Young people are especially vulnerable to the negative effects of natural disasters, and those who are involved in the child welfare system are at particularly high risk for experiencing disaster-related traumatic stress and other challenges. But when provided with the right types of support, all children and youth have the capacity for resilience and healing. This Child Trends toolkit provides resources that aim to support child welfare staff and administrators in their efforts to enhance state, tribal, territory, and county-led efforts to promote healing and resilience among system-involved children.

Disasters do not differentiate between urban, suburban, and rural communities, but response efforts do. Rural and Native communities can get left out of all stages of preparing for disasters and recovering from them. Rural communities, particularly communities of color and those facing persistent poverty, are ill equipped for disasters and suffer through longer recovery processes. The Urban Institute hosted a webinar on April 19, 2022 to discuss how to improve support for rural and Native communities facing disasters. The conversation showcased examples of successful planning, response, and recovery initiatives and highlighted policy and program changes that can help rural communities.

Lack of access to food is a major concern when natural disasters strike. This blogpost outlines how the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) and other federal nutrition programs play a critical role in mitigating spikes in food insecurity during such challenging times. The discussion identifies how D-SNAP provides replacement benefits for SNAP households that lose food and extends benefits to many other households that would not ordinarily be eligible for SNAP. It also covers how SNAP waivers can be used to allow SNAP recipients to obtain replacement benefits, and identifies approaches to allow states to release commodity foods — used in the National School Lunch Program, The Emergency Food Assistance Program, and other federal programs — for mass feeding sites. Further, it notes how the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) can play a crucial role in low-income communities with WIC food package and redemption flexibilities, benefit replacement, and simplified income eligibility.

The Administration for Children and Families’ Children’s Bureau and the Capacity Building Center for States will host the Child Welfare Virtual Expo (CWVE) on September 21, 2023 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET. With a theme of “Recruit, Retain, and Support: Strategies for Strengthening the Child Welfare Workforce,” the 2023 CWVE will focus on how child welfare agencies are addressing today’s unique workforce challenges and adapting to recruit and retain child welfare professionals. Speakers will present concrete strategies as well as explore innovative practices to strengthen child welfare workforce and design equitable workplaces.

Children living in families with low incomes face an array of challenges that place them at much higher risk of experiencing poverty in adulthood as compared with other children. This cycle of intergenerational poverty poses an economic disadvantage to not only the children and their families but also the nation. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) will host a webinar on September 21, 2023 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. ET on the NASEM report entitled Reducing Intergenerational Poverty that examines the drivers of long-term, intergenerational poverty, identifies potential policies and programs to reduce it, addresses gaps in data and research, and highlights the disproportionate effect of disadvantage to different racial/ethnic groups. The webinar will include a discussion of the report's key findings and questions from webinar participants.

Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy will co-host a virtual session on September 21, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. EDT to discuss the policy takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic for reducing poverty and promoting economic well-being moving forward. This webinar will include a policy panel to discuss the challenges faced by low-income households, how the federal government achieved a record-low poverty rate in 2020 and again in 2021, and what lessons ought to be carried forward from those experiences.

Child Trends will host a virtual session on September 20, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. EDT to unpack a decades-long decline in child poverty and more recent shifts that followed COVID-19 aid to probe how well common poverty indicators have captured changes in child and family well-being. This webinar will include a panel representing research, advocacy, direct service, philanthropy, and human services that will discuss what it takes to build a social safety net focused on economic well-being rather than poverty.

Since 1996, many childless adults between the ages of 18 and 50 can only get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for three months in a 36-month period unless they are exempt or are able to document sufficient work hours. This vulnerable population includes veterans, youth aging out of foster care, individuals reentering the workforce after incarceration, and the chronically unhoused. Many of the people subject to time limits either cannot find jobs or get too few hours of work in the jobs they do have. This Food Research and Action Center’s research brief explains the SNAP time limit provisions and discusses priorities for outreach, proper screening for time limit exemptions, and use of discretionary exemptions and waivers for areas that have 10 percent or higher unemployment or other indicators of insufficient jobs.

The challenge of attracting and retaining a diverse, productive, engaged workforce has grown. Workers seek quality jobs, and companies that prioritize job quality become employers of choice. Job quality is not just about the job; it is a combination of key drivers that are important to each worker’s overall employment experience. This Job Quality Toolkit, issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, is an actionable tool for organizations to improve the quality of the jobs they offer. Identifying and improving the drivers most valued by workers can significantly increase their satisfaction and engagement and, in turn, improve the organization’s ability to compete for talent and achieve success in the marketplace.