Johnson County Social Services manages and supports several funding sources, policy boards, and community groups all working together to support children and families in Johnson County. Activities primarily involve identifying community strengths and service gaps, creating networking opportunities for service providers, coordinating funding, and facilitating family/youth/community participation in planning activities. The Youth & Families Services division of Social Services also helps families access the direct services and supports listed below and manages several ARPA-funded early education projects. Additional information and application links can be found below.
For more information about Youth & Family Services in Johnson County Social Services Department, email Laurie Nash or call 319-356-6090.
Direct Services & Supports
Care Coordination for coordinated intake and referral services for families with children age 0-5 years are provided through Community Empowerment. Families may receive help to apply for State Child Care Assistance, Head Start, and other community-based programs or to enroll in early education scholarship programs. Email Empowerment or call 319-356-6090.
Early Education Scholarships help support early education tuition for income-eligible children in quality rated programs. Infant & Toddler Scholarships are for children who have not yet turned 3 on September 15 and School Ready Scholarships are for preschool children age 3-5 years.
Car Seat and Safe Sleep Programs
Infant Safe Sleep & Child Car Seat Safety assists families to access child care safety seats and safe sleep items.
Focus On Youth Fund provides financial support for youth and families to address emotional and behavioral health challenges. Provides limited assistance for expenses not covered by insurance or for those who are uninsured. Eligible expenses include evaluations, prescriptions, therapy, Behavioral Intervention Services, and third-party insurance co-pays.
Child Care Assistance Incentive Program
Child Care Assistance Incentive Program helps to bridge the gap between state reimbursement for Child Care Assistance (CCA) and the provider’s actual private pay tuition rate. Enrolled child care providers may bill for up to $200 per month for each CCA slot occupied by an infant or toddler (age 0-35 months). This program helps child care businesses provide more opportunities to Johnson County families who qualify for Child Care Assistance and makes it easier for these families to access quality child care services.
Child Care Wage Enhancement Program
Child Care Wage Enhancement Program addresses the growing challenges of childcare staffing wages without increasing the costs of tuition or passing along additional costs to families. Enrolled child care providers can enhance their child care professionals’ wages by up to $2 per hour. The fund also pays $0.153 per $2.00 to cover the child care business’s additional payroll taxes.
Policy Boards and Coalitions
Community Partnership For Protecting Children
Community Partnership for Protecting Children (CPPC) is a community-based shared decision making approach to child abuse prevention that promotes positive home and community environments to encourage safe, healthy, and successful children and families. CPPC is a statewide initiative that implements four core strategies to engage the community in the protection of children: Community & Neighborhood Networking, Shared Decision Making, Family & Youth Engagement, and Policy and Practice Change. CPPC offers mini-grants of up to $500 for community-based child abuse prevention programming. The Partnership includes Prevent Child Abuse – Johnson County, our local child abuse prevention council that assists the community to find and provide effective responses to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Empowerment/Early Childhood Iowa
Empowerment/Early Childhood Iowa Area Board is a collaborative group that includes citizen board members and community agency partners that address the needs of children and families from prenatal through 5 years. The JCE/ECIA Board focus is to remove barriers to a safe and healthy community by identifying needs in education, health, and human services; maintaining, expanding, and coordinating resources to address those needs; promoting and facilitating collaboration; and evaluating and continuously improving efforts to advance the vision.
Decategorization (Decat) Governance Board redirects state child welfare funding to services which are more preventive, family-centered, and community-based in order to reduce restrictive approaches that rely on out-of-home and out-of-community care.
Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) Committee addresses community-wide DMC issues in the child welfare, education, and juvenile justice systems through data tracking and reporting, community education, and policy & practice change.
Juvenile Justice Youth Development
Juvenile Justice Youth Development (JJYD) Policy Board promotes positive system changes, identifies community needs, and initiates local solutions that promote positive youth development and prevent/reduce juvenile delinquency. The JJYD Policy Board provides oversight for local implementation of a state pilot project for Juvenile Pre-Charge Diversion Coordination and Expansion.