The Indiana Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning and the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency research team collaborated to design and evaluate three behavioral interventions. These interventions aimed to improve outcomes through the administration of Indiana’s Child Care and Development Fund. This report from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation presents the findings from the interventions.

The Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative (CPI) uses TANF funds to provide support services to over 30,000 qualifying students enrolled in occupational programs at Arkansas community and technical colleges. This issue brief from the National Skills Coalition highlights key elements of the successful model, as well as challenges that may impact these types of career pathways programs.

Ramsey County, Minnesota’s welfare counselors draft long-term employment plans for their clients. Instead of pushing clients into getting the first available job, they create plans that are broken down into manageable steps. This article from Governing Magazine highlights this innovative approach and its benefits.

This five-minute video from the Urban Institute briefly discusses important facts related to child poverty. For instance, poverty affects children of all races, but in terms of persistent poverty, the racial gap is more apparent. The video concludes by providing strategies to break the cycle of poverty among children.

With a total of 2.2 million incarcerated people in the United States, a collateral cost seems to be low levels of educational attainment. Among state prisoners, the average level of education is 10.4 years of schooling; similarly, over two-thirds of this population lack a high school diploma. This report from CLASP presents suggestions to improve training during and after incarceration that aim to increase educational and employment opportunities of reentering citizens.

In this podcast from MDRC, researchers discuss behavioral science and how it can be used to improve the effectiveness and impact of social programs. They discuss these insights with a particular focus on child support programs.

Work-based learning includes workplace activities through which individuals gain the knowledge, skills, and experience needed for entry or advancement in a particular field. Though work-based learning provides many benefits for job-seekers, those opportunities are more likely to go to the more highly educated and socially connected segments of the population. This paper from Jobs from the Future offers strategies to implement effective models of work-based learning that expand access for the many populations who do not currently benefit.

The U.S. Department of Education wrote this blog post about five key parts of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Notably, WIOA will provide improved services for approximately 20 million people each year.

This toolkit from the Workforce Data Quality Campaign provides information for states to improve data infrastructure and promote the use of data. The toolkit includes details of state data policies, case studies, and legislative templates.

Cultural competence refers to “a set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that can be developed over time in order to work with those who appear and may be different from us.” This addition to the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse’s Responsible Fatherhood Toolkit provides tips for programs to integrate cultural competence into their activities and service delivery.