Working weekends, evenings, and early morning hours are the norm for most employed, low-income Latino parents, according to new research from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families. Many, and particularly immigrant parents, also have little advance notice of their work schedules. These type of work schedules can make it difficult for families to access child care options, particularly the publicly funded care designed to support low-income families.

This interactive tool from the Urban Institute allows users to look at a picture of their city’s financial health through wealth data, credit bureau information, and peer groups that highlight a city’s challenges and promising interventions. Since financially healthy residents can better contribute to the local economy, this is a useful tool for those who want to support their local communities.

This brief, published by OPRE and MDRC, examines the effects of evidenced-based home visiting programs for families, as well as the financial benefits of home visiting in relation to the cost of the programs. The brief highlights that home visiting programs show improved outcomes for children, while also being cost effective in the long term. Another finding indicated increased earnings and reduced government program spending for families who received evidence-based home visiting.

This 40-minute webinar from the Institute for Research on Poverty features Marci Ybarra of the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. She highlights the growing national interest in Paid Family Leave and the many questions about how these policies might extend to low-income women. Beginning with an overview of current family leave policies and research, she then discusses how other public welfare programs may function as temporary supports for poor mothers with infant children, and how expanded paid family leave programs could improve the well-being of families with children.

In this episode of GAO Watchdog, a podcast that features interviews with GAO officials on significant issues and new reports, GAO staff discuss U.S. unemployment. Unemployment in the U.S. has hit a 16-year low and much of this decline is due to the rise of low-wage occupations. So what exactly is classified as a low-wage job? The Watchdog Report is recorded, hosted, and produced by GAO staff.

This Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report details implementation recommendations regarding low-income women and the detection of breast and cervical cancer. Many factors contribute to the likelihood that a woman will be diagnosed with breast and cervical cancer, including age, family history, race, and socioeconomic factors. The report emphasizes decreasing death rates by increasing access to early screenings and services. To provide these services, the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP) and the CDC identified six priorities in developing research-backed policy recommendations.

This resource from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides evidence and research to support early literacy within the family. Professionals are encouraged to talk to parents about the importance of early literacy and support family efforts to read and learn together. The brief also provides evidence that these early reading activities increase children’s readiness for school.

This brief from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago examines the effects of housing instability in adolescence on the transition to adulthood. The brief, the first in a series, uses evidence to seek solutions to avoid missed opportunities to provide not only housing stability, but also stability in other areas of life including sleep, safety, and education. A lack of credible data about youth who experience homelessness has previously been a barrier, and this brief helps provide credible numbers when looking to address this problem in communities.

This practice brief introduces the Tribal HPOG 2.0 evaluation, provides a summary of the findings of the Tribal HPOG 1.0 evaluation, and examines how the evaluation of the first program informed the second. The Tribal HPOG 2.0 program encourages individuals to enter the healthcare field through supporting demonstration projects that equip those individuals with the necessary education and training. It is the first in a series of briefs that will be disseminated to share lessons learned and findings from the program evaluation.

This Urban Institute report details an evaluation of a high school internship program at Urban Alliance in Washington, DC. The program provided training, an internship, and mentorship to high school seniors at risk of becoming disconnected from school and work. Using an experimental design, the researchers compared outcomes between the treatment and control groups two years after high school. Key findings include an increase in the probability of graduating from high school and enrolling and persisting in college for males in the treatment group, as well as a positive impact on hard and soft skills at the one year mark.