Earlier this year, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) convened in Georgia for the 2024 National Fatherhood Summit and brought together fathers; fatherhood practitioners and advocates; federal, state, and local government leaders; tribal representatives; social services agency representatives; researchers; and representatives from institutions of higher learning from across the nation to share knowledge, best practices, and innovative strategies for engaging and supporting dads. Over two and a half days, participants immersed themselves in a community of passionate changemakers as they explored cutting-edge research, impactful program models, and policy recommendations. Participants uncovered ways to enhance services and systems that empower fathers to be an active, loving presence in their children's lives and pillars of strength in their communities.

OFA has released this webpage that reflects the agenda for the 2024 Summit and contains materials and recordings (as available, with permission) for sessions

With institutional cultures that are rooted in family, community, and holistic supports, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) are uniquely positioned to catalyze the systemic change needed to better support Black and Native student parents. Ascend at the Aspen Institute established the Black and Native Family Futures Fund to provide funding and expert technical assistance to eight HBCU and TCU partners. Ascend is hosting a webinar on November 14, 2024 at 12:00 p.m. ET where student parents and leaders from some of the Fund partners will discuss key themes including the importance of family-like environments, student parent expertise, and the support of leadership.

To address the critical need for support for Native American people who have experienced human trafficking, the Administration for Children and Families’ Office on Trafficking in Persons established the Demonstration Grants to Strengthen the Response to Victims of Human Trafficking in Native Communities (VHT-NC) Program. The program aims to build, expand, and sustain organizational and community capacity to deliver services to Native American people who have experienced human trafficking. In 2020, six VHT-NC projects received awards to provide culturally responsive and trauma-informed participant outreach and identification, comprehensive case management and service provision, and training to respond to human trafficking in their communities. This Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation brief provides examples of the culturally responsive approaches the VHT-NC projects took with regard to project staffing, education and training, outreach, and case management and supportive services. Within these four programming components, the brief describes the culturally responsive approaches used, identifies the challenges the projects encountered and potential suggestions to address them, and highlights the potential benefits and strengths of these culturally responsive approaches.

Incentive-based strategies can significantly enhance participation in fatherhood programs, particularly when they are tailored to meet the specific needs of the program’s target population. However, these strategies must be carefully designed to combine immediate rewards with strategies that balance the use of incentives with efforts to foster intrinsic motivation and personal autonomy. This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse resource discusses the impact of fatherhood programs that integrate incentives into program activities and regular assessments of the incentive strategies.

This Office of Research, Planning and Evaluation report describes the design of the NextGen Project, which is evaluating the effectiveness of four programs that provide services for people with physical, mental, or emotional health challenges. Many of the people are potential applicants for Supplemental Security Income. The four programs highlighted are:
• Bridges from School to Work;
• Individual Placement and Support for Adults with Justice Involvement;
• Philadelphia Workforce Inclusion Networks; and
• Western Mass Mental Health Outreach for MotherS PartnershipSM.

The Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) is releasing a series of stakeholder resources that analyzes data from the 2023 Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (CPS-CSS). In 2023, the CPS-CSS added new questions for custodial parents about their experience working with the child support program. This OCSS resource explains the custodial parents experience with the child support program, and highlights reasons why parents reported difficulty accessing the child support program.

Survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking need access to education and job training programs that are grounded in trauma-informed practices. Futures Without Violence hosted a webinar in January 2022 and focused on recognizing barriers to employment and education for survivors and strategies for building strong cross-sector collaborations between advocacy service providers and workforce development programs.

Very few domestic violence survivors are getting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) waivers from the work requirements and time limits, despite being eligible. Federal law allows states to grant domestic violence waivers to TANF recipients when time limits, work requirements, and other policies would unfairly penalize victims of abuse or increase their risk of abuse. This Rutgers resource was developed through an examination of the annual reports from Michigan to the federal government on the number of domestic violence waivers issued from 2008 to 2021, as well as focus groups with TANF caseworkers. This resource discusses the importance of waivers for survivors and other work being done around this issue.

The goal of the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) Economic Justice and
Domestic Violence Advisory Council is a long-term, in-depth collaboration of national experts in the domestic violence (DV) field working to advance survivors’ economic empowerment and financial well-being. NNEDV virtually gathered those working at the intersection of DV and economic justice to identify gaps and strategize ways to expand awareness and
solutions through recommendations. These recommendations include:

1. Expanding funding for culturally specific programs;
2. Increasing survivors’ access to flexible funds;
3. Employers should have a workplace policy specifically addressing DV;
4. DV programs and advocates should receive training in intimate partner violence and workplace safety; and
5. Reformations to public policies.