To serve jobseekers effectively, employment and training programs may need to incorporate essential supportive services. These three Workforce System Strategies resources – Local Workforce Development Boards and Child Care, Evaluation of SNAP Employment and Training Pilots, and Implementing Healthcare Career Pathway Training Programs in Rural Settings – document supportive services such as childcare, training materials, transportation assistance, rental assistance, and work clothing to increase jobseeker abilities to access, prepare for, and obtain employment.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) co-hosted a webinar on May 25, 2022 to provide an overview of registered apprenticeships, share available resources to develop and support early care and education (ECE) apprenticeship programs, and highlight successful national, state, and local models.

Katie Hamm, ACF Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development, spoke about the importance of bringing all three agencies together to address critical shortages in the ECE workforce, which is still at 89% of pre-pandemic levels. These shortages impact families’ ability to go to work, as well as children’s access to early learning opportunities. Other speakers included Katherine Neas, Deputy Assistant Secretary, ED Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and Wendy Chun-Hoon, Director of the DOL Women’s Bureau.

The American Rescue Plan temporarily increased the child tax credit (CTC) in 2021, including extending the credit to families who had not previously filed tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service automatically sent monthly payments of the CTC to families that had filed a tax return in 2019 or 2020. This report reviews the work of the Birth through Eight Strategy for Tulsa, an initiative to find low-income families who were likely to miss out on receiving the CTC. It also identifies how Tulsa’s existing network of service navigators worked to connect families eligible for the credit with tax preparation services to claim the CTC.

Grandparents serve a critical role in the tribal family structure. They are often the glue that holds the family together, providing the place to gather. They are keepers of family stories, cultural knowledge, and calm voices of reason. This compendium provides resources for engaging and supporting grandparents and other extended family members to help Native children and families achieve their best outcomes.

Economic assistance programs help provide low-income individuals and families with income stability, with benefits accruing not just to the families receiving assistance but to the economy as a whole. This paper reviews how cash assistance programs—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Child Tax Credit, and TANF—and other in-kind supports, such as SNAP, Medicaid, and housing assistance, serve as a backstop for unpredictable income, low income, and joblessness among low-income households who face economic transitions. The paper also highlights the critical role of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which provided families a monthly cash payment between July and December 2021.

Today’s infants and toddlers have lived virtually their entire lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shaped every aspect of their growth and wellbeing. The pandemic has directly impacted them, through experiences such as delayed screenings for developmental issues, and indirectly impacted them through the circumstances of other members of their households, including increased parental stress, illness, and job loss. This brief examines how decision makers implementing the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) have used COVID relief funding and policy opportunities to lay the groundwork for longer-term, transformative change by equitably supporting infants, toddlers, and their families. The brief also offers guidance for how decision makers can leverage ARPA across myriad programs to support these children and families now and into the future.

The Assessing Models of Coordinated Services (AMCS) project aimed to improve understanding of approaches to coordinating early care and education services at the state or local level. This brief focuses on findings from telephone interviews with leaders of 18 coordinated services approaches. The interviews provided insights about how coordinated services approaches serve children and their families. Topics discussed in the interviews included information about the development of the coordinated services approach, the partners and funding involved in coordination, the services included in the coordinated services approach, and the coordinated services approach’s use of data, while also offering foundational information for future research or programming efforts.

The Supporting Family Economic Well-Being Through Home Visiting (HomeEc) project seeks nominations of practices to support family economic well-being. Practices can be stand-alone or a component of or add-on to a larger intervention, such as an early childhood home visiting model. HomeEc seeks nominations of practices that:

• Support family economic well-being
• Serve families with young children and/or pregnant women
• Have written protocols, manuals, or other documentation available that describe how to implement or administer the practice
• Are delivered individually or in a group

Submissions are to be sent to HomeEc@mathematica-mpr.com by April 15, 2022.

This American Public Human Services Association and National Association of Counties hub hosts information and resources on tax filing for health and human services agencies that serve families eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The EITC is a tax credit available to workers and families with low- to moderate-incomes. The CTC provides financial support to families with children.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated inequities and fragilities inherent in existing child care markets and decimated the supply of child care in many communities. Despite being deemed essential to the nation’s economy, the early care and education workforce experiences high turnover, low pay and benefits, and limited opportunities for professional development and advancement—all of which undermines the quality and continuity of care for young children. This blogpost identifies three lessons drawn from research which can help increase opportunities for advancement and upward mobility for the child care workforce.