The June issue of the MDRC operations web series “In Practice: Lessons for and from Practitioners” provides guidance on participant recruitment for community improvement programs. The blogpost outlines eight key steps towards implementing recruitment strategies: know your target audience, market the benefits of your program, establish and train a recruitment team, get the word out, connect with referral partners, set realistic recruitment goals and track your progress, put your recruitment plan in writing, review progress regularly, and reward success.

This Urban Institute report reviews the use of outcomes-based contracts (OBCs), which tie government payments to improvements in service delivery. The report examines the benefit of using OBCs to incentivize performance from external contactors, as well as the challenges and risks in administration and effect on service delivery. Findings are drawn from field interviews and external researchers.

This Administration for Children and Families Information Memorandum presents state Work Participation Rates for FY2018. The dataset includes state-by-state information regarding TANF and SSP-MOE work participation rates and standards, caseload reduction credits, the number of work-eligible individuals, and activities in which individuals participated.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation issue brief covers ongoing Administration for Children and Families (ACF) research and evaluation projects regarding the Responsible Fatherhood grant program, noncustodial parents, and fathers and fatherhood in general. The brief also discusses prior ACF research and evaluation projects on fatherhood.

The Urban Institute will host a webinar on July 25, 2019 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET to discuss Benefit Chicago and the Western New York Impact Investment Fund, which are models of place-based impact investing. Drawing from recently released practitioner briefs, the webinar will also cover participants’ experiences with building the collaboration among partners and their deployment of impact capital in the field.

This study from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research analyzed the long-term consequences of severity, frequency, and timing of food insecurity exposure in childhood on health and health care utilization later in adulthood, based on approximately 20 years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Study findings highlight how young adults experiencing childhood food insecurity have higher psychological distress, even after adjusting for socioeconomic status, parents’ health, overall health during childhood, and food insecurity during adulthood. The study points out how receiving SNAP benefits during childhood reduces the effects of childhood food insecurity on health when these children become adults.

This Prosperity Now report is the culmination of an 18-month partnership with the Citi Foundation to design and implement the Youth Financial Capability Fund, which integrated workforce development with financial capability services and supported five youth workforce development organizations: Genesys Works, Juma Ventures, NPower, STRIVE International, and the Urban Alliance. The report identifies 11 key findings in the following five categories that agencies can use when designing financial capability programs to meet young people’s needs: preparing for organizational change, putting youth at the center, exploring partnerships’ role, measuring progress, and managing organizational change and sustaining financial capability work. Also highlighted are recommendations on how to partner with employers, offer multi-generational financial capability services to support household financial empowerment, and collaborate across sectors to address barriers that disconnected youth face when considering their financial well-being.

This joint information bulletin, produced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, provides models to address mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) related treatment services in schools. The bulletin also covers Medicaid state plan benefits that states might use to cover SUD related treatment services, as well as best practice models on implementing quality, evidence-based comprehensive mental health and SUD services for students.

This blogpost, authored by the Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), describes the 10 listening sessions that ACF held nationally among key stakeholders to address family homelessness. These stakeholders, who provided input on the latest trends and local innovative programs, included parents with homelessness experience, grantee and non-grantee service providers, faith-based partners, educators, and government leaders. Five of ACF’s program offices either directly focus on homelessness or offer services and resources to move families from homelessness towards self-sufficiency and include: the Office of Head Start, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, the Office of Child Care, the Office of Family Assistance, and the Children’s Bureau.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (DOLETA) will host a webinar on July 11, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET to discuss best practices of using labor market information (LMI) data in creating Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) State Plans. Speakers include LMI Directors from Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan and representatives from the U.S. Department of Education and DOLETA.