This brief highlights an evaluation of the Healthy Food Alliance for Early Education (HFAEE), a program designed to improve nutrition and health practices in early care and education centers and the homes of children facing food insecurity in St. Louis, Missouri. The brief describes the HFAEE program, its approach, and findings from the program evaluation. Considerations for equitable community work, based on the HFAEE model, are also identified to guide similar community efforts.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes the experiences of six employment programs participating in the Next Generation of Enhanced Employment Strategies (NextGen) Project. The brief presents key takeaways from their efforts to maintain and develop new connections with employers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Four of the programs serve people with mental illness; one serves TANF participants with disabilities or who care for dependents with disabilities; and one serves young adults with disabilities who are transitioning from school to work. The brief offers lessons for other employment programs about promising strategies for working with employers that might endure beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Office of Family Assistance has released tables that provide demographic data on the age, gender, and race/ethnicity of adults and children in TANF, Separate State Program-Maintenance-of-Effort active families, and closed cases, as well as data on the financial circumstances of TANF cash assistance recipients for Federal fiscal year 2020. The data is presented for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Guam.

This fact sheet provides an overview of key findings from a Child Trends evaluation of two Team Decision Making (TDM) implementation sites and offers broader implications for the child welfare field. TDM is a model developed by agency staff to inform decision when deciding whether to remove a child from their home due to suspected abuse or neglect. TDM values serving families in a culturally sensitive, community-based, and minimally disruptive way by considering the needs and strengths of each child and family. The study relied on several data sources, including child welfare administrative data, a survey completed by workers after each case, a database of TDM meeting information entered by facilitators, and interviews and focus groups with workers, agency leaders, and community members.

These briefs are blueprint fact sheets showcasing the accomplishments of peers and stakeholders in implementing a whole family approach at seven Community Action Agencies: Aroostook County Action Program (Presque Isle, Maine), Blueprints (Washington, Pennsylvania), Community Action, Inc. (Topeka, Kansas), Community Action Project of Tulsa County (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, California), Mahube-Otwa Community Action Partnership (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota), and People, Inc. (Abingdon, Virginia). Each brief details the agency, its area demographics, its whole family approach with a highlight of the program’s innovation story, successes, a profile of a program participant, challenges, wisdom (lessons learned), the program’s building block focus, and a timeline for implementation.

This blogpost references a Generations United report’s policy and practice recommendations on how to better support grandfamilies. Included in the report are findings from the first nationwide survey of grandfamilies during COVID-19, which revealed heightened needs related to housing, food insecurity, and alternative care plans. The report contains policy and practice recommendations that would provide better support to these families, such as increases in TANF funding for monthly child-only grants to mirror foster care maintenance payments and improved access to TANF child-only grants through a simplified application process and expanded community outreach. The report also depicts racial overrepresentation in grandfamilies, and the blogpost highlights the benefits of kin caregiving.

As part of the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation sought to identify new and promising approaches to supporting fathers working toward economic stability and improved relationships with their children. This report presents findings and lessons from one part of the B3 study: a rigorous evaluation of the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Justice Involved Individuals Seeking Employment (CBI-Emp). CBI-Emp is an intervention that applies cognitive behavioral skill building to help people who have been involved in the justice system maintain employment. The report builds on previously released findings about the implementation of the CBI-Emp curriculum and summarizes the implementation results and lessons learned. The report also describes the effects of the curriculum and provides estimates of program costs.

The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) is convening its annual conference as a hybrid event from November 13 to November 16, 2021. Attendees have the option of attending any session, which will either be live-streamed or in-person at the conference’s venue in Atlanta, Georgia. A registration fee applies to both NAEHCY members and non-members.

Home visiting programs have been shown to support healthy child development, increase family economic independence and positive parenting practices, and decrease child maltreatment. This research-to-practice brief examines the evidence of impact of the SafeCare® model, a home visiting program implemented by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) and the Arkansas Department of Human Services (ADHS). The OKDHS and ADHS experiences offer insights and lessons for other jurisdictions considering SafeCare as part of the Title IV-E Prevention Plan under the Family First Prevention Services Act.

This report is an evaluation of Warren County, Ohio’s Child Assessment and Response Evaluation (CARE) project, a 24/7 rapid-response intervention for children at the scene of an overdose of a parent or loved one. It describes how CARE improved perceptions of children services and strengthened the existing foundation of cross-agency collaboration. The evaluation draws upon surveys and interviews with first responders, emergency dispatch, children services officials, and families affected by substance use disorders.