Work First Family Assistance

North Carolina’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, called Work First (WF), is based on the premise that parents have a responsibility to support themselves and their children.

The Work First program promotes a strengths-based, family-centered practice approach and shares in the mission of the NC Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with its partners, to protect the health and safety of all North Carolinians and provide essential human services.

Work First provides parents with short-term training and other services to help them become employed and move toward self-sufficiency. Families in which grandparents and relatives are caring for their relative children and legal guardians can receive services and support that prevent children from unnecessarily entering the foster care system.

Work First emphasizes three strategies: Diversion, Work and Retention.