Access to unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has been a challenge for all workers, but especially workers of color, workers with less formal education, lower-paid workers, younger workers, and workers with disabilities, who have all been less likely to apply for and receive benefits, even when potentially eligible. Building on community-based organizations’ role in connecting workers with UI benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor launched a three-year pilot “navigator” program in 2022. The program, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, aimed to help state UI agencies develop community partnerships. This Center for American Progress report provides an evaluation of one of the navigator programs, Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator (PWN) program. The PWN program received state funding supplemented by federal navigator grants for unions and other community organizations to help unemployed workers access public unemployment insurance benefits and job training benefits.

Head Start is a national program that helps young children from families with low incomes prepare to succeed in school by promoting their early learning and health as well as their families’ well-being. Head Start connects families with medical, dental, and mental health services to be sure that children are receiving the services they need to develop well. Head Start involves parents in their children’s learning and development and helps parents make progress on their own goals, such as housing stability, continuing education, and financial security. Head Start programs are organized into 12 regions and unlike the other regions that are determined geographically, Region XI serves children and families in programs operated by federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) tribes. Understanding that communities have unique needs and priorities, Region XI programs offer a variety of services related to children’s home language or Native language and culture. This Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation study is a result of an evaluation on the family and staff experiences in AI/AN Head Start in Region XI that focused on family and staff well-being, including:

1. Children’s characteristics, family background, and home environment;
2. Children’s social-emotional and learning skills;
3. Children’s disability status and physical health; and
4. Characteristics of children’s lead teachers.

The Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) inaugural data strategy provides a north star to ensure that data delivers for the people ACF serves. ACF recognizes that better data capacity internally and throughout the human services ecosystem can lead to improved operations, more informed policy, and faster, more proactive, and safer delivery of public benefits and services. This ACF resource explains the data strategy, which builds on their existing progress to better use, share, and analyze data at ACF. The strategy includes a dozen individual initiatives that fall into four categories: sustaining initiatives; one-stop shop initiatives; delivery initiatives; and technology initiatives. These categories include building foundational infrastructure such as hiring ACF’s first ever Chief Data Officer and establishing a Data Governance Council; supporting program offices by creating a Data Talent Center to provide expertise in hiring and retaining data talent; and sharing data regularly through community-centered data tools and stories.

This Office of Research, Planning and Evaluation resource shares three strategies, identified from the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency-Next Generation project report published earlier this year, to help program staff understand client needs better and improve client engagement. The resource uses examples from the report that details the approach that Monroe County in New York took to improve attendance at activities required by the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

The University of California, Davis is hosting a webinar on November 19, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. PT, focusing on the integration of tribal engagement within California’s Child and Family Team (CFT) practice. This webinar will explore best practices outlined in the 2024 CFT Tribal Engagement Guide, which highlights the essential role of culturally responsive, trauma-informed practices for Indian children, families and Tribes. Participants will learn about the legal requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the CFT process, strategies for fostering collaboration between child welfare services and tribal governments, and methods for supporting cultural connections for children and families.

Nearly every aspect of modern life relies on the ability to receive funds, make payments, and access monetary resources when needed. But appropriate and affordable financial services are often not available to low-income and otherwise marginalized communities and individuals. The Institute for Research on Poverty is hosting a webinar on October 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. ET, where presenters will share research findings related to the inequitable landscape of financial services as well as examples of practice and policy solutions.

On October 10, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced the approval of up to $10 million in initial emergency grant funding to North Carolina to support disaster-relief jobs and training services in 25 counties to help respond to Hurricane Helene. This DOL release explains how the National Dislocated Worker Grant – supported by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 – will allow the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Division of Workforce Solutions to provide people with temporary disaster-relief jobs for cleanup and the delivery of humanitarian assistance to address immediate, basic needs for those displaced by Hurricane Helene.

Supporting families and individuals means understanding that their needs are complex, interrelated, and affected by the opportunities available in their communities. Integrated service approaches to prevent homelessness or involvement in systems like child welfare may be best positioned to succeed when they recognize these holistic needs and identities and when they coordinate access to resources and services. This Mathematica brief highlights the efforts made by programs to coordinate services and supports for participants by focusing on their holistic needs, including how programs identified their participants’ strengths and needs and how the sites integrated services to be responsive to those needs. The findings are based on interviews with staff and partners from nine case studies sites across the country and with people who have been served by these programs.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, an annual recognition of the contributions of America’s workers with disabilities. In honor of this year’s theme, “Access to Good Jobs for All,” this resource by the Office of Disability Employment Policy’s Center for Advancing Policy on Employment for Youth highlights an innovative Massachusetts Commission for the Blind program that provides youth and young adults with disabilities access to high-quality employment experiences.

These Office for Family Assistance resources provide demographic data on adults and children in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families active families receiving cash assistance and closed cases. National and state-level data are available, as well as data on families receiving assistance through Separate State Program (SSP)-Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) programs.