Resources developed through the Adult Career Pathways Training and Support Center, part of the Designing Instruction for Career Pathways Initiative, are now available through the Literacy Information and Communication System (LINCS). The resources are designed to help state and local adult education providers deliver services that help low-skilled adults transition to postsecondary education and employment. Online courses, a resource center, issue briefs, webcasts, and newsletters can be found on the website.

The U.S. incarceration rate remains exceptionally high, especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, and the incidence of involvement in child protective services (CPS) is also quite high among disadvantaged groups. This confluence of incarceration and CPS involvement may have various impacts for parents, children, and families as a whole. The authors of this Institute for Research on Poverty brief examined data from Wisconsin to demonstrate and describe the overlap between parental incarceration and child CPS involvement, as well as between adolescent CPS involvement and later incarceration in young adulthood.

The 2016 Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy meeting was held on July 26-28, 2016 in Annapolis, Maryland at the Historic Inns of Annapolis. The Academy is an initiative that provides training and technical assistance to eight state and county Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs as they work on building internal and/or collaborative systems within and across agencies that improve family stability and economic self-sufficiency. Academy sites are focusing on a range of systems change activities, including two-generation approaches, TANF and Workforce system alignment, and enhanced assessment and case management approaches. The Academy meeting included plenary and breakout sessions across the listed content areas as well as time for participants to work with their own teams and with other teams for additional learning and peer feedback.

This recently released memo from CLASP serves as a reference guide on the WIOA adult program’s priority of service for “recipients of public assistance, other low- income individuals, and individuals who are basic skills deficient.” The guide includes text and citations from the statute, the final rules, guidance, planning requirements, and data collection, as well as recommendations for implementation.

This map from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) shows the approximate number of people experiencing homelessness, both nationally and statewide, on any given night in 2015.

The author of this post from the Education Facilities Clearinghouse shares information to show that rural schools face many of the same challenges as urban schools, but do not receive the same funding or improvement efforts. For example, one-third of U.S. schools in rural areas have low-income students, low standardized test scores, and low rates for college attendance; and while rural schools serve over 40% of U.S. students, they receive only 22% of federal funding.

This brief from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy examines the persistence of high child poverty rates (20 percent or greater) between 1980 and 2010, indicates that the incidence of high child poverty is growing nationwide, and shows that it is most prevalent in rural America. Approximately 28 percent of all rural children live in persistently poor counties, compared to 13 percent of urban children. In 1980, 24 percent of urban counties and 43 percent of rural counties had high child poverty rates. These rates rose to 32 and 56 percent respectively by 1990, but had returned to 1980 levels by 2000. However, the 2010 rates were much higher, indicating that 47 percent of urban counties and 64 percent of rural counties were characterized by high child poverty rates.

In 2014, the pace of employment growth in rural areas increased after several years of stagnation. However, rural employment remains below pre-recession levels, and rural areas are continuing to experience population loss, higher rates of poverty, and lower educational attainment than their urban counterparts. This brief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture examines recent economic and employment trends in rural America.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has realigned the Office of Community Services (OCS). This Federal Register notice explains that the realignment renames the “Division of State Assistance” as the “Division of Community Assistance;” establishes a “Division of Social Services;” and consolidates the “Division of Community Discretionary Programs” and the “Division of Community Demonstration Programs” to establish the new “Division of Community Discretionary and Demonstration Programs.” The notice also spells out the functions of each Division.