This article describes a community-engaged, mixed-methods research project to identify barriers to TANF among families with young children in Illinois which examined TANF sanctions related to child support enforcement. The study, which used TANF administrative data analysis and included semi-structured interviews with TANF customers, explored demographic differences in sanctioning and sanction types; it found that Black families were more likely than families of other races to be sanctioned. Mothers who were survivors of intimate partner violence voiced particular challenges with child support compliance. The article proposes policy recommendations that include shifting to alternative cash assistance models and removing pass-through funding so that families receive the full child support benefit.

Enacted in 1997 and expanded multiple times with bipartisan support since 2001, the Child Tax Credit helps families manage the cost of raising children. The Child Tax Credit lifted 4.3 million people ― including 2.3 million children ― above the poverty line in 2018 and remains an effective tool for reducing poverty nationwide. This fact sheet outlines how the credit is helping families with low incomes, had been administered under the American Rescue Plan, and has reduced poverty and expanded children’s opportunities.

Decades of segregation, structural racism, and disinvestment have made it difficult for Black and Latine families with low incomes to successfully build wealth in Fresno, California. Even though agencies and nonprofits have programs to assist those who are struggling, these stabilization efforts do not create wealth. This blogpost illustrates how a steering committee of leaders in Fresno designed a comprehensive model—the Prosperity Coaching Network and Pilot—to deliver a more integrated suite of local agency and nonprofit resources across the stages of wealth creation. The blogpost also notes how as part of the broader Fresno DRIVE (Developing the Region’s Inclusive and Vibrant Economy) Initiative, the Prosperity Coaching Network and Pilot can serve as a promising model to address long-standing challenges to economic mobility in Fresno and other communities nationally.

The Works Wonders^® curriculum aims to connect young people in foster care with careers that interest them. Under the Works Wonders model, staff members customize learning plans and recruit local companies to employ older youth with foster care experience. Typical programming includes coursework, mentoring, job shadowing, paid internships, and career guidance. This blogpost examines the adaptation and expansion of the Work Wonders model at Monroe Harding (a Nashville-based nonprofit) in Tennessee and Foster Success (a start­up business training program) in Indiana to better serve their local youth.

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs for youth provide young people with information on the social and emotional aspects of romantic relationships through structured, classroom-based curricula. Programs are typically offered as part of a school class, such as health or family and consumer sciences, or as a voluntary afterschool or community-based program. Prepared as part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services evaluation, this brief examines four recent studies of HMRE programs for youth and discusses possible ways to strengthen their implementation and evaluation. The brief also presents several practical considerations to inform future evaluations and increase the chances for programs to show evidence of favorable impacts on their intended outcomes.

The U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration invites workforce communities to nominate themselves to be a part of the Youth Systems Building Academy (YSBA). YSBA will provide local workforce systems and their community partners with targeted and individualized training and technical assistance to explore, design, test, implement, or scale system-level approaches to engage and support young people in the workforce including:

• Improving youth employment opportunities and outcomes.
• Increasing understanding of equitable policies and practices for youth career pathways and what a quality job means for young workers.
• Aligning local systems policies, resources, and programming, including among DOL-funded programs and investments and across other Federal, state, local and philanthropic funded investments.
• Using data to inform system improvements, including promoting a better understanding of how to use and share data to ensure equitable access and outcomes for youth served.
• Increasing knowledge and access to resources related to youth workforce professional development and building youth practitioners’ skills related to positive youth development and trauma-informed principles.
• Increasing awareness of the public workforce system for youth and young adults by engaging youth and including youth voice in messaging, recruitment, and engagement and other programmatic decision making.

Applications are due before Friday, January 13, 2023, 5:00 p.m. ET.

This information brief draws from research on the impacts of parental incarceration on children and families. It also offers suggestions on ways that fatherhood programs can work in partnership with correctional agencies and schools or other community service providers to provide support for incarcerated fathers, their children, and their families. A set of resources is included at the end of the brief.

This four-part series is designed to help workforce development practitioners understand the neuroscience behind trauma and resilience and receive actionable steps to mitigate and manage toxic stress and trauma to cultivate a culture of resiliency for staff and organizations. The four guides are entitled: The Brain Science of Trauma & Resilience; Trauma in Workforce Development; Responding to Trauma Triggering in Real Time; and Cultivating a Culture of Resiliency in Organizations.

This podcast features Anne Mosle, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Ascend initiative, where she discusses how community dialogue plays a significant role in restoring trust. The podcast also covers her belief that we must reevaluate how we build social capital, the access to relationships and networks that unlock opportunities. The overall theme of the podcast reflects how listening to people and honoring their lived experiences is the most valuable tool in the pursuit of prosperity and well-being for all families.

A study funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation was conducted to identify strategies to support high-quality facilitation in healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs for youth. The basis of the study is a formative evaluation of a facilitation skills training curriculum for HMRE program staff at two community-based organizations: Catholic Charities of Wayne County in New York and Youth and Family Services in South Dakota. This report explores the content-related curriculum on the following topics: Managing Energy, Debriefing and Drawing Out Teachable Moments, and Building Trust and Challenging the Comfort Zone. The curriculum and supporting resources are available for download as well as three tip sheets with key lessons from each module of the curriculum.