Families Are Stronger Together: TANF & Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention Learning Community (FAST-LC)

About FAST-LC

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), in partnership with the Children’s Bureau (CB), developed a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)-Child Welfare Learning Community focused on preventing family involvement in the child welfare system through developing, implementing, and enhancing TANF-Child Welfare partnerships and innovations. This “Families Are Stronger Together: TANF & Child Welfare Partnering for Prevention Learning Community (FAST-LC)” was a one-year initiative that involved eight state and two tribal TANF-Child Welfare partnerships. The FAST-LC launched in September 2023, hosted its Initial Convening in October, and concluded in September 2024 with a Capstone Meeting.

OFA selected 10 tribal and state TANF and Child Welfare agencies to participate in the FAST-LC:

  • Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation (Montana)
  • Pascua Yaqui Tribe (Arizona)
  • Arizona Department of Child Safety/Department of Economic Security (DCS/DES)
  • Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS)
  • California Department of Social Services (DSS)
  • Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
  • Kentucky Department for Community Based Services (DCBS)
  • Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
  • Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS)
  • West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR)

All the FAST-LC sites actively rethought and reimagined how their TANF and Child Welfare programs could collaborate and develop innovative policies, programming, and practice models that center on economically stabilizing families and improving outcomes for children. These FAST-LC sites were a part of a collaborative network of peers that actively participated in monthly collective technical assistance sessions and learning activities; worked meaningfully with their dedicated team coaches to advance their initiatives; and received individual technical assistance from varied subject matter experts to support them in both process and issue specific topics to advance their change agendas. This learning community helped build the cross-agency site teams’ capacities to effectively design and develop prevention strategies to economically support TANF families, and to create sustainable programs and practices that address the needs of their TANF families and avert Child Welfare involvement.

ACF has a long and rich history of sponsoring Learning Communities (formerly known as Policy Academies) designed to catalyze TANF program innovation and improvement on topics and practices of importance to the federal government and the field. Prior to the FAST-LC, ACF sponsored the “Leveraging America’s Social and Economic Resilience” TANF Learning Community (LASER TLC) which involved six state, three tribal, and two county teams working together to advance program improvement strategies in response to the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. You can learn more about the 2021-2023 LASER TLC in the resource library.

Achieving the intent of the FAST-LC was predicated upon designing and implementing a training and technical assistance (TTA) strategy. The TTA strategy for the FAST-LC, like previous OFA Learning Communities, was centered on the goals and needs of the sites themselves. The TTA had to be responsive to where sites were and what would most help them to advance their change. The TTA focused on both content and process—that is, the knowledge and information site teams needed regarding key topics and issues as well as guidance on how to conduct change, forge effective partnerships, conduct pilots, and foster sustainability and replicability of their initiatives. Site TTA needs were identified through multiple methods of input and on an ongoing basis throughout the life of the learning community. The following resources are organized by TA event, beginning with the initial convening held in October and spanning to the products and journeys of each participating site.

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 20-12, 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.