This report highlights the funding efforts of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families in fiscal year 2012. Of particular note to TANF and Tribal TANF programs are the Family Connections Grants which fund seven programs designed to increase collaboration between TANF and child welfare agencies and increase awareness about Kinship Navigator programs. Kinship Navigator programs provide information and direction to relatives (often grandparents) who are caring for a child about programs and services that may be available to assist the family. The programs funded through the Family Connections Grants will last a period of three years.

The Office of Family Assistance, Division of Tribal TANF has posted National Tribal TANF characteristics data for fiscal years (FY) 2008, 2009, and 2010. The characteristics data has been produced for the following categories of information:

• Number of individuals participating in Tribal TANF work activities, by activity,
• Adults by work participation status,
• Adults by relationship to head of household,
• Types of families receiving assistance (e.g., one-parent, two-parent, child-only), and
• Families by the number of children in the family.

On August 14 and 15, 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Family Assistance (OFA) Regions V, VI, VII, and VIII convened the 2012 Regions V, VI, VII, and VIII Tribal TANF Workshop in St. Paul, Minnesota. Designed to bring together Tribal TANF program directors and other key stakeholders, this workshop focused on the dual issues of effectively providing services to Tribal families in a recovering economy and helping TANF participants achieve self-sufficiency. Workshop attendees were provided with opportunities to strategically engage with their peers in order to share promising practices and the latest research, as well as to plan ways to improve TANF programming for low-income families. Over the course of the day and a half workshop a number of specific topics were covered including: Dialogue with the OFA Division of Tribal TANF Management; Youth Programming and Summer Youth Employment; Subsidized Employment Programs and Employer Engagement; Use of Skill-Building Activities; Audits, Financial and Grants Management, and Data Reporting; Collaboration with Child Support Enforcement and Child Welfare; and Financial Literacy and Asset Building. The wide reach of the workshop was evident with 24 Tribes represented from four OFA Regions. During the workshop, Tribal TANF program representatives also spent time networking and dialoguing on their program strengths, challenges, partnerships, and program policies/integrity, to garner new and innovative ideas from others for serving their TANF participants.

On May 16, 2012 the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Region X hosted a Webinar on how Tribal TANF programs can use Federal TANF and State maintenance-of-effort (MOE) funds for the creation and expansion of subsidized summer youth employment programs. The Webinar provided information on how Tribes have operated summer youth employment programs within a Tribal TANF System, strategies for leveraging funds for subsidized youth employment programs through Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), and presented promising practices of Tribal TANF agencies that currently operate summer youth employment programs. The Webinar was facilitated by Judy Ogliore and Karen "Jack" Granberg from Region X, and included presentations from Tammy Kieffer, the 477 Youth Employment Coordinator for the Spokane Tribe in Washington State; Lu Ann Warrington, the Assistance Director of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin; and Arlene Templer, the Director of the Department of Human Resource Development for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana.

The Chippewa Cree Tribal TANF Program, operating on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana, submitted a Technical Assistance Request through the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network (Welfare PeerTA), stating their interest in integrating an official wraparound case management and intervention process for Tribal TANF participants who need services across many agencies. To support this intervention process, the Welfare PeerTA Network, a technical assistance initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, approached these objectives through a three phase technical assistance process: 1) Wraparound Services Training Event; 2) a Tribal TANF Case Review Teleconference; and 3) a Wraparound Case Management Services Webinar. Together, the phases of technical assistance contributed to the fostering of collaborations within Chippewa Cree's various social services agencies, as well as equipped Chippewa Cree staff with the tools and skills necessary to move forward on their own.

States and jurisdictions work with Tribes on child welfare issues in many different ways. In some cases, Tribes run their own child welfare systems; in other instances, Tribes receive different degrees of funding and services from the State or counties. In all cases, workers from non-Tribal cultural backgrounds will benefit from learning about Indian history, relevant Federal laws, and cultural considerations. This resource page from the Child Welfare Information Gateway is designed to help non-Indian child welfare workers and agencies find resources on issues relevant to working with American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

Squaxin Island Tribe of Washington State requested wraparound case management and process training provided by the Native American Training Institute (NATI) through the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network (Welfare Peer TA), a technical assistance initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA). The training, Wraparound in Indian Country: The Ways of the People are Who We Are, was provided in a two-part training. Squaxin Island Tribe sought technical assistance to establish a wraparound case management and intervention process to foster collaborations across various social service agencies to better serve clients in a holistic and culturally appropriate manner. In this training, participants learned of the many steps involved in wraparound case management services and learned how to develop their own wraparound case management plan for their Tribe.

The Chippewa Cree Tribal TANF program operates on the Rocky Boy Reservation in northern Montana. At the request of Elaine Topsky (TANF Director for the Chippewa Cree Tribal TANF Program), the WPTA Network hosted a webinar for Ms. Topsky’s staff that addressed Wraparound services and how to use them effectively to best help Tribal TANF participants. The Wraparound approach is an outcome based approach that “ties the goals of the plan to observable or measurable indicators of success."

One of the key components of Wraparound services is that the program is “specialized to the unique needs of the child and their family.” The program utilizes the family, their community, case manager, and others to serve as sources of trust, collaborators who share the responsibility of accountability, and teammates who offer unconditional care. Through the duration of the Wraparound services, the case manager, who is often the facilitator, will help the family discover their strengths and determine their needs, at the same time helping the family set goals and develop strong options for their success. The WPTA Network engaged Dr. Geni Cowan of Eagle Blue Associates to facilitate the training.

This practice brief is the first in a series of practice briefs being developed by the Tribal HPOG evaluation team, comprised of NORC at the University of Chicago, Red Star Innovations, and the National Indian Health Board. The briefs will be used to disseminate important lessons learned and findings from the Evaluation of the Tribal Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program , which is being funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families. The Tribal HPOG program is funded by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to support 32 demonstration projects, including 5 Tribal Organizations and Colleges, to train Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients and other low-income individuals as health care professionals. The purpose of this first practice brief is to: (1) describe the unique aspects of the Tribal HPOG grantee organizations and the target populations they serve; (2) introduce the program frameworks of the Tribal HPOG grantees; and (3) provide an overview of the Federally-sponsored evaluation of the Tribal HPOG grantees. (author abstract)

The Welfare Peer TA Network held a one-day training on December 9, 2011 for the South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency in Shelton, Washington. The training entitled, “Reviving the Vision of Cultural Values and Compassion in Client Services,” developed by the University of California, Davis Extension (UC Davis), is also referred to as “Tribal TANF Town” because it utilizes experiential learning in which participants assume roles and work through the systems that TANF clients must interact with on a daily basis. The training resulted in four key learning points for training participants:

• Provide case management services with compassion;
• Model positive communication and service delivery skills;
• Follow a uniform mission of assisting participants to achieve wellness and promote economic, cultural, and social well-being of individuals, families, communities, and Tribes; and
• Practice professionalism and partnership.

The Technical Assistance summary provides additional details about the training and includes specific feedback from participants.