The 20th Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS 2020), sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, will now be held virtually on October 13-15 and October 19-22, 2020. Panels will cover TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations; Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market; Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood; Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships; Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data; and Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity. Future information with registration details will be posted.

This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation report outlines major differences and similarities among executive function (EF) and other regulation-related skills in research and illustrates the relationship among these skills through a visual map. The mapping framework helps stakeholders in early learning and child development understand and communicate about specific EF and regulation-related skills with more transparency and accuracy.

This report notes the relationship between living in poverty and the likelihood of incarceration, homelessness, becoming a single parent, or failing to complete high school. The report also highlights how poverty and its stress affect brain development as well as the capacity for problem solving and goal setting. The report includes important research developments that point to how brain science might be used to support the capacity of individuals to navigate poverty and related stress for personal mobility.

This blog post highlights the New Moms program’s efforts to include executive skills building into workforce programs that support young mothers in greater Chicago. The post also includes links to a case study that examines components of New Moms’ work, a toolkit for incorporating workforce staff’s executive skills building into integrated workforce programs, and a video presentation.

This research-to-practice brief offers a blueprint of strategies to implement trauma-informed practices under the Family First Services Act. The brief illustrates key considerations in building a systemic approach to trauma-informed care to include: design access and delivery of prevention and kinship navigation services; use of functional assessments to analyze child trauma and traumatic stress when making placement decisions; incorporating trauma-informed treatment approaches and assigning residential facilities that support youth and their families; encouraging trauma-informed family reunification planning; and preparing child welfare professionals to address secondary trauma.

This blogpost identifies how closures and other COVID-19 safety measures pose challenges for victims of domestic violence. The blogpost notes how the Family Violence Prevention and Services (FVPSA) program under the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) administers funding to support emergency shelters and services for domestic violence survivors. The blogpost also suggests how responding to domestic violence can be part of a community’s disaster and emergency preparedness plans, requiring advance training, partnership building with local domestic violence service providers and state domestic violence coalitions, reviewing plans at the beginning of an emergency to identify effective implementation, and continuous updating of resources as new information emerges. The blogpost also highlights the phone number of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (open 24/7/365) and the availability of online chat services for the hotline.

American workers have suffered loss of work or in some cases a decrease in hours worked because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this loss has been felt across the country and especially in Hispanic/Latino and African American low-income households. The Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University has released visual presentations of unemployment and job losses data in the U.S. by education level, industry, gender, race, and occupation. Also included are visualizations of the loss of employment income by household. The data covers March through May 2020.

This report, coordinated with the Mobility Metrics Working Group at the Urban Institute, provides a systematic review of socio-economic factors to reflect mobility from poverty over the lifespan of individuals. The metrics identified in the report have predictive capacity to analyze mobility from poverty. The metrics can be used to support strategic planning and priority setting as well as to monitor progress at the local level for narrowing inequality.

This blogpost reviews the operations and procedures of the Safe & Sound Family Resource Center in San Francisco. The blogpost notes the intake interview process where families identify what they perceive as their needs and helps to illustrate how the families are functioning, including their support network, what types of concrete supports they need, and what they see as their strengths. The blogpost also highlights “light touch” services offered to help enhance protection for parents and children, such as parenting and education classes, parenting support groups, counseling, and respite childcare. There is also discussion of the Integrated Family Services program, which offers a more intensive level of services to families living in conditions that create the highest risk for child abuse and neglect; many of these families have three or more adverse childhood experiences.

This blogpost illustrates the implementation of the A Better Life (ABL) program in Massachusetts–an economic mobility model for public housing residents that incorporates comprehensive case management, community partnerships with local service providers, an escrow savings account, and work requirements. The blogpost identifies how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of the coaching provided by the ABL program to help address ABL participants’ basic and mental health needs and how the pandemic has created opportunity for stronger relationships and trust between participants and coaches as these needs are met. Also discussed are shifts in the goal setting process among participants toward meeting immediate needs and how COVID-19 responses have pushed ABL to a “whole family” approach over centering on individual participants.