This article appears in an annual report compiled by the Center for Early Childhood Development at the University of Minnesota on coordinating systems for better child outcomes. It highlights a partnership that Ramsey County, Minnesota developed between their TANF program and their existing public health nurse home visiting program. The subsequent program model streamlines the TANF system for teen parents and provides for in-home and school- based services and supports for teen parents as they plan to attend higher education or enter the workforce after graduation or GED completion. The program boasts increased positive birth outcomes and high school/GED completion rates for teens involved in this program versus their uninvolved counterparts.

The Urban Institute recently published an article discussing the Work Support Strategies Initiative. Work Support Strategies (WSS) is a multiyear, multi-State initiative to implement reforms that help eligible low-income families get and keep a full package of work support benefits, including Medicaid, nutrition assistance (SNAP), and child care assistance. This report summarizes the lessons learned from the nine planning grant States (Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina), just one year into a four-year project. The report includes what the States did, how they overcame challenges, and how the planning year changed their strategies and capacities for the future.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has issued six new Quick-Lesson Podcasts to help individuals find and use workforce statistics on unemployment, worker dislocation, projections, industries, the economy, and states and localities. The podcasts presume no previous subject matter or statistical knowledge, making it accessible for a broad variety of audiences and purposes. Each presentation includes basic definitions, a brief historical background, links to the most important data sources, and practical tips on how to interpret and use the data.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report on young adult employment. This report indicates that young adults' employment varies by education. Highlights from the study reveal that at age 25, people with more education were more likely to be employed than people with less education. Among people who had completed a bachelor's degree or more education and were no longer enrolled in school, 91 percent were employed in civilian jobs during the October when they were age 25, in comparison to the 60 percent of high school dropouts who were employed in civilian jobs during the October when they were age 25.

On September 27, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. EDT, the Office of Family Assistance hosted the first Webinar in a series highlighting promising practices for building sustainable subsidized employment programs. This Webinar provided an overview of different types of subsidized employment programs that can work in different settings and with different types of employers; discussed the varied funding streams utilized and strategies for matching subsidized employment opportunities to local labor markets and employer needs; and outlined practical strategies used by peer agencies for creating targeted subsidized employment programs. Presenters for this webinar included representatives from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, the Oregon Department of Human Services, the city and county of San Francisco Human Services Agency, and MDRC.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) has recently released the Engaging Employers to Support Adult Career Pathways Programs issue brief as part of their ongoing effort to support the development of high-quality Adult Career Pathway (ACP) programs. The new issue brief provides strategies and promising practices that support States and programs tackling the issue of employer engagement.

CLASP has released an updated resource entitled, Funding Career Pathways and Career Pathway Bridges: A Federal Funding Toolkit. This toolkit is designed to help interagency State teams identify and facilitate 'braiding' of Federal resources to build career pathways for adults and out-of-school youth. This new edition includes State and local examples and revised program profiles reflecting critical legislative and administrative changes to key Federal programs. A new appendix identifies ten Federal funding sources that can be used to provide a wide range of support services.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program was established by the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) to provide training programs in high-demand health care professions to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals. Beginning in 2010, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provided five-year grants to 32 grantees in 23 states across the United States. HPOG grantees include post-secondary educational institutions, workforce investment boards (WIBs), state or local government agencies, and non-profit organizations (NPOs). Five grantees are Tribal organizations. In their first year of funding, HPOG grantees were able to launch their programs and enroll and train substantial numbers of participants. This brief describes the HPOG Program and progress made by grantees in the first year of funding. It also describes the evaluation efforts sponsored by ACF to assess the success of the HPOG Program. (author abstract)

MDRC released a policy memo as part of their "Looking Forward" series, providing policymakers with suggested ways to make progress on critical issues. This policy memo describes some promising college readiness programs that can provide students with the skills they need to successfully complete college.

Through secondary analysis, this study examines which benefits and financial supports low-income families access, with a particular focus on child support. The aim is to explore how families create their own economic safety net package from among the existing benefit programs. It was found that higher levels of child support receipt corresponded with higher levels of work, however that child support did not replace any type of welfare benefit but rather, complements it.