Mecklenburg County, NC

A live information service that provides details about local services in Mecklenburg County.

In the 1990s, the Department of Social Services (DSS) in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, convened leaders of the aging services community in a series of brown bag lunches and meetings. A consensus emerged that area residents needed a single point of entry to access information about local services.  DSS developed and implemented what would become Just1Call—a live information service staffed by professional social workers.

Nuts and Bolts:

• Focus groups and community surveys conducted by the partners showed that potential users placed an extremely high priority on speaking with a live voice.
• Given the diversity of the population, the service needed to be multilingual if it was to help a broad range of citizens.
• In addition, planners learned through focus groups that some minority residents were reluctant to use services provided by the state.
• The program employs a team of social workers, who answer every call from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
• After-hours calls are returned the following morning.
• The program uses a service from AT&T that can respond to callers in 140 languages. Government involvement is played down in marketing efforts.

For more information on this program: Just1Call