The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse will host a webinar on March 21, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, which will help participants better understand the chances that an employment program will improve earnings and other outcomes for program participants and which programs have the greatest odds of success. The webinar will cover a comprehensive resource that the Clearinghouse developed, which is designed to help service providers explore evidence that answers:

• How likely is it that specific programs will improve employment-related outcomes?
• What combination of employment-focused services have the greatest chance of improving outcomes?
• Which services are most effective for different groups of people?

Children rely on the adults in their lives to provide safety and security; unfortunately, this is often difficult for adults living in poverty to provide. As a result, some children living in poverty face developmental challenges that may affect their well-being long term. This article discusses how poverty affects children's brain development and mental health. It also covers risk factors that may affect brain development, how a family’s economic status impacts the amount of gray and white matter volumes in the brain (gray matter controls movement, memory, and emotions while white matter helps with the transfer of information within the brain), and medical and counseling recommendations. Further, the article identifies a number of existing anti-poverty programs, including TANF, that may help reduce the financial burden of living in poverty.

This Wisconsin Department of Health Services webpage includes a section featuring the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model. IPS is a supported employment model that helps people with mental health and substance use disorders find and keep jobs of their choosing. The IPS model is based on the philosophy that employment is treatment and leads to improved recovery outcomes. The webpage illustrates the eight principles of IPS and how stakeholders (including job seekers, businesses, counties, tribal nations, mental health providers, and vocational services providers) benefit from implementing IPS.

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides federal money to states, territories, and tribes to subsidize the cost of child care for working families with low incomes. Policies vary widely across jurisdictions, with states, territories, and tribes establishing different policies for: eligibility requirements for families and children; application, waiting list, and redetermination requirements; family copayment policies; and provider requirements and reimbursement rates. This report describes the ways in which policies vary within the context of the federal program requirements and includes dozens of detailed tables showing each state’s/territory’s policy choices.

Many young adults, ages 18 to 25, have earnings that are typically low at this stage of their lives, and often have trouble meeting basic needs while facing systemic barriers and discrimination that exclude them from crucial resources and supports. Policies and programs, as well as the systems that administer them, can help young adults both meet their basic needs and build a stronger foundation for a healthy and fulfilling future. This report presents the case for a guaranteed income to support young adults.

This article notes that while the financial return from a bachelor’s degree is softening, even as the price of tuition and average debt load for college students remain high, high school graduates are so effectively encouraged to get a bachelor’s that high-paid jobs requiring shorter and less expensive training are going unfilled. Updated from 2018, the article features real life examples of skilled trade workers and data and statistics reflecting 2023 economic and workplace conditions. While the article focuses on Washington State, these labor shortages and trends are occurring nationally.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation will host a webinar on March 16, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, to help youth justice staff better serve Native American youth involved in the justice system. The webinar will address the reasons behind the higher risk of system involvement for Native American youth, the need for support and treatment for historical, intergenerational, and contemporary trauma, and the importance of identifying and working with Native nations. Participants will learn about a successful Native nation diversion program and have the opportunity to request more information on supporting Native youth.

The Child & Family Data Archive at the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, Abt Associates, and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation will host a webinar on March 7, 2023 at 1:00 p.m. ET which will cover accessing and using data from three federally-funded evaluations of Career Pathways Programs, including the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) project and the evaluation of two rounds of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program.

The webinar will provide researchers and analysts with:

• An overview of the Career Pathways Programs datasets
• Information on data collection and review
• HPOG and PACE data files and documentation
• Information on the HPOG and PACE data file structure
• Considerations when using the HPOG and PACE data
• Information on accessing the data

Almost 16% of men in the U.S. report having a mental health problem, yet only around half receive treatment. This crisis in care has far-reaching consequences for the entire family, as fathers with mental health issues tend to have lower-quality co-parenting relationships and children who struggle to regulate their emotions and behaviors. The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse will host a webinar on March 8, 2023 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET about the mental health needs of fathers and practices and resources to help address them. By attending the webinar, participants will learn:

• The impact of paternal mental health on parenting, children, and relationships
• How the COVID-19 pandemic has opened the door to more discussion about the importance of mental health and treating mental health issues
• Barriers to treatment and ways to overcome them
• Where fathers can access work- and community-based mental health services

The Aspen Institute’s Ascend initiative will host a national briefing on March 2, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET which will cover an analysis of families with low incomes across the country. Looking at children and the adults in their lives together, this new comparative analysis of 2011 and 2021 Census data will illuminate the diversity of families, examining single and dual parent households and families with young children and ones with at least one child under the age of 18, as well as young parent and multigenerational households.