Department of Social Services Secretary Kristy Nichols said Monday the agency has received interest from other parts of the state, but the model requires community support.
“It was not designed to be a DSS or state-agency driven model,” 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.
Nichols said that Sabine Parish Superintendent Dorman Jackson and the School Board had been working to improve educational outcomes. When they heard Louisiana was interested in adopting the model, they aggressively pushed the agencies together to use their parish as a pilot, Nichols said.
State agency officials have said that by tending to a family’s health, economic and social needs, the state also is addressing a student’s academic needs.
Families burdened by limited transportation options and limited time cannot bounce from agency to agency in search of services, officials have said.
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.
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