The Child Support Enforcement program strengthens families by securing support from noncustodial parents for their children. For noncustodial parents with steady employment and financial resources, the program can work well, but the child support system works less well for noncustodial parents who cannot pay and face barriers to employment. This brief examines how policies impact families required to participate in child support and noncustodial parents who cannot afford to pay, and it highlights five innovations aiming to improve the way the child support system interacts with low-income noncustodial parents and their children.

The National Community Action Partnership will host a webinar on January 12, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET to help Community Action Agencies (CAAs) learn more about how to get involved with the Learning Communities Resource Center (LCRC) in the next cycle of sharing and learning opportunities for the Community Action CSBG Network. LCRC is an innovation hub that works with CAAs to identify effective, promising, and innovative practice models that combat the causes and conditions of poverty. Participating individuals and agencies will have the opportunity to develop innovative anti-poverty approaches, improve programs, and sharpen service delivery strategies specific to the needs of local communities. The webinar will also cover upcoming events, cohort topics, new resources, and application process questions.

This fact sheet provides a brief overview of findings from a study of challenges and strategies for young people (ages 14 to 24) seeking support from key safety net programs. The fact sheet draws findings based primarily on a series of conversations with young people and staff members of youth-serving organizations. Young people and staff members identified key challenges with safety net policies and practices that do not reflect the needs or developmental life stage of young people. The resource also provides context about how structural racism affects people’s experiences with the safety net. Strategies for simplifying access and supporting young people in navigating processes, empowering and supporting young people in decision making, replacing punitive approaches with support and minimized burden, and making structural changes are also presented.

On June 7 and 10, 2021, the Children’s Bureau and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) brought experts together virtually to discuss findings from the Building Co-Regulation Capacity to Support Positive Development for Youth with Foster Care Experience report. Participants included child welfare program directors, researchers with expertise in self-regulation and child development, federal staff, foster parents, and therapists, with several attendees having lived experience in the child welfare system.

The Child and Family Data Archive and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation hosted a webinar on January 19, 2022 on the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE) and Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation-Strong Start (MIHOPE-Strong Start). MIHOPE was launched in 2011 to assess the effectiveness of early childhood home visiting funded by the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. MIHOPE-Strong Start was launched in 2012 to evaluate the effectiveness of evidence-based home visiting (MIECHV- and non-MIECHV-funded) in improving birth outcomes and health outcomes during pregnancy and the year after birth. The webinar provided an overview of MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start; MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start research design and key findings; information on the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start restricted access files; protections for the restricted access files; and information on accessing the MIHOPE and MIHOPE-Strong Start datasets and MIHOPE video files.

This report presents findings from a national survey of families with children ages 0-17 living at home who were eligible to receive the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC). Conducted in October 2021, the survey asked parents questions about tax filing behavior, receipt of monthly CTC payments, how the monthly payments have impacted their family, and how families are hearing about the CTC. The survey was designed in consultation with representatives of the Children’s Defense Fund, the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the Center for Law and Social Policy, National Women’s Law Center, Prosperity Now, and the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service has granted waivers to allow states to issue emergency SNAP allotments (supplements) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These waivers are only granted when a state also issued an emergency or disaster declaration. This guidance identifies all the COVID-19 waivers, listed by each state, that have been granted from October 1, 2021 through December 3, 2021. Emergency Allotments questions and answers and other resource materials are also provided.

This Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast offers insights from the National Native Children's Trauma Center for caseworkers and agencies that are working or will work with Indigenous communities to support children and families. It also covers why Indian Child Welfare Act provisions cannot be implemented the same way for every tribe or nation with which state and local child welfare professionals work, how historical trauma within Native and tribal communities is strongly connected to intergenerational trauma, and what guidance state and local child welfare caseworkers and agencies can use when engaging with Native families and communities. Additional resources are provided for reference.

Many workers in hourly front-line retail and food service jobs have been subject to low pay and few benefits for decades. More recently, these workers' challenges have been compounded by increasingly unstable and unpredictable work schedules due to shifts cancelled or shortened with little notice, inconsistent days or times of day they are expected to work, little advance notice when schedules are posted, or having to be on-call without a guarantee of being paid. This policy brief illustrates how schedule unpredictability has a direct connection to how often workers struggle to provide adequate food, housing, and medical care for themselves and their families. The brief also notes how instability can also affect workers' ability to access social safety net programs.

This Children’s Bureau resource guide recognizes that there are actions that communities, organizations, and families can take to address the root causes of child abuse and neglect. It highlights innovative ways that communities conduct purposeful prevention work to help children and families thrive using a protective factors approach. This approach focuses on positive ways to engage families by emphasizing their strengths and by identifying areas where they have room to grow with support. The guide includes English and Spanish versions of conversation guides that help to engage parents and caregivers in personalized conversations with service providers about protective factors and how they want to care for their children and themselves.