Millions of families with children from birth to age 12 rely on home-based child care (HBCC)—child care and early education (CCEE) offered in a provider’s home or the child’s home. Much of the research literature and policy discussions about improving the quality of child care focus on care provided in center-based CCEE settings, and many widely-used measures of HBCC quality have their roots in quality measures that were developed for centers. This compendium contains profiles from an Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation review of existing HBCC measures and indicators that focused on features that might be important to understand quality in HBCC.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Investment and the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) will host a webinar on June 9, 2022 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET as part of a summer series of technical assistance on the role of the workforce system in serving individuals with substance use disorders. Guest speakers from CPWR will discuss how opioid use among the construction workforce has impacted the construction industry and the preventions the organization is currently implementing to fight opioid substance abuse.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announces a Notice of Funding Opportunity under the Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency Service Coordinator (ROSS-SC) grant program, which is designed to assist residents of Public and Indian Housing progress towards economic and housing self-sufficiency by removing educational, professional, and health barriers. HUD provides ROSS-SC grant funding to eligible applicants to hire a Service Coordinator who assesses the needs of public and Indian housing residents and links them to training and supportive services that will enable participants to move along the self-sufficiency continuum. Grant applications are due by July 18, 2022.

Grandparents serve a critical role in the tribal family structure. They are often the glue that holds the family together, providing the place to gather. They are keepers of family stories, cultural knowledge, and calm voices of reason. This compendium provides resources for engaging and supporting grandparents and other extended family members to help Native children and families achieve their best outcomes.

The Reentry and Employment Opportunities – Adult Program (REO) is designed to strengthen urban communities through an employment-centered program that incorporates mentoring, job training, and other comprehensive transitional services. The REO Community website provides new ideas and tools to do the invaluable work of changing lives and renewing futures of former offenders. The website includes information on:

• Improving program practices, including case management and mentoring
• Supporting transitions for ex-offenders, including program and job retention
• Strengthening partnerships to provide strong supportive services and seamless transitions
• Ensuring sustainability for programs

Youth Thrive’s five protective and promotive factors are five essential elements that research tells us help young people thrive, even in the face of adversity. The five factors are youth resilience, social connections, knowledge of adolescent development, concrete support, and cognitive and social-emotional competence. This video reviews why each factor is important, and how taken together they contribute to young people’s overall well-being.

Holistic support services are critical to increasing skills training access, completion, and connection to quality jobs. This webinar video recording examined how intentional investments in supportive services help to address racial wealth gaps and the unprecedented rates of basic needs insecurity facing today’s students — adult learners who are balancing work, school, and family responsibilities. Speakers also discussed how community college, training provider, and community partner staff can help learners navigate education, public benefit, and resource options to ensure that resources go to those who need them the most.

This blogpost provides an overview of the basics behind extended foster care. Extended foster care is an approach that allows youth to remain in or re-enter care beyond their 18th birthday. The blogpost addresses key questions, including: at what age does foster care stop, what happens when youth age out of foster care, what federal laws help states fund extended foster care, why is extended foster care important, what services are available through extended foster care, are young people helped by extended foster care, and what states offer extended foster care. Links to additional resources from the Annie E. Casey Foundation are also provided.

This practice guide is a resource for a broad range of human services and fatherhood programs striving to be more inclusive of and responsive to fathers. Building on literature from the field and interviews with human services providers that engage fathers in services, this guide outlines the benefits of developing community partnerships between father-focused and other human services programs. It also describes various strategies programs can use to develop partnerships that can increase father engagement in programming and improve outcomes for fathers and their families. The guide’s goal is to help programs develop strategic partnerships that are mutually beneficial and can increase father engagement in their communities.

AdoptUSKids will host a webinar on June 2, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. ET where presenters will discuss the impact of parenting dynamics and expectations on the relationships in families formed through adoption, foster care, or kinship care. The webinar will explore how to engage parents in examining their past and how their actions contribute to family dysfunction and increase the risk for placement disruption. The presenters — child welfare professionals with lived experience — will also offer tips about providing services to the whole family to improve relationship dynamics and prevent unnecessary placement disruption.