From June 29 to July 1, 2015, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), hosted the Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy meeting in Washington, D.C. at the Loews Madison Hotel. Eight teams (seven states and one county) participated in this kick-off meeting for the dynamic, 18-month policy academy that is designed to build collaborative systems within and across agencies to improve family economic security. The Academy has three primary objectives:
1) Build career pathways through job-driven training and alignment of TANF and workforce systems;
2) Improve business processes and systems coordination; and
3) Enhance case management by understanding brain science and applying two-generation approaches.
Over the course of the three-day meeting, experts presented the research evidence base, and sites had the opportunity to learn from peer programs’ development and implementation across these three objectives. In addition to plenary and breakout sessions, the agenda included eight hours of dedicated team time for sites to receive individualized coaching and facilitation from technical assistance coaches and expert content faculty.

Family Rewards 2.0 was launched in July 2011 in the Bronx, New York and Memphis, Tennessee. This report presents early findings on the program’s implementation and families’ receipt of rewards during the first two years. While still offering rewards in the areas of children’s education, family health, and parents’ work, Family Rewards 2.0 has fewer rewards in each domain, offers the education rewards only to high school students, makes the rewards timelier by paying them each month, and includes family guidance.

This final report documents the implementation by eight organizations of the yearlong, multi-component Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) program model of marriage and relationship education services. It presents information about implementation of the programs, the characteristics of couples who enrolled, and their participation in the programs.

This report provides early implementation findings from a study of six Responsible Fatherhood Reentry grantees that provide soon-to-be and recently-released fathers and their families with an array of activities and services in responsible fatherhood/parenting, healthy marriage/relationships, and economic stability. The goals of the programs are to help stabilize fathers and their families, move the fathers toward self-sufficiency, and reduce recidivism.

This post highlights recent resources from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education that can help enrich children’s early language experiences by providing tips for talking, reading, and singing with young children. The resources include tip sheets for families, teachers, and caregivers; a developmental milestone chart; and a fact sheet that highlights the benefits of being bilingual. All tip sheets are available in both English and Spanish.

Over the past several decades, men have been making up a growing share of single parent householders. In 1960, about 14% of single parent households were headed by fathers; today, almost 25% are headed by fathers. This report from the Pew Research Center analyzes this trend and the data about characteristics of these single-father households.

This blog post, written by an analyst at the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), discusses his new role as a father and the work he does with the Parents and Children Together Evaluation (PACT). PACT documents real stories of dads served by fatherhood programs across the country, as well as identifies innovative and effective new ways to serve this population.

This post from a TANF program specialist at the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) describes OFA’s efforts in improving TANF programs across the country. To share ideas about improving case management, integrating two-generation approaches, engaging workforce partners, and enhancing training, OFA has launched a national policy academy. The first groups to enter the academy are Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, Ramsey County (Minnesota), Utah, Washington, and West Virginia.

The Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Models and Measures project developed recommended measures for assessing the outcomes of healthy marriage and relationship education programs. The products focus on two key target populations: parents in complex families and adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18. For each of these populations, we developed:

1. A dynamic measures spreadsheet that summarizes the items and measures recommended for assessing a range of targeted outcomes that may be used in evaluations of programs that serve the population.

2. A companion “tip sheet” with advice on collecting data from the population. (author abstract)

This resource is the tip sheet for parents in complex families.

This guide from the Children’s Bureau was created primarily to support community-based child abuse prevention professionals who work to prevent child maltreatment and promote well-being. The guide focuses on protective factors that build family strengths and promote optimal child and youth development.