Human Assistance Child Care Program

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

Sacramento County’s Department of Human Assistance (DHA) implemented a new Child Care Program for child care services supported by Sacramento County. The program administers $400,000 in child care payments on a monthly basis for parents who are participating in the CalWORKs (TANF) program. This effort was exemplary not so much in the outcome, but in the emergency timeframe of having to act on three weeks’ notice to have an entire new program up and running. This project is the result of emergency “in-sourcing” during a three week period. Staff had to coordinate facility changes, office moves, equipment installs, extensive programming efforts, new interfaces, community outreach, legislative and regulatory evaluations, curriculum development, and training in only a few weeks. Through the focused and dedicated efforts of the County staff in Sacramento, the business functions successfully delivered were more reliable and accurate than the previous system, and child care payments continued uninterrupted.