This interactive tool provided by the National Center for Children in Poverty allows users to identify current legislation and policies across states regarding these following key policy areas and others: child care and development fund subsidies, family and medical leave, SNAP eligibility, Medicaid income limits, and TANF eligibility criteria. The tracker enables policy and decision makers to learn about policies in the social and poverty domain.

The Urban Institute was contracted by a Washington State housing authority to evaluate its 2013-2016 Student and Family Stability Initiative that provided supportive housing and employment to homeless or vulnerable families with elementary-aged children. Case management for those willing to work was combined with short-term financial assistance for housing-related costs, like searching or moving expenses. The program successfully raised participants’ income and promoted housing stability and income gains after the program ended, but also had high attrition rates. Households that opted out, failed to find housing, or failed to complete the program because they fell out of touch with case managers represent areas for programmatic improvement. The program may be more cost-efficient than providing long-term assistance like Housing Choice Vouchers, but it was difficult to understand how well the housing pilot program worked.

On October 17, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issued a joint Information Memorandum (IM) to all ACF programs emphasizing the importance of meaningful father involvement to better serve children and families. In particular, this memorandum highlights research findings that demonstrate the value of fathers’ involvement in the lives of their children and families, as well as identifies promising practices to promote and sustain fathers’ engagement, regardless of their physical location or extent of custodial participation.

This blog post from Clarence H. Carter, Director, Office of Family Assistance, announces the release of an information memorandum that details efforts to prioritize and enhance father engagement in ACF-funded programs. The memorandum was signed by the leadership of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, including the Children’s Bureau, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, the Office of Child Support Enforcement, the Office of Family Assistance, the Office of Child Care, and the Office of Head Start. ACF affirms its commitment to fathers and families and encourages paternal involvement in family support and child welfare programs.

In this Issue Brief, findings from an intervention of an outreach strategy were applied to Colorado’s version of TANF, Colorado Works, that aimed to increase participant engagement rates. Parents were not following through on upfront activities like orientations and initial meetings; this was harmful not only because it meant families were not fully utilizing planning resources offered to them, but also because they might lose TANF assistance if they failed to perform these actions. After using behavioral science to understand reasons for low engagement and to create a proactive outreach strategy in Adams County, Colorado, the community saw a 13 percentage point increase in orientation session attendance and a 9 percentage point increase in one-on-one meetings with case managers. The report details the personalized approach and road map used to achieve these outcomes and provides additional data to measure the intervention’s success.

This journal article presents findings from a longitudinal study which examined the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV), five mental disorders (depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic attack, posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), alcohol abuse/dependence, drug abuse/dependence, treatment seeking (from physician, counselor, and self-help group), employment, child support, and welfare participation. Drawn from records extracted from the study "Violence Against Women and the Role of Welfare Reform" (VAWRWR), a key finding was that experiencing controlling behaviors reduced likelihood of welfare participation, while experiencing physical abuse increased it. Panic attack, drug abuse/dependence, and employment wielded significant impact on welfare participation rates; treatment seeking and child support made no significant impact on welfare rates.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation-funded (OPRE) study illustrates the early implementation of the Ramsey County, Minnesota, Lifelong Learning Initiative (LLI). Research has found that chronic stress associated with living in poverty can hinder executive skills, such as planning, decision-making, and organizing. The LLI uses a goal-oriented approach to help TANF recipients set their own employment-focused goals by breaking them down into more manageable tasks and develop these executive skills as they work toward employment outcomes.

This Administration for Children and Families (ACF) blog post discusses the “power of work” relative to the nation’s safety net, as well as ACF’s encouragement of state TANF programs to harness this power when striving to improve employment outcomes. ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation is evaluating programs and methods that promote work among TANF recipients and other TANF-eligible populations, while also assessing job search assistance strategies, career pathways, and subsidized/transitional employment initiatives. Looking ahead, ACF’s Office of Family Assistance will continue work with state TANF agencies to identify models for career pathways, coaching case management, and employment-related initiatives. As well, the Fiscal Year 2019 President’s Budget proposal included a request for a minimum funding level for resources to support states as they invest in work-related programming.

Mathematica researchers studied the intensity of direction that caseworkers gave to voucher recipients selecting a job-training program. In particular, study findings indicated that those recipients who received the most directive approach from caseworkers had higher survey-reported earnings than those recipients who did not. Findings will be published in the Journal of Human Resources.

The Office of Family Assistance published data tables which cover TANF and SSP-MOE caseloads by state and at a national level from October 2017 through June 2018. The tables are cross-tabbed to include total recipients, total families, total children, one-parent families, two-parent families, no parent families, adults, and monthly caseload data.