The new Community Needs Assessment (CNA) online data tool can now be found within the CARES engagement network and features structural improvements to increase user experience. It still allows for mapping and reporting data, but has updated environments and easier data downloading features. They will be hosting a webinar on August 14, 2018 to give an online tour of the improved tool.

Visitors to this webpage can select states and territories in a drop down list or click on states and territories on an interactive map to view state caseload trends provided by The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE); the map links to IV-D Child Support Caseload Fact Sheets for each state of the United States and three territories. The source of the information on the fact sheets is the OCSE 157 Report.

In this Brookings Paper on Economic Activity, the authors focus on children within the safety net programs of Medicaid, EITC, CTC, SNAP, and TANF, and how federal money has shifted over time to currently benefit families with earnings above the poverty line. Because much research has been done on the substantial and lasting effects of poverty on child development and later well-being, current social net programs may be negatively affecting the poorest children. Over the past twenty years, funds allocated toward children have mostly remained the same, as have the number of children in poverty, but social program benefits have been shifting to benefit those at or above the poverty line more than those below it. While the authors do not discuss many policy implications, they emphasize the harm that cuts to these programs may do and promote adaptable reforms that quickly supplement income during recessionary times.

The Systems to Family Stability (SFS) National Academy was an OFA initiative that consisted of eight teams (comprised of state TANF agencies, OFA representatives, and subject matter experts) that were organized to design and build collaborative systems within and across agencies to improve family economic security. In this second of three videos that were produced as a result of this initiative, leaders from the SFS National Policy Academy offer advice and ideas on supporting change.

The Systems to Family Stability (SFS) National Academy was an OFA initiative that consisted of eight teams (comprised of state TANF agencies, OFA representatives, and subject matter experts) that were organized to design and build collaborative systems within and across agencies to improve family economic security. In this first of three videos that were produced as a result of this initiative, SFS National Policy Academy participants share practical tips and ideas based on how they implemented strategies to expand their agency's capacity and support system-wide changes.

Studying large public social programs can be a challenge for social scientists. Recent technological developments have allowed researchers to use big data — data sets that combine survey and administrative data — to examine how social programs work and how they affect their participants. One method by which researchers accomplish this is “text mining,” a process of finding patterns from large amounts of unstructured text data. In this report from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, researchers explore how text mining contributed to a better understanding of the behavior of families in the foster care system and the role of the courts on reunification.

In an ongoing project that seeks to improve a home-visiting programs for teenage mothers, preliminary results suggest some improvements in uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptives and lower rates of unprotected sex. Repeated, close-together births have been shown to have negative effects on the health and well-being of mothers and children, but research has begun to show that contraception and support services can decrease these numbers. The two-year Steps to Success program provided more resources around healthy birth spacing, father involvement, and educational and career aspirations than did traditional programs, but has not seen robust improvements above the control in these areas thus far.

A paper from Economic Mobility Pathways discusses the importance of setting high goals and standards when helping families navigate their way out of poverty. Coach-navigator programs that seek to build resiliency and decision making view high expectations as a self-fulfilling prophecy and a crucial step to success for struggling participants. Thus, coaching relationships are most effective when they hold people to ambitious yet achievable standards that participants then willingly work to strive toward.

A seven-year government project that researched ways to strengthen social services using principles from behavioral science, called Behavioral Insights to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS), recently ended and published a case study based on their field research. This workbook is designed to teach students and field practitioners about behavioral design and methodology. It provides information, exercises, and worksheets and asks readers to read first about different behavioral principles and then about a problem with a tax credit program. Using behavioral science, the publication works through the issue, proposes solutions, and ends with guided discussion questions for readers to ask themselves and their case study group. Questions pertain to readers’ newfound knowledge and insight into how to use behavioral principles to increase the efficacy of their own service provision in the future.