Nearly one in five undergraduate students in the United States is caring for dependent children. Supporting student parents through higher education is crucial for promoting economic mobility. Child Trends administered the New Mexico College Student Experience Survey to more than 3,000 students, including more than 1,000 pregnant or parenting students with children under age 18, across nine higher education institutions in New Mexico during the 2024 spring semester. This report presents the results of the survey, providing an illustration of student parents in New Mexico and pointing to practice reforms that may better support this group of students.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) case managers monitor compliance with program rules and can offer participants job search assistance and link them to other services to support employment. Recently, interest has grown among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in offering employment coaching to TANF participants rather than traditional case management. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief focuses on lessons learned from an evaluation of the implementation of two employment coaching programs that served only families receiving TANF benefits: Family Development and Self-Sufficiency in Iowa and Goal4 It!TM in Colorado.

Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing, and resources highlighting use cases for generative AI tools appear to abound for learners, educators, and employers. However, new research found a lack of similar resources for workforce development. Training providers, public workforce boards, and organizations that provide career navigation services to jobseekers are searching for ideas on how to use generative AI to support people in their searches for quality jobs. This Jobs for the Future resource highlights current and potential uses for generative AI in workforce development and identifies existing tools and market opportunities.

Throughout the past 15 years, differing viewpoints have emerged about what role, if any, kinship diversion should play in the child welfare system. This Annie E. Casey Foundation report highlights a comprehensive survey administered in 2022 of kinship care policies that identifies increasing efforts by states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico to promote kinship care and support kinship caregivers of children and youth who are known to the child welfare system.

The Child and Family Teaming (CFT) model forms the basis of practice for child welfare services under the Integrated Core Practice Model and California's Continuum of Care Reform. This guide was developed by the California Department of Social Services in collaboration with California Tribal Families Coalition and begins with an overview of Indian Child Welfare Act’s requirements for the CFT. It then moves on to best practices in partnering with Tribes, including learning about the Tribe and understanding differing perspectives. The guide continues with highlighting best practices for including children and engaging all team members in the CFT, provides guidance in making CFT meetings accessible and culturally responsive, and gives tips to practitioners in their ongoing communication with the team between meetings.

The National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics is hosting a webinar on July 24, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. ET to discuss the importance of and strategies for supporting families during pregnancy and the first year of life. Presenters will share how TANF funds are being used to provide cash to families and talk about RxTalks, a no-strings-attached program in Flint, Michigan that is currently providing cash to 700 families.

On July 8, 2024, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced $3 million in new awards to six tribal entities as part of the Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program, which develops and strengthens tribal capacity to support and promote the health and well-being of expectant families and families with young children in American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities. This ACF announcement highlights the six tribal entities, which will build new capacity to provide critical early childhood home visiting services to AIAN families and children in communities where these services do not currently exist. The new grant recipients are: Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (Connecticut), Jicarilla Apache Nation (New Mexico), Seneca Nation of Indians (New York), Future Generations Collaborative (Oregon), and Oglala Sioux Tribe (South Dakota).

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief summarizes evidence from the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse about interventions that provide occupational and sectoral training. The strategies are useful for helping people with low incomes improve employment and earnings outcomes. Occupational and sectoral training is defined as training designed to prepare clients for professional opportunities within a specific occupation, such as truck driving or welding, or a specific sector, such as health care or manufacturing. Occupational and sectoral training is often provided in fields that are growing or in high demand. In addition to providing classroom or practical instruction in occupational or sectoral skills, these interventions often match clients with a case manager and a job developer.

This Mathematica brief describes the activities of the Mississippi Action Learning Network (MALN) from May 2022 to December 2023 and includes takeaways related to how facilitators planned and facilitated meetings, meeting attendance, how sharing and learning occurred, what participants learned and collaboration examples, and progress the group made towards its goals. MALN is a Mississippi state initiative where leaders share and learn best practices, innovations, and solutions for improving economic mobility.

This Chapin Hall brief describes results from a series of longitudinal analyses using federal TANF administrative data from 28 states. The brief examines patterns and trends in TANF participation, focusing on caseload dynamics, household characteristics, and state-level differences. These analyses are preliminary and were conducted to demonstrate how federal TANF data can be used for longitudinal research that offers important insights into TANF participation over time. This study sheds light on important trends in TANF participation, emphasizing the importance of longitudinal data and the need for ongoing research to better support families in need.