Implementation Drivers are the key components of capacity and the functional infrastructure supports that enable a program’s success. This newly revised assessment tool can be used by implementation teams during any implementation stage of an innovation.

As a newly emerging field, the definition of implementation science and the type of research it encompasses may vary according to setting and sponsor. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provides resources and an FAQ to provide a basis of understanding around implementation science.

This issue brief discusses some of the fundamentals of quality program implementation that have been identified through research and practice and that may be useful for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers alike. Research on quality program implementation has identified a number of factors that can significantly improve implementation processes to increase the effectiveness of programs.

This brief from the National Implementation Research network suggests that human services infrastructure requires a significant investment for effective implementation so that proven effective programs and practices can be broadly adopted and used to increase socially noteworthy results.

This research-to-practice brief highlights data from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey. Data indicates that low-income households spend a higher proportion of their income on transportation expenses. This disproportionately affects African Americans and Hispanics, who experience the highest rates of poverty. Interestingly, this brief explains that low-income individuals experience transportation differently, depending on the city in which they reside. In Los Angeles and Atlanta, low-income populations have shorter travel radiuses between home and work than the average population. In New York, this trend is the opposite – individuals in poverty are more likely to travel further distances to find work. These trends and challenges have implications for all urban residents, which seem likely to persist in the face of rising transportation costs.

This blog post highlights the resource section of the Department of Labor’s CareerOneStop Web site. It was designed to assist users in better accessing resources that coincide with their needs. The Web site offers assistance to anyone with career, training, or job needs.

This is the first of two messages from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs and highlights recent progress in combatting family homelessness and HUD’s future priorities. The resource provides practitioners and stakeholders with steps they can take to end family homelessness by 2020. These actions include using data to evaluate resources, maximizing emergency shelters, eliminating barriers, and tailoring assistance to the unique needs of families.

This video from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Center shows how the data center provides critical information about children and families to stakeholders, including federal and state legislators, advocates, activists, journalists, and community members. The data can be sorted by state, county, city, congressional district, school district, and nationwide. The KIDS COUNT Data Center empowers its users to make a difference in the lives of families and children across the country.

This post, published on July 1, 2015, marks the day that many of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provisions begin to take effect. The goals of the joint vision between the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education are to: ensure the needs of business and workers drive workforce solutions, guarantee American Job Centers provide excellent customer service to jobseekers and employers, and have the workforce system support strong regional economies and play an active role in community and economic development.

For several decades, obtaining a General Educational Development (GED) certificate was the most commonly recognized and widely available High School Equivalency (HSE) option in the U.S. But since January 2014, the content and process for obtaining an HSE credential in the U.S. has changed significantly. There are new state-endorsed equivalency options for individuals, and these changes, along with modifications to the GED, have profound implications for individuals seeking an HSE credential, as well as for postsecondary institutions and employers. This report explains the issues and provides practitioners with improvement strategies for their own programs.