On Monday, March 2, 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced its second round of 811 Project Rental Assistance (PRA) awards of $150,369,989 in rental assistance to 25 state housing agencies. In turn, the state agencies will provide permanent affordable rental housing and needed supportive services to approximately 4,584 households who are extremely low-income persons with disabilities, many of whom are at high risk of homelessness or transitioning out of institutional settings. A list of the 25 state agencies that were awarded funding is included in HUD’s press release.

The Future of Children at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution released a research report that highlights the causes of food insecurity among children and examines the effectiveness of public policies aimed at addressing this issue.

This report discusses the Behavioral Interventions to Advance in Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, which utilizes tools from behavioral economics to improve the livelihood of low-income individuals and their families. The report illustrates how the project draws on principles of behavioral economics to develop solutions for ACF programs and shares insights from three case studies.

In this blog entry from the Brookings Center on Children and Families, Budgeting for National Priorities, Ron Haskins introduces a two-pronged approach to substantially reduce poverty rates. He argues that the combination of work and work-support elements of the current system reinforce one another and contribute to alleviating poverty. Haskins also references his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on the same subject.

The Family Engagement Inventory (FEI) is an interactive web-based tool aimed at familiarizing professionals in child welfare, juvenile justice, behavioral health, and other professions with the competencies for family engagement as it relates across the different fields of practice. The primary purpose of the FEI is to combine knowledge in a way that supports professionals in engaging with families.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians (CTSI) requested TA from the PeerTA Network to assist in training their TANF and child welfare staff on the wraparound case management process – an intensive, individualized care management process for individuals with complex behavioral needs and/or significant work barriers. CTSI requested a site visit in which an outside trainer visited the Tribal agency to provide wraparound training. OFA PeerTA supported a facilitated site visit for the Center for Improvement of Child and Family Services, School of Social Work, Portland State University to provide CTSI with a 3-4 day onsite training focusing on wraparound case management.

This report discusses a study conducted by The Children’s Defense Fund and the Urban Institute. The purpose of the study was to estimate the rate at which child poverty could be reduced by using various comprehensive policies. Some of the policies included increasing the minimum wage, expanding subsidized housing and child care, and more.

The ACF blog - The Family Room - talks about new initiatives at the agency, success stories and policy announcements. The blog also provides links that help direct viewers to other parts of ACF's website.

This overview from ACF provides a summary of the current ongoing Early Head Start University Partnership grant program. It contains a link to the programs selected as part of the most recent research grant. The purpose of the grants is to test interventions designed to mitigate the effects of toxic stress on young children. Early Head Start was chosen as a vehicle to test these interventions since it is already designed to meet the needs of families below the poverty line with very young children.

Published by the Center for Housing Policy, this report provides guidance on how housing authorities can implement both behavioral and cognitive science in improving programs. In addition, it offers direction that public housing authorities (PHAs) can utilize to design self-sufficiency programs aimed at meeting the needs of chronically low-income households.