Developed by the Urban Institute for the U.S. Department of Education, this guidance document recommends data collection strategies and data system structures to ensure Promise Neighborhoods can manage and produce measurable results. While this guidance document is written specifically for Promise Neighborhoods, these recommendations can be applied to other place-based initiatives.

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.

This issue brief from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) focuses on the importance of child care assistance for both parents and their children. Quality child care enables parents to go to work or school while their children receive early childhood education needed for healthy development. Child care assistance helps families with very low incomes remain stable in the workforce. However, currently, five out of six children eligible to receive child care assistance are not getting help because of long waiting lists, overly restrictive income eligibility requirements, and low reimbursement rates to child care providers. This brief describes the benefits of increasing investment in child care.

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.