The Office of Family Assistance held a webinar on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 from 2:00-3:30 pm EST on Service Options for Relative Caregivers in Child-Only Cases. Today almost half of the national TANF caseload consists of child-only cases, where the child is the only individual in the household receiving cash assistance. In a significant portion of these cases, a relative is caring for the child. There has been limited literature, however, on the strengths, barriers and needs of these children and their relative caregivers. There has also been limited information about the supportive services they may receive through TANF or other human services programs. In this facilitated webinar, presenters provided a descriptive and demographic overview of the relative child-only caseload, as well as the policies and practices that support them. It included examples from a kinship navigator program, as well as a TANF and child welfare system collaboration initiative.

In this webinar participants were able to:

• Understand the importance and prevalence of, as well as the strengths, barriers, and outcomes related to, relative caregivers and children in TANF child-only cases.
• Hear experiences and lessons learned from a kinship navigator program that is providing supportive services to relatives and children in child-only cases.
• Learn about collaborations between TANF and Child Welfare systems to share data and provide services to relative caregivers and children.

For users interested in the transcript of the webinar, the webinar recording is closed-captioned. 

Since the creation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 1996, there has been concern about low-income individuals who may be eligible for TANF cash assistance but are neither receiving TANF nor working. These individuals are often referred to as “disconnected.” This study, Understanding the Dynamics of Disconnection from Employment and Assistance, uses interview data from a sample of 51 disconnected, unmarried mothers from Southeast Michigan and Los Angeles, California, to learn more about their experiences related to work, benefit receipt, and material hardship, the economic coping strategies they use to manage, and their overall well-being. (author abstract)