The COPES tool from EdITS focuses on how personal values impact occupational selection and job satisfaction. Individuals take the test in 20-30 minutes and the results can be used to supplement programs in educational and industrial career counseling.

The Self Directed Search tool from Hollandcodes.com & Paint Careers With Colors is a career planning test that assesses an individual's interests, abilities, and personality and matches them to occupations or education based on this information. The test has different versions, including an easy to read version for adults and high school seniors.

On Tuesday, March 15, 2016 the Office of Family Assistance hosted an Affinity Call Webinar for the Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy sites. The webinar highlighted the recently launched OFA PeerTA Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy Resource Hub, which serves as a repository for research, resources, and tools related to the focus areas of the eight site teams. Each team also provided an update on the accomplishments they had made to date through their Policy Academy efforts, and their plans moving forward.

This study investigated how parents characterize trade-offs associated with food insecurity with regard to parents’ mental health and child well-being. The results, published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal, suggest that parents in food insecure households recognize that trade-offs between food and other basic necessities are associated with their personal stress and poor mental health, which in turn affects their children’s health and development. Partnerships between health care providers, policymakers, and parents are essential to successfully address and prevent the poor child health outcomes of toxic stress associated with food insecurity and poverty.

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP E&T) program supports employment and training activities to increase self-sufficiency for SNAP participants. In 2015, the National Skills Coalition and Seattle Jobs Initiative partnered with Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, and Oregon to help them expand their skills-based SNAP E&T programs. This policy brief shares the following recommendations based on lessons learned from that work: 1) Staff and stakeholders should work with SNAP E&T agency leadership to develop a vision for a skills-focused program and implement a strategy to achieve that vision; 2) States should use pilot programs to test strategies for expanding SNAP E&T programs; 3) SNAP E&T programs should build on the strengths of existing workforce development efforts and align with other programs, such as TANF; and 4) SNAP E&T programs should use federal funding and administrative tools to partner with community colleges and community-based organizations to provide services.

This Year in Review from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) highlights the Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Consortium’s individual and collective efforts to make meaningful contributions to the family self-sufficiency field in 2015. The goal of the Consortium is to improve the lives of low-income families and children by integrating research, policy, and practice on family self-sufficiency and stability. The projects within the Consortium include the Advancing Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency Research Project, the Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Scholars Network, and the Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center.

The goal of this manual, created by the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, is to provide guidance on training staff to utilize motivational interviewing techniques in their work with clients. It includes training exercises and activities, which can also be translated for work with adolescent and young adult clients.

This report describes three potential designs for studies to assess the needs for early care and education and home visiting among American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.

For each of the three options, the report presents:

• the key research questions,
• the population of interest,
• suggested measures, and,
• potential data sources, including primary data collection or existing data sources available for secondary analysis.

The report concludes with a summary of each design and future considerations. (author abstract)