TANF Disaster Response Highlights from the Office of Family Assistance provide a broad overview on how some state and tribal TANF programs responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many programs’ responses were informed from lessons they learned in responding to prior disasters. The information within these highlights has been shared to assist with the development of adaptable approaches and proactive disaster responses. Such preparations help ensure the uninterrupted continuation of services to the populations supported by TANF programs during crises like health pandemics and natural disasters.

TANF Disaster Response Highlights have been developed on the Colorado Department of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and the Morongo Tribal TANF Program.

These briefs are blueprint fact sheets showcasing the accomplishments of peers and stakeholders in implementing a whole family approach at seven Community Action Agencies: Aroostook County Action Program (Presque Isle, Maine), Blueprints (Washington, Pennsylvania), Community Action, Inc. (Topeka, Kansas), Community Action Project of Tulsa County (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, California), Mahube-Otwa Community Action Partnership (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota), and People, Inc. (Abingdon, Virginia). Each brief details the agency, its area demographics, its whole family approach with a highlight of the program’s innovation story, successes, a profile of a program participant, challenges, wisdom (lessons learned), the program’s building block focus, and a timeline for implementation.

This case study examines the Community Caring Collaborative (CCC), the lead organization within a network of 45 nonprofit and state government organizations that support low-income individuals in Washington County (Maine). The case study describes CCC operations and identifies its key features: where it operates and its context; who it serves; what services the CCC provides; how it is organized and funded; how it assesses its performance; and promising practices and remaining challenges. The case study includes a spotlight on Family Futures Downeast, a two-generation program that was developed by CCC and its partner organizations.

This report offers four case studies of rural youth apprenticeships in Maine, Arizona, Missouri, and Mississippi, the challenges for each of the respective regions, and their strategies for success. The report begins with a definition of youth apprenticeships and elaborates on the benefits and obstacles in designing, implementing, and sustaining rural apprenticeships.

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with a statewide community outreach program called New Ventures Maine, is providing entrepreneurship training to TANF participants. Eligible and interested TANF participants enroll in a self-employment program that offers financial coaching, guidance for developing a viable business plan, and ongoing support as they take steps toward a career and economic stability.

This brief is part of the Emerging Practice Series of the Office of Family Assistance’s Integrating Innovative Employment and Economic Stability Strategies (IIEESS) initiative, which highlights the strategies of TANF agencies and their partners to help low-income individuals gain and sustain meaningful employment. Each brief describes an emerging practice that has been implemented in one site, an overview of the program model, and the results that have been achieved. Compelling stories of participants’ success and suggestions from TANF agency staff to their peers provide actionable insights and on-the-ground perspectives.

Access to unemployment insurance (UI) benefits has been a challenge for all workers, but especially workers of color, workers with less formal education, lower-paid workers, younger workers, and workers with disabilities, who have all been less likely to apply for and receive benefits, even when potentially eligible. Building on community-based organizations’ role in connecting workers with UI benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor launched a three-year pilot “navigator” program in 2022. The program, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, aimed to help state UI agencies develop community partnerships. This Center for American Progress report provides an evaluation of one of the navigator programs, Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator (PWN) program. The PWN program received state funding supplemented by federal navigator grants for unions and other community organizations to help unemployed workers access public unemployment insurance benefits and job training benefits.

Supporting families and individuals means understanding that their needs are complex, interrelated, and affected by the opportunities available in their communities. Integrated service approaches to prevent homelessness or involvement in systems like child welfare may be best positioned to succeed when they recognize these holistic needs and identities and when they coordinate access to resources and services. This Mathematica brief highlights the efforts made by programs to coordinate services and supports for participants by focusing on their holistic needs, including how programs identified their participants’ strengths and needs and how the sites integrated services to be responsive to those needs. The findings are based on interviews with staff and partners from nine case studies sites across the country and with people who have been served by these programs.

This brief from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation’s Office of Human Services Policy overviews a project that developed a calculator to help people anticipate how a change in earnings from employment would affect their net income, which in turn provided public benefit recipients with their estimated effective marginal tax rate on new earnings. The calculator was designed to support program participants and caseworkers. Demo calculators were developed for New Hampshire, Maine, Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., and were completely customized under their local programs and rules. Local governments and local organizations can download the open-source code to start creating a customized calculator for their families.

Mothers living in poverty often face complex circumstances and major stressors that strain mental health and make it difficult to get and keep a job. The Mental Health Outreach for Mothers or MOMS Partnership® is a community-based model for helping mothers with low incomes manage their stress, reduce depressive symptoms, and improve their social and economic mobility. Central to the model is an 8-week stress management course based on cognitive behavioral therapy that is co-facilitated by skilled clinicians and mothers from the community with lived experience similar to mothers who enroll in the program; the mothers with lived experience are called Community Mental Health Ambassadors (CMHAs). Other features of the program include the use of incentives to support regular attendance and providing services in a central community location. The MOMS Partnership was launched by the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut in 2011 and has been implemented in TANF, public housing agencies, and other related programs. The Office of Family Assistance hosted a webinar on June 29, 2023 which provided participants with the opportunity to learn more about MOMS and the implementation experiences in TANF programs. Speakers included staff from Elevate Policy Lab and The Adjacent Possible; MOMS Stress Management facilitators; and human services leaders from Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. Speakers delivered presentations on What is The MOMS Partnership?, MOMS in Practice – Lessons from Clinicians and CMHAs, and Operating MOMS in TANF and Related Programs.