NPR, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health conducted a survey poll between August 2 and September 7, 2021 to identify the extent that the delta variant of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States has continued to cause problems for many households, including severe financial and health impacts for households already in crisis. This report presents survey findings of the most serious problems, including finances, healthcare, racial/ethnic discrimination, education, caregiving, work, health and healthcare, and overall well-being. The poll was conducted before federal pandemic unemployment benefits ended and at the time housing eviction protections expired.

Home visiting programs in agencies funded by the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program use various management practices to onboard, train, and evaluate their staff. This brief examines management practices used by home visiting programs receiving MIECHV Program funding based on national surveys of program managers and staff conducted in 2018. Analyses explore how frequently program managers report using management practices, the influence of employee input in different areas of program policy decision making, and associations between these factors and home visitors’ turnover intentions.

This podcast discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic and the social safety net’s response to it have affected food insecurity in the United States. The podcast also illustrates how the permanent increase in SNAP benefits that took effect October 1, 2021, fits into the larger picture of ensuring that people have consistent access to nourishing foods. The podcast is hosted by Judi Bartfeld, a professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a food security research and policy specialist at the University’s Division of Extension.

This U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration directive provides a resource guide to workforce investment practitioners who assist job seekers in finding and applying for financial assistance and other supportive services. The guide assists workforce professionals in accurately locating emergency and long-term resources for workforce program customers to gain economic stability. It includes information on rental assistance, supports for utilities and broadband, child care, the child tax credit, earned income tax credit, nutrition and food security, health care resources, and legal aid, among other resources.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes the evaluation of the implementation of four coaching interventions and their impacts on study participants’ self-regulation, employment, earnings, self-sufficiency, and other measures of well-being. The brief summarizes findings from 44 interviews with participants who received coaching services from the interventions under study. The study team sought to better understand how participants viewed the coaching, what they liked and did not like, and whether they thought it was effective. The brief intends to inform program developers, providers, and policymakers about how employment coaching is implemented from the participant perspective and to share lessons for how to improve coaching interventions.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this workshop, presenters included two economic mobility leaders in Georgia and Massachusetts who have changed the way they do business to better serve young parents and engage them in TANF, with the explicit goals of helping participants achieve greater economic mobility outcomes. The workshop also included interactive components where participants could consider how they might adjust some of their own operations in service of economic mobility.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA) conducted the 2021 National TANF Directors’ Meeting from September 20 - 24, 2021. During this innovation station presentation, the speaker showcased Workforce 1 Connect (WF1), a communication tool created by the Minnesota Department of Human Services and the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). WF1 Connect is a pilot application that participants receiving TANF, SNAP E&T, Childcare Assistance, and DEED Employment and Training Programs such as Blind and Vocational Rehabilitation Services, can download to their phone or tablet. It is a participant-driven tool that can be used to communicate with both county and tribal staff.

COVID-19 has amplified health inequities in American Indian communities because of underfunded and under-resourced health systems, limited access to health services, poor infrastructure, and underlying health disparities. These new data maps track the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact across more than 100 Tribal Nations, streamline data collection efforts, and provide visualizations to display the pandemic’s disparate impact in areas not typically monitored by mainstream media sources. The depictions of the Tribal Nations are limited to federally recognized Tribal nations in the continental United States and Alaska Village lands.

Part of a larger project sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called Key Programmatic Elements of Engaging Fathers to Promote Self-Sufficiency (KEEP Fathers Engaged), this fact sheet explores three strategies for child support agencies to engage fathers and improve family stability. The strategies are: 1) focus outreach on the emotional and other nonfinancial contributions fathers make to children’s well-being; 2) develop partnerships to help fathers achieve their full potential; and 3) use data and evaluation to support sustaining father engagement. The fact sheet provides brief sketches of how these strategies were used within the Georgia Division of Child Support Services, the Texas Office of the Attorney General’s Child Support Division, and at the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Child Support Enforcement.