Literacy provides individuals with the confidence to pursue their goals, support their families, and to achieve success and well-being in work and in life. This Adult Literacy and Learning Impact Network study was designed to empower local programs with evidence-based strategies to: 1) more effectively reach and support adults with low literacy, and 2) communicate the value of their work to funders for greater investment and community-level impact.

Although a variety of employment programs offer adults with justice involvement support after their release, several challenges can limit participants’ ability to fully engage in services. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief provides strategies that human services programs can use to recruit adults with justice involvement and engage them in project activities. The strategies include understanding and addressing participants’ needs, communicating with participants, and building relationships with local justice agencies.

The Tennessee Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Opportunity Act of 2021 set the TANF cash benefit amount at no less than 25 percent of the Consolidated Need Standard, which is the estimated amount of income a family in Tennessee needs to cover basic living expenses. This change increased the monthly cash benefit for a family of three from $277 to $387, a 40 percent increase. The benefit increase was implemented in July 2021 and remains at that amount. This MEF paper examines the effects of this benefit increase on families participating in Tennessee’s TANF program.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF report builds upon the information in the first report, details progress on the evaluation in 2024, and looks towards the upcoming evaluation work.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF report discusses the overall research design, presents each pilot’s program characteristics and impact evaluation design, summarizes the planned data sources and data collection methods, and describes the study participants’ characteristics as of March 2024.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support.

This MEF and Urban Institute resource describes the demographic and economic context within which the seven pilot programs are operating as of the start of the programs’ implementation. The context described includes demographic information, income measures and poverty rates, employment and education data, safety net program caseloads, and health information.

As part of the Tennessee Opportunity Act (TOA), the Tennessee Department of Human Services launched the Tennessee Opportunity Pilot Initiative, awarding $25 million grants to seven community initiatives to support low-income families' economic mobility and well-being. The pilots provide families with direct services and connections to existing services within their communities. The service mix and structure of the pilots vary, but they include similar components such as care coordination and coaching, employment support, financial support, and family or other individual support. TOA also established a rigorous evaluation to inform future policy and programs. The evaluation aimed to create a state-level learning laboratory to produce evidence on program effectiveness and implementation, enabling Tennessee to enhance human services delivery.

This MEF resource includes recommendations for a set of outcome measures to more fully describe the impact of services on individual and family capacity for self-sufficiency, as well as use of safety net programs. This resource was a result of nearly 300 sources and input from five experts from the field. While these recommendations were developed to support the TOA pilot evaluations, findings may be applied more broadly to efforts to promote capacity for self-sufficiency among families with low-income.

While an effective intake assessment helps build an initial impression of each father’s individual situation and needs, fatherhood program staff also know ongoing one-on-one and group interaction is needed to fully understand him and see who he might become. Even then, it can be hard to accurately follow his progress through the program and ensure his needs are met in the best way possible. This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse brief presents an overview of customer journey mapping, an evidence-based tool that helps program administrators and staff members reflect on a father’s journey through a program and make service adjustments based on the father’s perspective as he progresses through that program.

MDRC will host a webinar on December 10, 2025 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET for program administrators, program staff, and data teams working in programs who want to spark improvement ideas based on the science of how people actually make decisions. Participants will leave the webinar with practices that can be applied to their programs immediately. Following the webinar, MDRC will host an optional 30-minute peer learning session for participants to reflect on and share ideas with colleagues with similar interests.

The next quarterly Work Outcomes Report is due on November 15, 2025. The following links may be helpful as you complete your report. 

• TANF Work Outcomes Reporting Requirement – What You Need to Know
• TANF Work Outcomes Measures Technical Resource
• TOTAL Office Hours: April 2025
• TOTAL Office Hours: May 2025
• TOTAL Office Hours: May 2025 (Post-Submission for Work Outcomes of TANF Exiters Report)