Engaging families in programs and services is often one of the biggest challenges Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) agencies face. This MDRC resource shares practical lessons from the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies (BEES) Project on how organizations successfully recruited and connected with participants. For TANF practitioners, the strategies are especially relevant for improving outreach, increasing participation, and building trust with families who may be hesitant to engage with services.

The resource focuses on real-world approaches that help programs communicate more clearly, reduce barriers to participation, and better meet families where they are. TANF agencies can use these lessons to strengthen enrollment efforts, improve client retention, and rethink how they connect families to employment, education, and supportive services. The practical examples make this a useful tool for frontline staff, supervisors, and program planners alike.

Written by Administration for Children and Families Assistant Secretary Alex Adams and drawing on reforms implemented in Idaho, this report explores how child welfare systems can better support children by strengthening families and reducing unnecessary separation. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, the report reinforces an important reality: economic hardship is often closely connected to family instability. Families facing challenges related to employment, housing, or access to supportive services may also be at greater risk of child welfare involvement.

The report encourages TANF staff to think about how economic supports, employment services, and family-focused case management can strengthen child and family well-being. It also highlights the value of prevention-focused approaches and stronger collaboration across systems to help families remain safely together. For agencies working to advance family stability initiatives, the report offers practical ideas and perspectives that can inform planning, partnerships, and cross-system coordination.

The Tuition Assistance Program Initiative for TANF (TAPIT) addresses an important piece of the transition puzzle: access to postsecondary education. Many youth leaving foster care want to pursue college or technical programs but face immediate financial barriers that prevent enrollment or persistence. This Washington D.C. initiative uses Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) support to reduce those barriers through tuition assistance and structured guidance so young adults can actually enter training programs, not just consider them. For TANF programs, TAPIT is an example on how TANF funding can be strategically structured to support postsecondary access as part of a broader transition strategy, ensuring that education and training are not treated separately from employment services but as a coordinated investment in long-term self-sufficiency for youth exiting foster care.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs often serve young people who are expected to move toward independence while still developing basic skills needed for adulthood, such as managing money, maintaining housing, or making informed health and education decisions. This curriculum by the Virginia Department of Social Services offers a structured way to support that work through practical, ready-to-use workshops organized around key life domains like career preparation, money management, housing, education, health and nutrition, and risk prevention.

For TANF practitioners, the value is in the curriculum’s usability. Each topic includes multiple workshops with facilitator guides and supporting materials, which reduces the burden on staff to design programming from scratch. It can be used flexibly across settings: case management, group workshops, or partner-led programming.

Instead of relying on informal coaching or uneven program content, staff can use a shared curriculum that supports repeatable instruction across participants and sites. This helps create more continuity in services, especially for youth who need reinforcement over time rather than single-touch interventions.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners often need a clear way to identify what a participant can already do independently and where support is still needed, especially when working with youth and young adults. This Casey Family Programs toolkit provides that structure in a straightforward way for use in everyday case management. It helps translate broad goals like “become self-sufficient” into specific skill areas such as budgeting, communication, and managing daily responsibilities. The value for TANF work is that it creates a shared language between staff and participants, making progress easier to see and track. It also helps engage clients by turning abstract expectations into visible, achievable steps.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs frequently serve youth who are moving into adulthood without stable family support; basic planning around housing, money, and daily decision-making can determine whether they stabilize or cycle through crisis. This FosterClub toolkit gives TANF practitioners something concrete to use in those moments. It turns “transition planning” into practical activities that can be used directly in coaching sessions, rather than requiring staff to design their own materials. This toolkit addresses how young people are expected to navigate independence without structured, hands-on preparation. Practitioners can use it to make conversations more actionable and to help participants build real-world readiness step by step.

This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network tipsheet focuses on how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can support children living with relatives or caregivers who are not receiving full family benefits. It fills a key gap for kinship families who often step in without financial preparation. TANF practitioners can use these strategies to design or improve child-only grants, ensuring support reaches the child without creating unnecessary barriers for caregivers. It also helps staff think through policy and implementation choices that better reflect the realities of kinship care.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced a new childcare reform package aimed at making childcare more affordable, expanding access for families, and increasing parental choice. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs, this announcement is especially important because childcare challenges often affect whether parents can participate in work, education, or training activities consistently. The announcement helps TANF practitioners understand emerging federal priorities and how childcare policy may continue to evolve to better support working families.

This ACF resource can also help TANF practitioners identify opportunities to strengthen coordination between TANF and childcare systems while reducing barriers that prevent parents from maintaining employment. The reforms emphasize flexibility and accessibility, which may be particularly valuable for families with non-traditional work schedules or limited local childcare options. By staying informed about these changes, TANF staff can better connect families to supports that promote stability and long-term economic mobility.