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| The Minnesota Family Investment Program, or MFIP, is the state’s welfare reform program for low-income families with children. MFIP helps families move to work and focuses on helping families. It includes both cash and food assistance. When most families first apply for cash assistance, they will participate in the Diversionary Work Program, or DWP. This is a four month program that helps parents go immediately to work rather than receive welfare. |
| Some families may be referred to MFIP when they first apply for assistance or after they finish four months of DWP. MFIP helps families transition to economic stability. Parents are expected to work, and are supported in working. Most families can get cash assistance for only 60 months. |
| Family Stabilization Services (FSS), a new service track for families who are not making significant progress in MFIP or DWP due to a variety of barriers to employment, was implemented in counties in February 2008. Approximately one-third of the MFIP caseload receives Family Stabilization Services (FSS). The Minnesota Department of Human Services has issued an Evaluation Note describing data from the first year of FSS. The report includes trend data on the number of cases enrolled in FSS each month, the impact FSS has had on the TANF Work Participation Rate, demographic, employment, and activity data on those served through FSS, and the counts of participants in the various FSS eligibility categories by county. |
| After introducing major changes in family assistance by implementing MFIP in 1998, the Department of Human Services recruited nearly 2,000 participants for a five-year longitudinal study to follow their progress. Two groups were selected by their status at the start of the study: ongoing Recipients and Applicants who were then new to assistance. The report, Minnesota Family Investment Program Longitudinal Study: Four Years After Baseline, released August 2005, describes the situation of the Recipients in 2002 in public assistance use, employment, family composition, income, personal and family challenges, housing, health care, child care, transportation, and other employment issues, using survey responses and administrative data. |
| While the link between economic stress and child abuse is well known, there is less agreement about which specific supports can be the most helpful. MFIP Family Connections is a three-year pilot to examine the impact of early intervention services on low-income families at risk of child maltreatment or other poor outcomes for children. Launched in October 2007, the pilot is targeting families receiving MFIP, have at least one child age 10 and younger and live in Beltrami, Cass, Crow Wing, Dakota, Olmsted, Polk, Ramsey or Sherburne Counties. About 1,900 families are expected to participate voluntarily over the course of the project. Services will include parenting education, family and crisis counseling, and positive parent-child interaction activities. A program brochure provides further information. |
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