The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation developed this report to study the impact of couples-based family strengthening services for incarcerated fathers and their families. The Office of Family Assistance funded 12 grantees to support healthy relationship programming for incarcerated fathers, their partners, and their families from 2006-2011, and this report focuses on the findings from four of those programs. Three out of four of the healthy relationship programs had weak and non-significant finds, but one program showed sustained positive effects on multiple relationship and parenting outcomes. The authors suggest that more robust and comprehensive interventions might be necessary for justice-involved families.

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released criteria and benchmarks for achieving the goal of ending family homelessness. The criteria apply to an entire community and are designed to address families with children under the age of 18 who are experiencing homelessness. Those criteria include identifying all families experiencing homelessness, using prevention and diversion strategies whenever possible, using coordinated entry processes, helping families swiftly move into permanent housing, and having plans in place to continue to prevent and end family homelessness. The benchmarks provide indicators that communities can use to measure their progress in ending family homelessness.

Approximately 2.8 million individuals between the ages of 16-24 are disconnected from both school and work. The National League of Cities put together this action kit to help municipal leaders facilitate discussions in their communities on how to reengage disconnected youth. This action kit includes strategies for convening stakeholders, promoting educational achievement, developing workforce connections, supporting youth in transition, and building a citywide system for reengaging youth.

Mathematica Policy Research issued three new briefs to document lessons learned from implementing the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which educates youth on abstinence and contraception. These briefs are part of a multi-component evaluation on PREP that Mathematica is conducting for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. One brief focuses on a teen pregnancy prevention program in rural Kentucky, another details a boys-only teen pregnancy prevention program in Iowa, and the third brief examines how California, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina developed infrastructure to support PREP programming. Each brief includes findings on how PREP implementation differed at each site.

This report from Mathematica Policy Research details an evaluation of New Heights, a DC Public Schools program that supports parenting students’ educational attainment. New Heights’ program model includes a coordinator responsible for providing targeted school-based case management, weekly educational workshops, advocacy, and incentives to both male and female students who are either expecting or parenting. The researchers found that New Heights led to significantly better outcomes in school engagement and credit accumulation, and a marginally significant impact on graduation rates for parenting students.

While low-income parents face challenges, many manage to raise children with socio-emotional competence. This policy report from the National Center for Children in Poverty describes what can be learned from these resilient parents, and analyzes programs and policies that promote parents’ and children’s resiliency. The authors find that policies such as increasing access to health and mental health care, providing training in evidence-based parenting skills, and strengthening key safety net programs all contribute to strengthening resiliency in both parents and children.

Nearly 12% of American children will spend at least half of their lives from birth to age 17 living in poverty. This report from the Urban Institute analyzes factors that have helped these persistently poor children achieve economic success. Some of those factors include spending more years in an employed family, spending fewer years in a family headed by someone with a disability, and living in less segregated and disadvantaged neighborhoods. The researchers recommend several strategies to help more persistently poor children achieve economic success, such as subsidized employment for parents and programs to help families move out of disadvantaged neighborhoods.

There are seven million or more working-age men in the United States who are not engaged in the workforce, and a variety of causes for this situation have been suggested. In this publication from the American Enterprise Institute, the authors address several of potential causes for the decline in work activity among these men and discuss policies that could be used to address the issues. The publication also recommends a focus on men with severe barriers to work, such as those with criminal histories or substance abuse issues and men who are noncustodial parents.

Girls and women who are at risk for justice system involvement or who are justice system involved have different pathways to involvement and different risk factors, so gender-responsive programs have been targeting services to girls and women who are at risk for entering the typically male-dominated system. In this brief, MDRC examines results from their evaluation of the PACE Center for Girls program in Florida to explain how gender-responsive principles work in practice. Components of gender-responsive programs, such as a strengths-based approach, are discussed, and experiences of girls in the program are shared.

In this brief from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, strategies used by Responsible Fatherhood reentry programs to enhance the fathers’ parenting skills are discussed, such as building knowledge of child development, increasing communication, and providing assistance with child support. Also included are recommendations for practitioners who offer responsible parenting services to reentry populations.