Technology is increasingly shaping how human services are delivered, and this resource highlights how states and localities are using tools like AI to improve outcomes. For TANF practitioners, the value lies in seeing what’s possible—especially when it comes to reducing administrative burden and improving how clients access services. It helps bridge the gap between innovation and day-to-day practice, offering examples that can inform program improvements and spark new approaches to service delivery.

For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs, access to reliable data is essential: not just for eligibility verification through systems like the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS), but for understanding how families interact with multiple government assistance programs over time. This on-demand webinar recording from the National Center for Education Statistics explores how State-Level Data Systems (SLDS) support that broader view by integrating data across partners.

The value for TANF practitioners is how this resource connects the dots between systems. For example, IEVS provides critical verification data, but SLDS creates the structure that allows agencies to manage, share, and use that data alongside other sources. This webinar highlights how governance, data-sharing agreements, and coordinated practices make that integration possible. TANF staff can use these insights to improve how their programs collaborate with partner agencies, strengthen data quality, and make more informed decisions. It supports more coordinated service delivery and a clearer understanding of outcomes for the families TANF serves.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs rely on accurate, shared data to verify eligibility and coordinate services, but building those data-sharing relationships can be difficult. This on-demand webinar recording from the National Center for Education Statistics focuses on how to engage partners within State-Level Data Systems (SLDS)—the broader platforms that house and manage data across agencies, including systems like the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS).

This recording helps practitioners navigate the human side of that infrastructure, including how to build trust, align priorities, and encourage participation from agencies and providers who may be hesitant to share data. It offers practical ways to strengthen collaboration so TANF programs can more effectively verify information, reduce duplication, and connect families to a broader set of supports.

The Family Resource Simulator shows how earnings, benefits, and expenses interact as circumstances change. It makes “what if” scenarios visible in a way that is difficult to capture through conversation alone. In Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) settings, the simulator can support planning discussions by helping families see how small changes in work hours, income, or benefits affect overall stability.

The National Center for Children in Poverty’s Basic Needs Budget Calculator breaks down what it actually costs to meet essential needs like housing, food, childcare, and transportation. It highlights gaps between wages, benefits, and real household expenses. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners can use it to support budgeting work that feels concrete and locally relevant, helping families understand what stability requires in practical terms.

Research from SmartAsset explores what it takes financially for one parent to stay home and the other to support the household. It adds context to the tradeoffs families face when making caregiving and work decisions. Within Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) services, it can support more realistic financial planning discussions and help families think through how income choices affect stability, caregiving roles, and long-term goals.

The MIT Living Wage Calculator estimates the income families need to cover basic expenses based on where they live and family size. It helps clarify a common disconnect in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work—employment alone does not always equal economic stability. Practitioners can use it to ground conversations about self-sufficiency in local reality, making it easier to connect job planning and financial goals to actual household needs and improve family stability.

Intergenerational programs are gaining momentum as a strategy to support families, reduce social isolation, and build community capacity. This Generations United toolkit provides step-by-step guidance for TANF partners interested in creating or strengthening shared intergenerational sites, spaces where older adults and children/youth participate together in learning, care, and engagement. With tools for planning, partnership development, and sustainability, this resource supports goals around family economic success, caregiving support, and community engagement.

This U.S. Aging guide offers a practical framework for strengthening collaboration between child welfare and aging networks to better identify and support kinship caregivers, many of whom are older adults stepping in to care for children when parents are unable. The resource outlines action steps to improve cross-system coordination, access to benefits and services, and recognition of the vital role kin caregivers play in family stability. This can help TANF agencies deepen connections with community partners serving older caregivers and reduce barriers to economic support and resource navigation.

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency-Next Generation (BIAS-NG) project aims to make human services programs work better for the people receiving services by reshaping program processes using lessons from behavioral science. The BIAS-NG team worked with the Department of Social and Health Services to design and test an intervention aimed at increasing engagement in work activities among clients who were approved to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report investigates whether providing staff materials and training to improve client engagement in selecting a work activity and support clients in developing a purposeful and realistic plan to attend an orientation meeting can increase clients’ engagement in TANF work activities.