After pitching Arizona’s vision for transforming the social safety net, officials from the state Department of Economic Security (DES) have returned from Washington to analyze the feedback they received.

“The first step will be a ‘brain dump,’” Director Clarence H. Carter said at the end of a week in which DES officials met with federal-agency officials, academic advisers and national stakeholders. “What all did we learn? What are our next steps with each of our partners?”

DES hopes a demonstration project starting in September will point the way to a more holistic model for providing social services – transforming the safety net from a system that focuses solely on delivering benefits to one that emphasizes meeting consumers’ needs and growing their capacity to make their own way.

Carter has decried the lack of shared vision among the many single-service programs – food, housing and employment, for example – the department administers on behalf of the federal government. Each program lies within its own silo, with its own rules and objectives, and is evaluated on how well it delivers its own service.

It is precisely because many components of the safety net are federal programs that the DES delegation was in Washington May 20-24. The state’s demonstration project may require federal waivers and other workarounds.

“We presented our vision,” Carter said. “It was our hope that we would engage our federal partners and national stakeholders in this discussion, and they have responded enthusiastically.”

For the most part, the talks remained free of politics, which was a relief to the DES delegation

“That fundamentally accrues to the benefit of the work,” Carter said. “Although we find ourselves in the most political town on the planet, we were for the most part able to keep the focus on the objective.”

That is crucial to transforming Arizona’s safety net, he added: “It is not an intervention from the right, left or center. It is an intervention from the perspective of people who need the help.”

For more on DES’ initiative to transform the safety net, visit www.azdes.gov/transformation.

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Freelance writer Stuart J. Robinson of Lightbulb Communications was embedded with the DES delegation in Washington.

Tags: Clarence H. Carter, Department of Economic Security, DES