This short report describes the Roundtable entitled Developing Strategies to Address the Child-Only Caseload that was held April 8-9, 2003 in Colorado Springs (El Paso County). The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network conducted discussion with State TANF administrators around the country to assess their current policies and programs designed to meet the needs of the child-only caseload, and to gauge their level of interest in participating a Roundtable on this topic. The full report fully describes the meeting, attended by California, Colorado, Hawaii, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, and includes important highlights and lessons learned.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network sponsored this multi-State Roundtable event on November 19-20, 2003. The Roundtable showcased promising practices from around the country and provided an opportunity for participants to think strategically about how to design and implement these programs, as well as the occasion to learn about and discuss “what works” in serving this at-risk population. Participants included representatives from the States of Colorado, Virginia, and Wyoming. Roundtable speakers included State and local government agencies, service providers, practitioners, Federal personnel, and leaders of national  organizations.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network, funded by the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, supported two 1-day workshops. The Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human services jointly presented a Region III workshop examining job retention strategies, marketing to potential employers of welfare-to-work clients, and marketing services to those clients.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network coordinated this presentation as part of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Region VI Head Start Mid-Winter Leadership Conference in collaboration with the Region VI office. The conference featured regional representatives from both Head Start and various public assistance agencies. These agencies included the Administration for Children and Families, the Department of Labor, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. The conference was sponsored by the ACF Dallas Region VI Office.