From Public/Private Ventures, this report includes information on serving youth across six cities. Researchers studied 200 programs to better understand how they promote sustained participation among older youth. The resulting data indicated that two of the most important practices distinguishing high-retention programs were: ample leadership opportunities for youth and high levels of staff efforts to keep informed about participants' lives outside the programs.

In 2005, Achieve launched the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network at the National Education Summit on High Schools. Since 2005, Achieve has been annually monitoring state progress in college and career readiness for its populations. At the inception of the program, only three states had aligned high school standards with postsecondary and workplace expectations, and in 2010, this report reveals that 31 states have college- and career-ready standards.

The AfterZones initiative is a program out of Providence, Rhode Island to improve after school care city-wide. This model is designed to service children in a neighborhood “campus” structure, and allows youth to travel between different sites that are located around the main facility. Using a mixed-methods approach, researchers from Public/Private Ventures examine the implementation of the AfterZones program in this report and examine the extent to which AfterZones programs incorporated practices associated with positive youth development.

From the Institute for Research on Poverty and researchers at Columbia University, this article provides information on the status of low-income men. Since the mid-1970s, wages and labor force participation has been decreasing for young, lesser educated men. In this piece, authors examine how key income-security policy areas, including unemployment insurance, payroll taxes and the Earned Income Tax Credit, and child support enforcement, affect this population.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released this report on the employment experience of youth. At age 22, women are more likely to be enrolled in college than men and are also more likely to have completed a bachelor’s degree. Among 22-year-olds not enrolled in college, men are also more likely than women to be employed in a civilian job or serving in the military.

This report includes data on 831 homebuyers in 17 states who purchased homes using Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) between 1999 and 2007. Data show that low-income homeowners who participated in programs that used IDAs to purchase homes were two to three times less likely to lose their homes to foreclosure. Additionally, IDA homebuyers were able to obtain significantly preferable mortgage loan terms.

This report is from MDRC and includes an evaluation of the Family Rewards cash transfer program in New York City, which began in 2007. The program offers cash rewards to specific family activities and outcomes to help families address immediate barriers but also to build human capital. Among the preliminary findings, researchers found that the program reduced current poverty and hardship, including hunger and some housing and health care hardships.

Chapin Hall conducted this study on multi-system families in Illinois and their use of services. Families using two or more social service programs consume 86 percent of the funding allocated for services. Researchers identify characteristics of multi-system families that receive more than one service from five programs, including mental health, substance abuse, foster care, adult incarceration, and juvenile incarceration.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) authored this report on the TANF program to assess the state of the TANF program in the midst of the economic recession. Of 21 states surveyed, the TANF caseload grew from June 2008 to June 2009 in 12 states. Researchers provide an overview of factors that contributed to the decline in the TANF caseload since 1996 and give demographic data on participating versus nonparticipating families. The GAO concludes with the impact of the high participation more recently in the TANF caseload on child poverty.

The Promising Practices Network (PPN) is a group of individuals and organizations who are dedicated to providing quality evidence-based information about what works to improve the lives of children, families, and communities. The Promising Practices Network features descriptions of evaluated programs that improve outcomes for children. PPN programs can be found under a variety of topic areas, including poverty and welfare.