This Administration for Children and Families brief, co-authored by Assistant Secretary Alex Adams, explores how predictive risk modeling and modern data systems can strengthen child welfare decision-making and improve safety outcomes. For TANF programs partnered with child welfare programs, this brief highlights opportunities to enhance data-informed collaboration, identify families who may benefit from early supports, and strengthen prevention-focused service delivery across systems.

This National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) toolkit offers strategies for designing workforce programs that strengthen career pathways, sector partnerships, and participant-centered engagement. It shares the main findings of NCAI’s ongoing research examining the innovative approaches to workforce development that Tribal Nations and other Native-led workforce development entities are forging, how they are achieving success, and why. TANF programs can use it to enhance training access, skill building, and long-term economic stability for families.

This Connecticut Faith Jobs Collaborative webpage highlights cross-sector collaboration to connect participants with training and employment opportunities. Programs can review these partnerships to replicate in creating structured, accessible career pathways for participants.

This faith-based training program combines soft skills, job readiness, and employer engagement. It provides an example of how community partnerships can expand access to career pathways and help participants achieve lasting employment outcomes.

This Heritage Foundation report focuses specifically on how eligibility rules for pre-K education subsidies may affect couple decision-making. It provides an example of how program rules across systems can create complex financial trade-offs for families. For TANF administrators working in cross-system partnerships, this piece underscores the importance of understanding how education, childcare, and other supports align with family economic mobility strategies.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast series covers timely topics in child welfare, family well-being, and systems change. These episodes can be a great professional learning resource for TANF staff, partners, and community providers engaged in cross-system work or serving families with complex needs.

Supporting families in reunification, which is the process of safely returning children in foster care to their parents, aligns closely with TANF’s mission to promote family stability and self-sufficiency. This California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse webpage highlights promising practices, program models, and outcome data related to reunification services. TANF agencies can use this resource to strengthen referrals, align supportive services, and integrate evidence-informed family support practices into their own workforce and case management strategies.

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.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs play a critical role in helping families move toward employment, stability, and long-term economic mobility, including through the use of career pathways, which are connected sequences of education, training, and work experiences that help individuals progress through chosen fields. STAR has created a catalog of career pathway toolkits to help TANF programs plan career pathway initiatives. 

To accompany the Career Pathways Toolkit Catalog, these Guided Use Cases offer short, practical explainers that show how TANF programs can apply selected tools to common implementation challenges. TANF administrators and staff can use these Guided Use Cases to quickly identify which tools are most relevant, when to use them, and how they can support TANF program goals.