Direct cash transfer programs are increasingly popular as an efficient, equitable way to quickly get cash into the hands of people who need it while giving recipients agency over how they spend their money. Though consensus is growing on the impacts of cash transfer, there are still no agreed-upon mechanisms for how to fund them. This issue is complicated by the fact that where program funds come from can affect a recipient's eligibility for other benefits and can trigger a “benefit cliff.” This blogpost examines funding mechanisms used in cash transfer programs in Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Los Angeles to understand how their respective funding models affect recipients’ benefits and outcomes.

This Annie E. Casey Foundation brief shares six pivotal strategies for coordinating and funding community efforts to support families at risk of entering the child welfare system: invest in infrastructure at the state and local levels, create funding structures that maximize prevention funds, support community-led planning and design, align programs at the state level to better serve families, invest in evaluation, and leverage private and local dedicated funding streams. Strategies presented in this brief include practices from Colorado, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Washington State, and the District of Columbia.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this concurrent workshop, presenters addressed the question, “does seamless necessarily mean inefficacy?” This workshop explored the timeliness of transforming PDF and paper-based processes into online services to support case management efforts. To advance the seamless experience, workshop attendees were introduced to intranet and web-based portals used to submit, process, and verify the online forms.

This Administration for Children and Families announcement highlights $6 million in funding for 10 jurisdictions to advance the use of predictive risk modeling in child welfare. These jurisdictions will pilot technology aimed at using data to help child welfare agencies identify patterns and potentially recognize situations where families may benefit from earlier or more targeted support.

This announcement is useful for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) leaders and staff who are thinking about how to strengthen coordination across systems and improve early intervention efforts. The announcement may encourage practitioners to consider how data can support human judgment, relationship-building, and direct engagement with families. Ultimately, it offers a window into how child welfare systems are evolving and what that may mean for the broader network of services that support family stability.

States across the country are finding new ways to connect child support participants with employment opportunities. This federal webpage highlights child support-led employment programs operating across the country and the services they provide to help parents find and keep jobs. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can use these examples to identify promising practices, strengthen partnerships with child support agencies, and expand employment supports for families.

The Tuition Assistance Program Initiative for TANF (TAPIT) addresses an important piece of the transition puzzle: access to postsecondary education. Many youth leaving foster care want to pursue college or technical programs but face immediate financial barriers that prevent enrollment or persistence. This Washington D.C. initiative uses Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) support to reduce those barriers through tuition assistance and structured guidance so young adults can actually enter training programs, not just consider them. For TANF programs, TAPIT is an example on how TANF funding can be strategically structured to support postsecondary access as part of a broader transition strategy, ensuring that education and training are not treated separately from employment services but as a coordinated investment in long-term self-sufficiency for youth exiting foster care.

The Family Resource Simulator shows how earnings, benefits, and expenses interact as circumstances change. It makes “what if” scenarios visible in a way that is difficult to capture through conversation alone. In Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) settings, the simulator can support planning discussions by helping families see how small changes in work hours, income, or benefits affect overall stability.

The National Center for Children in Poverty’s Basic Needs Budget Calculator breaks down what it actually costs to meet essential needs like housing, food, childcare, and transportation. It highlights gaps between wages, benefits, and real household expenses. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners can use it to support budgeting work that feels concrete and locally relevant, helping families understand what stability requires in practical terms.

Research from SmartAsset explores what it takes financially for one parent to stay home and the other to support the household. It adds context to the tradeoffs families face when making caregiving and work decisions. Within Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) services, it can support more realistic financial planning discussions and help families think through how income choices affect stability, caregiving roles, and long-term goals.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator estimates the income families need to cover basic expenses based on where they live and family size. It helps clarify a common disconnect in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work—employment alone does not always equal economic stability. Practitioners can use it to ground conversations about self-sufficiency in local reality, making it easier to connect job planning and financial goals to actual household needs and improve family stability.