Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs often serve young people who are expected to move toward independence while still developing basic skills needed for adulthood, such as managing money, maintaining housing, or making informed health and education decisions. This curriculum by the Virginia Department of Social Services offers a structured way to support that work through practical, ready-to-use workshops organized around key life domains like career preparation, money management, housing, education, health and nutrition, and risk prevention.

For TANF practitioners, the value is in the curriculum’s usability. Each topic includes multiple workshops with facilitator guides and supporting materials, which reduces the burden on staff to design programming from scratch. It can be used flexibly across settings: case management, group workshops, or partner-led programming.

Instead of relying on informal coaching or uneven program content, staff can use a shared curriculum that supports repeatable instruction across participants and sites. This helps create more continuity in services, especially for youth who need reinforcement over time rather than single-touch interventions.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners often need a clear way to identify what a participant can already do independently and where support is still needed, especially when working with youth and young adults. This Casey Family Programs toolkit provides that structure in a straightforward way for use in everyday case management. It helps translate broad goals like “become self-sufficient” into specific skill areas such as budgeting, communication, and managing daily responsibilities. The value for TANF work is that it creates a shared language between staff and participants, making progress easier to see and track. It also helps engage clients by turning abstract expectations into visible, achievable steps.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs frequently serve youth who are moving into adulthood without stable family support; basic planning around housing, money, and daily decision-making can determine whether they stabilize or cycle through crisis. This FosterClub toolkit gives TANF practitioners something concrete to use in those moments. It turns “transition planning” into practical activities that can be used directly in coaching sessions, rather than requiring staff to design their own materials. This toolkit addresses how young people are expected to navigate independence without structured, hands-on preparation. Practitioners can use it to make conversations more actionable and to help participants build real-world readiness step by step.

This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network tipsheet focuses on how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can support children living with relatives or caregivers who are not receiving full family benefits. It fills a key gap for kinship families who often step in without financial preparation. TANF practitioners can use these strategies to design or improve child-only grants, ensuring support reaches the child without creating unnecessary barriers for caregivers. It also helps staff think through policy and implementation choices that better reflect the realities of kinship care.

The National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) provides data on outcomes for youth transitioning out of foster care, including education, employment, and housing. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, this is a practical tool for understanding where youth are struggling and what supports are working. TANF staff can use this data to refine programs, target services, and make the case for specific supports like employment or life skills programming. It helps shift practice from reactive to data informed and provides insight into achieving long-term outcomes.

In December 2025, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) sent letters to 39 governors, calling for immediate action to protect vulnerable foster youth in their states. The letters highlighted the pressing issue of state child welfare agencies diverting foster youths’ earned Social Security survivor benefits. These agencies were intercepting federal benefits, such as Social Security survivor benefits earned through a deceased parent’s lifetime contributions, that were intended for a child in foster care. The agencies then used these funds to reimburse their own costs.

ACF has notified the governors who allowed this practice and is working with states to end it. The goal is to ensure these earned benefits are no longer taken from foster youth and are instead preserved to support them as they transition out of state care.

The National Youth Employment Coalition will host a webinar on May 14, 2026 at 2:30 p.m. to assist workforce development professionals with better understanding and responding to the emotional experiences of young people. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners working with youth and young adults, especially those facing instability or major life transitions, emotional regulation and communication can directly affect engagement in employment and supportive services. This webinar will provide practical evidence-based strategies staff can use to build trust, improve communication, and create more supportive interactions with youth participants.

Financial instability among older adults is becoming an increasingly important issue for many families served by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), particularly in multigenerational and kinship households. The Institute for Research on Poverty will host a webinar on May 20, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. ET to examine challenges such as poverty, food insecurity, and housing instability among older adults while also discussing policy strategies that can improve their economic security. For TANF practitioners, the webinar will provide helpful context for understanding how financial hardship affects entire family systems, including grandparents and older caregivers raising children. This webinar can also support conversations around cross-system collaboration, benefit access, and service planning for households that may be balancing caregiving responsibilities with economic strain.