Domestic violence survivors often face challenges when trying to secure safe and affordable housing. This special collection from VAWnet provides resources to help providers of services pertaining to sexual assault, homelessness, and housing serve the housing needs of domestic violence survivors. The collection starts by describing the intersection between domestic violence and homelessness, especially for survivors of color. Next, the collection provides case studies illustrating partnerships between domestic violence organizations and affordable housing providers, and supplies four key strategies for helping addressing survivors’ barriers to safe housing. The collection also includes relevant public policies and statistics on the intersection between domestic and sexual violence, housing, and homelessness.

Children who are exposed to violence can experience negative effects throughout their lives, regardless of whether it is violence in the community or domestic violence or abuse at home. This RAND report, sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, details the Safe Start project, which evaluated evidence-based programs aimed at mitigating the negative impact of violence on children. Safe Start consisted of two phases: the first phase was a demonstration of promising practices to address children’s exposure to violence and the second phase implemented those promising practices in 15 cities across the country. All sites were able to implement their programs, but families received fewer services than planned. The report includes these implementation challenges and offers recommendations for future programs serving children who have been exposed to violence.

There is currently limited evidence on the effectiveness of domestic violence program services. To fill this gap, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation contracted with the Center for Policy Research and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence to identify where the evidence base could be stronger for domestic violence programs. This report summarizes the current evidence on domestic violence and highlights innovative and concrete areas of opportunity for building the evidence base. While domestic violence programs do show some evidence of contributing to survivor well-being, the research is limited and often has methodological issues. The researchers found multiple opportunities for strengthening the evidence base, such as supporting researcher-practitioner partnerships, supporting culturally-relevant research, building on the current theory of change, and developing and validating new measures of program components and outcomes.

Youth aging out of the foster care system face a variety of challenges, but building healthy and supportive relationships can help improve their outcomes. This Brookings Institution report highlights experiences from recent relationship-building programs targeted toward foster youth. The authors found four important lessons that researchers and policymakers can use when designing relationship-building programs for foster youth. Those lessons include the need for child welfare agencies to measure a youth’s relational capacities, designing relationship-based interventions for foster youth, tailoring services to the needs of each youth, and obtaining support from all partners involved in a foster youth’s case to reinforce relationships.

This Child Trends blog post provides resources to help children cope after a hurricane. Children often suffer more than adults when exposed to natural disasters, and 14% of children in the U.S. have experienced a natural disaster. The authors analyzed nine major themes from resources and research on how to help children recover after exposure to a natural disaster. Those themes include understanding that reactions to trauma differ, creating a safe environment where a child’s basic needs are met, and keeping children busy. The post concludes with links to additional resources for children and caregivers.

Employment is crucial for preventing and ending youth homelessness, and programs need to be well-designed and implemented to help these youth find and keep jobs. The Heartland Alliance is hosting this webinar to share policy approaches, program models, and best practices aimed at helping youth experiencing homelessness find employment. Speakers will include representatives from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, A Way Home America, and Heartland Alliance’s National Initiatives, as well as practitioners from New Moms/Bright Endeavors in Chicago and Daybreak Dayton/Lindy & Company in Dayton. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, September 27th from 2:30 to 4:00 PM EST.

The Office of Family Assistance’s (OFA) Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy (Policy Academy) was an 18-month intensive technical assistance (TA) initiative in 2015–2016 for seven states and one county interested in modernizing and improving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practice. During the initiative, sites received dedicated coaches, onsite strategic planning, access to expert consultants, and tailored written resources. Additionally, they participated in several in-person convenings, peer exchanges, and virtual training. These state profiles detail the journey and lessons learned of the 8 teams that participated in the Policy Academy.

This Jobs for the Future brief details the Opportunity Works initiative, which funded seven community-based organizations across the country to develop education and training programs for youth who are disconnected from school and work. Halfway through the three-year grant period the organizations already had learned several lessons, such as the importance of helping youth see why they need careers, allowing enough time for youth to build rapport with their coaches, and creating partnerships with colleges to help youth complete postsecondary education. The brief also includes a summary of each site’s progress in the initiative thus far and profiles of youth participants.

Many states have recently passed “ban the box” laws, which prevent employers from asking job applicants whether they have a criminal record. This article from The Pew Charitable Trusts examines several recent studies that show that these laws may be preventing black men from getting job interviews. Employers may be weeding out young black men because they are disproportionately more likely to have criminal records or raising the minimum requirements for jobs so that these men no longer qualify. To be more effective, “ban the box” laws need to be paired with other interventions that prevent racial discrimination in hiring.

This Congressional Research Service report explores the involvement of child support enforcement in fatherhood programs and discusses initiatives to promote and support father-child interaction outside the parents’ relationship. The report also focuses on the need many see for more work-oriented programs that would enable fathers to consistently meet their child support obligations and reviews the current initiatives already in place.