Helping families achieve economic security requires more than employment services. This Child Trends brief examines Virginia's Comprehensive Health Investment Project, a comprehensive case management program that helps families with low incomes meet immediate needs, such as housing and other basic supports, while also working toward long-term education and employment goals. The findings show how a whole-family approach can improve employment outcomes over time. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners can use these insights to strengthen case management, build partnerships with community providers, and better connect families with the coordinated supports they need to achieve lasting economic stability.

Financial stability can play an important role in helping fathers support their children and strengthen their families. Financial Foundations is a free, virtual curriculum designed to help participants build practical skills related to budgeting, saving, debt management, and other key financial topics. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, particularly those offering responsible fatherhood services, can share this opportunity with the fathers they serve and encourage their interested participants to apply. The curriculum can help fathers build financial confidence, make informed financial decisions, and develop skills that support long-term economic stability for themselves and their families.

Young people leaving foster care often face financial challenges as they transition to adulthood, including managing money, securing housing, and planning for future goals. This Annie E. Casey Foundation brief introduces their financial curriculum that helps young people build financial knowledge, develop savings habits, and strengthen their long-term economic stability. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs can review this introductory brief and share the curriculum with young adults, former foster youth, and kinship families to encourage financial capability education and asset-building. By connecting participants to this curriculum, TANF practitioners can help them develop the skills and confidence needed to pursue education, employment, housing, and other pathways to self-sufficiency.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs have long supported families in building economic stability. This Dear Colleague Letter by the Office of Family Assistance explores how TANF funds may now be used to support Trump Accounts, which are federally backed, tax-advantaged savings accounts for children, creating new opportunities to help children and families build assets for the future. For TANF practitioners, the guidance shares how these accounts can fit within broader strategies that promote financial well-being and long-term self-sufficiency. TANF programs may use this guidance to consider innovative approaches that help families move beyond immediate needs and build a stronger financial foundation.

Young people aging out of foster care may face a stark reality. They leave the system at 18 with little financial cushion and few of the family safety nets on which most young adults rely. To address this, federal guidance has been issued by the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of the Treasury enabling state, territorial, and Tribal child welfare agencies to open dedicated savings and investment accounts called “Fostering the Future Accounts” for children and youth in their care. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, this is a critical moment to understand how these accounts fit into the broader picture of economic security for families you serve. Youth in or aging out of foster care are a population TANF programs frequently encounter; understanding how to help youth access and benefit from this new financial tool will position your program to be a more informed connector of services.

Families often need more than a single service to achieve lasting economic mobility. As a facilitation model for building long-term collaboration between communities, public systems, and nonprofit partners, the Blue Sky Possibilities Framework encourages organizations to think broadly about family well-being and identify opportunities to better support children, parents, and caregivers. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners, the framework can serve as a planning and discussion tool for exploring how programs can address both immediate needs and long-term goals. It helps TANF staff consider what conditions support family success and where partnerships, policies, or services may create stronger outcomes.

This Office of Family Assistance Information Memorandum (IM) highlights how Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds can be used to support families with childcare needs, including parents and caregivers who provide care at home. It offers flexible ways for TANF programs to support family stability while recognizing the realities many caregivers face when balancing work, caregiving responsibilities, and economic hardship.

The IM can help TANF practitioners think more broadly about how childcare supports fit into employment and family well-being goals. It also offers useful guidance for program planning, policy discussions, and partnerships with childcare providers and community organizations. TANF programs looking to strengthen support for caregivers, reduce barriers to participation, or expand family-centered approaches may consider how they can apply this information in their own communities.

This MDRC report explores how two workforce programs in Los Angeles adapted employment services to better meet the needs of young people. For Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) practitioners serving youth and young parents, this resource offers insight into why flexible, individualized approaches matter. The resource highlights strategies such as personalized coaching, relationship-building, and responsive support services that help young people stay engaged and move toward employment goals. Programs looking to improve participation, reduce barriers, and better connect with younger clients may find useful ideas for strengthening their own service delivery models.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs often serve young people who are expected to move toward independence while still developing basic skills needed for adulthood, such as managing money, maintaining housing, or making informed health and education decisions. This curriculum by the Virginia Department of Social Services offers a structured way to support that work through practical, ready-to-use workshops organized around key life domains like career preparation, money management, housing, education, health and nutrition, and risk prevention.

For TANF practitioners, the value is in the curriculum’s usability. Each topic includes multiple workshops with facilitator guides and supporting materials, which reduces the burden on staff to design programming from scratch. It can be used flexibly across settings: case management, group workshops, or partner-led programming.

Instead of relying on informal coaching or uneven program content, staff can use a shared curriculum that supports repeatable instruction across participants and sites. This helps create more continuity in services, especially for youth who need reinforcement over time rather than single-touch interventions.