Ensuring Access to Essential Items for Foster Care Beneficiaries

Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities living in foster care settings were going without clothes and shoes despite having adequate Social Security funds to obtain them. This was due to a breakdown in communication between the foster parents, case managers, and the Foster Community Based Care system (CBC). Foster parents’ requests for clothes, shoes and other necessary items would sometimes not reach the CBC because of staffing issues with the case managers. Using Social Security’s guidance, Disability Rights Florida worked with the case managers and the Foster CBC to create efficient policies and procedures that facilitate a timely response to a beneficiary’s request for items.