Program Details

Pathways to Potential is DHS’s new business model focusing on three core principles:


Place workers in the community, where people are already looking for help. Use a network approach with DHS staff serving as connectors. Leverage partnerships with communities to integrate services toward shared outcomes. The Pathways to Potential model allows state public assistance benefit services to be better coordinated by placing a DHS caseworker identified as a success coach in schools to assist children and families with removing barriers that may be keeping them from self-sufficiency. We now have DHS staff in over 160 schools across the state. The Pathways to Potential model uses a networking approach to help clients find solutions to the barriers they face. The model reflects the understanding that accessing public benefits is just one piece of a long pathway that people must take to reach their healthiest and fullest potential.

As an expansion of the Pathways model, several Pathways sites are transitioning to the Community School Model, in which a Community School coordinator works directly with the success coach to help connect families within the school and surrounding community with services. Click here to learn more about Community Schools. Key partnerships with other state agencies such as the Department of Community Health, Michigan Department of Education and Michigan Economic Development Corporation have been established to address each of our outcome focus areas:

Improve School Attendance
Reduce chronic absenteeism.
Decrease dropout rates.
Identify barriers to attendance.
Safety
Increase access to prevention.
Engage disconnected youth.
Connect vulnerable youth and adults
to protective network.
Education
Remove barriers to active participation.
Enhance and support parental involvement.
Improve high school graduation rates.
Increase third-grade reading proficiency.
Increase student academic growth in grades 3-8.
Health
Remove barriers that prevent access to health care.
Increase access to healthy foods.
Increase free/reduced lunch participation by eligible students.
Increase access to behavioral health care.
Support good hygiene.
Support physical fitness.
Self-Sufficiency
Remove barriers to employment.
Assist in accessing quality child care.
Promote adult education.
Support access to transportation.