SR 10-17 Dated 06/10

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

INTER-DEPARTMENT COMMUNICATION

SUMMARY

This SR releases the relocation of all New Hampshire Employment Program (NHEP) staff from New Hampshire Employment Security (NHES) offices statewide to the local DHHS District Offices. This move resulted in changes to several office procedures, the creation of new Form NHEP100, Your Next Appointment, and its associated instructions, and revisions to the following forms:

§   Form NHEP103, The Work Experience Program (WEP) Pamphlet;

§   Form NHEP104, The Work Experience Program (WEP): Frequently Asked Questions;

§   DFA Form 221, NHEP Pamphlet;

§   Form NHEP225, NHEP Planning for Success Job Readiness Portfolio;

§   Form NHEP228(O), NHEP Employability Plan (Orientation); and

§   DFA Form 261, Financial Assistance to Needy Families (FANF) Interview Checklist, and its associated instructions.

This SR additionally obsoletes the following forms and their associated instructions as the forms contained outdated and incorrect information and, for the 800 series forms, the expense of printing them did not warrant making corrections to them at this time:

§   Form NHEP224, On-the-Job Training for Employers through the NH Employment Program;

§   Form 886, NHEP Support Services: A Brief Overview;

§   Form 887, NHEP Activities: A Brief Overview; and

§   Form 888, Partner Agencies: A Brief Overview.

POLICY

All NHEP staff have been relocated to District Offices statewide as of June 30, 2010, the last effective date of the DHHS contract with NHES.

ALTERED NHEP OFFICE PROCEDURES

The relocation of NHEP staff to the local District Offices has altered several NHEP office procedures, as follows:

NHEP Orientations

For most offices, NHEP Orientations were formerly held in the NHES offices. Now all NHEP Orientations will be held in the District Office.

Folders containing the paper forms needed at the NHEP Orientations, informally referred to as the "NHEP Orientation packets," have in the past been sent directly to the NHES offices on a monthly basis. These monthly distributions will continue, but the packets will instead be sent to the District Offices.

DHHS Intranet Access

Because NHEP staff were on a different operating system while located at the NHES office sites, NHEP staff did not have access to shared drives or other important databases located in Lotus Notes. Now, every NHEP staff will have access to the Family Services and New HEIGHTS Information Library databases on their Lotus Notes desktop, as well as all other DHHS databases offered. Examples of the information that NHEP staff will now be able to access are as follows:

§   the current version of all DFA owned forms and their instructions;

§   current and historical versions of the Desk Reference and Fact Sheet;

§   all DFA Director Memos;

§   current and historical Supervisory Releases (SRs) back to the year 2000;

§   current and historical System Alerts back to the year 1999;

§   Hints and Tips;

§   Tivoli Distribution dates; and

§   current and historical system fixes back to the year 2000.

Forms Requisition

Previously, all NHEP forms ordered by NHEP staff were ordered via an NHES online forms requisition process. All NHEP forms were stored at the NHES Warehouse and forms orders were delivered to the NHEP Teams on a weekly or monthly basis. Now:

§   NHEP forms will be stored in the DHHS warehouse;

§   NHEP forms must be ordered via the DHHS warehouse forms ordering process by the forms requisition person in the District Office, which is generally the District Office Manager of Operations (DOMO); and

§   forms ordering and delivery will now be on a quarterly schedule that is pre-arranged for each District Office.

NHEP Employment Counselor Specialists (ECS) must:

§   monitor the supply of each form needed to perform their daily duties;

§   maintain a supply of these forms that will last 3-4 months (until the next District Office quarterly forms delivery is made); and

§   ensure that reorders are made via the District Office staff person assigned the job of requisitioning forms for the District Office (generally the DOMO).

Additionally, as always, it is crucial to use the proper form number with all associated form suffixes and prefixes when ordering a resupply of the forms needed. E.g., ECS cannot request "the 225" and expect to get the NHEP Portfolio. ECS staff will need to request that the District Office forms requisition person order "the Form NHEP225" to get the proper form. For ease in reordering and to prevent confusion with non-DFA created forms and/or non-NHEP forms which may have the same form number, all forms created and distributed by DFA have the following listed on the form:

§   a form number, which sometimes has a suffix or prefix associated with it;

§   the SR number that most recently released the form with any changes. The SR also contains reordering information for the form; and

§   the effective date of the form (which is generally also the effective date of the SR).

Office Supply Requisition

Formerly, ECS used the office supplies provided by NHES. ECS who requested special office supplies were required to contact Linda White at State Office to place the order. These special office supplies were then mailed to the ECS via UPS or brought to the ECS by the Field Support Manager. Now, ECS will need to place all office supply orders (also called the DO Supplemental Order) with the DOMO who will include the NHEP order with the Quarterly Supply order on a separate DO-NHEP Form 114, Request for Office Supplies.

NHEP Mail and Envelope Requisition

Formerly, NHEP mail was delivered to the NHES office via NHEP-specific Business Reply Envelopes (BREs), and the BREs used an NHEP Business Reply Mail (BRM) permit number. NHEP Teams will continue to use these BREs until May 14, 2010, at which point any remaining NHEP BREs with the old addresses must be recycled. On Monday May 17, 2010, the NHEP Teams must begin using the new NHEP BREs containing the District Office address and utilizing the DO BRM permit number. These envelopes will be stored at the DHHS warehouse and must be reordered via the DOMO on the Quarterly Forms Order.

NEW HEIGHTS SYSTEMS PROCEDURES AND IMPLEMENTATION

All reference tables will be updated to replace the NHES office site addresses and phone numbers with the District Office addresses and phone numbers according to the following schedule:

§   May 27, 2010, for NHEP Teams moving to the Concord, Conway, Keene, Laconia, Seacoast (Portsmouth), and Salem District Offices; and

§   June 10, 2010, for NHEP Teams moving to the Berlin, Claremont, Littleton, Manchester, Rochester, and Nashua District Offices.

DESCRIPTION OF REVISIONS MADE TO FORMS

The following forms were revised to exchange the NHES-related address and phone numbers, formerly used as the contact information for NHEP staff, with the District Office locations and phone numbers that will now be used, and to remove references to NH Employment Security:

§   Form NHEP103, The Work Experience Program (WEP) Pamphlet;

§   Form NHEP104, The Work Experience Program (WEP): Frequently Asked Questions;

§   DFA Form 221, NHEP Pamphlet;

§   Form NHEP225, NHEP Planning for Success Job Readiness Portfolio;

§   Form NHEP228(O), NHEP Employability Plan (Orientation); and

§   DFA Form 261, Financial Assistance to Needy Families (FANF) Interview Checklist, and its associated instructions. This form was additionally altered to remove the field for a FSS signature; the FSS will no longer be required to sign this form. The retention code of the form was also altered from 5 years from the date of completion to 2 years from the date of completion.

As a costs savings measure, the existing supply of each form above must be depleted before the new version will be printed. ECS currently provide business cards to every NHEP participant and all participants were provided with notification of the move, so old and new participants will have access to the new locations for providing verifications and for scheduled meetings with their ECS.

The Form NHEP100, Your Next Appointment, was created to provide a way for the NHEP ECS to record upcoming scheduled appointments with NHEP participants. The form is a simple 2-part NCR, ¼ of a 8 ½ X 11 sheet of paper in size, and it lists the NHEP participant’s name, the date, time, and location of the next appointment with the NHEP ECS, the name and phone number of the ECS who will be conducting the appointment, and an alert for the NHEP participant to contact the office if unable to make the appointment. After completing the Form NHEP100, the NHEP ECS must give the white original copy of the form to the NHEP participant and retain the yellow copy in Section 2 of the NHEP case record. Form NHEP100 may be destroyed upon the completion of the necessary action associated with the appointment (retention code "D"). Meaning, if the NHEP participant attends the scheduled appointment, the yellow copy of Form NHEP100 may be destroyed. If the NHEP participant misses the appointment and the missed appointment results in a sanction and/or an administrative appeal, the ECS may destroy the yellow copy of NHEP100 once the sanction has been cured or the administrative appeal process is finished. Instructions for the form were created accordingly.

Any other appointment notice forms that the NHEP Teams are currently using should be recycled and the new Form NHEP100 can be used immediately. All offices will have been supplied with an initial supply of this new form as of June 1, 2010.

The following forms and their associated instructions are obsolete as of the release of this SR as the forms contain outdated and incorrect information, and the expense of printing them do not warrant making corrections to them at this time:

§   Form NHEP224, On-the-Job Training for Employers through the NH Employment Program;

§   Form 886, NHEP Support Services: A Brief Overview;

§   Form 887, NHEP Activities: A Brief Overview; and

§   Form 888, Partner Agencies: A Brief Overview.

A Certificate of Destruction has been attached to this SR for recycling associated with the above forms and their associated instructions.

POLICY MANUAL REVISIONS

Revised Family Assistance Manual Topics

PART 131  ELIGIBILITY DETERMINATIONS*

Section 808.15  Orientation

*FAM 131, Eligibility Determinations, is being updated to remove text which indicates that eligibility for NH Child Care Scholarship is determined by contract child care agencies. Per SR 09-17 dated June 2009, which released the redesign of the NH Child Care Scholarship Program, there are no longer contract child care centers in NH (these centers are now licensed child care centers). Additionally, DFA workers now make all eligibility determinations for NH Child Care Scholarship. Changes to this policy topic were inadvertently overlooked during the release of that SR.

/xThe information in this SR is effective as of the release of the SR. The schedule of the NHEP Teams’ move dates to the District Offices is listed below:

The NHEP Team Members will be inaccessible the day of and the day following the move dates associated with their office. For example, Keene NHEP Team Members will move to the Keene District Office on June 1, 2010. Keene NHEP Team Members will be unavailable June 1 – June 2, 2010.

CLIENT NOTIFICATION

Letters notifying NHEP participants of the impending move of NHEP Team Members to the District Offices were mailed according to the schedule below:

A sample letter is attached for reference.

TRAINING

No special training is planned or needed.

FORMS MANUAL POSTING INSTRUCTIONS

** Due to the large size of the Form NHEP225, the form is not attached to this SR.

DISPOSITION

This SR may be destroyed or deleted after its contents have been noted and the revised manual topics released by this SR have been posted to the On-line manuals.

DISTRIBUTION

This SR will be distributed according to the electronic distribution list for Division of Family Assistance policy releases. This SR, and revised On-Line Manuals, will be available for agency staff in the On-Line Manual Library, and for public access on the Internet at http://www.dhhs.nh.gov/DHHS/DFA/LIBRARY, effective May 31, 2010. Additionally, this SR, and printed pages with posting instructions, will be distributed under separate cover to all internal hard copy holders of the Family Assistance and Forms Manuals.

DFA/JBV:s

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CERTIFICATE OF DESTRUCTION

I certify that all copies of Form NHEP224, dated 7/99, SR 99-23, and Forms 886, 887, and 888, dated 9/00, SR 00-43, and their associated instructions, have been destroyed.

ECS or DOMO:                      

District Office                       

Return this certificate to the DFA Policy Unit, 129 Pleasant St, Concord, NH 03301, after the instructions in the SR have been carried out.