This funding opportunity is made available through the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization (OBLR). This notice announces the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities, including nonprofit organizations, to deliver Brownfields Job Training programs that recruit, train, and retain a local, skilled workforce. Priorities are to deliver training to unemployed and under-employed residents, so that they may obtain the skills and credentials needed for pathways into full-time employment in occupations related to hazardous and solid waste management as well as sustainable cleanup and reuse, and chemical safety.

EPA anticipates awarding approximately 24 grants nationwide at amounts up to $500,000 per award. Applications are due by August 2, 2023.

The National Association of Workplace Development Professionals (NAWDP) provides workforce development professionals with professional development opportunities that reflect industry demands and individual needs. NAWDP will host two digital learning series during the summer of 2023:

• The Larry Robbin Summer Learning Series will provide insight into working with participants who have challenges finding employment. The series will include four learning experiences covering the topics of recruitment, trauma as a hidden barrier to employment, managing rejection and sustaining job search motivation, and job retention. There is a registration fee for participation.
• The 30 Minutes of Excellence Series will feature short 30-minute sessions on the Job Corps, enhancing accessibility in workforce centers, and Workforce Development Month. There is no registration fee for participation.

This report outlines the TANF-related provisions in the recently passed and signed debt ceiling agreement. These provisions are:

Recalibration of the Caseload Reduction Credit (the agreement makes this effective in October 2025).

While the caseload reduction credit is currently calculated based on a comparison of the current number of families receiving TANF cash assistance with the caseload in 2005, the debt ceiling agreement changes the comparison year from 2005 to 2015.

Limitation on Counting Families Receiving Small Cash Payments Toward the Work Participation Rate (effective October 1, 2025).

Under the agreement, states can count working families as meeting the TANF work requirement  only if they receive a monthly cash grant of $35 or more. 

Data Reporting on Work Outcomes (effective October 1, 2024).

The legislation includes new data reporting requirements that are aligned with outcome measures under the main job training programs (known as Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs).

New Work Outcomes Pilot (effective October 1, 2024).

The agreement includes a pilot program that will allow up to five states to test a new approach to improving outcomes for families receiving income assistance through TANF (and related state-funded programs).

Every year, over 600,000 individuals are released from our nation's prisons. Individuals who have limited job opportunities are more likely to be rearrested. The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration will host a webinar on June 13, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET which will discuss innovative strategies on ways to engage and support returning citizens to return to the workforce. The webinar will highlight programs which assist with the challenges they experience and offer the support required for success. Presenters will speak about re-entry and present state and local programs that help prepare the population pre-release. Outreach strategies will also be covered that engage returning citizens post-release to ensure quality jobs are obtained, in turn, reducing recidivism.

The Center for Law and Social Policy’s (CLASP) mental health work has consistently shown that young people strongly prefer to receive support from peers and to receive support in trusted community-based settings, including youth workforce development programs. This blogpost from CLASP highlights a promising program aimed at young adults in Los Angeles (LA) County that will launch in the summer of 2023. It will bring together two sectors that are often siloed: workforce development and mental health services. LA County has 14 Youth CareerSource Centers that serve as hubs for youth workforce development programs. As part of this new program to support mental health, each center will recruit 3 to 5 young people ages 18-24 to participate in a peer youth support certification program. The partnership between the youth workforce system and the county-level mental health system in LA County demonstrates an expansion of mental health care for opportunity youth enrolled in workforce development programs, while also building career opportunities for young people who want to provide much-needed support to their peers.

The Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot is testing how direct cash might help individuals and families with low incomes weather their unstable housing circumstances in some of the highest-poverty and most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods in Austin, Texas. In September 2022, UpTogether and 10 community-based partners enrolled 135 households to receive $1,000 per month for one year. This fact sheet draws from survey data at baseline and six months into the program, as well as participant interviews, to present a snapshot of preliminary outcomes.

Parents, extended family, and communities are all responsible for promoting children’s well-being and protecting them from trauma. When children cannot remain safely with their parents, child welfare experts view kinship foster care as a best practice and seek opportunities to promote a “kin first” approach. This Chapin Hall policy brief identifies how kinship families form, details evidence of how kinship diversion programs operate, and offers policy and practice recommendations on how to explore, make meaning of, and implement changes to child welfare agencies’ kinship diversion practices.

Working with previously untapped community partners helps kinship-serving agencies to better empower and sustain kinship families. The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network will host a webinar on June 13, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET featuring a panel representing national organizations, including Family Resource Centers, that have local programming in communities across the country. Speakers will share how and why they began supporting kinship families and provide strategies for approaching untapped collaborators and working with them to serve local communities.

Labor force participation (the percentage of people working or looking for work) plummeted by more than 3 percentage points during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, representing a decline of more than 8.2 million people. While about half of the drop was quickly regained, participation has stagnated at about 1 percentage point below its pre-pandemic level. This Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity highlights a paper entitled “Where are the Missing Workers?”. During the podcast, researchers discuss several possible explanations, including fear of COVID-19 and shifting work-life balance preferences.

Child poverty is associated with both short- and long-term health and well-being. Poverty affects child health directly through the experience of deprivation, such as through food insufficiency or lack of housing, but also indirectly through the availability of parental or community resources. Economic resources also shape children's access to health-promoting policies, like education, child care, parental leave, and health care, which affect both current and later-life health and mortality. Many income support policies also reduce poverty and improve economic well-being, which in turn improves child health. This free open access article reviews the evidence on income support policies in the United States and their effects on child health. This paper is not an exhaustive literature review but paints a broad picture of findings related to income support and child health. It also outlines policy considerations and areas where additional research is needed to understand how income support and poverty reduction might best support child health.