This blogpost highlights the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) apprenticeship program for restaurant managers and line cooks. The program, developed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, features partnerships with restaurants and hospitality employers to provide training and employment opportunities for underserved populations, including Hispanic and Black American youth and adults. The program also builds alliances with YouthBuild and Job Corps as well as post-high school educational institutions in Maryland, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and California. To date, the program has expanded to 70 restaurant and hospitality employer partners and 2,000 apprentices who also earn up to 18 credits toward a culinary arts or hospitality degree.

This blogpost covers how the comprehensive Child First program has implemented home visits during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing telehealth technology via phones or videoconferencing to provide treatment and deliver services. Key questions raised in the blogpost provide insight on telehealth accommodations made by home visiting teams working with families with limited technology or privacy concerns and how families have responded to these telehealth connections. The blogpost is drawn from interviews with Child First staff in 10 programs in Connecticut, North Carolina, and Florida.

This fact sheet illustrates how Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio offered non-recurrent short-term TANF benefits as flexible responses to address the needs of TANF-eligible populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sheet also briefly notes how Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, and Florida have implemented flexible adaptions to TANF work requirements. SNAP approved waivers are also highlighted.

This blogpost, authored by the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, discusses the Open Table initiative. This initiative supports youth in undergoing “significant life transformation” by using an intensive, relationship-focused, volunteer-based model to help them develop their own life plans; volunteers then use their own social networks to help youth implement these plans. The blogpost highlights Crosswinds Youth Services, a Runaway and Homeless Youth Transitional Living Program project in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where five “tables” were formed to provide group mentoring and help at-risk youth successfully leave the program.

More than one-quarter of maltreatment victims are under the age of 3, and these children often encounter additional trauma due to their family’s interaction with the child welfare system; this involvement can involve separations from the family and placements. According to research, these types of separations can result in lifelong trauma. This strategy brief describes the Safe Babies Court Team™ (SBCT) approach, which strives to minimize trauma when court involvement is needed by improving the collaboration of the courts, child welfare agencies, and other organizations in supporting young children and their families. SBCT involves meetings of both family and community court teams. The brief includes SBCT’s key components, key success factors, and an example of how the SBCT approach has impacted Florida.

The Office of Family Assistance hosted a webinar on Wednesday, February 26 entitled Improving Employment Outcomes for TANF Recipients with Substance Use Disorders. The webinar outlined employment-focused strategies that can contribute to, rather than inhibit, substance use treatment and featured experts with backgrounds in research and practice on working with TANF recipients who have substance use disorders. Speakers discussed national trends in substance use disorders and strategies to move those with substance use disorders towards treatment, employment, and economic stability.

Speakers included:

• Dennis Romero, Regional Administrator, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

• Dr. Christine Cauffield, Chief Executive Officer, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Managing Entity, Lutheran Services Florida

• Kim Griswold Releford, University of Kentucky, Opioid Use Disorder Project, Targeted Assessment Program