In recognition of World Day for the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence, the Administration for Children and Families announced the launch of two new microlearnings developed for frontline professionals who work with children to strengthen screening for human trafficking and safety planning. As children who have already experienced abuse are at disproportionate risk for human trafficking through coercive online and offline schemes, professionals in child welfare and other youth-serving programs are in positions to identify the risks for exploitation early, promote healing, and strengthen resiliency. These are the new offerings:

• Human Trafficking Screening for Child Welfare Professionals
• Safety Planning and Multidisciplinary Response for Child Welfare Professionals

The 30-minute modules are designed to be quick, digestible, and interactive trainings for busy professionals. Their content is intended to support personnel in their everyday work of preventing and responding to human trafficking among children and youth — in foster care and in the broader community.

The Administration for Children and Families released this resource, which includes frequently asked questions with responses to help programs understand the process when applying for ACF funding and/or managing awards. Topics in this Frequently Asked Questions webpage include Application Process, Application Review Process, and Grants Management.

Section 304 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 requires all states to report the data necessary to produce outcome measures for work-eligible individuals who leave Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The interim final rule on TANF Work Outcomes Measures was published on June 28, 2024. The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted a webinar on July 24, 2024, where OFA presenters reviewed the new measures and provided technical guidance for preparing and submitting three new reports for the measures: Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report (quarterly), the required Secondary School Diploma or its Recognized Equivalent Attainment Rate (annually), and the Supplemental Work Outcomes Report (annually).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, human services agencies faced unique challenges to adapt services to meet new needs while supporting the staff delivering these services. The impact of this period is still felt today, with families adjusting to ending pandemic programs and communities experiencing human services workforce shortages. However, these challenges also spurred innovation in how people support each other. This Administration for Children and Families resource discusses how ACF catalyzed a new employee-centric program that has helped define their agency culture and advanced their work in communities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, workforce programs that provide employment and training services faced new challenges as they responded to public health restrictions and shifts in the needs of employers and job seekers. As part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies (BEES) project, researchers conducted virtual interviews from November 2021–April 2022 with staff members at 10 such programs to learn about how they used technology to adapt their services during the pandemic. Anticipating the end of restrictions on in-person service delivery as the pandemic slowed, many program staff members intended to maintain some of their newly developed virtual strategies, using a hybrid model that would blend in-person and virtual service delivery. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation snapshot highlights three lessons that demonstrate how workforce programs leveraged a crisis to create important opportunities for streamlining and improving services.

In Monroe County, New York, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and New York State’s Safety Net program work in tandem to provide temporary cash assistance to qualifying individuals who have low incomes. To maintain access to the assistance, those enrolled in these programs are required to attend a series of meetings and activities intended to assess program applicants’ needs and connect them to services the county believes help people move toward economic self-sufficiency.

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency-Next Generation (BIAS-NG) project aims to make human services programs work better for the people receiving services by reshaping program processes using lessons from behavioral science. The BIAS-NG team worked with Monroe County staff members to design and test two interventions that aimed to increase the attendance at required activities aforementioned. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report describes the experiences of participants before the interventions, the steps of developing interventions informed by behavioral science, and the implementation and evaluation of those interventions.

States, counties, and tribes are modernizing their child support programs through holistic, family-centered policies and practices that build partnerships with parents instead of adversarial relationships. They go beyond collecting money to address underlying reasons for nonpayment, ensure that children benefit from payments, and facilitate effective co-parenting. Family-centered child support policies put children where they belong: at the center of child support policymaking. The Centering Child Well-Being in Child Support Policy toolkit, developed by Ascend at Aspen Institute, features new analysis of state child support director survey data. The toolkit offers innovations on: 

1. Family Distribution,
2. Reducing Arrears,
3. Right-Sizing Orders,
4. Income Supports,
5. Supporting Healthy Co-Parenting, and 
6. Providing Equal Access to Justice.

The Department of Labor announced up to $40 million in grants available for national out-of-school time organizations to expand local work-based learning opportunities, job training and career pathways for underserved youth during non-school hours. The Workforce Pathways for Youth demonstration grants will help these organizations partner with state or locally operated affiliate organizations that serve historically marginalized and underserved youth, ages 14 to 21. Priority will be given to organizations serving Native American youth.

Through the partnerships, out-of-school time organizations will introduce youth to career-related services, and provide work-based learning experiences and occupational skills training. They will also offer unsubsidized employment placements to increase opportunities for youth to gain the skills they need to be successful in post-secondary education and employment. The program also encourages partners across the workforce system to provide supportive services to address the mental health needs of participating youth.

Child support programs across the country serve millions of families with low incomes. They establish paternity and child support orders, and they collect child support payments that can help increase family financial stability and contribute to positive long-term outcomes for children. However, many parents with child support obligations struggle to make regular payments. This can result in less financial support for their children, strained parenting relationships, and a potentially substantial accumulation of debt. This Building Evidence on Employment Strategies brief describes the efforts of two county child support agencies in Ohio to increase the availability of supportive services to parents who owe child support, with the goals of improving their employment outcomes, increasing their ability to meet their child support obligations, and improving their relationships with their children. This brief is a part of the BEES Project, which is studying a range of approaches to improve economic mobility and stability for families.

This MDRC toolkit provides guidance, drawn from learning and experience, on how to use data to inform program improvements. It collects concrete strategies and practitioner-tested tools designed to advance these efforts. These materials were developed in pilot projects with local Temporary Assistance for Needy Families agencies as part of the TANF Data Collaborative (TDC).

It is organized according to the five phases of completing a data analytics project used in the TDC’s framework:

1. Laying the Groundwork
2. Accessing the Data
3. Preparing the Data
4. Analyzing the Data
5. Communicating the Results