The Administration for Children and Families is hosting a webinar on November 14th, 2023 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET to highlight their new website, Promising Occupations, and how it can be used to enhance TANF case management or other employment services. The website is a career exploration tool that features more than 600 occupations that are expected to grow over the next 10 years and pay $15 per hour or more. The website will aid employment service providers to increase their usage of labor market information. The website allows users to identify promising occupations that are attainable through short-term education or training and are projected to grow with family-sustaining wages. During this webinar, attendees will learn:

• What is a "promising" occupation?; 
• The purpose of the website and how it was developed; and
• How to use the website and how it can help with your work with clients. 

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.

Watch the Corresponding Video

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.

These Office of Family Assistance practice briefs and tip sheets focus on trauma-informed practices in TANF programs. Each resource has been informed by State and Tribal TANF staff and former customers and provides practical tips to TANF staff on supporting and implementing trauma-informed practices to improve collaboration between staff and with customers:

• Brief #1: Laying the Foundation: Trauma-Informed Practices in TANF Programs. This brief is for TANF leadership and administrators to support programs in designing and implementing trauma-informed practices.
• Brief #2: Applying Trauma-Informed Practices in Case Management and Supervision. This brief is for TANF case managers and supervisors to design and implement trauma-informed practices when working with customers.
• Tip Sheet: Applying Trauma-Informed Practices for TANF Eligibility Workers. This tip sheet is for TANF eligibility workers engaging directly with customers.
• Tip Sheet: Applying Trauma-Informed Practices for TANF Case Workers. This tip sheet is for TANF case workers engaging directly with customers.

Coaching is a person-centered, strength-based way of working with others that helps them direct the changes they want to make in their own lives. On March 31, 2021, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted a PeerTA webinar introducing a new free resource that OFA is making available to all State and Tribal TANF agencies and Native Employment Works (NEW) programs – a 14-module eLearning Curriculum called “Coaching for Success.” Based on Public Consulting Group’s Human Services Coaching Framework, the curriculum aims at training employment case managers in how to leverage coaching techniques to improve their case management skills. The curriculum includes self-paced learning modules that will cover topics such as active listening, powerful questions, emotional intelligence, praise, and other important techniques that can elevate TANF case management services.

Speakers included: Deborah Joffe, Public Consulting Group and Paul Lefkowitz, Public Consulting Group.