Connecting children, youth, and families to the services they need is critical, but it can be a challenge for child welfare agencies and community providers. This Chapin Hall Evidence-Based Practice Desk Guide allows case workers and providers to make informed decisions and ensure a good fit between clients and the services they receive. This tool focuses on programs proven to support family well-being and stability. Services areas include mental health treatment, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and in-home parent skill-based programs.

While most employment coaching and other employment services are offered in a program office, school, other community location, or virtually, emerging evidence suggests that offering employment services in a participant’s home may have some important advantages. It puts the program staff and the participant on a more equal footing and encourages a strong relationship between them; it allows the program staff to gain richer information about participants’ strengths and areas of need; and it is easier, less costly, and less time-consuming for participants. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes why employment service practitioners more generally might consider offering services in participants’ homes. It also offers some considerations for program practitioners.

Employment coaching is increasingly considered an alternative to traditional case management in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other employment programs. In employment coaching, coaches work collaboratively with participants to set individualized goals. These goals could be directly related to finding, keeping, or advancing in a job, or could be indirectly related to employment, such as completing education or training programs. This Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation brief describes the lessons learned about the coach–participant relationship from talking with coaching program staff and participants as part of the Evaluation of Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations. It discusses the benefits of strong coach–participant relationships, approaches to building them, program features that can affect them, and how program leaders can promote them.

The BOOST initiative connects families with low incomes to critical human services supports and educational and career pathways to advance multigenerational family economic success. In six cities — Baltimore, Green Bay, Hartford, New York City (Queens), Portland, and Syracuse — community colleges and human services nonprofits have partnered to support the economic advancement of families as part of the BOOST initiative. This Jobs for the Future brief explores how these partnerships can advance multigenerational family economic success and how to lean into their unique strengths as they seek to achieve this goal. It looks at how the sites are working to change policies and access funding to support their partnership goals. It also highlights practices and insights learned, with the intent of aiding and accelerating other efforts to follow this collaborative path.

The America’s Promise Job-Driven Grant Program was designed to develop and expand regional partnerships among employers, economic development agencies, workforce investment systems, and education and training providers to build a pipeline of skilled American workers in high-demand industries experiencing domestic labor shortages. Grantees, through the support of their established partnerships, offered tuition-free education and job training to workers that addressed the immediate needs of the regional labor market. Education and job training were offered in the form of classroom training and work-based learning opportunities, in addition to supports such as case management, job placement services, and necessary wraparound supportive services. This Department of Labor research brief evaluates the impact of America’s Promise programs on the earnings and employment of participants.

COTS Detroit, an organization with a long history of providing support to individuals and families experiencing or overcoming homelessness, achieved a milestone by becoming the first organization in the EMPath Economic Mobility Exchange to receive certification in a research-backed economic mobility coaching method. In this Question-and-Answer resource, the COTS Detroit Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships discusses their mission and the impact of economic mobility coaching on the communities they serve.

One goal of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) employment services is to improve equitable and stable employment outcomes for job seekers. However, employment services driven by biased service delivery approaches might exacerbate and reinforce existing disparities within the labor market. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief provides strategies that staff members can use while working with TANF participants to increase equitable access to employment opportunities. It also describes strategies that TANF program leaders can use to combat biases at an organizational level.

Employment coaching involves trained staff working collaboratively with participants to help them set individualized goals related to employment and providing motivation, support, and feedback as participants work toward those goals. Recently, there has been growing interest among policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in using employment coaching to assist Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other adults with low incomes become economically mobile. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report highlights the evaluation that was designed to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the four programs participating in the Employment Coaching for TANF and Related Populations study. The report answers the following research questions: In what contexts were programs implemented? How did the designs of the programs vary and differ? How was coaching implemented across programs? The programs highlighted in this evaluation are: • Family Development and Self-Sufficiency, which serves TANF recipients and their family members in Iowa. • Goal4 It!TM, which provides employment coaching to TANF recipients in Jefferson County, Colorado in lieu of traditional case management. • LIFT, which is a voluntary coaching program operated in four U.S. cities. • MyGoals for Employment Success, which serves recipients of housing assistance in Baltimore, Maryland, and Houston, Texas.

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Over the past few years, Vermont’s Reach Up program has increasingly moved to a family-centered coaching model of supporting TANF participants and their families. This video provides a contextual overview of the merits of transitioning to a coaching model, highlights how this model works in Vermont, and provides an insider look into the various ways case managers can coach participants to achieve their own goals.