News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Empower UC Collaboration wants community input. The group is finishing the preparation for a $25 million dollar grant to reimagine how UC families in need are served.
Project Director Megan Spurgeon said that the opportunity came about through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Opportunity Act. She said that their goal is to bring some 500 UC families out of poverty using feedback from those in the community.
“What we’re looking to do is to comprise a new system that completely based on what the needs of the families in the region are,” Spurgeon said. “We have ideas of what we think would be effective to introduce in the region, but we really want this to be driven by the families that we’re serving.”
Spurgeon said that they want to know about what financial hardships families are facing, and how the organization can best address those community needs.
Spurgeon said that in addition to helping the organization better understand the situations of the families they serve, they also want to know opinions of how the organization currently operates.
“If it is a system that is beneficial to them, that is easy to navigate, that is easy to understand,” Spurgeon said. “How the feedback that they are getting from their case managers and their social services providers are. We’re just looking to better understand what is working well, and what can be improved so that we can use the money in this pilot initiative to reimagine the social services system of the Upper Cumberland.”
The survey will be open until Monday, February 14th. She said that those interested in answering the survey can find it on the group’s Facebook page or on UCHRA’s website.
