This was a session at the Urban Partnerships Initiative's National Academy in Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta and Kansas City, MO city partners offered strategies on tracking work participation rates through innovative case management.

This report provides an executive summary of the Rapid Response Technical Assistance event in Chicago, Illinois, sponsored through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance. In response to a joint technical assistance request from Regions V (Chicago) and VII (Kansas City), the Rapid Response project team conducted secondary research and telephone discussions on a variety of TANF issues, identified as being of concern to the constituent States of these regions, to present at the event. This report includes an overview of the meeting as well as the descriptions of TANF promising practices from around the country that were discussed by participating States.

This publication is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance under contract with ICF International. Through the Urban Partnerships Initiative, this resource shows the outstanding efforts of ten cities to meet the needs of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The innovative practices highlighted in this piece can be applied in other urban areas throughout the Nation to enable other cities to write their own success story during the next decade of welfare reform.

This study was completed through the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, and explores how local management of TANF programs has adapted practices to address changing needs of the TANF population in the local areas. This study was conducted in five sites across the country, including Phoenix, Arizona; Macon, Georgia; Kansas City, Missouri; Newark, New Jersey and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Findings conclude that the implementation of TANF varies across the sites, and that programs will have upcoming changes in response to the Deficit Reduction Act.

Welfare Peer TA network designed the Bringing Hope to Children of Incarcerated Parents Roundtable. The first Roundtable was held in Denver, CO in November 2003. This second Roundtable, held in Nashville, TN, showcased promising practices from around the country, and provided time for participants to think strategically about how to design and implement these programs as well as opportunities to learn about and discuss “what works” in serving this population. Participants included representatives from the States of Tennessee, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Roundtable speakers included State and local government agencies, service providers, practitioners, Federal personnel, and leaders of national organizations.

Authored by Carole Trippe, Liz Schott, Nancy Wemmerus, and Andrew Berwick. This study examines the experiences of four States--Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, and Ohio--that use the simplified reporting option of the Food Stamp Program; Arizona also uses the transitional benefit option. States reported reduced staff workload, improved client access, and reduced quality control errors with simplified reporting but faced some operational challenges that made realizing the option's full potential difficult.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Administration for Children and Families, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in conjunction with the National Organization of Black County Officials (NOBCO) convened a two day workshop in Jackson, Mississippi, to disseminate information to county officials in a seven state area about the advantages of participating in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program.

The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Academy that took place in Dallas, Texas from February 2-4, 2003 at the Fairmont Hotel-Dallas.

The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Academy III that took place in St. Louis, Missouri from March 8-11, 2005 to foster collaboration to improve administration and delivery of services to TANF families.

The Urban Partnerships Initiative was designed by the Administration for Children and Families to support the work of TANF stakeholders in urban environments by promoting shared learning, enhancing cities' performance management, and developing strategies to improve services to families so that they may achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Leadership Forum that took place in Baltimore, Maryland.