A Home for Every Child (AHEC) and TANF

Mother and father sitting with their daughter, son, and a dog in their yard.

About A Home for Every Child (AHEC) and TANF

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), is committed to ensuring that children are raised in safe and stable families. The first statutory purpose of the TANF program is to “provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives” and OFA has consistently worked with grantees and child welfare partners to improve the outcomes for children. TANF plays a pivotal preventive role by reducing the conditions that often lead families to child welfare involvement.

The whole of ACF is committed to improving the overall well-being of children and families and has come together under the A Home for Every Child initiative established by ACF’s leadership. This online page focuses on providing tools, peer spotlights, and timely resources for TANF program leaders and partners focused on preventing family involvement in the child welfare system through developing, implementing, and enhancing TANF-Child Welfare partnerships and innovations.

We encourage you to explore all the available resources and submit any questions you may have to the Peer Exchange forum to engage your TANF and child welfare partners. Additionally, please visit our YouTube site and discover all of the peer resources related to OFA’s Families are Stronger Together (FAST-LC) initiative that focuses on strengthen TANF and child welfare collaboration to achieve TANF purpose one and A Home for Every Child objectives.

FAST-LC Initial Convening

On October 18-19, 2023, OFA and CB commenced the FAST-LC Initial Convening. The Initial Convening was designed to build a connected and inspired community of TANF and Child Welfare partners ready to create or expand collaborative service delivery innovations, program improvements, and policy changes that better stabilize families and improve outcomes for children through preventative strategies.

TANF Funding Flexibility and Child Welfare Collaboration

One of the key elements in meeting the intent of the FAST-LC is to have participating state and tribal teams consider flexible funding approaches and strategies with TANF dollars focused on prevention-oriented services. This is crucial because the first of the four purposes of TANF is to “provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their home or the home of relatives.”

Road Maps and Road Tests: Strategies to Strengthen your FAST-LC Initiatives

Several FAST-LC site teams are in the process of designing or have already begun implementing new strategies to advance their FAST-LC initiative goals. Drawing on the Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI2) framework introduced at the October 2023 Initial Convening, this session introduced site teams to two key strategies to support the design of new strategies and pilot testing of them.

Sharing is Caring: Challenges and Solutions to Integrating TANF and Child Welfare Data for Prevention

FAST-LC site teams are at varying stages of integration when it comes to the working relationships and processes between TANF and Child Welfare program teams. Some teams are housed within the same agency or division whereas others are organized under separate departments.

Strategic Communication and Messaging: Shaping the Prevention Narrative

At the FAST-LC Initial Convening, several site teams expressed an interest in and a need for support on how to strategically communicate with internal and external audiences about their prevention initiatives. This issue has continued to be a priority over the course of the FAST-LC. This session explored the role that TANF and Child Welfare leaders can play as strategic communicators, specifically in service of their prevention initiatives. The session applied the lens of the Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI2) framework considering specific opportunities for strengthening teams’ approach to communicating with one key audience.

FAST-LC Capstone Convening

The FAST-LC Capstone Convening was held on August 20 and 21, 2024 in Bethesda, Maryland. 7 States and 2 Tribes met to learn from one another about the approaches and strategies they have designed and/or implemented to strengthen TANF-Child Welfare partnerships for prevention during the last 11 months. Sites also explored and applied strategies to promote the advancement and sustainability of TANF-Child Welfare partnerships and the prevention initiatives created through the FAST-LC.

A Human-Centered Design Approach to TANF and Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention

The Human-Centered Design Approach to TANF and Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention product emphasizes human-centered approaches for generating TANF and child welfare collaboration by implementing several activities including building empathy for families, mapping partners serving families, and exploring families' program experiences.

TANF and Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention: Emerging Implementation and Sustainability Issues and Strategies

The Emerging Implementation and Sustainability Issues and Strategies product synthesizes the work the seven states and two tribes participating in the FAST-LC accomplished with an emphasis on the partnering and prevention implementation and sustainability issues they addressed and the strategies they employed.

TANF & Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention: FAST-LC Site Journeys

The FAST-LC Site Journeys capture and convey the participating states and Tribe motivation for change, the partnership and prevention innovations they developed and implemented, and the lessons they learned from their journey experiences.