What We Do

The Office of Citizen Services (OCS) serves in multiple capacities for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS). There are two major programs within OCS: the Ombudsman Program and the CARE-LINE Information and Referral Service. Both of these programs enhance communications between the citizens of North Carolina and the NC DHHS.

OCS assists our customers in traveling through the maze of the human service delivery systems by answering questions or making referrals to someone who can answer questions; cutting through red tape; and serveing as a clearinghouse for information relating to the services to which the people of our state are entitled.

CARE-LINE, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Service’s toll-free telephone information and referral help line, switched to 24/7 service. This change coincides with increased efforts to assist military personnel returning from combat in the Middle East, and their families.

With thousands of active duty, Reserve and National Guard service members and their families affected by combat deployments North Carolina is taking the lead in connecting those families with the services they need. The expansion of the help line’s hours is a response to needs identified through the state’s Returning Support for Veterans Program (RSVP).

Provision of this service is an outgrowth of a dialog begun in 2006 that identified a need to improve access to mental health and substance abuse services for the state’s veterans who served in the Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

CARE-LINE staff will be at work, day and night, to provide assistance and helpful contacts to callers from anywhere in North Carolina.

For more details about what we do, use the buttons on the left to navigate to other related pages.