This Advisory, based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Treatment Improvement Protocol 42, Substance Use Disorder Treatment for People with Co-Occurring Disorders, presents guiding principles that counselors and administrators can follow to properly screen, assess, diagnose, and manage the treatment of individuals with co-occurring substance use and mental disorders.

The Urban Institute hosted a virtual webinar on March 31, 2021 which covered findings from a new resource guide for practitioners highlighting how youth-serving organizations adapted their programs to engage youth virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Presenters from Jewish Vocational Service, i.c.stars, Baltimore’s Promise, and the Urban Institute illustrated strategies that the organizations used to provide education and training, employment, career readiness, and mental health services remotely to youth and young adults ages 16 to 24.

This April 9, 2020 webinar, hosted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, was facilitated by Iain De Jong of OrgCode Consulting, Inc. The webinar highlighted several considerations for staff working in Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) programs to support individuals remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Webinar topics included: staff wellness; communicating with program participants; keeping connected; considerations regarding prioritizing time and who to serve; supporting harm reduction, financial matters, and landlords; helping with crisis planning, changing support plans; and addressing food security.

This report reviews lessons learned in the implementation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s seven-year Family-Centered Community Change (FCCC) initiative in Buffalo, New York; Columbus, Ohio; and San Antonio, Texas. The FCCC is an integrated two-generation service model offering child care, job training, and financial and employment services. The report presents lessons about collaborating, integrating services, and building strong partnerships at the community level.

The 20th Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS) was held virtually on October 13–15 and October 19–22, 2020. The conference sessions were organized in six thematic tracks: TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations; Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market; Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood; Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships; Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data; and Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity. A complete set of videos covering plenary and breakout sessions and a career panel is now available online.

The National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) will host its 39th annual conference titled “Protecting Our Children: Connectedness, Resilience, and Persistence” as a virtual event from April 11 to April 14, 2021. Conference participants will include child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice service providers; legal professionals; child advocates; and tribal, state, and federal leaders. Conference goals include highlighting successful strategies for developing effective services, innovative child welfare and children’s mental health service delivery practices, approaches for financing and sustaining children’s services, and strategies to engage youth and families in developing services and policies for systemic change. The conference will provide opportunities for peer networking to support work toward permanency for all American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) families, as well as time to share research on AI/AN children’s well-being and effective child welfare and children’s mental health services, practices, and policies. There is a conference registration fee.

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) model is premised on how an individual’s perception of fairness and how they were treated during judicial proceedings impact compliance with child support orders more than the perceived fairness of the outcome. Funded as part of a PJAC evaluation grant from the Office of Child Support Enforcement, these six research briefs prepared by MDRC assess lessons learned from the model’s implementation by the Georgia Department of Human Services, Division of Child Support Services.

This research-to-practice brief supports better understanding the intersection between child maltreatment and intimate partner violence so that comprehensive community-based prevention and intervention programs can be provided effectively. The brief notes the impact of domestic violence on children in the long-term and discusses how adult survivors of domestic violence and their children need support that promotes their well-being. The brief also outlines strategies for capacity building and collaboration implemented between child protection agencies and domestic violence programs in Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa, and Connecticut.

(See also Resources on "intimate partner violence" in the Resource Library)

Placement with kin is not always possible for endangered children who need to be removed from their homes, so child protection agencies utilize resource families. This research-to-practice brief highlights different approaches used to recruit and retain resource families. The brief covers three jurisdictions that have a high rate of family-based placements and a low rate of congregate care setting placements for children in need of protection: the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, and the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families.

The Administration for Children and Families supports Tribal Home Visiting Program grantees with capacity building to create and implement data systems. This brief presents an overview of data system challenges faced by tribal programs; a summary of data system technical assistance and resources offered to Tribal Home Visiting Program grantees; case studies that demonstrate how technical assistance improved tribal data system capacity; and recommendations for delivering data system technical assistance that is uniquely suited for tribal programs.