This report highlights findings from a process evaluation of the Urban Alliance’s High School Internship Program in Washington, DC, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, and Chicago. The Urban Alliance program model aims to empower economically disadvantaged high school seniors to aspire, work, and succeed. The program provides youth participants with workplace skills training, opportunities for internships to gain work experience, mentorship at the internship site, and coaching support from case managers during youths’ participation in the program as well as for program alumni. The findings of this first of three reports are drawn from interviews, focus groups, and surveys of participating students, case managers, and employers as well as a review of program and secondary data.

The Office of Family Assistance hosted a PeerTA webinar on Addressing Intergenerational Trauma among TANF Families on January 26, 2021. Understanding trauma and its transmission among families are critical considerations in human service delivery. Human services programs, including TANF, have a role to play in helping to mitigate and address the negative effects of intergenerational trauma through programming.

During this facilitated webinar, presenters defined intergenerational trauma and explored the ways in which trauma is transferred from parents to their children. Participants learned how TANF programs can minimize the impacts of intergenerational trauma, as well as heard about current research initiatives and from programs that are working to address intergenerational trauma in their communities. Presenters also examined the ways in which COVID-19 exacerbates trauma and strategies for TANF programs to identify and lessen these effects.

Presenters included Dr. Jessica Dym Bartlett and Dr. Dana Thomson, Child Trends; Dr. Mariana Chilton, Drexel University and Center for Hunger-Free Communities; Dr. Marla Conwell and Amber Hoyt, South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency (SPIPA); Alie Huxta, Associate Director of Partnerships and Strategic Planning; and Kevin Thomas, Jr., Associate Director of Operations and Asset Building, Building Wealth & Health Network. Dr. Nicole Bossard from ICF and TGC Consulting, Inc. facilitated the webinar.

This toolkit is a synthesis of a blogpost, reports, and links to previous webinars to offer health and human services leaders guidance as they design and evaluate programs targeting young families. The resources offered in this compendium are divided into several topics, including economic well-being, education, foster youth, mental health, pandemic response, policy, program design, and youth voice.

Developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework impacts how child- and family-serving programs operate and support healthy development and well-being. This brief highlights survey findings from organizational partners and members of the Strengthening Families National Network that may use the framework in their own community-based approaches. The survey results capture their viewpoints on community conditions that support child and family outcomes, including equal access to essential/basic needs, social support and connection, racial and social justice, and a change in the “social contract” toward involving community in bettering child and family well-being.

This research-to-practice brief discusses implementation of the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) employment model by the Family Service League in New York and Asian Human Services in Chicago during the COVID-19 pandemic. The IPS model was initially developed to provide employment services to individuals with serious mental illness, but is now used for a broader range of populations who have significant barriers to employment. Four core components of the IPS model are rapid job search, coordination between employment services staff and mental health providers, identification of client preferences in the types of jobs, and smaller caseloads for case workers. According to interviews with organization leaders, IPS implementation included embracing remote communications and video conferencing, offering initial help to the most vulnerable to support their health and safety, developing new employment plans, and actively matching employees and employers.

This U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime webpage discusses vicarious trauma and contains suggestions for coworkers and supervisors who may be experiencing vicarious trauma, as well as family members of victim service providers and first responders, who are also often affected by work-related trauma exposure. The webpage also highlights the Vicarious Trauma Toolkit (VTT), which introduces a new model for examining and conceptualizing the impact of vicarious trauma and the reactions and experiences of victim service providers and first responders. Included on the webpage is a sample of the 500 tools and resources from the VTT Compendium of Resources, which covers Education and Awareness, Prevalence and Risk Factors, and Impact. These resources are intended to support those working in victim services, emergency medical services, fire services, law enforcement, and other allied professions.

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

This report covers lessons learned from the first phase (January 2020 to September 2020) of the Southeastern Cohort on Young Parents and Families. The Cohort is an initiative aimed at enhancing and aligning programs, policies, and systems to better support young parents (ages 18-24) and their families in Georgia, Kentucky, and South Carolina. The report presents findings on four key areas: understanding and engaging young parents, continuous improvement through data and feedback, service collaboration and alignment, and service delivery adaptations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Association of Social Workers will host a webinar on January 28, 2021 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET which will review the child protection approach to child welfare. The webinar will review the effectiveness of the approach and how it offers a rights-based process of protecting children and providing services to child welfare clients and their families. The webinar also explores the implications of the approach on social work practice. A registration fee is required for this webinar.

This KIDS COUNT report utilizes survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau to measure how low-income households and children have been affected by COVID-19. The report first illustrates the rates of child well-being before and during the pandemic. The report also presents findings on health insurance coverage and mental health services access, and measures economic instability during the pandemic as well as data on changes in children’s learning environments since the pandemic’s start in spring 2020. The report then provides strategies that can be implemented at the federal and state levels to address future needs of families and children.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) will host a webinar on January 8, 2021 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET which will discuss their process for exploring vendor capacity to develop a state level holistic case management system across Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) partner programs. WIOA requires that American Job Center (AJC) partners support aligning technology and data systems to improve service delivery. Stakeholders, including workforce practitioners, local and state government representatives, ETA program operations professionals, and information technology professionals from AJC partners, are invited to participate in the discussion and ask questions. Presenters will include the Administrator and the Enterprise Program Advisor of the Office of Workforce Investment at the ETA.