The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Academy that took place in Dallas, Texas from February 2-4, 2003 at the Fairmont Hotel-Dallas.

The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Academy III that took place in St. Louis, Missouri from March 8-11, 2005 to foster collaboration to improve administration and delivery of services to TANF families.

The Urban Partnerships Initiative was designed by the Administration for Children and Families to support the work of TANF stakeholders in urban environments by promoting shared learning, enhancing cities' performance management, and developing strategies to improve services to families so that they may achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Leadership Forum that took place in Baltimore, Maryland.

This report summarizes a national conference that took place in Arlington, VA, on March 20-21, 2003. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This conference brought together substance abuse treatment agency directors and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) administrators from forty States, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands. The conference provided a forum for these policymakers and administrators to share information about their experience and concerns, and their promising strategies used in strengthening the collaboration and partnership of TANF and substance abuse treatment directors.

From California's Welfare Policy Research Project, this study was charged with investigating barriers to employment and services accessibility among TANF recipients in San Joaquin County, California. The following potential barriers were surveyed: physical and mental health, family violence, substance abuse, adequate child care, transportation, low education, poor English-language skills, and few work skills. The data is used to address which barriers affect full- and part-time employment among 400 respondents.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) and Emergency Assistance programs wit the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under TANF, the nature of public assistance changed from an entitlement program to one that requires individuals to work in order to receive time-limited support. This change in the welfare delivery system was accompanied by an increase in State-level flexibility in program design and operation. Welfare reform required no less than a redefinition of the role of decision makers at the Federal, State and local level, including the role played by front line workers when interacting with welfare recipients. In the journey toward reinventing the social safety net, States have met a variety of formidable challenges. Five years after the passage of welfare reform, this report takes stock of the past and current challenges that States have encountered. This report focuses on the policies and services provided to the hardest-to-serve and on the network of collaborations that States have developed to address the needs of these populations.

Authored by Harry J. Holzer, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University; Steven Raphael, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley; and Michael A. Stoll, Department of Public Policy, School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles. This report, as part of the Working Paper Series of the National Poverty Center (NPC), provides a nuanced portrait of how criminal histories affect employer hiring decisions. Employer sentiments about ex-offenders, hiring behavior of ex-offenders, and methods used to screen the criminal histories of job applicants are all considered.

ACF Pacific Hub's 2-day “Strengthening Families” conference drew more than 435 community, State, Tribal, and national leaders to Seattle to hear and discuss ways to implement ACF's new family initiatives. The conference featured more than 30 speakers and 20 workshop sessions and is believed to be the largest such gathering ever assembled by ACF. The audience included child and family advocates, academics, Head Start grantees, health care workers, social workers, religious leaders, Tribal representatives, and public policy administrators.

This issue brief from the California Budget Project examines how counties can implement creative community service programs that help participants make the transition to employment and self-sufficiency.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network coordinated this workshop in conjunction with the Department of Labor, Employment and Training Division. The purpose of this two-day workshop was to assemble a collection of varying levels of expertise from all over the nation among the Individual Development Account (IDA) field to promote information sharing and fact finding. This workshop built on the successes of two previous IDA workshops that were hosted by the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network during this past year. The program for this workshop was similar to the other two workshops with the additional component of focusing on the flexibility available in using Welfare to Work funds for IDA programs.