Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a problem-solving and design approach that appears to have potential for promoting effective, efficient, and compassionate service delivery aligned with the mission of the Administration for Children and Families. However, implementation of HCD within human services is relatively novel. This brief presents a definition of HCD that is applicable to the context of human services delivery, differentiates HCD from similar design and problem-solving approaches, and describes how HCD is being used in human services. It also explores what is currently known about evaluation efforts to date including facilitators to HCD implementation.

The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison will host a webinar on September 28, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET which will discuss research on the shift in work and family life among low-income parents. While labor market conditions have shifted significantly in the early 21st century, supports and resources available to families have not always kept pace with needs and demand. This has created particularly challenging circumstances for lower-income households with children and has highlighted the need for policy innovation. This webinar features presentations from researchers who contributed to “Low-Income Families in the Twenty-First Century: Effective Public Policy Responses,” a recent issue of The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

Access to high-quality, accessible, and affordable early care and education is essential to the economic wellbeing of families and child care providers, who are fundamental for robust and resilient state and national economies. This blogpost notes that the lack of child care funding has led to significant tradeoffs resulting in inequitable policies and limited access for families who need it the most. Families with low incomes spend a higher percent of their income on care than high-income families. Unable to devote this share of resources, families with low incomes often face hard choices such as using lower-quality, less safe care; having to neglect other expenses like food; or even exiting the workforce completely. Investments that support a high-quality, accessible child care and early education system will pay long-term dividends for the economy.

Early adulthood is a critical life stage for education, employment, relationship formation, and reproductive health, but young adults’ experiences in these areas are highly varied. Using averages to describe youths’ experiences may miss meaningful differences that could alter their developmental trajectories. Understanding these trajectories—and their implications for youth of varying races, ethnicities, and genders—can help researchers, practitioners, and policymakers support young people’s development and ensure greater well-being into their adulthoods. This brief summarizes findings from a new report which reveals different employment pathways taken by young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds through the use of trajectory analysis—a person-based approach that allows clustering people into meaningful patterns based on their employment earnings and the fringe benefits they receive.

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital economy. The Aspen Institute will host a webinar on September 22, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET during which participants will learn more about promising approaches to digital upskilling of Latino workers, students, and households implemented by organizations around the country.

The Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund (PEAF) provides $1 billion in funding to states (including the District of Columbia), tribes administering a TANF program, and five U.S. territories to assist needy families impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While a specific amount was allotted for each grant recipient, they may qualify for additional, reallotted funds. Grant recipients may use these funds to provide certain non-recurrent, short term benefits. All grant recipients must use funds to supplement and not supplant other federal, state, tribal, territorial, or local funds. This Information Memorandum has been issued to remind grant recipients of the September 30, 2022 deadline to use PEAF initial awards by the end of the month, and of the guidance on allowable uses of PEAF funds.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway created a five-part podcast series that illustrated ways that states and tribal jurisdictions have supported kinship caregivers. Part 2 of this series focused on Washington State’s approach to providing kinship support services. Topics discussed included:

• Differences in formal and informal kinship caregivers and the differences caseworkers may have to navigate when working with each,
• Cultural considerations caseworkers and others should be aware of when working with rural and Latinx communities and families,
• The importance of building relationships across a community, not just with kinship families, and
• Implementation of one-time stipends for kinship families in Washington State.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, families endured constant and increased levels of stressors, such as job loss, illness, lack of social support, and inadequate childcare. Often, families are reported to child protection hotlines not because their children are at imminent risk of harm, but rather because of poverty-related issues such as a family’s lack of access to safe housing and other community services that support raising a child. These types of referrals to child protective services may result in an over-surveillance of families, which can compound the stresses inside the home. This report examines how hotline data are collected, analyzed, and used to put greater focus on identifying and addressing community-level causes of family stress and instability, rather than focusing primarily on child- and family-level factors.