Due in part to structural socioeconomic inequality, children from families with lower incomes may be at particularly high risk of abuse, neglect, and behavioral problems during infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood. Research has found that home visiting programs for families with young children can improve children’s development and strengthen caregivers’ and families’ well-being. However, the COVID-19 pandemic created numerous challenges for home visiting programs, forcing them to deliver services online or in a hybrid format and to adapt their program models’ content to respond to pandemic-related challenges. One evidence-based home visiting program, Child First, provides a psychotherapeutic, parent-child intervention embedded in a coordinated system of care. This working paper highlights the 12-month impacts found in a study of Child First implemented in Connecticut and North Carolina.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Child Care and Development Fund subsidy programs scrambled to respond to families’ changing needs. This brief is part of a series to examine state-level policies that shape access to social service and safety net programs, and the ways in which state and federal policy implementation at the local level may affect the reach of program benefits among Latino families. The brief draws from a survey of local child care subsidy staff in North Carolina to explore their perspectives about engaging Hispanic families during the pandemic.

Over 3.2 million North Carolinians are poor or near poor, and many more experience economic instability and challenges over time. This report examines the ways that women in North Carolina are caught in the crosshairs of irreconcilable social and economic demands. Hundreds of thousands of women were forced last year to forgo job opportunities, experienced employment disruptions, or lost a job because of lack of affordable childcare.

Building on previous work developing a roadmap for system-level change to better support young families, the American Public Human Services Association established the System Alignment for Young Families Learning Academy (SAYF) to support cross-systems teams from state and local human services agencies in establishing a System Alignment Plan to support young families. This blogpost notes how the SAYF Learning Academy was launched in March 2022 with six cross-sectional teams that included parent leadership representing Maryland, Maricopa County (Arizona), Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, and Wake County (North Carolina). Through the development of targeted practice tools, peer-to-peer learning, and individualized planning, the teams worked to advance system alignment, so that young families experience seamless service delivery that meets their individual needs. An infographic in the blogpost spotlights each team’s vision statement.

Families affected by substance use disorders and involved in the child welfare system face a variety of complex challenges. Children of parents with substance use disorder are more likely to be removed from parental care, less likely to be reunified, and experience lengthier out-of-home placements and delayed permanency. This brief provides an overview of the Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (START) program — an evidence-based child welfare service delivery model for families that is aimed at keeping children safely with their parent(s) whenever possible through achieving parental sobriety and recovery, and family stability. The brief also highlights the funding and implementation of the START model in Kansas, Kentucky (which uses TANF to support the model), North Carolina, and Ohio, along with each state’s unique considerations.

This brief examines Latino families’ experiences with North Carolina’s TANF (also known as Work First) and related income assistance programs. The brief summarizes findings from practitioner responses to a survey that included a questionnaire and a series of open-ended questions. Further, it discusses North Carolina’s Hispanic population and how the state’s income assistance programs are administered, and it provides more detail on income assistance program practitioners’ perspectives on Latino families’ experiences with these programs. Implications of the findings for how income assistance programs are administered in North Carolina and in other states with large and growing Latino populations are also presented.

Through the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), states administer child care subsidy programs to support low-income parents’ employment and expand children’s access to high-quality child care. Many Hispanic children stand to benefit from this key public investment, given that most live with an employed parent and more than half live in low-income households. This brief examines how CCDF policies are interpreted and implemented on the ground by local caseworkers and administrators who work directly with families seeking subsidies. Using an online survey to assess the administrative burden for Hispanic applicants, researchers found that all local subsidy staff identified employment as an approved activity; most (80% or more) considered education, job training, and activities related to the TANF program to be approved; and fewer (60% to 70%) considered job searching and activities related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to be approved.

There is a growing recognition of the importance of healthy social-emotional development and the behavioral and mental health of young children, as well as the critical nature of early relationships with parents and other caregivers. Addressing the social and emotional development of infants and toddlers with and at-risk for developmental delays and disabilities is a requirement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This briefing paper examines an array of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) policies and practices that state early intervention (IDEA, Part C) programs may consider implementing to effectively support the social-emotional development and mental health needs of eligible children as the policies and programs reflect the importance of nurturing early relationships for a child's social emotional wellbeing. An appendix includes state spotlights in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Part of a larger project sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called Key Programmatic Elements of Engaging Fathers to Promote Self-Sufficiency (KEEP Fathers Engaged), this fact sheet explores three strategies for child support agencies to engage fathers and improve family stability. The strategies are: 1) focus outreach on the emotional and other nonfinancial contributions fathers make to children’s well-being; 2) develop partnerships to help fathers achieve their full potential; and 3) use data and evaluation to support sustaining father engagement. The fact sheet provides brief sketches of how these strategies were used within the Georgia Division of Child Support Services, the Texas Office of the Attorney General’s Child Support Division, and at the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Child Support Enforcement.

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 Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA) has prompted states to think about how they track employment and other TANF program outcomes. The Creating Outcomes-based TANF Programs LC was designed to guide states through a collaborative learning journey focused on reporting on employment and other outcomes in light of the new FRA requirements. Participants worked to better understand what it means to focus on outcomes, and what successful outcomes look like for the families they serve. Participating states and territories included New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, Minnesota, Louisiana, New Mexico, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah.

This OFA resource highlights the Creating Outcomes-based TANF Programs LC, including key takeaways and resources from each session as well as overall themes and future considerations for follow-up.