Trauma can have significant short and long-term effects on individual functioning and family well-being. Many human services agencies have begun to recognize the profound implications this issue has on how agency staff interact with their customers, and how staff themselves are impacted. The Office of Family Assistance hosted a webinar on September 30, 2020 to help TANF sites interested in moving from trauma awareness to practice transformation using evidence-informed strategies.

Webinar speakers reviewed the trauma-informed paradigm’s foundations in the TANF context, and discussed key considerations in moving TANF programs from trauma-informed awareness to evidence-informed practice transformation. Participants heard from the Vermont Department for Children and Families on their experiences developing a Trauma-Informed Evaluative Toolkit for TANF with OFA PeerTA support and their implementation plans.

This Office of Family Assistance Program Instruction answers questions on how the Tribal TANF Program can assist persons affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This Program Instruction complements TANF-ACF-PI-2020-01, which addressed questions and answers raised by state and tribal grantees on how they might use TANF and TANF’s administrative flexibilities to provide non-recurrent, short-term benefits for those in need due to COVID-19.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation tool supports Tribal TANF-Child Welfare Coordination grantees and human service partners as they identify and operationalize collaboration approaches and monitor the effectiveness of these approaches. There is also guidance on how to measure and track progress on coordination among partners. The tool includes details on options for completing, scoring, and interpreting Collaboration Assessment Tool results; the entire assessment tool is included in an appendix and as a separate downloadable Excel file.

This notice for applications from the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association provides an example of the criteria and applications for non-recurrent Tribal TANF benefits. The notice identifies a regulatory definition of non-recurrent benefits as those created to address a particular crisis situation or episode of need, not intended to meet ongoing needs, and not extending beyond four months.

This Indian Health Service grant announcement provides 501(c)(3) organizations an opportunity to apply for funding to support a variety of services to improve the healthcare of the American Indian/Alaska Native community through outreach and education efforts. Eligible organizations include those with expertise in representing Tribal governments and administering national health policy and health programs, including work in substance abuse and suicide prevention, domestic violence prevention, HIV/AIDS outreach and education, and diabetes work. The application closing date is June 29, 2020.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation webpage provides links to program snapshots that highlight program outcomes for the following Tribal HPOG 2.0 Program grantees: Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. and Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, Turtle Mountain Community College, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. These snapshots highlight descriptive results from the HPOG Participant Accomplishment and Grant Evaluation System (PAGES) as well as qualitative data from the Tribal HPOG 2.0 evaluation.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation tool assists current and future Tribal TANF-Child Welfare Coordination grantees in identifying and evaluating efforts to build collaboration, assessing ongoing collaboration, and tracking progress of collaboration and coordination efforts. The assessment tool can help organizations build and strengthen partnerships, identify areas for changing practice, and improve coordination among human service providers and Tribal TANF agencies.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), held the 2019 National Tribal TANF/NEW Summit at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia on September 16-17, 2019. Sponsored by the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), the 2019 National Tribal TANF/NEW Summit brought together program administrators, stakeholders, and leaders. The event provided attendees with opportunities to interact with peers, hear from experts in the field, and share best practices and the latest self-sufficiency research, with the common goal of improving Tribal TANF/NEW programming to benefit families in need.