This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report assesses initial findings of Paycheck Plus, a refundable tax credit program for low-income workers without dependent children. The report examines the effect of this demonstration program among low-wage earners in Atlanta by evaluating the effect of a bonus payment on employment rates, earnings, and income on a pre-tax and post-tax basis. The report also identifies the effect of the bonus by gender, level of disadvantage, and earnings of study participants before entering the study.

This post provides the most up-to-date information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about ways to prevent COVID-19 at home and in the community and answers frequently asked questions. There is also a set of resources about how to discuss COVID-19 with young children and how community- and faith-based organizations can get prepared to address service needs.

This Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation report assesses the impact and outcomes of the employment coaching model. Key questions in this evaluation include analysis about the intermediate outcomes related to pursuing goals and employment and economic security outcomes for low-income people and whether the impacts of the coaching interventions change over time or differ among the diverse groups of participants. The report also examines how employment coaching models were implemented and what contributes to how and whether employment coaching is implemented.

This research article illustrates the origins, processes and strategies of health coaching and motivational interviewing as well as identifies the similarities and differences within these approaches. The article also points how these approaches might be used in tandem or taken individually to support improvements in physical and emotional health.

This research-to-practice brief identifies programmatic solutions to support reentry for young adults who have been involved in the juvenile justice or criminal justice system as they navigate employment and education pathways. The brief summarizes best practices from nine communities under the three-year U.S. Department of Labor-funded Compass Rose Collaborative (CRC). CRC communities are: Southeast Arkansas; Los Angeles, California; Denver, Colorado; Hartford, Connecticut; Louisville, Kentucky; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; St. Louis, Missouri; and Albany, New York.

This blogpost profiles the Louisiana Department of Child and Family Services’ efforts to connect birth families with resource families following child removal, with the hopes of improving child welfare and the likelihood and timeliness of reunification. This shared parenting reflects the Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI), a Youth Law Center strategy to pave a new approach toward increasing reunification outcomes for families. This approach calls for a fundamental culture shift away from an “us-them” adversarial relationship between birth and resource families.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report reviews current Responsible Fatherhood (RF) program approaches undertaken to prevent and tackle intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic violence. The report illustrates the programs’ strengths and gaps in their services and referrals and promising practices that may improve service provision to address IPV. There is also discussion about new directions for research in IPV prevention, given the success, challenges, and barriers in service delivery that RF programs experience.

This blogpost by the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) highlights the challenges facing homeless pregnant mothers, babies, and toddlers. To address these challenges, the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF’s) Family and Youth Services Bureau and the Office of Head Start support collaboration between Runaway and Homeless Youth and Early Head Start grantees serving both youth in transitional living programs and maternity group homes, as well as children enrolled in Head Start programs. National Training and Technical Assistance Centers will play a crucial role in this collaboration, sharing resources and training materials on early childhood development for young parents and families experiencing homelessness. By encouraging this collaborative relationship, ACF’s two-generation approach strives to meet the needs of parents and their children.

The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison will host a webinar on April 1, 2020 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. CT to discuss the relationships that human services programs develop with the participants they serve, as well as the relationships that programs help participants develop outside their organizations. Speakers from the Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health, the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will discuss the measurement and evaluation of building program participants’ social capital and the value of logic models for documenting social capital inputs, activities, and outputs. The webinar will also feature a program that tracks social capital to support programming in human services administration.

This report summarizes findings from random assignment studies of 13 subsidized employment programs funded under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration (STED) and the U.S. Department of Labor Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration (EJTD). The report presents the impacts on the employment and earnings for participants in each of the 13 programs and also examines nonemployment outcomes for participants such as reducing recidivism and increased child support payments.