Tribe Tailors Idaho Family-Assistance Program to Its Needs Story-Date: 11:21 a.m. PST Tuesday , February 16, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------ Tribe Tailors Idaho Family-Assistance Program to Its Needs By Cate Montana, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News Feb. 15--LAPWAI, Idaho--The Nez Perce tribe recently became the first tribe in Idaho to implement a tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The Nez Perce Social Services department took over the Idaho cash assistance program, Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho (TAFI), Jan. 1 of this year. Now in its second month of operation, the primary goal of the assistance program is to help Native American families in becoming self-sufficient and responsible for their children through gainful employment. Adapting the state program to the tribe's needs has been an important move toward tribal self-sufficiency. "When the state developed their plans, the process they established working with TAFI participants was employment first, education and training second and then looking at obstacles that participants may have," said Kerma Greene coordinator of the program with the Nez Perce Social Services department. "The key terminology that they utilized is, `Get a job, keep a job.' Unfortunately, for some tribal members, it's not easy for them to get a job and keep a job unless they have worked on obstacles that needed to be removed before even looking at keeping or getting a job." The tribe reversed the state's philosophy and started working with program participants, identifying up front, obstacles that might keep them from succeeding with the program. Physical difficulties such as lack of child care facilities and programs as well as the reservation's isolation and lack of public transportation were easy to identify and target. More subtle are the psychological and emotional barriers that stand in the way of many tribal members seeking -- and holding -- viable employment. "We're talking more about socio-economic barriers that some participants might have, such as self-esteem and self-confidence," said Greene. "We also adopted in our plan that the participants are required to do an alcohol and drug evaluation because that is a barrier that many Indians face. We wanted to make sure we addressed that issue in the plan." Social services workers also help participants identify what kind of careers interest them. Participants are coached about education requirements and training programs and assisted in enrolling in the appropriate programs -including a four-year college program. To be eligible, families must have a dependent child living with them, have an enrolled Nez Perce tribal member also living in the household, and there must the economic need for support. Monthly payments are not large, $276 per month for each client. But since the tribe took over, participants are eligible to receive them for 60 months rather than the state's maximum of 24 months support. This gives clients sufficient time to complete training and make the many changes necessary to stay in compliance. Other changes also help tailor the program to tribal member's needs. "The state of Idaho is requiring 35 hours per week per participant to receive that $276 a month," said Stella Charles, Social Services director. "The tribal program is requiring 20 hours per household. "The state was not considering all the economics of the reservation and the ruralness of the situation. It was real hard. We did have at least a handful of female heads of households that just were going without because they just couldn't comply with the state's requirements." Since the tribe took over the program, seven clients have transferred from the state program, 25 are enrolled and five more are pending inclusion. Social Services is scrambling todevelop the much needed supplemental programs that can further ease the economic burden on families, such as van pools and child care services. The tribally designed program is better than anything that has been offered in the state before and other tribes, equally interested in meeting the unique cultural needs of their people, are taking notice. Charles says that they are receiving calls from every tribe in the state and some from out of state as well. "The tribal staff has worked hard for over a year to meet the necessary requirements to operate our own TANF program," said Samuel N. Penney, Nez Perce tribal chairman. "We are proud of our staff for getting us to this point. ... We welcome participants who qualify for the program to contact our Social Services office to begin the application process." ----- Visit Indian Country Today on the World Wide Web at http://www.indiancountry.com/ (c) 1999, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------