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.

Employment coaching involves trained staff working collaboratively with participants to help them set individualized goals related to employment and providing motivation, support, and feedback as participants work toward those goals. Recently, there has been growing interest among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in using employment coaching to assist Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes become economically mobile. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report highlights the evaluation that was designed to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the four programs participating in the Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations study. The report answers the following research questions: In what contexts were programs implemented? How did the designs of the programs vary and differ? How was coaching implemented across programs? The programs highlighted in this evaluation are: • Family Development and Self-Sufficiency, which serves TANF recipients and their family members in Iowa. • Goal4 It!TM, which provides employment coaching to TANF recipients in Jefferson County, Colorado in lieu of traditional case management. • LIFT, which is a voluntary coaching program operated in four U.S. cities. • MyGoals for Employment Success, which serves recipients of housing assistance in Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston, Texas.

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Economic stability and employment during young adulthood are critical to long-term economic security, and today, many young adults face longer periods of financial insecurity than in the past. Young people affected by the justice system face additional barriers to achieving economic stability and employment with research showing that formerly incarcerated people are almost five times more likely than the public to be unemployed. This report details the findings of a joint project between The National Youth Employment Coalition and Urban Institute to conduct case studies of five sites that launched or implemented a broad-based, cross-system collaborative to promote workforce development and better provide labor market opportunities for justice-involved youth. The case studies include a detailed analysis of each site’s collaborative efforts, key stakeholders, best practices for systems collaboration, an exploration of funding sources, and sustainability efforts.

The Office of Family Assistance initiative, “Leveraging America’s Social and Economic Resilience TANF Learning Community” (LASER TLC), supported ten TANF Programs across the country as they worked to address the challenges of human service delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and focused on improving and delivering more responsive services to their TANF families. This document shares Larimer County Colorado Department of Human Services’ journey during their participation in the 18-month learning community. The site journey conveys how their LASER TLC site team, along with support from their dedicated coaching team and application of the LI2 framework, contributed to developing their action plan and strategizing the implementation of their change agenda to benefit TANF families.

The federal government currently has five primary programs designed to feed school-age children: the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the School Breakfast Program (SBP), the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Seamless Summer Option, and the Summer Food Service Program. Each program has distinct meal costs, eligibility requirements, and reimbursement processes for the meals served. While all public schools have the option to participate in each of these federal meal programs, they may choose to opt out of any of them. Recognizing the multitude of benefits for students, families, and schools, this report illustrates how five states—California, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, and New Mexico—have acted to independently serve free school meals for all students. In the absence of continued federal investment, this strategy is essential for ensuring that students are well fed and ready to learn during the school day.

The deadline for families to submit information to the IRS for advanced payments of the Expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) is November 15. To assist in ensuring that eligible families receive this credit, the American Public Human Services Association is hosting a webinar series for state agencies to discuss the CTC tools they are using. The first webinar was October 1, when the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) discussed how TPC’s data visualization map can inform a strategic approach to targeting CTC outreach, and what Colorado is doing today to reach eligible families.

The second of a three-part series, this April 20, 2021 webinar from the Center for Health Care Strategies reviews challenges faced by families with young children in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic aftermath. Presentations covered opportunities to support families and connect them with community resources; strategies to increase parents’ knowledge of child development and communications skills while reducing their social isolation; mindfulness practices among staff at a supportive services agency; and the development of a virtual maternal-infant home visiting program. Speakers included representatives from the American Academy of Pediatrics, Families First of Boston, La Cocina of Colorado, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and ZERO TO THREE.

This report evaluates the Denver Supportive Housing Social Impact Bond Initiative (Denver SIB), which sought to increase housing stability and reduce jail stays among chronically homeless persons with prior frequent involvement with the criminal justice and emergency health systems. Under Denver SIB, supportive housing was provided through a Housing First approach (which had no preconditions or requirements for participants) and a modified Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) model. ACT is a multidisciplinary team-based approach to deliver supportive services, such as case management, crisis intervention, substance use counseling, mental health treatment, peer support, skills building, and connection to primary care.

This report examines family treatment courts (FTCs) that address the needs of families affected by substance use disorders. FTCs coordinate service delivery from child protective services, treatment professionals, court personnel, and community partners; this coordination helps ensure that children have safe, nurturing, and permanent homes, parents achieve stable recovery, and each family member receives needed services and supports. The report covers key FTC components, including multisystemic collaborative approaches, governance structures, and integrated and parallel program models, and presents FTC examples in Jefferson County, Colorado; King County, Washington; and Sacramento County, California.

This report examines how organizational culture, office design, and office procedures contribute to the client experience with TANF, the services offered, and the potential outcomes. It highlights examples of productive client-oriented office settings, organizational processes and culture, and the day-to-day influence of organizational culture on clients and frontline staff. The report’s findings are drawn from field interviews and observations at six TANF offices: Fairfax County’s Department of Family Services (Virginia); Mesa County’s Workforce Center (Colorado); New York City’s Human Resources Administration (New York); Owens Valley Career Development Center’s Tribal TANF Program (California); Santa Cruz County’s Human Services Department (California); and the Utah Department of Workforce Services.