Empowering People for Success Program (EPS)
The Empowering People for Success Program (EPS) is a statewide welfare-to-work initiative of the Connecticut Council of Family Service Agencies funded by the Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Department of Labor (DOL). The program is designed to assist recipients and past recipients of Temporary Family Assistance (TFA) achieve self-reliance and healthy independence through intensive, solution focused case management and care coordination that identifies and reduces the effect of barriers to sustained employment.
Program Mission
The Empowering People for Success program is dedicated to empowering families to succeed by identifying and reducing barriers to employment, increasing access to community resources, and minimizing risk to children. The program is committed to identifying family strengths and helping to empower families to use these strengths to succeed in employment, education and community building.
The EPS Program has three components:
- Prevention Services - Individual Performance Contracts (IPC): This program assists families with two sanctions from DSS for non-compliance who are in jeopardy of losing the ability to receive an extension of cash benefits at the end of 21 months. IPC clients are provided a "second chance" to restore "good faith" status through successful completion of an IPC. IPC services are 30 – 60 days.
- Safety Net: This program provides intensive support to participants who have exhausted time limits of TFA, are not eligible for an extension because they have not demonstrated a good faith effort, and have income that is below the TFA payment standard. This program may assist with basic needs payments. Clients may participate for up to twelve months.
- Employment Success Program: This program assists clients new to the DSS system, applying for benefits for the first time having no sanctions for non-compliance. Clients referred to this program receive intensive support to meet the goals of their personal employability plan assigned by Job First Employment Services (JFES) and to eliminate barriers that my result in the sanctioning process. Clients receive an average of six months of service.
