This blog post from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau highlights recent research regarding teens in the U.S. and their level of financial literacy. The research results did show room to improve financial literacy among teens, but it also showed that many teens do discuss financial issues with their parents regularly, and that those holding a bank account have higher levels of literacy. The article concludes with links to other pertinent resources.

This compendium from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation was put together to provide information about available measures to assess executive functioning to be used by researchers, child development specialists, field staff, and other relevant professionals. A total of 44 commonly used measures are assessed and categorized to enhance the field's knowledge.

This blog post from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) provides an overview of conversations about ACF priorities that staff had at the recent American Public Human Services Association’s 2018 National Health and Human Services Summit. The main theme of the conversations was how to best engage all families served via ACF programs.

This Mathematica research brief examines several interventions utilizing self-regulation for workforce assistance. Traditional workforce programs focus on helping low-income individuals build skills, reduce employment barriers, and develop work experience. Recently, a new approach centers around building participants’ self-regulation. Self-regulation helps individuals to better manage their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions both in and outside of work. Implemented strategies include providing behavioral therapy, mindfulness techniques, and motivational interviewing. Poverty forces people to juggle multiple demanding factors and stressors on a limited budget, while often adhering to assistance program requirements. Self-regulation techniques aim to strengthen an individual’s emotional well-being, motivation, and self-confidence to increase resiliency.

Produced by the Center for Poverty Research at UC Davis, this policy brief compares different interventions focused on increasing college enrollment for high school seniors. Research indicates students involved in a mentoring program are statistically more likely to enroll in college than both the control group and groups receiving assistance without personal mentoring. Women were most positively affected. Students who had not taken the SAT, or who did not have parent or counselor support, also positively benefitted. And, students were just as likely to persist in college as students in the control group who had enrolled, indicating any disadvantages before mentorship did not affect them once they got to college. This study refutes previous research by showing the importance of intensive, face-to-face mentoring for students above less-personalized methods.

This report, produced by the University of Maryland, examines characteristics of adults who receive Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA) for children. Maryland’s TCA focuses on the economic stability of entire families by focusing both on child academic success and earning potential of caregivers. However, TCA services differ. Some families qualify for benefits for both themselves and their children, while other adults receive benefits only for children. This report evaluates the different sociodemographic characteristics between recipient and non-recipient adults, and assesses whether these different strategies affect the children under their care. Promoting the well-being of all children – regardless whether a caregiver is a recipient – is an important component of multiple-generation programs.

This brief, circulated by ASPE, details the methodology used in the report Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic, and Child Welfare Caseloads: A Mixed Methods Study. Methods utilized included statistical modeling, geospatial analysis, and qualitative interviewing and analysis. Research centered on six questions, including exploring the relationship between substance use prevalence and child welfare caseloads, how parental substance misuse affects caseloads and outcomes, and whether opioid misuse impacts welfare differently than other types of substance use.

This report evaluates the early impacts of the Year Up program. Year Up is a national training program for youth between 18-24 years of age. It provides individuals with 6 months of full-time training in IT and financial service sectors, followed by a 6-month internship, with an emphasis on professional and technical skills development. Findings indicate that Year Up participants reported higher-than-average earnings after assignment, as well as high satisfaction rates within the classroom. This consistently large and positive effect on incomes – when compared to the control group – represents the largest positive impact to date for any federal workforce program tested in this manner. Findings also indicated that adherence to program design during implementation was also largely positive, though outcomes vary between Year Up offices.

This worksheet helps practitioners understand how to use the behavioral economics concept of “anchoring” in a goal setting conversation with clients. Anchoring means sharing information that may influence an individual’s behavior in one direction, without explicitly telling them what to do. (For example, posting a suggested donation of $10 for museum entry is an anchor – you do not have to donate $10, but many people likely will.) The worksheet addresses setting a savings goal, but the concept can be applied to any type of goal.

This brief from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families explores who Latino fathers are and how this affects their engagement with their children. For this brief, data from the National Survey of Family Growth was analyzed; a sample of Latino fathers was separated into immigrant and non-immigrant categories because the immigrant experience has been found to have a significant impact on all facets of a father's life. The brief shares key findings about who Latino fathers are and their interaction with the labor market and their children and offers points for discussion and future research.