This webinar discusses new federal investments in kinship navigator programs, grandfamilies housing, and relevant child welfare programs that can help grandfamilies. It highlights how funds can be utilized to assist families in critical areas during the pandemic, such as housing, lawyer fees, transportation, technology, food, and emergency support for older youth aging out of foster care.

This bulletin from the Children’s Bureau’s Child Welfare Information Gateway highlights supports and services for kinship caregivers, training for caregivers and case workers, and examples of successful State and local kinship programs. It discusses kinship navigator programs and features support services that caseworkers should share with kinship caregivers, including TANF, respite care, and the Guardianship Assistance Program.

This report covers the results of a study completed by the United States Government Accountability Office on challenges facing grandparents and other older kin becoming primary caregivers. The report examines the numbers of grandparents and other kin serving as primary caregivers for children and reasons for that care. It also notes challenges kinship caregivers face and how they are addressed, and the extent to which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services supports states’ efforts to use relevant programs and initiatives. The report highlights kinship care in four selected communities in New Mexico, New York, Mississippi, and Ohio.

Home visiting programs support parents with education, referrals for community-based services, and goal setting. These programs yield positive impacts such as reduced child maltreatment, better child and maternal health, increased school readiness, and enhanced family economic self-sufficiency. This blogpost includes questions and answers from senior New Jersey officials on the design and implementation of their home visiting programs. Key questions include: How has your approach to home visiting evolved over the years? How were you able to scale up these programs to offer them statewide? What advice would you give to another jurisdiction that wants to develop a home visiting program or network?

This fact sheet identifies four promising practices in Summer Youth Employment Programs (SYEPs) that were implemented in 2020 to respond to the economic and health challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws from a survey of 73 SYEP providers and local funders and highlights how SYEPs offer short-term, paid opportunities for youth and young adults to gain career exposure, training, and work experience.

The Performance Partnership Pilot (P3) in New York City targeted fathers and mothers between 17 and 24 years old who did not have a high school credential, lacked other basic skills or had other risk factors, and resided in the city. P3 supported participants’ efforts to complete high school equivalency and earn occupational credentials. This report examines how P3 augmented Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act services for out-of-school youth by allowing participants to receive these services for up to two years. The report also includes a program impact assessment of the use of child support navigators for P3 participants and the incorporation of waivers for funding and performance measures in data reporting.

Recovery coaching, which helps parents increase access to and engage in substance misuse treatment, has grown since its initial use in the late 1990s. This Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation report features interventions in the child welfare system that include recovery coaches and assesses them for their readiness for replication. The report identifies nine eligible interventions for potential replication under the first phase of the Expanding Evidence on Replicable Recovery and Reunification Interventions for Families (R3) project.

This podcast presents trends and reasons for declining labor force participation among working women, particularly those who are mothers, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The podcast also reviews the ways mothers have previously been supported so they could enter the labor force and how the lack of supports for working parents during the pandemic could reverse earlier gains made by women. The podcast is hosted by Kathryn Anne Edwards of the RAND Corporation.

First of a two-part series, this research-to-practice brief examines the shift from in-person to virtual coaching as part of the Detroit Early Learning Coaching Initiative (DELCI). The brief discusses the origins and goals of the DELCI model, which offers instructional coaching to early childhood education (ECE) center teachers and home-based child care providers as well as state-approved curriculum and assessment resources. The DELCI model states that coaching should be goal-focused, data-informed, and practice-based to support the needs of early childhood educators and children. Also, the brief reviews the preparation undertaken in response to COVID-19 and ECE program closures to ensure that relationships were maintained and initial supports offered to early childhood education teachers and providers virtually.

This research-to-practice brief reviews lessons learned from Seedco’s Office of Family Assistance-funded Strong Fathers, Stronger Families (SFSF) program which adjusted its service delivery model resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. SFSF helps fathers achieve financial stability by providing services focused on responsible fatherhood, healthy relationships, and economic stability. Seedco utilized a Continuous Quality Improvement process to service delivery that included continuous reflection on program improvements. Lessons learned focus on changes in recruitment and enrollment of participants, how program providers can deliver virtual workshops, how other services and referrals can be delivered virtually, the ways staff can change practices and procedures to enhance program benefits and minimize program limitations, and participants’ responses to virtual programming.