In response to a technical assistance request from the Minnesota Department of Human Services pertaining to gaining a more clear understanding of the different state supervised/county administered models, the Peer Technical Assistance Network organized a peer-to-peer roundtable in Chicago, Illinois on July 18-19, 2012 with directors and staff from state supervised/county administered Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. This report describes the technical assistance request and response, as well as the overall findings from the roundtable event and lays out potential recommendations for future discussions about the state supervised/county administered structure.

On Wednesday, May 7, 2014, the Office of Family Assistance's Peer TA Network, along with partners from the U.S. Departments of Labor, and Housing and Urban Development, hosted the Investing in Youth and the Community: Summer Youth Employment Programs Webinar. This Webinar explored emerging initiatives, partnerships, and strategies for implementing summer youth employment programs. The Webinar highlighted federal, state, private, and public services available to engage youth in summer employment, while also providing TANF-serving organizations and other stakeholders with the opportunity to learn how to engage various partners in support of summer youth employment activities. Presenters included representatives from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Brandeis University's Center for Youth and Communities, and the Denver Public Housing Authority's Youth Employment Academy.

As a followup to this presentation, OFA created a series of Summer Youth Employment Program Profiles – providing more in-depth information on the background, program model, lessons learned, outcomes, and successes for a number of programs engaging youth in summer employment. These profiles highlight the activities of the City of Richmond, Department of Employment and Training's YouthWORKS Division; the City of Buffalo, Buffalo Employment and Training Center; and the Denver Housing Authority’s Youth Employment Academy.

The Urban Institute recently published an article discussing the Work Support Strategies Initiative. Work Support Strategies (WSS) is a multiyear, multi-State initiative to implement reforms that help eligible low-income families get and keep a full package of work support benefits, including Medicaid, nutrition assistance (SNAP), and child care assistance. This report summarizes the lessons learned from the nine planning grant States (Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina), just one year into a four-year project. The report includes what the States did, how they overcame challenges, and how the planning year changed their strategies and capacities for the future.

In 2002, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instituted the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI) evaluation to document operational lessons and assess the effectiveness of community-based approaches to support healthy relationships, marriages, and child well-being. The evaluation is being conducted by RTI International and The Urban Institute. A component of the CHMI study involved an implementation study on initiatives approved by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) under authority of Section 1115 of the Social Security Act.1 The goals of the initiatives were to improve the child support systems through community engagement and healthy marriage and relationship education programs. Operationally, these goals included direct improvements to the child support program, like increasing the number of child support orders established, increasing paternity establishment, and increasing payment toward support obligations. The broader context for these operational goals was improving child well-being and increasing parental responsibility.

This is the final in a series of reports being produced on the implementation of demonstrations in 14 sites receiving grants under the 1115 waivers. Earlier reports covered the implementation of initiatives in Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Jacksonville, Florida; Lexington, Kentucky; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Nampa, Idaho; and New Orleans, Louisiana. This report focuses on the initiatives in Marion County, Indiana; Clark County, Ohio; Lakewood, Washington; and Yakima, Washington. The goal of the implementation studies was to describe the nature of the community initiatives, including recruitment and outreach strategies, targeting efforts, and innovative approaches for linking child support with healthy relationship and marriage support activities. This report examines key aspects of the initiatives’ community partnerships, design and implementation of service delivery, and links with child support. It does not present estimates of program impacts or effectiveness. The report is based on site visits conducted in 2010, 3 to 5 years after the initiatives were initially approved as well as information provided over the course of operations by grantees. Because these visits took place when the initiatives were ongoing, this report is not a complete accounting of what the initiatives accomplished or how many people they served over the course of their waivers. (author abstract)

Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and South Carolina have been awarded three year grants to implement user-friendly and quick-to-deliver public benefit systems. The grants, as part of the "Work Support Strategies: Streamlining Access, Strengthening Families (WSS)" initiative, are largely funded through the Ford Foundation, with additional funding from the Open Society Foundations and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

During Phase 3 of the project (2009-2010), in close partnership with the OFA Federal Project Officer, the project team conducted two-day site visits with each leading organization, which included faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, and intermediary partners. The case studies were drafted to isolate key insights about local collaboration and help identify strategic on-the-ground practices for FBCO leaders or TANF practitioners.

The final report is now available! The Administration for Children and Families Regions VI and VIII and the Employment and Training Administration Region IV came together to host the Client Success through Partnership: 2010 TANF and Workforce Meeting in Dallas, Texas from July 25-27, 2010. The meeting contained a series of targeted discussion forums, interactive plenary sessions, and peer-to-peer breakouts coordinated to improve partnership and collaboration among TANF and workforce programs. Over the two and one-half days, attendees were exposed to a variety of sessions presented by more than 20 distinguished experts and peers from the TANF, workforce, social service, and research communities.

Recently, the Colorado Works Program requested Technical Assistance from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (WPTA) Network, specifically on effective strategies for integrating subsidized employment programming into local Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. As a result, the WPTA Network hosted two conference calls in August and September for the Colorado Works Program by facilitating a peer-to-peer dialog with the Tennessee Department of Human Services, inquiring about its subsidized employment program, specifically its successful program in Perry County, Tennessee. During these calls, Paul Lefkowitz, Director, Family Assistance Policy, Tennessee Department of Human Services, and Jan McKeel, Executive Director, South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance, provided an overview of a subsidized employment program that began in Perry County, Tennessee, in May 2009, through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, to the Technical Assistance Requestor—Mary Roberto, Section Manager, Colorado Department of Human Services, Colorado Works Program. Some of the topics of the program discussed on the conference calls include eligibility, working with employers, outreach and marketing, data collection, and replication and lessons learned.

This presentation was given by the Lewin Group at the Eleventh Annual Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference that is sponsored through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. This research utilized statistical models to determine the effects that the economy and the population had on the size of the Colorado Works caseload from July 1999 to December 2007. Using regression analysis, researchers determined the impact on the caseload and were able to predict how changes might affect caseload size in the future.