State Policies to Improve Mental Health and Employment for Youth with Marginalized Racial Identities
Record Description
The Center for Advancing Policy on Employment for Youth (CAPE-Youth) is hosting a webinar on April 8, 2024 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET to provide an overview of CAPE-Youth's new mental health policy brief. Speakers from the White House Domestic Policy Council and state governments will highlight ways that policymakers can:
Expand culturally responsive mental health care;
Increase access to mental health supports; and
Embed mental health programs and supports into workforce systems.
Graphical Overview of State and Territories TANF Policies as of July 2022
Record Description
This Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation brief provides a graphical overview of some of the TANF policy differences across states and territories. It includes information about initial eligibility, benefit amounts, work and activity requirements, and ongoing eligibility and time limits. This brief is a companion to the 2022 Welfare Rules Databook.
The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) wants to inform you of an exciting opportunity to provide input and feedback for consideration into the design and implementation of the pilot programs and work outcomes measures for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, enacted as sections 302 and 304 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
OFA has issued a Request for Information, and we want to hear your voice. Your individual input will help ACF better understand options, opportunities and potential challenges in building and carrying out the pilot program and the reporting of new statutory work outcomes measures applicable to all states. This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of ACF or HHS.
We look forward to incorporating your meaningful input and recommendations by the comment deadline of January 11, 2024. As ACF continues to gather input, questions, and comments from all interested parties, we will also continue to alert you to new resources, guidance, and updates as we post them to our FRA Implementation page.
Assisting Families Experiencing Homelessness with TANF Funding: Findings from a Survey of TANF Administrators
Record Description
States have discretion and flexibility in how they use TANF funds to provide services to families experiencing or at-risk of experiencing homelessness. Some states partner with their state-level housing departments, direct providers of homelessness services, local public housing agencies, and/or Continuums of Care (specifically Emergency Solutions Grants programs). This research-to-practice brief includes findings from a 2019 state TANF administrators survey, a review of state TANF plans, and a county TANF administrator survey highlighting differences between state and county approaches to identifying and assisting families experiencing homelessness.
Graphical Overview of State TANF Policies as of July 2018
Record Description
This brief from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation presents graphics to illustrate variations among state TANF policies that are identified in the Welfare Rules Database. Visual depictions include comparisons on initial eligibility, benefit amounts, work and activity requirements, and ongoing eligibility and time limits for TANF recipients.
On April 2, 2019, the Urban Institute and Forum for Youth Investment will convene a panel in Washington, D.C. to present how federal, state, and local government officials use evidence to improve program and policy processes. Further, the discussion will cover how evidence-based approaches can be used in the implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act.
Much research points to the impact that physical location has on people’s childhood experiences, development, opportunities, earning potential, incarceration rates, and adult well-being. Underserved communities, then, need to receive investment to break the cycles of poverty that their residents can fall into. On September 28, the Brookings Institution will host a conversation about place-based strategies that create economic growth for such underserved communities and their residents. With speakers from government bureaus, academia, and economic agencies, along with experts in the field, new research, lessons, and policies for development and mobility will be discussed.
Urban Institute fellow and podcast host Justin Milner, along with experts in the U.S. Department of Labor and the Brookings Institution, speaks about what evidence-based policy is and what it looks like in practice. The speakers emphasize basic research, statistical evaluation, performance management and measurement, and experiential evidence to build effective and applicable programs. Because policy makers do not always use robust evidence, many government programs do not have large impacts when statistically scrutinized. Thus, including researchers is important in the policy debate and program development stages to create successful new initiatives and identify existing effective programs for expansion.
Strengthening the TANF Program: Putting Children at the Center and Increasing Access to Good Jobs for Parents
Record Description
This testimony from an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute was presented to the Subcommittee on Human Resources within the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author critiques TANF for not sufficiently reaching children in poverty, spending limited funds outside the original policy goals, and failing to offer training and education for good jobs, among other issues. She recommends TANF improvements such as setting spending floors for core benefits, furthering 21st century skills and education training, and writing in an explicit child poverty reduction goal. These changes, she argues, will help children in poverty and increase parental socioeconomic mobility as TANF originally intended.
Building the Next Generation of Child Support Policy
Record Description
In October 2017, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and MEF Associates gathered child support practitioners for a roundtable on the future of child support programs, which served as the content base for this report. They highlight eight issues faced by the child support community, such as compliance, non-traditional families, changing costs of living, and other public benefit receipt, as well as types of research opportunities to further study these concerns. Although not exhaustive, their list is comprehensive and offers concrete research questions for stakeholders to discuss and use to inform their child support policies and operations.