Successful reintegration into society following engagement with the criminal justice system depends on being able to meet basic needs including those for food, shelter, and medical care, as well as having access to employment and training programs. According to this brief, TANF and SNAP are critical programs that help people meet their basic needs. However, people who have been incarcerated usually face significant challenges and are frequently disqualified from receiving benefits from these programs. Public assistance such as TANF and SNAP consistently reduces recidivism, while banning access to assistance has been linked to increases in recidivism. Lifting the ban on safety net supports reduces material hardship for formerly incarcerated people, who are exceedingly paid low earnings, and also helps their families. The brief includes a discussion of which states have lifted or modified the ban and highlights one state that had previously lifted the ban and then partially reinstated it.

This letter from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to its colleagues states that losing a parent or caregiver has become an ongoing tragedy for children and youth caused by the co-occurring COVID-19 and drug overdose crises, as well as increases in suicides and homicides. ACF is committed to partnering with grant recipients and state and local stakeholders to ensure that children, youth, and families who have lost a parent or caregiver are supported and connected with the services and resources they need to find stability again. The letter includes a list of resources and programs such as TANF to support families after parent and caregiver loss.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) are aware of increasing reports of benefit theft through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card skimming schemes. These agencies are also aware of the devastating impact the loss of benefits can have on participating households. FNS and ACF encourage states to use fraud prevention options by informing and enabling Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) households to opt into card security services that proactively protect their cards and PINs. This FNS resource identifies prevention measures that can be adopted to improve EBT card security while working towards longer-term strategies. Included in the resource are a list of card security services for client households, and a recommended list of actions state agencies can take to protect clients.

Social services programs are increasingly looking for ways to forecast which participants are likely to reach major milestones so they can tailor services and allocate resources. In recent years, some programs have explored advanced predictive modeling approaches that harness potentially millions of data points and may incorporate machine learning: a variety of algorithms that determine relationships between prediction measures and the outcome. While there is potential for social service programs to use advanced models, MDRC’s Center for Data Insights (CDI) has found that such methods are not always better at making reliable predictions and come with trade-offs. This post outlines CDI’s approach to predictive analytics, using illustrations from two studies: Career Pathways, a workforce training program, and Child First, a home visiting program.

This report details how states across the country are using flexible State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) to boost income security, particularly for those who face structural barriers to building wealth and income and have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. States have used some of this federal aid to expand income security programs, for example by increasing cash benefits provided through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), savings accounts for children from low-income families and people with low incomes, and one-time cash payments targeted to those with low incomes. By strengthening and expanding these programs with FRF, states can continue to improve the current and long-term well-being of individuals and families.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) will host its Annual Tribal Consultation meeting in person and virtually on Monday, October 31, 2022. During the session, ACF leadership will speak with Tribal leaders and discuss issues important to the tribes and ACF tribal program priorities. The in-person meeting will take place at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento, California from 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon PT. Virtual participation will also occur at 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Alaska time, 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. MT, 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. CT, and 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET.

Unprecedented levels of burnout and turnover are an unfortunate reality for many human services organizations today. Agencies are feeling the effects of staffing shortages and a shrinking pool of quality candidates to fill their vacant positions. Solving this crisis will require stakeholders – agencies sharing ideas and best practices, vendors, and consultants – to collaborate with one another. This brief cites examples of how states are employing multi-pronged strategies to address these issues.

Millions of food and cash assistance customers rely on cash transfers each month to meet their family’s needs. Much of today’s benefits available to families are deposited directly onto Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards that are assigned to customers. EBT card skimming is a growing challenge to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participants, putting them at risk of losing crucial benefits. Challenges related to protecting beneficiaries from theft have increased for human services programs as they seek to improve the level of customer protections similar to those afforded credit cards.

The Office of Family Assistance Project IMPROVE team hosted a webinar in November 2022 that brought together a panel representing TANF and SNAP programs as well as experts on EBT card skimming prevention. Panelists discussed ways agencies can educate participants on how to protect their benefits from theft, and responded to questions around challenges, best practices, and lessons learned. Panelists included: Michael Cole, Deputy Commissioner for Policy & Programs, Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance; Jennifer Reynolds, Program Manager, Utah Department of Workforce Services; Kristi Manseau, Program Specialist, Utah Department of Workforce Services; and Ernest Baca, Deputy Systems Administrator, Arizona Department of Economic Security.

When it comes to cash transfer programs like welfare for single parents and especially mothers, most of the evaluation and economic modeling efforts have focused on how those programs impact the amount of paid work single parents do. However, there has been less attention to the value of parental time and how that matters for children’s development. This podcast from the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison features Joseph Mullins, an economist at the University of Minnesota, who developed an economic model for U.S. cash transfer programs that attempts to place an accurate value on parents’ time when assessing cash transfer programs.

Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process and a mindset for addressing complex problems by designing solutions with those who will ultimately use the solution (i.e., end users). Because of its inherent focus on end users or recipients of services, HCD appears to have potential for promoting effective, efficient, and compassionate service delivery that is aligned with the mission of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

In 2018, ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) initiated the Human-Centered Design for Human Services (HCD4HS) project to explore the viability of HCD in addressing the complex problems facing public sector human services programs. This project included a review of the knowledge base to define HCD and describe how it has been used and evaluated in the human services context, and a pilot study to evaluate the implementation of HCD, with a focus on assessing its evaluability. This report presents the findings from this pilot study.