This series of policy briefs focuses on three basic TANF components: cash assistance, block grants, and work participation rates. The briefs, geared toward policymakers, practitioners, and advocates within all levels of government, explain the components and describe the changes and adaptations to TANF since its inception in 1996.

In addition to promoting the economic and social well being of their clients, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) takes on many health initiatives to supplement and support their mission of helping children and families across the country. This blog post highlights some of the various health-related initiatives from ACF, some of which focus on preventing abuse, ending teen pregnancy, tribal home visiting, and combating childhood obesity.

The Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Models and Measures project developed recommended measures for assessing the outcomes of healthy marriage and relationship education programs. The products focus on two key target populations: parents in complex families and adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18. For each of these populations, we developed:

1. A dynamic measures spreadsheet that summarizes the items and measures recommended for assessing a range of targeted outcomes that may be used in evaluations of programs that serve the population.

2. A companion “tip sheet” with advice on collecting data from the population. (author abstract)

This resource is the tip sheet for parents in complex families.

This joint report from CLASP and the Center for American Progress explores the benefits of the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) programs. Twenty state grantees and two tribal grantees were interviewed about their home visiting programs. The report includes information about how states are using MIECHV funding to expand evidence-based home visiting services to more families, build home visiting systems and connections to other services, and promote evidence-based policy, continuous quality improvement (CQI), and evaluation to ensure program success and positive results for the participants.

In a report from the Brookings Institution, the author examines the trend of declining middle-wage jobs in America. Although enrollment rates for community colleges, for-profit colleges, and lower-tier four-year colleges are high, completion rates are still low and earnings are inconsistent among graduates. Many of these institutions lack the necessary resources and incentives to respond to the job market, and employers lack the incentives to participate in career pathways programs and create good jobs. The report offers three policy suggestions to address these issues, including: provide more resources to community colleges, expand high-quality career and technical education plus work-based learning models such as apprenticeships, and assist and incentivize employers to create better employment opportunities.

This blog post from the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Mark Greenberg, highlights the importance of financial capability programs within human services agencies. ACF programs have issued notices to a wide range of ACF-supported programs to demonstrate the need for financial capability and encourage them to structure their services and activities to strengthen financial capability among the populations they serve.

This guide from the Children’s Bureau was created primarily to support community-based child abuse prevention professionals who work to prevent child maltreatment and promote well-being. The guide focuses on protective factors that build family strengths and promote optimal child and youth development.

The WIOA Collection website provides information and resources to states, local areas, non-profits, grantees, and other stakeholders to assist with implementation of the Act. It includes an Action Planner, “WIOA 101,” partner sites, and more.

This blog post kicked off National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. Although the pregnancy rate among U.S. teens has decreased by more than half since 1990, disparities remain. Some youth, including those in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, are at a much higher risk of experiencing a pregnancy than are their peers. This post highlights the need to tailor teen pregnancy prevention programs to different populations. Some approaches include empowering youth and staff, creating continuity, and testing strategies to see what works.

As part of the employer-driven model and toolkit developed by the National Institute of Justice, this report provides guidance on using labor market information (LMI) to target high-growth occupations for potential employment opportunities for justice-involved individuals.