The Fathers & Families Coalition of America will host its 23rd Annual National Conference as a hybrid event from March 8 to March 11, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. The conference will feature a Roundtable Series covering child support, engaging families, child welfare, disparities in education, and local to national policy impacting practices; 10 Workshop Strands; and Fireside General Sessions. Also included are credential or certificate programs and networking opportunities. Conference registration includes a fee for in-person and virtual participants.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is soliciting applications for the Fiscal Year 2022 Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Grant Program. Funding is intended for tribal entities that do not have prior experience with implementing evidence-based home visiting models, performance measurement systems, and continuous quality improvement activities.

Grant funds will support 63-month grants between ACF and federally-recognized Indian tribes (or a consortium of Indian tribes), tribal organizations, or urban Indian organizations. The grants will support activities including conducting needs assessments, developing infrastructure, providing home visiting programs, and strengthening early childhood systems of support. The anticipated project start date is July 1, 2022. Applications are due April 15, 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated housing instability for families with low incomes and created an even greater need for affordable, stable housing. Two-generation programs, which strive to end intergenerational poverty by supporting both parents and children living in the same household to improve life outcomes for the whole family, are one model of effective collaboration to increase housing stability. This blogpost, based on research on multiple two-generation partnerships, identifies four key elements to using two-generational programs to promote housing stability.

Do you lead, work in, or know of an employment and training program that integrates financial capability interventions into its services? Financial capability interventions include:

• Financial education
• Financial coaching
• Financial counseling
• Credit counseling
• Or access to emergency savings programs, safe and affordable financial products, asset-building programs, or tax preparation assistance

MEF Associates and its subcontractor, the Urban Institute, in partnership with the OPRE, invite nominations of employment and training programs to participate in a survey to better understand how financial capability interventions are delivered in the context of employment and training (E&T) programs serving adults with low incomes. This survey is being conducted as part of the Integrating Financial Capability and Employment Services project.

Self-nominations or nominations of others are both welcome. Nominations can be sent to IntegratedFinCap@mefassociates.com. Please include the name of the program and contact information, if known.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Chapin Hall, and Casey Families partnered to host an expert roundtable on June 23 and 24, 2021. The roundtable, “Toward an Analytic Framework to Address Economic-Related Risk Factors in Child Welfare,” had two objectives: 1) create an analytic framework and identify tools to help jurisdictions deploy resources to address economic risk factors for child maltreatment and 2) identify steps to develop the data capacity and infrastructure needed to implement the analytic framework. This brief summarizes the roundtable, providing an overview of the conversation and highlighting the resulting action steps.

This policy brief establishes a framework to modernize health and human services agencies, realigning siloed programs and services focused on important, but segmented, aspects of community needs. In this Roadmap, the American Public Human Services Association identifies four essential components that must work in tandem to create inroads to genuine system alignment to support young families.

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, in partnership with the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy and the National Academy for State Health Policy, conducted an intensive, multi-state technical assistance project on statewide approaches to address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) across the lifespan. This paper highlights lessons learned from states that served as models for statewide approaches that prevent and address ACEs and the development of trauma-informed policies (Alaska, California, New Jersey, and Tennessee). The paper also addresses the goals, policy, and programs developed and launched by states that were selected for the project (Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming).

This brief focuses on the challenges and opportunities that the Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First) offers to accelerate the shift toward a prevention-oriented child well-being system. The brief includes recommendations which focus on three key aspects of Family First implementation: the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse, aligning systems through a primary prevention lens, and building capacity to successfully administer Family First.

The Fathers and Continuous Learning in Child Welfare (FCL) project sought to improve placement stability and permanency outcomes for children by engaging their fathers and paternal relatives. FCL implemented a methodology known as the Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC), a continuous learning methodology. The first of a three-part series, this podcast discusses strategies implemented in one agency participating in the BSC in Hartford, Connecticut to create a culture in their child welfare system that prioritizes thinking about and engaging fathers and paternal relatives. The podcast covers the benefits of including community partners and fatherhood advocates in Connecticut’s improvement team.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report shares findings from the feasibility study of implementing a Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC), an innovative continuous quality improvement methodology, in Early Care and Education (ECE) centers. The feasibility study explored how ECE centers (such as child care centers and Head Start) participated in BSC quality improvement activities and the extent to which the BSC promoted changes in individual practices and organizational dynamics. The study also assessed the process of implementing a BSC in ECE centers, whether participating centers developed a culture of continuous improvement, and how the BSC fostered sustained changes in workplace climate and individual practices to support children’s social and emotional learning.