This brief from the Institute for Research on Poverty explores the crisis that poor families face in finding and maintaining affordable housing. It outlines trends that led to the current housing situation of rising costs, stagnant or falling incomes, and a shortfall of housing assistance from the Federal Government. Most poor renting families now devote over half of their income to housing costs. Additionally, eviction has become more common in low-income communities. The brief describes consequences of eviction for parents, children, and communities, as well as suggestions for policy changes.

In addition to skills like reading and math, “soft skills” such as communication and teamwork are also important for children’s success. In many cases, these soft skills are developed outside of formal education environments, such as extracurricular or community-based activities. However, there seem to be widening class gaps in participation in these after-school activities. This memo advocates for integrating more soft skills into classroom learning.

The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) hosted a webinar on Wednesday, January 20, 2016. The webinar focused on how responsible fatherhood programs and other interested stakeholders can help low-income fathers gain new employment skills, find better jobs, and improve their overall financial situation.

This e-learning guide from the Office of Community Services, Compassion Capital Fund (CCF)/Strengthening Communities Fund (SCF) is designed to help organizations identify, evaluate, and incorporate effective practices into their service delivery to improve organizational performance. Sections include: benchmarking basics; identifying areas of need; identifying effective practices; validating and classifying practices; and promoting and implementing effective practices.

The Attorney General’s Advisory Committee convened four public hearings and multiple listening sessions across the country to examine the impacts of violence facing American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) children in schools, communities, and homes. This report includes blueprints of recommendations to prevent AI/AN children’s exposure to violence and mitigate the negative effects experienced by these children exposed to violence.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Family Unification Program (FUP) provides low-income families in the child welfare system with housing vouchers. FUP is critical to understanding the overlap between the child welfare system and housing/homelessness, as well as how to provide housing to vulnerable families and facilitate partnerships between public housing agencies and child welfare agencies. This report highlights FUP implementation in eight sites and offers innovative practices and impacts.

This testimony before Congress, from a Policy Analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, highlights the importance of accuracy and integrity in school meal programs and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Each day, the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs provide meals to more than 30 million children, 72% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price meals due to their economic circumstances. WIC provides nutritious foods, counseling on healthy eating, breastfeeding support, and health care referrals to over 8 million low-income women, infants, and children at nutritional risk.

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Quick Start Action Planners (QSAPs) are web-based self-assessment tools designed to help state and local leaders identify areas of strength and challenges as they prepare their workforce systems for the implementation of WIOA. The WIOA QSAPs are designed to help leaders at all levels of the public workforce system plan for this transformation and prepare for implementation of WIOA. Once users obtain their results, they will be directed towards a WIOA Action Plan to assist them in implementing necessary changes, as well as other helpful resources. This webinar shows how to use the QSAPs, and illustrates how its results can be used as dynamic tool to start a dialogue between board members and workforce system partners.

This toolkit from the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration is designed to provide the workforce system with a framework, resources, and tools for State and local partners to develop, implement, and sustain career pathways programs. The toolkit includes the Six Key Elements of Career Pathways, facilitator tools, and resources.

The Office of Family Assistance held a webinar on Tuesday, January 19, 2016 from 2:00-3:30 pm EST on Service Options for Relative Caregivers in Child-Only Cases. Today almost half of the national TANF caseload consists of child-only cases, where the child is the only individual in the household receiving cash assistance. In a significant portion of these cases, a relative is caring for the child. There has been limited literature, however, on the strengths, barriers and needs of these children and their relative caregivers. There has also been limited information about the supportive services they may receive through TANF or other human services programs. In this facilitated webinar, presenters provided a descriptive and demographic overview of the relative child-only caseload, as well as the policies and practices that support them. It included examples from a kinship navigator program, as well as a TANF and child welfare system collaboration initiative.

In this webinar participants were able to:

• Understand the importance and prevalence of, as well as the strengths, barriers, and outcomes related to, relative caregivers and children in TANF child-only cases.
• Hear experiences and lessons learned from a kinship navigator program that is providing supportive services to relatives and children in child-only cases.
• Learn about collaborations between TANF and Child Welfare systems to share data and provide services to relative caregivers and children.

For users interested in the transcript of the webinar, the webinar recording is closed-captioned.