This Annie E. Casey Foundation blogpost features lessons from Maryland MENTOR to illustrate how to improve the quality and quantity of mentoring programs. Also mentioned are projects that Maryland MENTOR has initiated to increase the number of mentors, including convening town halls, building professional development skills for mentors, and creating a database to connect volunteers with young people looking for mentors. While this organization’s scope is limited to Maryland, some findings noted in the blogpost can be used to help grow and support mentoring programs nationally.

This Jobs for the Future report identifies how rural community colleges offer academic and non-academic support for adult and non-traditional learners’ college retention and completion. While important for all first-generation students and adult learners, these supports are typically less available within rural communities as a result of distance and fewer institutional resources.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation practice brief examines the first phase of the Learn, Innovate, Improve process (LI2) model for systems change. The LI2 model is an approach to implement systems change intentionally, to guide change systematically, and to use evidence and research to inform this change. The brief explores the “learn phase,” which identifies the reasons for systems change, the problems to be addressed by the change, and organizational readiness for change.

The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families will host a webinar on March 19, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss best practices for coordinating care, delivering trauma-informed services, and offering treatment for opioid-addicted teens and young adults.

This Child Trends blog post illustrates how family engagement is now being recognized as falling along a continuum of services that support children’s development. The authors distinguish between home visiting, which works more with parents to improve outcomes for their children, and early child care and education that is more child-focused. The use of a family engagement continuum addresses these complementary roles that center on communications and how we engage families to set and achieve child and family goals.

This U.S. Department of Labor-sponsored webinar will be convened on March 7, 2019, 12 noon to 1:30 p.m. ET and will present the requirements and process for state agencies to request a waiver from Title I Wagner-Peyser regulations. The webinar will provide guidance on how states can prepare and develop quality waiver requests for review and approval. Speakers will include representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) developed this Administration for Children and Families Family Room Blog, which highlights three FYSB programs working to prevent or intervene against teen dating violence: the Specialized Services for Abused Parents and their Children grant program, the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program. Each of these programs offers direct services such as parent education, fosters the creation of support groups, or engages in behavioral interventions. This blog post also discusses partnerships between FYSB and other Office of Family Assistance programs, including the launch of PAIVED (Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads) within the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood initiative, which reviews approaches that federally funded Responsible Fatherhood programs could take regarding domestic violence prevention among fathers.

The Administration for Native Americans (ANA) seeks reviewers and chairpersons for the 2019 ANA Objective Panel Reviews. In May and June 2019, they will conduct remote reviews for the following panel sessions: Native Languages: Esther Martinez Immersion (EMI), Preservation and Maintenance (P&M), Environmental Regulatory Enhancement (ERE), Social and Economic Development Strategies for Alaska (SEDS-AK), and Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS). A two-week online training will be available in mid-March and is a requirement to be assigned to a panel review session. Information about reviewer and chairperson requirements, remote review expectations, and indication of interest is provided. If interested, please click here to participate.

This Center for Law and Social Policy report identifies challenges that state level officials encounter in implementing the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant program. State profiles from Alabama, California, and Louisiana are highlighted. Also presented are lessons learned as a result of the lack of resources and data needed to implement the law more effectively.