Food Benefits for School-Age Children

On September 28, 2020, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced that it will provide additional benefits through the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program to help families purchase food for children whose access to free and reduced-price meals at school has been impacted by remote learning this fall due to COVID-19. The program provides a benefit on an EBT card that can be used to buy food at authorized retailers, including most major grocery stores.

In the P-EBT program this fall, children are eligible if they had access to free or reduced-priced meals at school last year, their school district or charter school is eligible to provide free or reduce-priced meals at school this year, and their school district or charter school utilized remote learning for all students for at least five consecutive school days between August 17th and September 30th.

 

This is different than the eligibility criteria for P-EBT benefits in the spring, which was available to all children who normally access free or reduced-priced meals, regardless of school circumstance. The new eligibility criteria are based on requirements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To find out whether a school district or charter school is receiving fall P-EBT benefits, view the list here.

More information about the P-EBT program can be found at www.ncdhhs.gov/PEBT.

2021-2022 FAFSA Released

On October 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of Education released the 2021-2022 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). To ensure maximum aid eligibility, students are encouraged to complete the FAFSA early and to use the online application.    

Students designated as unaccompanied homeless youth (UHY) during their final year of high school should be notified and receive documentation of that status by their homeless liaison. A designation of UHY entitles a student to claim independent student status when completing the FAFSA with their own financial information.  

• Additional resources for students seeking entrance into higher education can be found on the NCHE higher education webpage.
• Additional FAFSA information can be obtained from:
  • The Federal Student Aid website.
  • The SchoolHouse Connection's FAFSA resource page.

Regional Compliance Forums Moved to Spring 2021

 

The NCHEP regional compliance forums, which have typically been held annually in the fall of each school year, will be held during the spring of 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns. NCHEP will announce dates and locations in January 2021.

New Homeless Liaison Virtual Training Resources Available

 

NCHEP conducted the annual New Homeless Liaison training virtually on September 10, 2020, for liaisons with two years or less experience for their LEA or charter school and who did not attend the new homeless liaison training held for LEAs or charter schools during the 2019-2020SY.

 

Resources from the training event are accessible from the Training Handouts and Resources section of the Local Liaison webpage of the NCHEP website.

 

If you are a new homeless liaison and you could not participate in this training event, please contact your region’s program specialist for additional training opportunities and guidance on registering with our office.

Program Specialists Contact Information

Anelia "Neely" Laurens 

Phone: (336) 315-7782 
Email: alaurens@serve.org

Regions:

• Northeast (1)
• Southeast (2)
• North Central (3)
• Sandhills (4)

Patricia "Tricia" Lentz

Phone: (336) 315-7402
Email: plentz@serve.org

Regions:

• Piedmont-Triad (5)
• Southwest (6)
• Northwest (7)
• Western (8)

Sincerely, 

Lisa Phillips, State Coordinator for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth 

NC Department of Public Instruction

Office of the Deputy State Superintendent of Innovation 

Federal Program Monitoring and Support Division
The SERVE Center at UNC Greensboro

336-315-7491