The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced the appointment of Wendy Horman as Director of the Office of Child Care (OCC) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs, leadership within the OCC is closely connected to TANF’s statutory focus on work preparation, employment, and family economic improvement. Access to stable childcare remains a critical support that enables parents to participate in job search, training, and employment activities. As director, Horman will lead the OCC within the Office of Early Childhood Education and work to strengthen the Child Care Development Fund, the United States’ largest national voucher program, which provides states with funding to help low-income families access childcare. Her work will focus on supporting families and improving child outcomes, empowering states and programs to improve alignment with local approaches to services, and eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy to deliver maximum benefit to the families ACF serves.

Low literacy and numeracy are prevalent among TANF participants and can be barriers to pursuing education, job training, and employment. Improving literacy and numeracy may improve employment outcomes as adults with higher literacy levels tend to earn more and experience greater job stability.

This tipsheet provides TANF leaders with practical guidance on why and how to use TANF resources to support basic skills development to improve employment outcomes. By investing in foundational skills, TANF agencies can promote long-term self-sufficiency and reduced dependence on government benefits.

This tipsheet suggests ways TANF leaders can use technology to support program participation and participants’ employment outcomes. By investing in technology solutions, TANF agencies may efficiently deliver services that promote participant self-sufficiency and reduce dependence on government benefits. Technology options discussed in this resource include: 

• Virtual service delivery platforms, including digital service hubs, virtual case management tools, and online learning platforms
• Virtual platforms providing access to data and analytics
• Tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) 

This resource also discusses factors for TANF leaders to consider when evaluating potential technology solutions.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Contingency Fund was created to provide temporary supplemental funding to states during economic downturns. This issue brief examines how the Fund’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) caseload benchmark and maintenance-of-effort requirement result in routine eligibility, with most states qualifying regardless of current economic distress and funding concentrated among a small number of states.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) has posted the fiscal year (FY) 2024 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) financial data tables, along with national and state pie charts.

• In FY 2024, combined federal TANF and state maintenance-of-effort (MOE) expenditures and transfers totaled $37.5 billion.
• 33 states used less than half of their TANF and MOE funds on the combination of basic assistance; work, education, and training activities; and childcare.
• By the end of FY 2024, states had a total of $8 billion in federal TANF unobligated balances. With the addition of federal unliquidated obligations, the amount of unspent federal TANF funds nationwide totaled $9.7 billion.

TANF agencies can review these resources for more information on how TANF and MOE funds were used in FY 2024.

The Office of Family Assistance’s TANF Outcomes Technical Assistance and Logistics (TOTAL) team delivers training and technical assistance to state TANF programs and partners responding to the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA). The team hosted their January office hours on January 22, 2026 to review the Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report submission requirements and share observations from previous report submissions and learn from states’ experiences. This session included an introduction to the FRA Outcomes Working Groups and the sign-up process.

This tipsheet provides examples of strategies that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can use to support family economic security by helping TANF recipients make intentional and healthy decisions about their families. An unintended pregnancy can make it harder for TANF participants to improve their economic well-being and independence. Family-centered services, such as employment coaching, home visiting, mentoring, and access to family planning services, can support TANF participants in making intentional and healthy choices for their families.

This tipsheet provides examples of strategies that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can use to empower parents to make informed decisions about their family planning through financial capability services. An unintended pregnancy may make it harder for TANF participants to improve their economic well-being and independence. Financial capability services such as financial planning classes and integrating financial planning into relationship education for families can support TANF participants in making stronger financial choices for their families, including whether to have another child.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has launched a new public dashboard that delivers transparent, standardized data on safety and permanency outcomes for children in foster care. The dashboard provides a centralized view of state-level child welfare performance, allowing users to explore key measures, examine trends over time, and compare data across states using information reported to ACF. 

This new tool supports ACF’s broader commitment to transparency, data quality, and performance monitoring. While the dashboard does not include TANF data or introduce new program requirements, it offers valuable context on the service landscape in which multiple ACF-administered programs operate and may inform cross-program coordination and technical assistance discussions.

The Office of Family Assistance partnered with the Children’s Bureau to develop the Families Are Stronger Together Learning Community (FAST-LC), which focused on preventing family involvement in the child welfare system through developing, implementing, and enhancing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)–Child Welfare (CW) partnerships and innovations. FAST-LC was a one-year initiative that involved 10 Tribal and state TANF and CW agencies. 

This tip sheet accompanies a video on Strengthening Connections: Leveraging Existing Networks for Integrated Prevention Services, which highlights lessons from the FAST-LC. These resources feature representatives from the Chippewa Cree Indians of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the California Tribal TANF Partnership, who discuss how they cultivated partnerships with agencies to plan and implement integrated prevention services.