Question from the Association of Village Council Presidents

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted the 2013 Tribal TANF--Child Welfare Coordination Projects Annual Grantee Meeting on August 14-15, 2013 in Denver, Colorado. The meeting provided Tribal TANF--Child Welfare Coordination Project grantees with the opportunity to share information with their peers regarding their program structure and performance. The meeting also addressed grant requirements for Year Two of the projects, strategies for building coalitions in Native American communities, home visiting programs, program sustainability, and approaches for documenting cross-agency coordination and collaboration.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), Division of Tribal TANF Management hosted the first national Tribal TANF Summit to Improve Program Performance and Strengthen Native Families on August 12-14, 2013 in Denver, Colorado. The workshop focused on Tribal TANF program administration and participant engagement. Experts from the field shared information on a variety of topics including: career pathways and subsidized employment, TANF policies and procedures, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, opportunities for economic development, and effective prevention and treatment programs for substance abuse and co-occurring disorders.

This Jobs for the Future report highlights the findings from a Breaking Through partnership facilitated by Jobs for the Future, the National Council for Workforce Education, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. This eighteen-month initiative focused on piloting workforce and education strategies to better serve low-skilled students at Tribal colleges and universities.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 gave tribal governments’ new authority to structure and administer their own cash assistance, employment and training, child care, and child support enforcement programs. This report describes some current characteristics of tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs and emerging challenges in serving tribal members through tribal and state TANF programs. It also presents findings from recent studies on welfare reform's impact on tribal members and explores tribal issues likely to be raised during TANF reauthorization in 2002.

Written by Jo Ann Kauffman of the Kaiser Family Foundation, this paper describes case studies of eight Tribes. Of the Tribes studied, six operated their own Tribal TANF programs, one left TANF implementation up to the State, and the remaining Tribe served as a contractor for the State’s TANF program. The paper describes lessons learned in operating Tribal TANF programs and the appendices include the methodology for conducting the interviews.

This series of reports, completed as part of a two-year study by James Bell Associates, describes how tribes use flexible Federal funds for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program. The reports highlight promising practices tribes have adopted to meet unique challenges they face in managing services to strengthen tribal families, children, and youth. This report is labeled as Issue Paper #1.