The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse authored this Spotlight on fathering children with disabilities. Few studies have been conducted on fathers of children with disabilities; however, existing literature suggests that having a special needs child may have important implications for fathers’ well-being and involvement with their children. Specifically, fathers of children with disabilities have lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression than fathers of children without disabilities.

Joblinks Employment Transportation hosted a Webinar that provided information about partnerships between transportation providers and employers to develop solutions that provide job retention and stability for workers and employers alike.

From Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, this report describes the results of a study using data to better understand the need for employment-related services and supports among youth in foster care and how a community-based employment training and job placement program in Chicago is serving this population. Authors describe the characteristics and placement of the foster youth in the program, and their participation in employment training activities as well as subsidized jobs.

This brief is from Public/Private Ventures and the third in the GroundWork series, which summarizes evidence on a variety of policy topics to provide a foundation for future work. The brief provides an overview of promising strategies for recruiting and retaining middle- and high-school-aged African-American and Hispanic males in after-school programs. Authors provide an overview of existing research, and recommend that further work is needed, particularly given the positive outcomes associated with sustained participation in high-quality after-school programs and the challenges many programs face in attracting and retaining this population.

This Spotlight is from the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, which is sponsored through the Office of Family Assistance, Administration for Children and Families. Authors report on the latest data that finds fathers who report having high levels of social support experience better psychological well-being and demonstrate more positive patterns of father involvement and co-parenting. The benefits of fathers’ social support may also have important implications for child and family well-being.

This innovative program highlight is from the Center on Law and Social Policy, and provides information on Kentucky’s Ready-to-Work program. A collaboration between the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), this program helps TANF participants pursue postsecondary degrees at Kentucky community and technical colleges.

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this report offers information on how states can use federal stimulus dollars provided through the TANF Emergency Fund to provide emergency food assistance to needy families through food banks, agencies, or other distribution sites, or to supplement USDA’s Summer Food Service Programs. Such additional funds can support food networks in supplementing the food and nutrition for low-income families across the country.

From the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, this policy brief outlines the health effects of social and economic policy. Non-health related policies may have positive impacts on the health and wellbeing of the beneficiaries of certain policies. Specifically, social and economic policy that may not be health-related can help supplement health care spending by helping participants maintain and improve their health.

This report is a technical supplement to the impact report for the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation. From Mathematica Policy Research, authors provide additional detail about the research design, analytic methods, and variable construction for this analysis. This supplement reports the BSF sample intake procedures, including eligibility determination and the random assignment process, as well as additional impact results that were not included in the final report.

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project was designed to evaluate and analyze employment retention and advancement models from around the country, and identify key strategies to best support families. From the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, this report summarizes 12 models of employment retention and advancement from the evaluation and key strategies employed by these programs to best serve their participants.