This brief presents six considerations for practitioners who want to try using text message reminders to increase participation at the first session of a voluntary program and regular attendance thereafter. The considerations are drawn from a recent study assessing the effectiveness of text message reminders in promoting couples’ attendance at a voluntary healthy marriage and relationship education workshop in Florida. The study was conducted as part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services evaluation for the Administration for Children and Families.

Millions of Americans have had their driver’s licenses suspended at some point because they have not paid legal fines and fees. Having one’s license suspended can make it harder to find and keep a job, can increase one’s exposure to the criminal legal system, and can generally place great strain on one’s life and the life of one’s family. This issue brief examines the causes, consequences, and scope of the practice of suspending driver’s licenses due to unpaid fines or fees. It focuses on the impact of license suspension on employment, while also examining the larger structural factors that facilitate the widespread use of legal fines and fees to generate revenue for municipalities. The brief also highlights He Got Up!, a program based in Florida that works to address the challenges of people affected by this practice.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report is a case study of how the University of Florida’s ELEVATE program transitioned from a five-session, in-person Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education program to virtual delivery as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report covers how the shift impacted staff training, participant recruitment and enrollment, program facilitation, participant retention strategies, and staff supervision and support.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation digital report shares highlights from the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation, a large multisite evaluation conducted from 2015 to 2022 to identify strategies for improving the delivery and effectiveness of healthy marriage and relationship education programs. This report describes the five grantees —in Georgia, Florida, Denver, Missouri, and Texas— and the services they provided. To capture the perspectives and experiences of the people most directly affected by the programs, this report also tells the personal stories of some of the program staff and participants who contributed to STREAMS.

Based on input from state TANF programs during the 2023 National TANF Directors’ Meeting, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) developed five virtual Learning Collaboratives (LCs) on topics best addressed through a cohort-based, peer learning format. These LCs were designed to be a progressive series of interactive meetings that facilitated reflection, peer sharing, connection with experts, and human-centered design and planning activities to deeply explore facets of the collaborative topic. Sessions were held monthly from March to August 2024 for 60-90 minutes.

The Overcoming Barriers to TANF Participation LC gathered TANF program leaders motivated by the many families facing barriers to accessing TANF or needed financial support despite their eligibility. The LC provided the opportunity for states to connect with each other while learning new strategies that may increase TANF participation for greater family well-being. It was designed to encourage participants to take steps to identify a priority barrier to participation in their TANF program. Participating states and territories included New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virgin Islands, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Minnesota, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Wyoming.

This OFA resource highlights the Strengthening Overcoming Barriers to TANF Participation LC, including key takeaways and resources from each session as well as overall themes and future considerations for follow-up.

The Child Welfare Community Collaborations (CWCC) initiative is designed to mobilize communities to develop and evaluate multi-system collaboratives that address local barriers and provide a continuum of services to prevent child abuse and neglect. In 2018 and 2019, the Children’s Bureau awarded 5-year cooperative agreements to a total of 13 states, non-profit organizations, and Native American tribal organizations. This Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation brief provides a high-level description of each of the 13 CWCC projects and is one of a series of products the evaluation team will produce as part of the cross-site process evaluation. This brief contains a one-page description of each project, including its geographic catchment area, population of focus, key partners, prior experience with community-level collaboration, timeline, and local evaluation.

A benefits cliff may occur when an increase in income pushes a worker above the income eligibility limit for public assistance programs, and the loss of assistance is greater than the value of the increase. This Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta webinar explored the economic challenge of benefit cliffs from the perspective of employers and community leaders who help families navigate public assistance programs and plan for career advancement opportunities. The webinar presented tools that can identify and inform mitigation strategies as well as a discussion of innovation pilots in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. to develop benefits cliff solutions.

This U.S. Department of Labor brief explores how states use financial incentives to expand Registered Apprenticeship (RA) Programs and achieve targeted goals. Incentives are additional financial supports used to increase the number of RA programs and offset the cost for employers in the form of state tax credits or subsidies to apprenticeship sponsors, related technical instruction providers, and other entities responsible for developing RA programs. The brief highlights findings from focus groups conducted with the following eight states: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi.

A benefits cliff may occur when an increase in income (e.g., from working more hours, getting a raise, or taking a new position) pushes a worker above the income eligibility limit for one or more public assistance programs, and the loss of assistance is greater than the value of the increase. This forces people to choose between their family’s immediate financial best interest and their own longer-term wage growth and career advancement. The Federal Reserve is hosting a Connecting Communities webinar on October 12, 2023 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET to explore this economic challenge. Participants will learn about tools developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to identify and inform mitigation strategies, as well as innovation pilots including Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington D.C. that can inform state and community leaders working to develop solutions to the benefits cliff.

More than 2.5 million children currently are being raised by their grandparents and other relatives, both formally through the child welfare system and informally through private family arrangements. When these caregivers take on this responsibility, they often receive little to no financial support or advice regarding how to navigate the many systems that they might need to access to help them meet the needs of the children in their care. Kinship navigator programs help fill that gap by providing caregivers with information, education, and referrals to a wide range of services and supports. This brief provides information about the essential elements of kinship navigator programs, including examples in Richland County (Ohio), Florida, New York, and Georgia, along with evaluation outcomes of these programs.