Strong relationships and communication skills can play an important role in family stability and long-term success. These short eCourses and quick lessons from Utah State University Extension offer practical tools on relationship skills, communication, and conflict resolution. TANF programs may find these resources helpful for integrating healthy relationship education into case management, workshops, or participant supports.

The Generations United Intergenerational Program Database provides a searchable collection of programs that bring multiple generations together for shared learning, caregiving, and community engagement. TANF programs and their child welfare partners can explore program models that support child development, strengthen family support networks, and reduce isolation among caregivers.

Transportation challenges can create significant barriers for kinship caregivers trying to access services, employment, and school. These case profiles from the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network highlight real-world strategies communities are using to address transportation needs for kinship and grandfamilies. TANF programs can use these examples to explore partnerships and practical solutions that improve access to benefits, case management, and workforce opportunities.

This Administration for Children and Families brief, co-authored by Assistant Secretary Alex Adams, explores how predictive risk modeling and modern data systems can strengthen child welfare decision-making and improve safety outcomes. For TANF programs partnered with child welfare programs, this brief highlights opportunities to enhance data-informed collaboration, identify families who may benefit from early supports, and strengthen prevention-focused service delivery across systems.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast series covers timely topics in child welfare, family well-being, and systems change. These episodes can be a great professional learning resource for TANF staff, partners, and community providers engaged in cross-system work or serving families with complex needs.

Supporting families in reunification, which is the process of safely returning children in foster care to their parents, aligns closely with TANF’s mission to promote family stability and self-sufficiency. This California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse webpage highlights promising practices, program models, and outcome data related to reunification services. TANF agencies can use this resource to strengthen referrals, align supportive services, and integrate evidence-informed family support practices into their own workforce and case management strategies.

Families and young people navigating the foster care system often face complex challenges that intersect with TANF goals, from economic hardship to employment barriers and service access. This GovFacts resource list offers supports for parents, relatives, and youth involved in foster care, including legal help, educational resources, and pathways for youth transition planning. Sharing these tools with TANF participants can help enhance case management, improve stability, and connect families with critical supports.

Intergenerational programs are gaining momentum as a strategy to support families, reduce social isolation, and build community capacity. This Generations United toolkit provides step-by-step guidance for TANF partners interested in creating or strengthening shared intergenerational sites, spaces where older adults and children/youth participate together in learning, care, and engagement. With tools for planning, partnership development, and sustainability, this resource supports goals around family economic success, caregiving support, and community engagement.

This U.S. Aging guide offers a practical framework for strengthening collaboration between child welfare and aging networks to better identify and support kinship caregivers, many of whom are older adults stepping in to care for children when parents are unable. The resource outlines action steps to improve cross-system coordination, access to benefits and services, and recognition of the vital role kin caregivers play in family stability. This can help TANF agencies deepen connections with community partners serving older caregivers and reduce barriers to economic support and resource navigation.

In December 2025, the National Governors Association (NGA) hosted a conversation for the Human Services Policy Advisors network and Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Assistant Secretary Dr. Alex Adams to spotlight new administration priorities. This NGA discussion summary highlights ACF’s efforts to ensure every child has a safe, stable home by emphasizing prevention, family preservation, and kinship care. A recording is available but please contact the NGA Children & Families team for the password at info@nga.com. 

For TANF programs, this focus on keeping families together before deeper system involvement resonates with prevention-oriented work and cross-system collaboration. TANF staff can use insights from these efforts to strengthen connections with local child welfare and kinship support networks, helping families maintain stability and access supports that reduce economic hardship and crisis.