The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is working to strengthen the well-being of children, youth, and their families by integrating behavioral health services into the existing supports they rely on, such as social services and early childhood programs. This ACF announcement highlights the new behavioral health webpage that includes a tip sheet for parents and caregivers and a series of short videos about mental health.

The new behavioral health webpage includes audience-specific pages with resources about mental health and substance use for:

• Teens and young adults
• Parents and caregivers
• American Indian and Alaska Native Communities
• Service providers
• Grant recipients
• Early childhood professionals

In Massachusetts, when families with young children search for information about and connections to early childhood services, they face a complex maze rather than a coordinated early childhood system. This Urban Institute report highlights existing service coordination approaches in Massachusetts and is designed to inform the development of a comprehensive system of information about and connections to early childhood services for Massachusetts families with children from birth to age 5.

Financial burdens for childcare expenses are not evenly distributed across states and regions of the United States. While some funds are allotted to states by the federal government, there is significant state-level discretion in how states administer this small pool of funds. For parents the expense, stress, and uncertainty of finding quality early care and education (ECE) varies from place to place as both the availability and affordability of ECE services are inconsistent. This brief by the Institute for Research on Poverty summarizes how rates of maternal employment decline when childcare is expensive and difficult to find.

This Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation brief provides a graphical overview of some of the TANF policy differences across states and territories. It includes information about initial eligibility, benefit amounts, work and activity requirements, and ongoing eligibility and time limits. This brief is a companion to the 2022 Welfare Rules Databook.

As youth and young adults with disabilities (Y&YADs) transition into adulthood, they face a complex series of milestones and hurdles in achieving economic self-sufficiency. Y&YADs struggle to navigate access to community services, support, and programs that meet their basic needs. This Cape Youth brief provides policy considerations that help Y&YADs foster economic self-sufficiency through financial literacy and independence. These strategies can reduce financial pressures for Y&YADs as they transition to employment and adulthood.

While many of the United States’ peer countries have partnered effectively with employers to offer earn-and-learn options like apprenticeships on a grand scale, the U.S. continues to rely almost exclusively on traditional four-year college degrees as the primary path to a good job—leaving many workers and learners behind. Brookings and New America’s Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship are co-hosting a webinar on February 21, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. ET, where leaders in Alabama, Colorado, and Indiana will discuss how they are creating enabling policies to scale earn-and-learn opportunities.

For all children and their families to thrive, they need to be safe and healthy, together in their communities. For all parents, raising healthy children requires not only ensuring their material security and physical wellness, but also helping them to understand the family and community they belong to and to define and develop their own positive identities, including around their race, language, culture, and history. This Center for the Study of Social Policy brief lifts the voices of community-based organizations striving to answer that call across the country, with the goal of highlighting and addressing the barriers that stand in the way of all families having the support they need.

Watch accompanying webinar here.

Whether or not they have a strong understanding of all the options before them, many Gen Z youth are looking for faster, more economical, and more relevant on-ramps to meaningful jobs that offer life-sustaining wages and are aligned to their real interests. They want opportunities to learn and grow while working and earning—options that do not require them to put their lives on hold for years and accumulate life-changing debt in the process. This Jobs for the Future report is intended to improve public awareness of nondegree pathways by exploring how they benefit people and the workplace as well as barriers that prevent them from being mainstreamed.