This comprehensive child welfare resource provides state and national data on child maltreatment, foster care, kinship caregiving, permanency, and older youth in care. The data are essential to help policymakers understand how many children and youth come in contact with the child welfare system, and why. States can use this information to ensure that their child welfare systems support the safety, stability, and well-being of all families in their state.

New research is beginning to shed light on how families used the expanded 2021 federal child tax credit (CTC), how this support affected outcomes for children, what kinds of barriers prevented many children in very low-income families from accessing the credit, and how all these impacts varied by race, ethnicity, income, geography, and other factors. The Urban Institute and the Berkeley Opportunity Lab will host a webinar on May 24, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET which will explore lessons from the 2021 CTC expansion, how cash assistance programs can enhance child well-being, and how state policymakers are moving forward with state-level credits.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration will host the second of three webinars focused on trauma, healing-centered care, and the public workforce system on May 11, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. This webinar will focus on the connection between trauma and substance use disorder and the role of the workforce system in supporting recovery. Speakers will discuss the intersection between trauma, toxic stress, and addiction, including neuroscience and best practices for workforce professionals in serving individuals with substance use disorders.

Disconnected youths (often referred to as “opportunity youth”) are young people who are neither in school nor working, missing opportunities to both earn and learn. They are also more likely to suffer from challenges in adulthood such as lower lifetime earnings, a greater chance of unemployment, and poorer health. Disconnection therefore affects labor force productivity in the long run. This means helping these youths return to work or school provides short- and long-term benefits for them and their potential employers alike. This first article of a two-part series from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows findings that the sharp rise in disconnected young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic is the exacerbation of a problem that has gradually worsened in the past two decades. While attention was paid to decreases in school enrollment during the pandemic, identifying long-term solutions to both employment and enrollment are important to reduce disconnection among young adults.

Some child support policymakers and researchers have recently questioned the fairness and effectiveness of pursuing civil contempt to secure child support payments, particularly for parents with low incomes. The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) demonstration tested a different approach to improving child support payments. Developed by the Office of Child Support Enforcement, PJAC integrated principles of procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement practices in six child support agencies across the United States as an alternative to standard contempt proceedings. The PJAC demonstration project used a random assignment research design; parents who had reached a contempt referral were assigned either to a PJAC services group, which had access to child support services informed by procedural justice, or to a business-as-usual group, which proceeded to the standard contempt process. This report compares the outcomes of parents in these two groups.

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) staff are essential for successful implementation of HMRE services, including recruiting and enrolling participants, delivering curriculum workshops, providing case management, and carrying out the behind-the-scenes work that makes an organization run smoothly. Research points to three key factors that can affect high-quality service delivery: (1) capacity (whether staff have the necessary knowledge and skills to provide the services), (2) motivation (whether staff have buy-in and confidence to deliver the services), and (3) opportunity (whether the work environment and resources enable staff to perform at their best).

This brief presents four tips for supporting HMRE staff and examples from the experiences of the HMRE grant recipients who participated in the Strengthening the Implementation of Marriage and Relationship Programs (SIMR) study. The SIMR study was designed to develop and test promising approaches to address implementation challenges related to recruitment, retention, and content engagement in HMRE services.

Work experience and work-based learning are two related strategies for helping people with low incomes improve employment and earnings outcomes. Work experience and work-based learning could include paid or unpaid work or learning experiences in a work setting. This Evidence Snapshot brief summarizes what rigorous research tells us about seven interventions that used work experience and work-based learning and their impacts on earnings, employment, the receipt of public benefits, and education and training. The brief helps TANF administrators, policymakers, researchers, and the general public apply this evidence of program effectiveness to their context and questions that matter to them.

Employment retention services interventions offer a combination of services intended to help maintain employment and promote career advancement among people, often those with low incomes, who already have a job. This Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse Evidence Snapshot summarizes what rigorous research tells us about nine interventions that used employment retention services as their primary service and the interventions’ impacts on earnings, employment, the receipt of public benefits, and education and training. The Evidence Snapshot helps TANF administrators, policymakers, researchers, and the general public apply this evidence to contexts and questions that matter to them.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA)-sponsored Leveraging America’s Social and Economic Resilience TANF Learning Community (LASER TLC) initiative provided technical assistance (TA) and support to state, county, and tribal TANF programs in addressing the challenge of human services delivery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with Mathematica, BLH Technologies, Inc. managed the LASER TLC and developed a series of collective TA events, including a Tribal Affinity Group. These events featured national thought leaders and various program and practice models. The events also included opportunities for the 10 participating state, county and tribal LASER TLC sites to meet, discuss challenges, and ask questions of presenters. The LASER TLC produced the comprehensive Digital Resource Portfolio (Portfolio), which presents the information shared at the collective TA events.

OFA will host two “Office Hours” sessions for State, county, and Tribal TANF programs on May 2 and May 9, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET. The Office Hours sessions will:

• Provide background information on the Digital Resource Portfolio's development.
• Describe the Portfolio’s structure and organization and the core topics covered in support of TANF program improvement.
• Describe how to access, efficiently navigate, and effectively use the Portfolio.

Session presenters will include OFA leadership; Casey Grey Applegate, LASER TLC Project Coordinator, BLH Technologies, Inc.; Dr. Marc Mannes, LASER TLC Training and Technical Assistance Manager, BLH Technologies, Inc.; and Jonathan McCay, LASER TLC Subcontract Manager, Mathematica. Dr. Jeanette Hercik, LASER TLC Project Director, BLH Technologies, Inc. will facilitate the sessions. Office Hours participants will be able to ask questions and explore topics of interest in greater detail with the session presenters.