2. Employment & Training
3. Partners
4. WIOA Title I-A & I-B
5. Policy & Procedure Manual
6. 8.6 Supportive Services
7. Previous Policy - 8.6.3 Providing Supportive Services

Previous Policy - 8.6.3 Providing Supportive Services

8.6.3 Providing Supportive Services

Effective date: January 7, 2022 - November 30, 2024

Identifying Supportive Service Needs

As part of the initial assessment, career planners must work with individuals to identify their supportive service needs.¹ The career planner

1. gathers information from the individual to help the individual recognize barriers that could hinder his/her successful participation in career services or training activities
   AND
2. helps the individual connect with available resources to address the barriers.

Career planners are expected to check in with participants about supportive service needs throughout their program participation. This will help ensure that all barriers to successful participation are identified and appropriately addressed, and that services are discontinued when they are no longer needed.

When to Provide

Local WDBs may provide information and referral supportive services at any time.

Local WDBs may provide program-funded supportive services through the Adult and Dislocated Worker Programs when:

• participants are or will be engaged in career or training services;²
• they need the supportive services to participate in career or training services;³
  AND
• it can be demonstrated that they cannot access the supportive services, within the time frame needed, through other WIOA titles, federal or state public assistance programs, or job center partners in the local WDA.⁴
  Example: A participant needs help with transportation to a class starting next week. A community organization provides funding for transportation but will not have funds available for this purpose until next semester. Since the service is not available by next week, which is the time frame needed, WIOA can fund supportive services for transportation for this participant.

Note: Adult and Dislocated Worker program participants in follow-up may not receive any program-funded supportive services.⁵

Career planners may provide a program-funded supportive service only if the service is connected to the individual's participation in a career or training service. The program-funded supportive service must end when the career or training service ends. For example, a participant receives financial assistance for child care while attending training. The participant cannot continue to receive the child care assistance after the training ends, unless the participant needs child care to participate in another career or training service identified in his/her employment plan. Supportive services alone cannot extend an individual's program participation.⁶

Career planners can provide a program-funded supportive service for a career or training service that has not yet started, if the participant needs the supportive service in order to start the career or training service. For example, a participant plans to start an OJT and will need a pair of steel toe boots for the training. The boots are an allowable supportive service.

Supportive Services for Co-enrolled Participants

An Adult or Dislocated Worker program participant may receive supportive services when engaged in career or training services funded by WIOA one-stop partners, or other funding sources, if the services are included in the participant's WIOA-approved employment plan.⁷ This access to supportive services gives a participant the resources needed to participate in career and training services that are not directly funded by the Adult program or Dislocated Worker program, but that the participant and career planner deem necessary and appropriate for the participant to achieve the employment and training goals identified on their IEP.⁸ Access is permitted if:

1. the individual has been determined eligible for the Adult and/or Dislocated Worker program;
2. the individual has received, or is receiving, at least one participation-causing service provided by the Adult and/or Dislocated Worker program (NOTE: this requirement is minimally satisfied by the development of an employment plan);
3. the supportive service provided is an allowable supportive service;
4. the need for support is included in the participant's employment plan; and
5. both the supportive service and the service being supported are added to the ASSET Manage Services screen.
   NOTE: Services being supported that are not funded by the Adult or Dislocated Worker program should be entered in ASSET with an "Other" fund source. However, for services provided by a program that also uses ASSET as its management information system (MIS), entry of the service by the partner program is sufficient. It is not necessary to duplicate service entries when a participant is co-enrolled in multiple programs that record their data in ASSET.

EXAMPLES: A participant co-enrolled in the Dislocated Worker program and TAA may receive transportation assistance funded by the Dislocated Worker program to attend a training program funded by TAA, including training programs that are not included on the Eligible Training Program List. Similarly, an Adult program participant with an active IEP that identifies a training need, but whose tuition is being fully funded with a PELL grant, may receive childcare assistance to support their participation in the training program.

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• ¹20 CFR § 678.430(a)(3)
• ²20 CFR § 680.910(a)(1)
• ³20 CFR § 680.910(b)
• ⁴20 CFR § 680.910(a)(2)
• ⁵TEGL 19-16, p. 19
• ⁶TEGL 19-16, p. 19
• ⁷Email from DOL to DWD-DET, 12/09/2021
• ⁸TEGL 19-16, p. 18