Krystal Harris, director of the Vance County Department of Social Services (DSS), was recently on WIZS’ Town Talk to discuss programs offered by the department.
According to Harris, services offered by DSS can be classified under one of four areas – economic services, adult services, child welfare services and administration.
“People usually think of our economic services such as food and nutrition or our child welfare services when they think of DSS but we provide many other additional services,” said Harris.
Medicaid, Work First, food and nutrition benefits, Child Protective Services (CPS), Adult Protective Services (APS), in-home services for the elderly and disabled, foster care and adoptions are among the many services provided by DSS.
Unlike many counties that source their child support services out to other agencies, Vance County’s DSS has an in-house child support program.
In addition, DSS provides daycare subsidies to approximately 1,000 children in Vance County with more currently on a waitlist.
Daycare providers must be accredited as a three-star center to be eligible to receive the subsidies provided by a combination of funding from the State and from Smart Start. The State sends payment directly to the participating daycare providers while parents are charged a “parent fee” or a percentage of the money owed.
Program Integrity, DSS’ fraud prevention program, is used to investigate reports or suspicion of anyone committing fraud, especially as it relates to economic services such as Medicaid, food and nutrition or the Work First program.
According to Harris, the need for DSS is great in the local area, a trend that she sees continuing to grow. “Approximately a third of the population of Vance County receives food and nutrition benefits,” Harris said. “A lot of our citizens are unemployed and when unemployment rates increase we see an increase in requested services.”
The number of people served and the increased need for services has led DSS to begin working with the County to explore relocation options. “We are in the process now and are making some progress on finding possible relocation sites for our office,” said Harris.
Vance County DSS currently employs 125 workers, including employees at the Senior Center in downtown Henderson, a division that falls under DSS. There are seven social workers available for in-house investigations on an as-needed basis. If you need to report a situation, Harris emphasized that there is someone available to help 24/7.
Part of Harris’ job as DSS Director is to use WIZS’ Town Talk and similar platforms to help educate the public on services that DSS provides and to help dispel negative ideas of the program. “In my experience, we do have a negative connotation with our name, but we provide a lot of services to assist people and to get them out of crisis situations. If we didn’t have social services a lot of people would not have health benefits or a meal on the table each day. Children and adults would not be safe.”
For more information on the Vance County Department of Social Services, please visit the office at 350 Ruin Creek Rd, Henderson or call (252) 492-5001.
Applications for services may also be found by visiting NC ePASS at https://www.nc.gov/services/e-pass.