This article from the Children and Youth Services Review discusses a study that followed former foster care youth up to age 30 to see if they continued to experience the same poor employment outcomes that have been indicated in studies of former foster care youth between ages 18 and21. The study found that low rates of employment and earnings continued until age 30, but work experience before age 18 did improve outcomes for those youth during their mid to late twenties. The findings have implications for discussions about extending services to foster care youth even after they reach adulthood.

This report from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University focuses on “core capabilities,” including executive function, and how they can be impacted by toxic stress, leading to challenges with life skills such as parenting and workplace effectiveness. The report discusses how environmental triggers can impact ability to use core capabilities to maintain emotional balance, and reviews how and when these skills develop. The report also includes examples of how excessive stress can alter one’s ability to use core capabilities, and how service providers can help clients build missing capabilities.

This article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review talks about how social welfare programs can better collaborate and coordinate efforts to collectively address complex social problems. The article shares a conceptual framework on how different systems and programs can best align objectives and service delivery programs toward common community goals.

This toolkit, created through Colorado’s Work Support Strategies (WSS) grant, is designed to help county and community-based organizations define, measure, and use well-being metrics to improve services and achieve outcomes. It includes a “how to” section that organizations can follow to change their practices and measure client outcomes rather than program outputs.

This early implementation report by the Institute for Research on Poverty and Mathematica Policy Research provides interim findings from the Office of Child Support Enforcement’s (OCSE) Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration Project (CSPED), which began in Fall 2012 and ends in September 2017. The project is tracking activity and outcomes of CSPED programs in eight states. Child Support agencies in each state are providing enhanced child support services, employment assistance, parenting education, and case management services for noncustodial parents who experience difficulty meeting their child support obligations. The report looks at the first two years of CSPED, which consisted of a planning year and one year of program operations.

This paper from the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) calls attention to young parents and their children who live in poverty and geographical isolation – far from the service system infrastructure and safety nets developed to support families in need. The paper describes a scan of programs in Native American communities, rural areas, and suburban areas of concentrated poverty and highlights innovative strategies that serve the unique needs of young children and their families through a multigenerational approach.

This toolkit section focuses on the multigenerational approach to alleviate poverty by integrating services that address the needs of the whole family. The multigenerational approach is one of eight evidence-based and promising models identified in the Rural Services Integration Toolkit, which is available online from the Rural Health Information Hub and designed to help rural communities seeking to implement services integration programs. The section on the multigenerational approach provides examples of rural programs, considerations for implementation, and a list of resources to learn more.

The COPES tool from EdITS focuses on how personal values impact occupational selection and job satisfaction. Individuals take the test in 20-30 minutes and the results can be used to supplement programs in educational and industrial career counseling.

The Self Directed Search tool from Hollandcodes.com & Paint Careers With Colors is a career planning test that assesses an individual's interests, abilities, and personality and matches them to occupations or education based on this information. The test has different versions, including an easy to read version for adults and high school seniors.

On Tuesday, March 15, 2016 the Office of Family Assistance hosted an Affinity Call Webinar for the Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy sites. The webinar highlighted the recently launched OFA PeerTA Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy Resource Hub, which serves as a repository for research, resources, and tools related to the focus areas of the eight site teams. Each team also provided an update on the accomplishments they had made to date through their Policy Academy efforts, and their plans moving forward.