This issue brief by Voices for Utah Children in conjunction with the Aspen Institute focuses on two-generation strategies to reduce poverty. Voices for Utah worked with Utah lawmakers to address the issue by passing the Intergenerational Poverty Mitigation Act in 2012 and creating an Intergenerational Poverty Advisory Commission in 2013. The goal was to develop evidence-based strategies and interventions with policymakers to increase economic security, educational success, social capital, and health and well-being for families. This legislation and approach have been a critical step in creating a framework for states to develop five- and ten-year plans to address poverty.

This toolkit by National Conference of State Legislatures focuses on new approaches and strategies to help families disrupt the cycle of poverty. The toolkit outlines and describes the fundamentals of two-generation approaches to address poverty, with focus on state legislators’ critical role in legislating, convening, partnering, championing, and coordinating funding for two-generation initiatives. It highlights the vital role legislators play in bringing stakeholders together and increasing collaboration and data sharing among agencies to address the needs of similar populations. It also illustrates initiatives taken by legislators in several states such as Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Washington, and others to create and sustain those efforts.

The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families will host a webinar on October 10, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss strategies for supporting parents of children with special needs. Presenters will share tips on what parents can do to create a hopeful future for themselves as a couple and for their child. Topics to be covered include strategies parents can use after finding out that their newborn has a developmental disability, and resources for helping later in their child’s transition to adulthood. This webinar is intended for service providers who work with parents as well as parents and guardians themselves. Speakers from the UCLA School of Nursing, University of Utah, and Utah Parent Center will present.

Due to its accountability and efficiency, Performance-Based Contracting has been identified as a topic of interest among TANF programs around the nation. In response to TANF programs' desire for information and strategies for creating sustainable and lasting contracted partnerships, this podcast was convened on May 22, 2018 to provide practical strategies for implementing a performance-based contract. Sisifo Taatiti from the Utah Department of Workforce Services provided a dynamic overview of performance-based contracts and how their journey has progressed to produce positive outcomes for TANF programming.

This practice brief highlights the efforts of four Office of Family Assistance, Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy teams that redesigned their TANF case management systems to support client coaching and motivational interviewing strategies. The Academy was an 18-month initiative that supported TANF programs in designing and creating collaborative systems across agencies to improve family economic security.

The Office of Family Assistance’s (OFA) Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy (Policy Academy) was an 18-month intensive technical assistance (TA) initiative in 2015–2016 for seven states and one county interested in modernizing and improving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practice. During the initiative, sites received dedicated coaches, onsite strategic planning, access to expert consultants, and tailored written resources. Additionally, they participated in several in-person convenings, peer exchanges, and virtual training. These state profiles detail the journey and lessons learned of the 8 teams that participated in the Policy Academy.

When TANF became law in 1996, welfare recipients were required to engage in work participation activities, and states were required to have 50 percent of their TANF cases meet these participation requirements. The intention of requiring individuals to engage in these activities was to assist individuals in gaining employment and becoming economically self-sufficient. However, the rates at which TANF recipients meet the participation requirements and transition into employment consistent with economic self-sufficiency are disappointingly low. This chapter provides an overview that begins with a more detailed characterization of these issues to provide a context that highlights the importance of the questions this research seeks to answer. The data used in this research essentially constitutes a census of first-time TANF recipients in Utah, and some of the aspects of this data set are subsequently described. Finally, the TANF population is compared to the general population in Utah for the purpose of illustrating the significant differences between these populations.