This report describes the first year of activities of the 14 tribes and tribal organizations who in 2011 received demonstration grants from the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) for Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect.  The overarching goal of the Study of Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services is to document the way in which the tribal grantees are creating and adapting culturally relevant and appropriate approaches, systems, and programs to increase coordination and enhance service delivery to address child abuse and neglect.

Low-income families such as those who qualify for TANF are generally at greater risk for child maltreatment than other families. Since many families are involved with both the welfare (TANF) and child welfare (CW) systems, TANF and CW agencies are ideal partners to coordinate efforts to provide services that can address family risk factors, as TANF is intended not only to encourage parents to improve their socio-economic status, but also to provide stable homes. The funded projects were expected to focus on one or more of the following services: (1) improved case management for families eligible for assistance from a Tribal TANF program; (2) supportive services and assistance to tribal children in out-of-home placements and the tribal families caring for such children, including adoptive families; and (3) prevention services and assistance to tribal families at risk of child abuse and neglect. (author abstract)

This Portfolio of Research in Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency describes the major research projects of the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation’s Division of Economic Independence. The Portfolio is divided into four sections – TANF and the Safety Net, Employment and the Labor Market, Education and Training and Other and Cross-Cutting Research. This document provides detailed summaries of OPRE’s ongoing welfare and family self-sufficiency research efforts along with brief overviews of past projects. The report also describes OPRE’s efforts to disseminate rigorous research on welfare and family self-sufficiency topics.  This Portfolio covers OPRE-funded projects for Fiscal Year 2012. (author abstract)

Services to help people find work are a common element of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other programs, but evidence on the effectiveness of different approaches is limited. This report presents options for designing a rigorous evaluation of the impact of job search assistance for low-income workers. It describes several broad designs, using both individual- and group-randomized experimental designs, and concludes with a discussion of the tradeoffs when considering research questions, technical merit, practical merit, and policy relevance. Abt Associates prepared the report. (author abstract)

This brief from the National Center on Family Homelessness provides an overview of ways TANF can be used to help homeless families find and maintain stable housing. It explains the difficulty which some homeless families experience when attempting to access TANF while also offering examples of state programs effectively building partnerships between TANF and homeless service providers. While it is intended for housing service providers and gives a basic overview of TANF, the suggestions for collaboration would be useful to TANF stakeholders seeking to address the needs of homeless families with local service providers.