Mission Statement
The Division of Family and Community Services (DFCS) improves the health and well-being of families and individuals through partnerships and services that enhance the lives of Illinoisians.
Description
The Division of Family and Community Services (DFCS) is the largest program Division at IDHS and takes a comprehensive approach to meeting the most basic needs of Illinois residents and provides a suite of basic supports to residents including, access to food; nutrition education; medical needs; prenatal care; housing assistance; quality child care; youth services; income assistance; employment and training; immigrant and refugee services; and other supportive services, helping to ensure a safety net for vulnerable populations throughout the State. Additionally, DFCS has local offices across the state known as the Family and Community Resource Centers, which provide many services and information.
Data Collection Processes
There were 89 active DFCS programs in SFY20, with uneven data collection across programs.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program applications are the primary source for collecting racial and ethnic data through the Integrated Eligibility System (IES).
The Office of Workforce Development will begin extracting racial and ethnic data from the Integrated Eligibility System for the purposes of reporting data on all its programs (SNAP Earnfare, SNAP Employment and Training programs and services, SNAP Job Placement with Retention, SNAP Special Project, and the TANF Employment and Training projects.
The Office of Early Childhood, which includes the All Our Kids program and the Child Care Assistance Program, is working with the Department of Information Technology to create a database for their data collection and reporting processes.
The Office of Family Wellness includes the Maternal and Child Health programs High-Risk Infant Follow-Up and Better Birth Outcomes, which both collect race, ethnic, and demographic data. SNAP Outreach and SNAP/WIC Statewide Outreach (Hunger Hotline) are two more programs in this office, and services are delivered by community partners who will begin collecting and reporting this data for the third quarter of the 2021 fiscal year. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs (SNAP WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counseling Program, SNAP/WIC Food Center, and WIC Food Center Farmers Market) are all in varying stages of building out and/or creating data collection systems and/or processes.
Other offices and programs will all be implementing a plan to collect race and ethnicity data, including:
- Adult Services and Basic Supports (including Maternal and Child Health programs, Family Case Management, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and SNAP Outreach and Earnfare programs)
- Community and Positive Youth Development
- Illinois Welcoming Centers
For the remaining programs currently challenged with collecting complete racial, ethnic, and demographic data, DFCS is putting systems in place for SFY22, as permitted by federal rules; for these programs DFCS is creating new systems/processes for data collection. These programs include:
- Emergency and Transitional Housing
- Emergency Solutions Grant
- Supportive Housing
- Child Care Resource and Referral Program - Child Care Assistance (including Statewide CC&C and Provider Supports and Services)
- Domestic Violence Prevention Intervention
- Homeless Prevention
- Leadership Training and Tiered Reimbursement
- Partner Abuse Intervention
- Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
- Title XX DFI
For any programs currently challenged with collecting complete racial, ethnic, and demographic data, DFCS is putting systems in place for SFY22, as permitted by federal rules; for these programs DFCS is creating new systems/processes for data collection.
DFCS will also continue to collaborate with community partners to ensure race, ethnic, and demographic data is collected.
DFCS SFY 2020 Demographic Data (see Appendix)
- Total Number of Programs - 89
- Total Number of Participants (represents a duplicated count) - 13,328,635
- Number of Participants whose Race and Ethnic Demographics are being Reported - 5,533,350
DFCS Total Participants - 13,328,635 (duplicated count)
Program participant duplication is a result of one person or family having participated in more than one program and received more than one FCS service. Individuals will be counted in each of these programs as a customer, and potentially as a customer receiving services in other Divisions.
