Student Care Center

The Student Care Center (SCC) at ACC is a one-stop visible and welcoming on-campus location that will help students meet their basic needs. It will provide faculty and staff with an easily identifiable space to refer students who have a variety of needs. The SCC mission is to ensure that:

1. Every student has access to the resources and services they need to succeed in their academic pursuits, and
2. Faculty and staff know there is an on-campus resource they can direct their students to when resource challenges arise.

SCC services will include:

• Access to food and household goods via a food store or mart (pantry), food-to-go snacks, beverages, and light-prepared meals, food access gift cards, and mobile grocery distribution.
• Access to clothing, housing resources, pro-bono legal support, ride share and other transportation options
• Teaching and learning programming to build personal capacity, including:
  • Healthy food choices, including food preparation on a budget and nutritional awareness, and personal and household budgeting
• Social work and health services, including:
  • Continuous and on-going case management
  • Reproductive health and wellness awareness and support
  • Assistance to access state benefits (SNAP, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, etc.) and low cost health insurance (MAP)
  • Student emergency financial assistance
  • Child care and textbook scholarships
  • Links to community services

Accomplishments

Social Support and Resource Development (SSRD) staff support six mobile grocery distributions at four campuses each month in partnership with the Central Texas Food Bank, Hill Country Community Ministries and the Hays County Food Bank. Since September 2022, SSRD has provided over 160,000 pounds of food to 5,200 heads of households and 15,200 individuals.

Student Accessibility and Social Support Resources (SASSR) staff have partnered with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to develop a procedure to refer students formerly in foster care for housing solutions with local affordable housing providers.

SASSR’s leadership have collaborated with the college’s architects and project manager to design the SCC space which will open by fall 2023.

A SCC manager job description has been developed and an SCC manager has been hired. Staff are working with the Central Texas Food Bank to prepare an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to provide the bulk of the food and household supplies for the SCC. A project has been established with IT to provide the IT infrastructure needed to operate the SCC.

The SCC strike team, working in collaboration with the SCC staff, has also developed recommendations to prioritize locations for future SCCs and for service profiles for small, medium, and large campuses.

Impact

Well over 50% of all ACC students report either food, housing or some other basic needs insecurity. The SCC will be a programming resource by which the college can help address students’ basic needs so they can focus more of their time and energy learning and mastering complex academic course material.

Next Steps

• The college must establish a predictable funding model to support services. The SCC staff will also collaborate with the ACC Foundation, as well as seek additional financial partnerships, to support ongoing operations.
• The college should ensure a strategy to build SCCs across the district, including the resources and operations needed to best support student basic needs.
• The SCC will create a student advisory board to provide input and guidance on the future development of programs and services.
• SCC staff will increase collaboration with affinity academic departments and Career and Transfer services to provide employment opportunities for under-resourced students.
• The SCC has established a partnership with IT to build an IT infrastructure to support all aspects of service delivery.
• SCC staff will take over coordination of mobile grocery distributions with regional food banks. Other mobile grocery distributions may be added depending on student need and demand.
• SASSR staff have submitted an MOU between ACC and the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) for consideration and approval. As a member of ECHO, ACC students will gain priority access to local affordable housing and other community resources.
• SASSR will seek out partnership opportunities with local or regional affordable housing providers.