The Administration for Children and Families presents the Strengthening Families Evidence Review. This website includes catalogs of research on programs for low-income fathers and couples, information on the review process, and a searchable database of studies.

The Institute for Research on Poverty hosted a podcast titled "Family Change, Father Involvement, and Child Food Insecurity." In this podcast, Daniel Miller of the Boston University School of Social Work discusses his research on measuring child food insecurity in the context of family type, changing family structure, and father involvement. Miller states that there is still a lot not known about food insecurity for kids, but that understanding the connections between family change and food insecurity has a lot of promise in giving a better picture of the problem.

The New American Foundation released a report called, "State U Online." It offers policy recommendations for States that are interested in creating online higher education systems. It suggests creating sustainable cost structures so institutions do not have to rely on State legislature allocations. Additionally, the report advises States to provide incentives to faculty to develop online courses, mitigate retention problems by supporting students, experiment with innovative course and credit delivery, and ensure credits transfer with students when they move from one school to another. The report also provides a history of distance learning, State examples, and case studies.

The U.S. Census Bureau has improved the variety of online courses it offers, as well as the process for learning about them and registering. Two of their more popular offerings for the workforce community include "Using Census Data for Grant Applications" and "How to Navigate American FactFinder."

McKinsey & Company's Center for Government (MCG) released a report titled, "Education to Employment: Designing a System that Works." This report examines dual global crises, the high levels of youth unemployment, and a shortage of job seekers with critical skills. The report discusses how a country can resolve this issue and bring young people from education to employment, examining more than 100 education-to-employment initiatives from 25 countries. In addition to this, a survey of youth, education providers, and employers in nine countries that are diverse in geography and socioeconomic contexts is assessed. Lastly, the report focuses on skill development, giving special attention to the mechanisms that connect education to employment

The Urban Institute's HOST Demonstration is developing and testing the effectiveness of using two-generation "whole family" approaches to address the challenges of deeply poor, vulnerable families living in public and assisted housing. HOST services are intended to improve children's health outcomes and reduce risky behavior, helping to overcome some of the disadvantages of growing up in chronic disadvantage. HOST's core case management component helps parents in low-income neighborhoods confront their key barriers to self-sufficiency: poor physical and mental health, additions, low literacy, educational attainment, and a weak connection to the labor force, while integrating services for children and youth. This report discusses the implementation and expansion process of the HOST program.

In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act expanded investment in States' labor market information (LMI) systems to help create new jobs, save existing ones, spur economic activity, and invest in long-term growth. As part of the Recovery Act funding for green jobs, the U.S. Department of Labor awarded $50 million in State LMI improvement grants to 30 grantees, including 24 individual State workforce agencies and six consortia. The "Investing in Labor-Market Information (LMI): Insights from the Recovery Act LMI Grants" report describes experiences of nine selected grantees and presents lessons that may inform future efforts, while the "Investing in Labor-Market Information (LMI): A Summary of the State LMI Improvement Grants" summary offers information about grantees' goals, definitions of green jobs, partners and stakeholders, activities, products, and dissemination strategies.

Young adults formerly in foster care are less likely to be employed or enrolled in college at age 19 than their same-age peers nationally, contributing to greater economic instability in their early adult years. Social workers, educators, and policymakers question whether youth are adequately prepared for work but have difficulty assessing their job preparedness. This brief, prepared by the Urban Institute, uses data collected as part of the Multi-Site Evaluation of Foster Youth Programs to examine: 1) how youth in foster care rate their preparedness for work at age 17, and 2) whether their assessments accurately predict education and employment two years later. The results indicated that a high sense of job preparedness, particularly when combined with high reading skills, was associated with more employment and college enrollment among young adults currently and formerly in foster care. (author abstract)

Mathematica released a report on the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), the nation's largest source of training and employment services, in which they conducted a study of States' and local areas' use of eight WIA policy waivers. This final report provides descriptive analysis of the findings from each phase of data collection, discussing the reasons for waiver requests and implementation of waivers at the State and local levels, the successes and challenges of these efforts, and lessons that can be learned from these States' and local areas' waiver use.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that discusses issues and potential options for: 1) TANF's role in providing cash assistance to low-income families, 2) measuring TANF work participation, and 3) information on States' use of TANF funds. The report also reviews relevant Federal laws, regulations, and agency documents, along with transcripts from relevant congressional hearings from 2009 through 2012, which provide information on issues and options identified by members of Congress.