FSSA celebrates National 211 Day

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is celebrating National 211 Day today – February 11!

IN211 is a free service that connects Hoosiers with help and answers from thousands of health and human service agencies and resources right in their local communities – quickly, easily and confidentially. IN211’s team is comprised of experienced, responsive and compassionate community navigators who are skilled at actively listening and identifying needs and providing referrals that best meet those needs.

Since Indiana 211 became part of FSSA in July of 2020, we have helped hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers. In the past 18 months, our 211 Community Navigators made nearly 675,000 referrals to community resources. That’s about 1,231 referrals a day across the state, and we average 2.4 referrals per call!.

Click here to watch a video from Dr. Dan Rusyniak, FSSA secretary, celebrating National 211 Day.

IN211 also uses statistical data (not personally identifiable information) from calls, texts and web visits to help shed light on the nature of social needs in Indiana for decision-makers and government across the state.  The Indiana 211 data dashboard is updated weekly and can be found at Indiana 211 Data Dashboard

Here’s more about how Indiana 211 helps Hoosiers:

  • Indiana 211 covers the entire state which means anyone in Indiana can call and get help connecting to local resources
    • Translation services are available to callers in over 250 languages
    • Many of lines of business are staffed by Spanish speakers who are able to speak directly to the callers without assistance from translation services
  • Indiana 211 expanded services due to COVID and answered over 2 million calls in 2021 which is an unprecedented number of calls for any 211 across the country, the type of calls which assisted Hoosiers are:
    • COVID-19 questions, testing scheduling, vaccine scheduling
    • Help with housing, food, child care, transportation
    • Connections to mental health services
    • Applications for emergency rental assistance to help with past due rent
    • Applications for energy assistance to help with payment of gas, electric and water utilities

To access IN211, simply call 2-1-1 from anywhere in Indiana, or go to IN211.org.

About Brian Scott

I play on the radio from 7 am -1 pm weekdays on 98.9 WYRZ and WYRZ.org. Follow me on twitter @WYRZBrianScott or e-mail me at brian@wyrz.org.

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