Developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, the Urban Partnerships Initiative is a project designed to improve outcomes for low-income families by facilitating peer exchange among TANF stakeholders in urban centers. One outcome of this project, the Urban Partnerships Initiative Online Toolkit, disseminates information on promising practices to the human services community. The toolkit is a collection of resources, templates, examples, and instruments to assist TANF administrators in achieving the goal of supporting families on the path to self-sufficiency.

The Urban Partnerships Initiative Online Toolkit, a collection of innovative and promising practices representing 26 cities of the Urban Partnerships Initiative from around the country, has been updated in 2012 with updated tools and programmatic updates for existing programs featured in the toolkit. The toolkit is a dynamic resource to help cities address some of the unique issues facing low-income populations, including those associated with substance abuse, poor mental health conditions, former incarceration, recent immigration, learning disabilities, and others. TANF administrators and others can find relevant tools related to intake, case management, work attachment, work retention, and transitional services.

On October 18, 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA) convened an orientation meeting in Washington, D.C. for the Promising Pathways Initiative. The three primary meeting goals of the Promising Pathways All-Site Orientation Meeting were to orient site representatives to the Promising Pathways Initiative, provide hands-on, interactive training for site coordinators on how to define and document their practice using logic models, and plan the first intensive full team site visit. Participants included one or two representatives from each of the ten selected Promising Pathways sites, OFA staff, and ICF International site coaches and team staff. This executive summary describes the proceedings of the All-Site Orientation Meeting and includes the meeting agenda, participant list, and materials as appendices.

The Faith-Based and Community Organizations Collaboration Institutes were designed to increase collaboration of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) agencies by leveraging existing community resources to help low-income participants attain economic self-sufficiency. Five institutes across the country brought together regional and State TANF leaders, as well as their local FBCO partners, with a goal of enhancing outcomes for TANF-eligible individuals and families. The Institutes create an incubated learning environment to apply the collaboration concepts learned in the early phases of the project in an effort to strengthen existing and newly formed partnerships. This report summarizes each event along with the evaluations and feedback received from a series of post-event follow-up calls.

The Peer TA Network hosted a Webinar on providing services to low-income teen parents. The Webinar highlighted the program design and implementation of two programs serving low-income teen parents, provided information to TANF organizations on program models for serving low-income teen parents, discussed key partnerships and strategies for developing partnerships, and shared strategies for overcoming challenges and barriers to service delivery. Presenters include representatives from the D.C. Teen Parent Assessment Project (TPAP) and the Ohio Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) Program.

Squaxin Island Tribe of Washington State requested wraparound case management and process training provided by the Native American Training Institute (NATI) through the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network (Welfare Peer TA), a technical assistance initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA). The training, Wraparound in Indian Country: The Ways of the People are Who We Are, was provided in a two-part training. Squaxin Island Tribe sought technical assistance to establish a wraparound case management and intervention process to foster collaborations across various social service agencies to better serve clients in a holistic and culturally appropriate manner. In this training, participants learned of the many steps involved in wraparound case management services and learned how to develop their own wraparound case management plan for their Tribe.

The Essex County Division of Training and Employment in New Jersey was interested in learning strategies that would help assist TANF Work Eligible recipients to achieve marketable skills that will move them to self-sufficiency and remove them from TANF roles and other forms of public assistance. The ultimate goal of Essex County was for individuals to self-provide for their families. The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network convened a peer-to-peer conversation between Essex County and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Oklahoma so that Oklahoma could share strategies on running literacy programs designed to screen, assess, and provide literacy training to TANF participants. The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network also developed an environmental scan of literacy programs in TANF organizations for Essex County to use as a tool and resource.

The Maine Office of Family Independence was interested in learning strategies for setting goals, tracking and improving performance, managing staff activities and enforcing program requirements by utilizing accessible and complete data at various levels. Through the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network (Welfare Peer TA), the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office for Family Independence (OFI) and the New Hampshire Division of Family Assistance convened a peer-to-peer site exchange. This was conducted in order to initiate cross-site networking, to foster dialogue, and to exchange strategies for integrating education and training opportunities into TANF programming. A site visit and several conference calls were held, giving Maine the opportunity to observe the data collection methodology and tools utilized by the State of New Hampshire.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (TA) Network is a federally funded initiative through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance.  The objective of the Welfare Peer TA Network is to facilitate the sharing of information between and among states and to establish linkages between organizations serving the needs of welfare recipients. 

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF), with support from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network, sponsored the Addressing the Needs of Non-Custodial Parents in TANF Families Workshop on January 18-19, 2001, in Tallahassee, Florida.  Participants included representatives from State Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Child Support Enforcement, local fatherhood providers, and Federal participants from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services.  The purpose of the workshop was to promote collaboration between State TANF and OCSE agencies, and to encourage the sharing of information about initiatives to address the needs of non-custodial parents.

The implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program presents a series of possible challenges and potential opportunities for local administrators providing services for low-income and working families seeking to achieve greater levels of economic independence. In an effort to assist TANF program administrators and stakeholders in understanding the application of Federal civil rights laws regarding discrimination, the Administration for Children and Families, Offices of Family Assistance (OFA) and Civil Rights (OCR) convened a virtual training on the applicable civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination. Covering topics relating to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Age Discrimination Act of 1975; Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other applicable laws meant to prevent discrimination against those with disabilities; racial, ethnic, and language minorities, and those of varied ages, the training was in response to technical assistance requests regarding the obligations of State agencies, counties, and service providers administering welfare programs. Facilitated by the OCR, the training focused on all aspects of the TANF program, including applications, assessments, work program modifications, sanctions, and time limits and is the first part of a two-part training series hosted by OFA Region VIII on improving civil rights and HIPPA compliance.

In recent years, a significant change in the TANF caseload is the growth, proportionally speaking, of child-only cases. Child-only cases are typically defined as those TANF cases in which no adult recipient is included in the TANF cash grant. Child-only cases are classified as either parental or non-parental. Parental child-only cases are those cases in which a parent is present in the household, but is ineligible for TANF receipt due to a sanction, time limit, SSI receipt or alien status. Non-parental cases are those cases in which no parent is present; the children are residing with a relative or other adult with legal guardianship or custody. A small number of cases are in child-only status for unique reasons. (author abstract)