On September 11-12, 2012, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) Regions V and VII convened State TANF program directors and other key stakeholders in Chicago, Illinois to strategically engage with peers on effectively providing services to families in a recovering economy and to brainstorm better ways to help TANF participants achieve self-sufficiency. The TANF Priority Update Meeting consisted of multiple sessions covering an array of topics, including: business process management; strategies to improve postsecondary career pathways for low-income workers; developing and sustaining employment entry, access, retention, and advancement for TANF participants and low-income clients; improving services and tracking outcomes for special populations; innovative strategies for client assessment and service coordination; and effective strategies for engaging workforce partners through summer youth employment and subsidized employment.

In 2002, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instituted the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI) evaluation to document operational lessons and assess the effectiveness of community-based approaches to support healthy relationships, marriages, and child well-being. The evaluation is being conducted by RTI International and The Urban Institute. A component of the CHMI study involved an implementation study on initiatives approved by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) under authority of Section 1115 of the Social Security Act.1 The goals of the initiatives were to improve the child support systems through community engagement and healthy marriage and relationship education programs. Operationally, these goals included direct improvements to the child support program, like increasing the number of child support orders established, increasing paternity establishment, and increasing payment toward support obligations. The broader context for these operational goals was improving child well-being and increasing parental responsibility.

This is the final in a series of reports being produced on the implementation of demonstrations in 14 sites receiving grants under the 1115 waivers. Earlier reports covered the implementation of initiatives in Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Jacksonville, Florida; Lexington, Kentucky; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Nampa, Idaho; and New Orleans, Louisiana. This report focuses on the initiatives in Marion County, Indiana; Clark County, Ohio; Lakewood, Washington; and Yakima, Washington. The goal of the implementation studies was to describe the nature of the community initiatives, including recruitment and outreach strategies, targeting efforts, and innovative approaches for linking child support with healthy relationship and marriage support activities. This report examines key aspects of the initiatives’ community partnerships, design and implementation of service delivery, and links with child support. It does not present estimates of program impacts or effectiveness. The report is based on site visits conducted in 2010, 3 to 5 years after the initiatives were initially approved as well as information provided over the course of operations by grantees. Because these visits took place when the initiatives were ongoing, this report is not a complete accounting of what the initiatives accomplished or how many people they served over the course of their waivers. (author abstract)

The Minnesota Department of Human Services' internal workgroup to address the needs of Minnesota teen (minors and 18-19, year-olds) parents on TANF submitted a TA Request to the Welfare Peer TA (WPTA) Network. The Minnesota team's Request involved bolstering the in-State research being conducted in spring 2011 by including research on promising models from other States. In response to Minnesota's TA Request, WPTA conducted an initial literature and program scan and identified (1) State-supervised, county-administered programs (such as in Minnesota), or (2) State or local programs that were not State-supervised or county-administered. Working hand-in-hand with Minnesota, WPTA developed structured discussion guides to gather background information on individual programs. This information was used to create program profiles and a summary analysis. Thirty-four programs were contacted; after finding that some programs were not applicable to Minnesota's TA Request, information- gathering discussions were completed with 21 programs.  

Most recently, the Peer TA Team released a report including information regarding funding for low-income pregnant and parenting teen programs as well as other related youth programs related to the Minnesota TA Request. This information was gathered via contact with specific programs, federal Web sites, grantmaker Web sites and funding databases. Its purpose is to assist the State of Minnesota in identifying possible funding streams and partners as they move forward in their desire to work with pregnant and parenting teens who access the TANF program.

A number of states have created free Reality Check Calculators to help youth, students, and adults understand how salary, wages, careers, education, training, and budgets all interrelate. Reality Check Calculators can be used to estimate the cost of living in a particular state or community. There are several examples of these in California, Minnesota, and Texas. These tools help the users think about what the cost of living is, and how education and training correlate to salary and careers. The Calculators allow users to think about:

• Type of housing they would like (apartment, condo, house);
• Utility Costs (phone, electricity, cable, etc.);
• Food (eating out, cooking at home, combination);
• Transportation needs (public transportation, used or new car);
• Entertainment and other miscellaneous charges; and
• Savings.

Once the user has established their “ideal” cost of living and budget they are linked to state salary, occupation, and labor market information sites.

The following report describes the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform Academy II that took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota from October, 26-29 2003 to continue partnerships and foster collaboration to improve service delivery and TANF implementation for families residing in urban areas.

Recognizing the importance of expanding transportation options for their TANF participants, the North Dakota Rural Communities Initiative site sought to learn more about innovative car ownership programs serving individuals on public assistance. Through contacts at Opportunity Cars, a network of 150 innovative car ownership programs, it was suggested that the team visit programs in Minnesota, which has one of the highest number of car ownership programs in the country. The director of Opportunity Cars nominated three innovative programs that had distinctly different implementation models and were also centrally located in the state: (1) Free to Be, Inc. – Blaine, Minnesota; (2) People Responding in Social Ministry (PRISM) – Golden Valley, Minnesota; and (3) Minnesota Valley Action Council (MVAC). During site visits to these three organizations in late June 2009, the North Dakota site members met with program staff to discuss the background of their car ownership programs, service delivery models, and partnering strategies. These resources and ideas promise to be incredibly useful as the site begins moving forward on implementing their own transportation assistance program.

This presentation was given as part of the Urban Partnerships for Welfare Reform's National Academy, which was held in Atlanta, Georgia in May 2006. Hennepin County, Minnesota (Minneapolis) shared strategies on utilizing diversion and emergency assistance programs.

This report provides an executive summary of the Rapid Response Technical Assistance event in Chicago, Illinois, sponsored through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance. In response to a joint technical assistance request from Regions V (Chicago) and VII (Kansas City), the Rapid Response project team conducted secondary research and telephone discussions on a variety of TANF issues, identified as being of concern to the constituent States of these regions, to present at the event. This report includes an overview of the meeting as well as the descriptions of TANF promising practices from around the country that were discussed by participating States.

Welfare Peer TA conducted a Site Visit to the Mille-Lacs Band of Ojibwe Tribal TANF Program based on their request for TA. Welfare Peer TA staff partnered with consultants from the U.C. Davis Extension at the University of California to provide the Tribe with an in-depth needs assessment in order to strategize on developing solutions for programmatic improvement. The consultants, Julie Gondry and Dr. Geni Cowan, are Tribal TANF subject matter experts with program based skills in training, case management, and data reporting. Based upon the assessment results, Mille-Lacs will receive valuable recommendations to further enhance aspects of their program’s structure and administration to reach the end goal of self-sufficiency for their TANF participants.

This publication is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance under contract with ICF International. Through the Urban Partnerships Initiative, this resource shows the outstanding efforts of ten cities to meet the needs of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The innovative practices highlighted in this piece can be applied in other urban areas throughout the Nation to enable other cities to write their own success story during the next decade of welfare reform.