The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) released a research brief from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) entitled "Instability and Early Life Changes among Children in the Child Welfare System." This is one in a series of briefs based on data from NSCAW, a nationally representative, longitudinal survey focusing on children who come to the attention of the child welfare system through investigation by child protective services. The survey is being conducted through a contract to RTI. The brief describes the placement histories and changes in living situations of infants who come to the attention of Child Protective Services.

The Welfare Peer Technical Assistance (TA) Network is a federally funded initiative through the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance.  The objective of the Welfare Peer TA Network is to facilitate the sharing of information between and among states and to establish linkages between organizations serving the needs of welfare recipients. 

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families (ACF), with support from the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network, sponsored the Addressing the Needs of Non-Custodial Parents in TANF Families Workshop on January 18-19, 2001, in Tallahassee, Florida.  Participants included representatives from State Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Child Support Enforcement, local fatherhood providers, and Federal participants from the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services.  The purpose of the workshop was to promote collaboration between State TANF and OCSE agencies, and to encourage the sharing of information about initiatives to address the needs of non-custodial parents.

This resource guide was authored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, its Child Welfare Information Gateway, the FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, and the Center for the Study of Social Policy—Strengthening Families. The guide was designed to help community-based service providers better work with parents and children to prevent child abuse and neglect, and authors provide information on protective factors, how to engage the community, why child abuse and neglect occurs, and tips on strength-based approaches for working with parents and caregivers.

In 2004, Casey Family Services underwent an organizational change to help establish permanency for children and youth with special needs in foster care called “Move to Greater Permanence” (MGP). This report details the planning, implementation, agency processes, and outcomes as a result of the organizational change. Authors provide lessons learned to help child welfare providers and human service organizations utilize when conducting similar organizational change.

The National Resource Center for Tribes (NRC4Tribes), a member of the Children’s Bureau, Child Welfare Training and Technical Assistance Network, recently conducted a needs assessment of practices within Tribal child welfare among federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native Tribes. The report summarizes the need for specific technical assistance in five main areas within Tribal child welfare programs: (1) Tribal child welfare practice, (2) foster care and adoption, (3) the Indian Child Welfare Act, (4) legal and judicial, and (5) Tribal child welfare operations. Overall, the report recognized the need for a strengthened culturally-based Tribal Child Welfare infrastructure that provided increased communication between Tribes in order to share practices and knowledge as well as effective staff recruitment and training. The report also provides an overview of Tribal child welfare programs and a summary of the methods exercised in conducting the needs assessment.

The 2011 Annual Region X Tribal TANF Conference was held in Tulalip, Washington at the Tulalip Resort from September 27-29, 2011. The Conference provided Tribal TANF programs from Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington an opportunity to discuss and strategize methods for improving their programs and services to better serve their families and communities. Best practices and lessons learned were shared throughout the conference on a wide range of topics, including asset building, child care, child welfare, economic development, program evaluation as a method for program enhancement, and subsidized employment.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, created in 1996, is one of the key federal funding streams provided to states to assist low-income families. A critical aspect of TANF has been its focus on employment and self-sufficiency, and the primary means to measure State efforts in this area has been TANF's work participation requirements. When the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) reauthorized TANF, it also made changes that were generally expected to strengthen these work requirements. Given the impending extension or reauthorization of TANF, this testimony primarily draws on previous GAO work to focus on (1) how the welfare caseload and related spending have changed since TANF was created and (2) how States have met work participation rates since DRA. To address these issues, in work conducted from August 2009 to May 2010, GAO analyzed State data reported to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); surveyed State TANF administrators in 50 States and the District of Columbia; conducted site visits to Florida, Ohio, and Oregon, selected to provide geographic diversity and variation in TANF program characteristics; and reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, and research. In July 2011, GAO updated this work by analyzing State data reported to HHS since that time. In addition, GAO gathered information on caseload changes through its forthcoming work on TANF child-only cases.

Families across the nation have been hit hard by the recent economic recession and TANF families and other low-income families have disproportionately witnessed increased poverty, unemployment, and underemployment. The Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance, Regions VI and VIII convened the Improving Families’ Well-Being during Challenging Times: 2011 Bi-Regional TANF and Tribal TANF Directors ’ Conference in Denver, Colorado, on August 1-4, 2011 to discuss the impact on TANF programs and foster peer dialogue around practical solutions to challenges facing TANF programs and recipients. This year’s conference provided State and Tribal TANF Directors from Regions VI and VIII with the opportunity to engage with Federal, State and Tribal partners through interactive sessions and discussions around promising program models and strategies for improving service delivery to families. Over the conference's four days, attendees engaged in a variety of sessions that included specific topic areas such as the impact of the recent recession on low-income families and State policy responses to the recession. The participants also engaged in discussions and informative workshops on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, increased program efficiencies and streamlined services, enhancing career pathways, TANF Flexibility and Reauthorization, effective assessment and service options for domestic violence survivors, Tribal and State TANF child welfare and kinship care, improving State-Tribal relations, preventing fraud, waste and abuse, and Tribal TANF program accountability and implementation.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway, through the Administration for Children and Families’ Children’s Bureau, authored these tip sheets to provide parenting skills, such as bonding, attachment, dealing with temper tantrums, raising grandchildren, and supporting teen parents. The compilation of tip sheets were created with input from experts in national organizations that work to protect children and strengthen families.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) recently launched a Fact Sheet Series. The child support program serves a quarter of all children and half of all poor children. Created primarily to recover welfare costs, Congress has steadily embraced a broader mission for the child support program through legislative change, resulting in a gradual shift to a program that promotes child well-being and family self-sufficiency by making child support a reliable source of income.

While working well for most families, the program has faced a greater challenge serving low-income parents. To improve child support outcomes for all, State child support agencies are now using a wide range of family-centered innovations to increase the ability of parents to support their children, in recognition that collection of support depends on the noncustodial parent’s employment, cooperation between parents, and parents’ emotional connection with their children.

Often, the most effective way to make sure that children can count on regular child support payments is to address the underlying reasons parents are not paying their obligations, whether they are unemployment, parental conflict, or disengagement. State child support agencies are partnering with fatherhood, workforce, and reentry programs in outreach, referral, case management and other strategies that are often organized into six areas:

1. Preventing the need for child support enforcement,

2. Engaging fathers from the birth of their first child,

3. Promoting family economic stability,

4. Helping build healthy family relationships,

5. Ensuring that families have meaningful health care coverage, and

6. Preventing and reducing family violence.

To celebrate Father’s Day, OCSE released a series of fact sheets highlighting how child support innovations in each of these areas can improve child support and child well-being. The fact sheets provide examples of promising practices from across the country.