EA Assistance Group

The EA Assistance Group consists of an individual or group of individuals whose income, resources, needs and/or expenses are considered together in the EA eligibility determination. Their combined income must be below 250% of the federal poverty limit in the year the triggering event took place.

Assistance Group Membership

Assistance group members are established separately from the IV-E assistance group. The EA assistance group always includes the focus child of the eligibility file and the focus child cannot be removed from the assistance group. The EA assistance group can include the following people, which are basically all the household members:

• • The child

  • The child’s minor siblings living in the household

  • The child’s parents or relative caretaker living in the household

  • Related and non-related persons living in the household who will be directly involved with the prevention/remedy of the abuse/neglect situation

Please refer to DCS policy for the most up-to-date rules on the selected EA eligibility group.

Selecting the Assistance Group

To select the assistance group, look at the the Household Info card. This card is populated with smaller cards for each of the people in the focus child's household. Each individual's smaller card lists earned and unearned income, assets, and expenses as reported by the FCM as well as a link to the individual's person page and their relationship to the focus child. Every household member must have eligibility month income reported by the FCM even if a person is not in the assistance group in order for a green check to appear next to the Household Income criteria on the Emergency Assistance card.

To add the correct people to the assistance group, go to the child's profile page and look at the edit screen of the Family Network card, as explained in steps 4 and 5 here.

The smaller cards have a yellow button in the top right corner from which CEU workers can select whether or not the individual is part of the eligibility group. When the button is yellow, as shown below, the individual is in the eligibility group and his/her income will be calculated into the EA income criteria. As assistance group members are selected, Casebook will automatically run the income calculations and display the outcomes in the Emergency Assistance Card.

The Other Relationships card contains sections that look similar to the Household Info card for everyone the focus child has a relationship to but is not currently in a household with. If you want to add one of the related people to the assistance group, the person first needs to be added into a household with the focus child.

EA Assistance Group may not include the people with the following characteristics. These five reasons are the only reasons people from the list above would not be included in the EA assistance group.

• • Recipients of Title IV-E adoption assistance (this would be in unearned income)

  • Recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) (this would be in unearned income)

  • A youth adjudicated JD/JS may be included in the EA Assistance Group if beneficial but is not eligible to receive shared EA services 

  • People who are not US Citizens, by birth or US Citizens, naturalized (can be seen on the person page)

  • A child who is an out of home CHINS (in a removal episode)

When a household member is not included in the assistance group, their income is excluded from EA calculations and they are not eligible to receive EA services.

Information about Assistance Group Members

Demographic data (listed below) is needed for each EA Assistance Group member. This information should be entered by the FCM as they fill in the information about the related assessment and/or case.

• • Date of birth

  • Relationship to child

  • Social Security Number

  • Citizenship

  • Race Ethnicity

Income information must also be entered for every member of the focus child's household. For EA, only information about earned and unearned income must be entered and verified. Assets and expenses are not included in the EA calculations.