Kinship families interact with many systems, including child welfare, education/schools, housing, Medicaid/Medicare, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Dealing with multiple systems is time-consuming and emotionally draining. TANF child-only grants are often the only source of ongoing financial support for these families. This Grandfamilies and Kinship Support Network resource outlines how TANF programs can help these families by facilitating or participating in cross-system collaboration and coordination while helping individual families navigate the challenging landscape.

Kinship families interact with many systems, including child welfare, education/schools, housing, Medicaid/Medicare, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Dealing with multiple systems is time-consuming and emotionally draining. Family Resource Centers (FRCs) can help by supporting individual families as they navigate this challenging landscape. This Grandfamilies and Kinship Support Network resource outlines how FRCs can serve as welcoming hubs of supports, services, and opportunities for families as they are well-positioned to assist kinship families and grandfamilies.

Without enough diapers, children are at risk of serious health problems like rashes and infections, and parents may miss work or school, undermining family stability and economic mobility. Federal programs that help families purchase food and nutrition supports and provide cash assistance in times of need, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), do not cover diapers, requiring parents to pay high out-of-pocket prices. This Urban Institute tool shows how many diapers it would take to fill the gap faced by families with low-to-moderate incomes in a given county.

This webpage offers program monitoring tools used by Florida’s local workforce development board in 2024-2025. This webpage includes monitoring tools for:
• Welfare Transition (WT)/Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF);
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment & Training (SNAP E&T);
• Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA);
• Wagner-Peyser (WP);
• Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)/Rapid Response;
• Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers (MSFW); and
• Jobs For Veterans' State Grant (JVSG).
This webpage also offers program monitoring tools used in previous years.

With the significant increase in the cost of food, some grandfamilies and kinship families, especially those on fixed incomes, may not have ample food to feed their growing family.  Federal nutrition programs can help kin caregivers stretch limited budgets, and ensure their families thrive. The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network will host a webinar on September 10, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. ET to explore the array of federal nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), school meals, and afterschool and summer food programs, that are available to help kinship/grandfamilies get the nutrition they need. This webinar will equip attendees with practical information and resources that can be used to connect families to these nutrition programs. 

When the school year ends, millions of children lose access to the school breakfasts and lunches they rely on during the school year. This can exacerbate summertime food insecurity for those children in kinship. The Summer Nutrition Programs are designed to replace school breakfast and lunch and can help lower food costs for families. These programs ensure that children have consistent access to healthy meals during the summer months, which is critical for their health and well-being. This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network tipsheet explains Summer Nutrition Programs along with benefits and eligibility.

Maryland’s Combined Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) State Plan partners worked collaboratively to bolster the workforce system. There are multiple entry points to services, and Maryland subscribes to a “no wrong door” philosophy for customer access to services. Weekly orientations, walk-ins, partner referrals, the Reemployment Opportunities Workshop, and the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment program are typical entry points for new customers. As Maryland seeks to strengthen and enhance its practices through the implementation of this revised State Plan, success will require a commitment to innovation and collaboration, and a cohesive approach among partners. In 2022, Maryland added the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Employment and Training (SNAP E&T) program as a Core Partner. Recognizing that no single entity can exclusively provide all services to a customer, this more inclusive approach will diversify services and invest in new, integrated practices that surpass the traditional expectations of a workforce system.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released the new request for applications for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) pilot. The pilot will select up to five states to test innovative approaches aimed at promoting work and reducing government dependency.

The pilot is authorized under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and reflects the Administration’s commitment to reshaping welfare programs to encourage employment, personal responsibility, and strong, stable two-parent families. States are encouraged to propose alternative performance measures to the work participation rate that prioritize rapid employment outcomes, earnings progression, and reduced dependency on TANF, Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and other welfare. 

ACF encourages all states and territories to apply. The application period will close at 11:59 PM ET on August 15, 2025. The pilot program for the selected states will begin on October 1, 2025.

Further information on the TANF pilot program can be found on the Office of Family Assistance Fiscal Responsibility Act implementation page. If questions remain, please contact TANFquestions@acf.hhs.gov. 

A benefit integrity program is meant to maintain program integrity by providing methods to ensure that benefit amounts provided to recipients in the TANF or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are accurate according to federal and state policies and based on the recipient's circumstances, and that misuses of program benefits are detected, prevented and ultimately deterred. This South Carolina Department of Social Services manual contains policy for the detection, investigation, establishment, and collection of payments made in error or due to fraud.

To address the growing challenge of public assistance fraud, a consortium of five states, working with contractors and supported by a grant from the Food and Nutrition Service, has established the National Accuracy Clearinghouse (NAC). The NAC is a contributory system of beneficiary information to support accurate and timely identification and verification of applicants applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to reduce duplicate benefit issuance and improve program access. This white paper explains how the NAC, as an innovative solution for secure sharing of information on recipients of health and human services among states, can safeguard support for such human services programs by enhancing public confidence that the federal and state governments are properly and responsibly administering their taxpayer dollars.