The 20th Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS 2020), sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, will now be held virtually on October 13-15 and October 19-22, 2020. Panels will cover TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations; Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market; Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood; Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships; Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data; and Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity. Future information with registration details will be posted.

This blogpost reviews the operations and procedures of the Safe & Sound Family Resource Center in San Francisco. The blogpost notes the intake interview process where families identify what they perceive as their needs and helps to illustrate how the families are functioning, including their support network, what types of concrete supports they need, and what they see as their strengths. The blogpost also highlights “light touch” services offered to help enhance protection for parents and children, such as parenting and education classes, parenting support groups, counseling, and respite childcare. There is also discussion of the Integrated Family Services program, which offers a more intensive level of services to families living in conditions that create the highest risk for child abuse and neglect; many of these families have three or more adverse childhood experiences.

This fact sheet briefly outlines the top needs for kin families and potential funding sources to meet these needs. The funding sources include: Social Security Act Title IV-B kinship navigator grants, Family First Transition Act, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and new (and temporary) Federal Medical Assistance Percentage dollars. The fact sheet also offers some pointers on how to develop partnerships that recognize and enhance kinship care programs.

The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) will host a webinar on August 13, 2020 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET to address questions from the field about how to strengthen families. Questions can be philosophical or mundane, and participation is welcome to all. There will also be presentations from representatives from CSSP and the Children’s Trust Fund Alliance.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief is part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation which assessed HMRE programs in five sites. The brief illustrates five steps for increasing recruitment capacity in these programs. Lessons learned from the brief could be adopted for HMRE programs serving adults to build and implement recruitment approaches. Additional STREAMS reports will identify how these recruitment approaches were implemented to better deliver HMRE programs.

The two-generation (2Gen) approach to building stronger families is gaining momentum in several states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Washington. In these states, a 2Gen coordinator has been identified to work with frontline staff, families, community partners, and across statewide departments to advance 2Gen strategies. On July 28, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. ET, Ascend, an Aspen Institute initiative, will host a webinar which will cover how these states are working toward systems change to help families experience more equitable and positive outcomes.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report covers the 2015 cohort of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grantees, which were awarded five-year grants in September 2015. The report examines grantees’ operations from July 2016 to March 2019, including how these programs recruited and served participants and how the grantees staffed their respective programs. The report also reviews HMRF program participants’ characteristics and identifies changes in their characteristics during this review period.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report reviews data collection and performance measurement improvements that will be used to evaluate the next cohort of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grantees in late 2020. The review examines three key areas: what changes to the HMRF performance measures would improve the usefulness, quality, and clarity of data collected; what enhancements to Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management (nFORM) (the data collection system through which grantees submit data) would increase data quality and improve user experience and data access; and what training and technical assistance activities would help grantees when using nFORM. The review is drawn from lessons learned from the 2015 cohort of HMRF grantees.

This referral guide helps fatherhood practitioners better understand what types of referrals are appropriate for individuals who have survived domestic violence. The brief also includes information on anger management programs, battering intervention programs, and domestic violence agencies. This guide was created through the Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads (PAIVED) study, which was funded by the Office of Family Assistance and overseen by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation is hosting a webinar on July 22, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. ET to discuss fiscal approaches for implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act. The discussion will include guidance on budget preparation of evidence-based programs. Presenters will provide tips on how to develop estimates on staffing and needed resources for prevention services administration, estimate matching Title IV-E revenue, and forecast cost savings from out-of-home placements as a result of successful prevention services. Presenters include representatives of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Mainspring Consulting, and the Hawaii Department of Human Services.