75-02-01.2-64. Essential services.

1. The human service zone may determine a service, which the family cannot perform independently because of infirmity or illness, is essential to the well-being of the household.

2. "Essential service" includes housekeeping services and child care during a caregiver's illness or hospitalization, attendant services, and extraordinary costs of accompanying a member of the family to a distant medical or rehabilitation facility, arising out of a special need or condition of a member of the household or an ineligible caretaker who is not a parent of a child in the household and may include other expenses and services, provided:

a. The need is unforeseen and due to no fault of the household;

b. The department is the payer of last resort; and

c. The household receives prior approval from the department.

3. The cost of essential services, which is a special item of need:

a. May be provided for in the cash grant only if the cost has been established through negotiations with the provider of the services; and

b. Must be budgeted and paid retrospectively or prospectively or by supplemental payments.

History: Effective December 9, 1996; amended effective July 1, 1997; January 1, 2003; January 1, 2011; April 1, 2026.