Rebuilding American Families
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is designed to help families achieve stability and move toward long-term self-sufficiency. TANF purposes emphasize strengthening family formation, supporting healthy relationships, and promoting long-term economic security for parents and children.
This webpage provides resources to help state TANF agency staff translate these priorities into practice. The materials are organized around key areas of focus, including marriage and family formation supports, household stability skills, community and faith-based partnerships, family growth and economic planning, maternal and family wellness, youth preparation for family life, and emerging approaches. Each section highlights ways TANF programs can expand beyond basic assistance to offer tools that help practitioners engage families more broadly, address underlying barriers, and support stronger, more stable households. Together, these topics reflect a broader effort to not only meet immediate needs, but to equip families with the foundation for strong relationships and stable homes.
Marriage and Family Formation Supports
The Alabama Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Initiative (AHMREI) offers free relationship education classes and online resources for adults, couples, and youth across Alabama. Its materials cover practical skills such as communication…
Reliable childcare can be an important factor in a family’s ability to work, train, or pursue education. This Child Trends brief examines the experiences of 107 Maryland families who received Child Care Scholarships in 2025. Before receiving a…
Family engagement can be challenging at every stage of home visiting from initial outreach and enrollment to continued participation. This brief from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation identifies seven evidence-informed factors that…
This I Am Dad podcast examines a practical question for fatherhood programs: what helps fathers participate consistently enough to benefit from services? The conversation explores the difference between incentives and supports, the barriers that…
Want practical ways to boost your program’s employment outcomes and help advance core purposes of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)? The Office of Family Assistance is sponsoring The Family Routes Initiative (FRI) to assist…
This vignette features a Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program that participated in the Family Routes Initiative Learning Community and expanded their Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) services. This…
Household Stability Skills
This resource by Study.com provides practical family conflict resolution activities that help people recognize what is driving disagreement, see situations from different perspectives, and work through problems in a more structured way. For…
Community and Faith-Based Partnerships
Families often need more than a single service to achieve lasting economic mobility. As a facilitation model for building long-term collaboration between communities, public systems, and nonprofit partners, the Blue Sky Possibilities Framework…
This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network tipsheet focuses on how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can support children living with relatives or caregivers who are not receiving full family benefits. It fills a key…
This webpage offers a comprehensive approach to empowering parents and serves as an example of how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can think more intentionally about family formation as part of their services. It shows how…
Research shows that families living in poverty have a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing crises, and that poverty is the greatest threat to child well-being and the best predictor of abuse and neglect. Further, research suggests…
This Urban Institute report examines childcare needs and access for parents who work outside traditional business hours, focusing on Austin and Travis County, Texas. It explores the challenges families face in finding care that accommodates…
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops provides education and guidance on Natural Family Planning, a fertility awareness-based approach that helps individuals understand reproductive cycles to support either pregnancy planning or…
Family Growth and Economic Planning
The MIT Living Wage Calculator estimates the income families need to cover basic expenses based on where they live and family size. It helps clarify a common disconnect in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work—employment alone does…
This Congressional Research Service report explains how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) interacts with pregnancy centers and the role these organizations can play in providing services to pregnant women and families. It provides…
Research from SmartAsset explores what it takes financially for one parent to stay home and the other to support the household. It adds context to the tradeoffs families face when making caregiving and work decisions. Within Temporary Assistance…
This Executive Order by the Trump-Vance administration announces that they will dedicate Federal support, technology, and strategic partnerships to provide young Americans in or transitioning out of the foster care system with the tools they need…
Maternal and Family Wellness Supports
Youth Preparation for Family Life
This report presents evidence and perspectives on how sexual risk avoidance approaches have proven to influence youth behavior and support healthier outcomes over time. It focuses on long-term patterns rather than short-term interventions. For…
This implementation guide outlines practical steps for designing, delivering, or partnering on sexual risk avoidance education programs. It emphasizes structure, consistency, and alignment with broader youth development goals. In Temporary…
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners often need a clear way to identify what a participant can already do independently and where support is still needed, especially when working with youth and young adults. This Casey…
While some studies have shown the effectiveness of Family Resource Centers (FRCs) – which provide critical services to families to increase their access to supports for basic needs, support accessing public benefits, and skill-building classes –…
The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy. PREP legislation requires grantees incorporate into their programs content on at least three of six…
The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) is one of the largest federally funded programs designed to address adolescent pregnancy and prepare youth for successful transition to adulthood. PREP grantees have flexibility in designing…
Emerging Approaches
When families receive both child support and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), there are rules that determine how child support payments are shared between the family and the government. This is often called “cost recovery,” which…
Child support programs across the country serve millions of families with low incomes. They establish paternity and child support orders, and they collect child support payments that can help increase family financial stability and contribute to…