Amid a rapidly changing landscape and potential misinformation, we are doing our very best to keep you updated on the most accurate CDSS updates and policy guidelines with this supplemental newsletter. You can also visit our live COVID-19 Q&A document, which is updated daily.
As always, please let your Program Manager/Fiscal Analyst know if any questions or concerns arise. From our CHC team to yours, we wish you all health during this time. We are here for you! Here are some updates since our March 25th newsletter:
*We may send more frequent newsletters in the coming weeks due to the rapid pace of change of programming, policies, and procedures from the COVID19 pandemic.
Need to Know
Emergency Allotments/Pandemic CalFresh (P-SNAP)
Current CalFresh recipients who have active cases in the month of March and/or April will receive Pandemic CalFresh supplements to raise their benefits to the maximum allotment amount for their household size. This will be implemented through a statewide batch process and loaded onto EBT cards on April 12th for March benefits and May 10th for April benefits.
If a household is missed during this batch process, county offices have the ability to manually issue these supplemental benefits. Emergency Allotments are only issued for the months a household’s case was active in.
Pandemic EBT (P-EBT)
Pandemic EBT differs from Pandemic CalFresh and will provide food benefits for families with children who may no longer have access to free or reduced school lunch. These families do not have to be current CalFresh recipients and benefits will be provided on a separate EBT-like card. These are additional funds for the Child Nutrition Program and completely separate from Pandemic CalFresh. More details will be coming on how this will be implemented.
Partial Interview Waiver
Interviews may be waived in certain clear cut and simple cases. However, if a case is complex, incomplete and/or lacking ID or mandatory verifications, an interview will still be required. Please see the chart in the COVID-19 Q&A Document linked below.
A few of you have requested access to a unique URL. We are currently working on streamlining this process with Code for America. Please reach out to your Program Manager for more information.
Outreach Strategies Document
We know that many of you have come up with creative outreach strategies during these challenging times and we have provided a forum for idea-sharing. Check out what your colleagues are doing, and add your own ideas!
As a reminder - when completing fiscal reporting (Time & Effort forms, invoices, and SSDRs) electronic signatures can be used. Please reach out to your fiscal analyst if you need any assistance with this process
Census Reminder
CDSS has asked us to encourage you to promote California Census with those that we serve so that underrepresented populations are taken into consideration with future state and federal decision making. You can visit CA Census Website for posters and flyers or click the link below for pre-made social media posts.
How to be Intentional When Consuming COVID-19 News
During this difficult time under lockdown due to COVID-19, it is important to keep mental health in mind. Linked below is a great article on how to be intentional about consuming Coronavirus news.
