This video from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation highlights the findings of a large-scale rigorous research study on the effectiveness of career pathways programs. Under the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) study, an evaluation was conducted to assess nine innovative career pathways programs around the country.

This Prosperity Now resource guide supports organizations in developing a participant-centered financial coaching program. Grounded in a field survey, over 100 interviews, expert advice, and beta-testing with six new financial coaching programs, the coaching guide highlights the strengths and limitations of financial coaching, offers designs tools, showcases promising models and practices, and includes resources from program leaders and financial coaches.

This Urban Institute report notes that the opioid crisis is widely recognized as a difficult policy challenge, but the reasons why it is difficult and the paths to overcoming those difficulties are less easily understood. As a result, policymakers risk spending limited public resources on potentially ineffective or even counterproductive efforts. Adopting the perspective of pay for success (PFS)-–an outcomes-oriented funding model-–helps to mitigate these risks and facilitates the application of sound public policy and administration principles.

This interactive tool provided by the National Center for Children in Poverty allows users to identify current legislation and policies across states regarding these following key policy areas and others: child care and development fund subsidies, family and medical leave, SNAP eligibility, Medicaid income limits, and TANF eligibility criteria. The tracker enables policy and decision makers to learn about policies in the social and poverty domain.

The Urban Institute was contracted by a Washington State housing authority to evaluate its 2013-2016 Student and Family Stability Initiative that provided supportive housing and employment to homeless or vulnerable families with elementary-aged children. Case management for those willing to work was combined with short-term financial assistance for housing-related costs, like searching or moving expenses. The program successfully raised participants’ income and promoted housing stability and income gains after the program ended, but also had high attrition rates. Households that opted out, failed to find housing, or failed to complete the program because they fell out of touch with case managers represent areas for programmatic improvement. The program may be more cost-efficient than providing long-term assistance like Housing Choice Vouchers, but it was difficult to understand how well the housing pilot program worked.

This 2013 toolkit from the National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families provides information for individuals on increasing awareness of domestic violence, recognizing child maltreatment, and applying healthy relationship education into partner services and practices. This information provides a basic approach to creating a safety net and improving recognition skills of abusive situations. The toolkit includes a section of beneficial handouts and resources for dispersal in programs and the community.

This short entry in the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development presents literature and survey results of the effects of community violence on child development. Surveys estimate that more than 50% of children and youth have experienced some level of community violence exposure. This experience has been shown to impact development negatively, leading to increased emotional, social, and behavioral problems. The authors conclude that “the effects of violence exposure are particularly problematic for young children and have been shown to adversely impact brain development.” There are many prevention and intervention strategies that communities and parents can use to reduce violence, including limiting children’s exposure to violent video games, movies, and television.

This 2018 webinar discussed the relationship between the habits of a healthy dating environment and a healthy marriage. The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families’ hour-long session included an overview of the Resource Center, as well as presentations on relationship education for youth in California and precautionary support for high-risk youth. The session focused on the impact of normalized relationship skills fostered from youth onward and how they transpire in later relationships or marriage. The session ended with a Q&A section for the audience to reflect on the webinar and to ask any relevant questions.

This toolkit from the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse provides fatherhood programs with resources to address domestic violence and promote safe environments for children and families. Some of the strategies covered include: establishing partnerships with local domestic violence organizations to share goals; working with a domestic violence prevention partner to create protocols for ensuring domestic violence issues and guiding service delivery; and facilitating cross-training for fatherhood and domestic violence agency staff.

Aimed at informing decision makers in states and communities about research and best practices for preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) including teen dating violence, this package from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presents a comprehensive series of approaches and corresponding available evidence that supports eight broad strategies. These strategies include disrupting pathways to partner violence, encouraging household financial security, and teaching skills to form safe and healthy relationships. The package provides a rationale for each strategy, before continuing into a series of approaches specific to the strategy’s goal. It also provides a list of Potential Outcomes that span physical and psychological benefits.