Community Partner Orientation

State of Michigan Department of Human Services andMichigan Benefits Access Initiative (MBAI)

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Community Partner Orientation Objectives:

• Identify the needs and benefits of inter-agency partnerships.

• Define target households for outreach services and the goals of providing these

services.

• Identify the key goals of MI Bridges.

• Navigate MI Bridges and explain basic application process to potential clients.

After viewing this training module you will be able to:

MI Bridges Basics

Need and Opportunity

Michigan hit tremendously hard by economic downturn.

Unprecedented numbers of households qualify for public work supports.

State of Michigan and nonprofits struggle to meet the needs of low income families.

Public work supports go unclaimed in Michigan annually.

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Reasons for Not Applying

Department of Human Services

Department of Community Health

IRS

Lack of knowledge, distrust of government, welfare stigma, many stops, time missed from work, employed not eligible, or denied before.

U.S. Departmentof Education

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A Stepped Approach to Financial Independence

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Food Assistance

Energy and Non-Energy Assistance

Medical Assistance

Child Care Assistance

Cash Assistance

Department of Human Services Assistance Programs

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Public-Private Partnership

A statewide stakeholder group of 40 nonprofits and state agencies, led by the Michigan Association of United Ways, researched innovative strategies for a streamlined benefits delivery system.

Both government officials and nonprofit leaders moved towards parallel plans to create an easy-to-access, online, benefit application and delivery system coupled with nonprofit outreach.

Multiple private foundations provided funding to develop the technology and bolster the outreach and education.

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Michigan Benefits Access Initiative (MBAI)

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Michigan Benefits Access Initiative Vision

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Give DHS recipients anywhere, anytime access to apply for DHS programs and check on their case status.

Reduce number of local offices visits and phone calls to DHS by recipients.

Provide easier benefit maintenance through uploading of documentation.

Allow DHS recipients to get answers to commonly asked questions themselves through the Internet and telephone.

MI Bridges Technology: Key Goals

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MI Bridges Technology: Key Goals (cont.)

Build on the success of existing MI Bridges (As of August 22nd 2011)

Over 418,000 applications submitted online.

Over 600 registered community partners.

Over 247,500 online recipient accounts created.

Over 43,500 case change reports submitted.

Over 1,250,000 telephone calls received.

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MBAI Outreach: Key Goals

Improve access to public benefits for those in need of financial support.

Educate Community Based Organizations (CBO) on the advantages of using MI Bridges for their clients.

Train CBOs on the use of MI Bridges to effectively help people with applications.

Develop a referral system that will direct potential benefit recipients to organizations capable of providing application assistance.

Referrals become available through 2-1-1

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Seek to engage households that have:

Only applied for one benefit (i.e. food benefits only).

Applied before, but denied.

Limited reading or computer literacy.

Never applied before.

Lack transportation and computer access.

Target Households

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Statewide Outreach and Training

Regional UW MBAI Capacity HubUnited Way of S.E. Michigan is the MBAI capacity-building hub. Sixteen pilot sites engaged in benefit access work.

Statewide Sector LeadershipFood Bank Council of MI.MI Primary Care Association.MI Community College Association.MPRI.MI EITC Coalition.Coalition to End Homelessness.DHS – Voices for Action.MI Head Start Association.MCAAA.

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WHAT IS MI BRIDGES?

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A 24-hour secure Internet portal to DHS benefit applications: www.michigan.gov/mibridges

Directly linked to MDHS internal Bridges system for application processing.

Developed and maintained by the Michigan Department of Human Services.

A system that allows households to create an account to apply for benefits, check case status, and re-certify all online.

MI Bridges Is:

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MI Bridges – What Can You Do?

Apply for food assistance, medical assistance, childcare, cash assistance, energy assistance, and non-energy state emergency relief.

View All Program Status – Allow the case owner (head of household) to view benefit status online.

Access Control – Allow the case owner (head of household) to grant case viewing permissions online to any case member.

www.michigan.gov/mibridges 1-888-642-74341-888-MIBRIDGES

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Correspondence – Allow recipients to view their correspondence electronically.

Electronic Notification – Allow recipients to receive e-mails when new correspondence is generated.

Increased benefit history view – Allow recipients to view two-month prior, current and future month benefit status.

MI Bridges – What Can You Do? (cont.)

www.michigan.gov/mibridges 1-888-642-74341-888-MIBRIDGES

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MI Bridges provides DHS clients the ability to interact with the DHS via a self-service website and an interactive voice response (IVR) system.

Michigan’s self-service solution “MI Bridges” is being expanded to include the following in a phase manner:

MI Bridges Expansion Releases

Release Functionality Expansion Theme

ISept 2011

Check My Benefits (CMB): Internet

Expand existing internet functionality to include medical assistance, child development and care, cash assistance and non-energy state emergency relief.

Check My Benefits (CMB):

IVR

Expand existing IVR functionality to include medical assistance, child development and care, cash assistance and state emergency relief (energy and non-energy).

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MI Bridges Expansion Releases (cont.)

Release Functionality Expansion Theme

IIJan 2012

Apply For Benefits (AFB)Expand existing functionality to include medical assistance, child development and care, cash assistance and non-energy state emergency relief.

Document Upload Capability (DUC)

New functionality to allow applicants/recipients to upload documents.

Report My Changes (RMC)

Expand existing functionality to include medical assistance, child development and care and cash assistance.

IIIMar 2012

Renew My Benefits (RMB)

New functionality to allow recipients to complete semi-annual and annual redeterminations.

Arabic (ALT)Add Arabic capability to each of the MI Bridges functionality (Internet and IVR).

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Practice for general system navigation is available in MI Bridges.

Only use the “Next” and “Back” arrow buttons within MI Bridges and not the browser buttons.

Application can be saved for completion later.

Application good for up to 12 months without submission.

MI Bridges Need to Know

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Can check status of paper application or existing case by creating user name and password.

Allowed five times to enter user name and password incorrectly before system locks you out.

Can create up to three new user names and passwords.

MI Bridges Need to Know (cont.)

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Client Can Practice Bridges Navigation

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Question

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Save and Exit Choices

Allows recipients to view their program status

Recipients can now view DHS programs status.

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Case owners decide who to grant access to

Case owners may deny access to perpetrators of domestic violenceand abuse.

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Recipients can view correspondence electronically

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Recipients get notified electronically

Recipients may request to receive an email notifying them whenever new correspondence is generated.

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Uploading Documents

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Uploading Documents

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Uploading Documents

Recipients Can Now See More Benefit History

Recipients can now view two-month prior, current month and future month benefits.

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We hope you’ve enjoyed this method of receiving information on MI Bridges and look forward to sharing more in the future.

Additional detailed information may be found on the DHSNet OTSD website under the MI Bridges Training section.

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