This blog post from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse provides information on opioid abuse among older adults ages 55 to 64. Older adults have experienced the greatest increase in drug-related deaths. A pattern of opioid misuse often begins with a life change, such as a divorce, an empty nest, or the death of a parent or spouse. Health care providers also tend to over-prescribe opioids to this age group due to the chronic pain they can experience. The author provides resources from the Centers for Disease Control for health care providers, and a guide to finding quality addiction treatment for older adults who are struggling with opioid addiction.

Domestic violence survivors often face challenges when trying to secure safe and affordable housing. This special collection from VAWnet provides resources to help providers of services pertaining to sexual assault, homelessness, and housing serve the housing needs of domestic violence survivors. The collection starts by describing the intersection between domestic violence and homelessness, especially for survivors of color. Next, the collection provides case studies illustrating partnerships between domestic violence organizations and affordable housing providers, and supplies four key strategies for helping addressing survivors’ barriers to safe housing. The collection also includes relevant public policies and statistics on the intersection between domestic and sexual violence, housing, and homelessness.

Young adults are more likely to avoid poverty if they follow a “success sequence” in this order: earning at least a high school diploma, working full-time, and getting married before having children. This report from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies examines whether millennials are following this success sequence. The researchers found that 95% of millennials who married first before having children were not poor, but 72% of millennials who had children before marrying were poor. Millennials were also more likely to make it into the middle or higher end of the income distribution by age 28-34 if they married before having children.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) helps increase the benefits of work for low-income individuals, but workers without children can only receive a maximum of $500 a year. This MDRC report includes interim findings from the Paycheck Plus Demonstration in New York City, which tested the idea of expanding the EITC to working single adults without dependent children. The project recruited over 6,000 adults in New York City, and half were randomly selected to receive a Paycheck Plus bonus if they went through the process of applying for it. Interim results showed that individuals who received bonuses had higher income, increased employment, increased payment of child support, and increased tax filing.

WorkforceGPS compiled this list of resources to serve the populations with barriers to employment that are targeted by H1-B TechHire grants. These populations include youth and young adults (ages 17-29), individuals with disabilities, individuals with limited English proficiency, and individuals with criminal records. There are resources tailored to each population, including toolkits, assessments, and manuals, to help them overcome their barriers and obtain employment.

In this issue brief, the National Skills Coalition proposes a $500 million Career Pathways Support Fund that would allow community colleges to provide classes and support services to non-traditional and low-income students pursuing job-driven degrees and certificates. The issue brief describes the need to support the need for postsecondary education for low-income working adults, since 80% of jobs will require some postsecondary training. Arkansas, Iowa, and North Carolina have all pursued statewide career pathways initiatives and there is some federal support for career pathways, but these efforts are not sufficient to fulfill the demand for postsecondary training that leads to high-wage employment. The Career Pathways Support Fund would fund partnerships between community colleges and employers that would offer students courses and support services leading to an industry-recognized credential.

Children who are exposed to violence can experience negative effects throughout their lives, regardless of whether it is violence in the community or domestic violence or abuse at home. This RAND report, sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, details the Safe Start project, which evaluated evidence-based programs aimed at mitigating the negative impact of violence on children. Safe Start consisted of two phases: the first phase was a demonstration of promising practices to address children’s exposure to violence and the second phase implemented those promising practices in 15 cities across the country. All sites were able to implement their programs, but families received fewer services than planned. The report includes these implementation challenges and offers recommendations for future programs serving children who have been exposed to violence.

There is currently limited evidence on the effectiveness of domestic violence program services. To fill this gap, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation contracted with the Center for Policy Research and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence to identify where the evidence base could be stronger for domestic violence programs. This report summarizes the current evidence on domestic violence and highlights innovative and concrete areas of opportunity for building the evidence base. While domestic violence programs do show some evidence of contributing to survivor well-being, the research is limited and often has methodological issues. The researchers found multiple opportunities for strengthening the evidence base, such as supporting researcher-practitioner partnerships, supporting culturally-relevant research, building on the current theory of change, and developing and validating new measures of program components and outcomes.

Sharing research results often includes intimidating graphics and jargon, so community members and practitioners may have difficulty accessing the information they need to plan their programs. This Urban Institute report details the Data Walk tool, which researchers can use to help community members review and interpret data, and strategize how to implement the results in their communities. In a Data Walk, community members walk through a series of stations where they can view data and discuss it in small groups with the help of a facilitator. The authors detail how to design, plan, and facilitate a Data Walk, and they also include examples of programs that have successfully used Data Walks to share research results.