Research shows that young people with histories of child welfare involvement work less often and earn lower wages during the transition to adulthood than their peers without this experience. However, little is known about whether programs that aim to improve employment outcomes for youth with prior child welfare system involvement are actually improving employment outcomes. This brief reviews findings of formative evaluations for two employment programs—MY TIME in Chicago, Illinois, and iFoster Jobs in Los Angeles, California. These evaluations highlight the importance of building a better understanding of the variations in programs serving young people with histories of child welfare system involvement and how they bolster different developmental assets for young people.

This blogpost brings together a collection of evidence about the connections between economic and concrete supports and involvement with child welfare. The research findings show that child and family well-being can be promoted through state and federal policies that strengthen families, promote family economic security, and reduce child protective services involvement in the lives of families. A short video provides a high-level overview of Chapin Hall’s approach to this work.

Fathers’ role within families has gradually evolved from traditional family breadwinner to that of more full and equal coparent involved in all aspects of caregiving. Research has shown that positive father-child involvement leads to better outcomes for children and families, and a critical component of improving fathers’ involvement with their children is supporting their coparenting and romantic or intimate relationships. In addition to providing parenting and economic stability services, fatherhood programs that receive federal funding are required to provide relationship education, which positions them ideally to help fathers establish and maintain healthy relationships. The Coparenting and Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education for Dads (CHaRMED) project has aimed to better understand how fatherhood programs support fathers’ coparenting and intimate relationships. This brief highlights some important lessons learned from CHaRMED that can inform how fatherhood program practitioners support fathers’ relationships and improve their—and their families’—well-being.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), one of the federal government’s largest antipoverty programs, has lifted millions of people out of severe poverty. While it offers a refundable credit at tax time to eligible workers with low incomes, it provides only a very small refund for single workers with no qualifying children. Paycheck Plus is a test of an EITC expansion for low-income workers without dependent children. This report presents final impacts from the test in Atlanta. The Atlanta Paycheck Plus Demonstration is part of the Subsidized and Transitional Employment Demonstration, a large-scale research demonstration designed to build rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of the latest generation of subsidized models.

A University of Louisville, Center for Family and Community Wellbeing study found that the Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Increasing Resilience digital program (fee required) significantly reduced post-traumatic stress symptoms and increased trauma coping skills. The Dibble Institute will host a webinar on July 13, 2022 from 4:00 p.m. ET to 5:00 p.m. ET where Mind Matters author Carolyn Curtis will review the research behind Mind Matters’ effectiveness. She discusses the program’s theory of change as well as the individual lessons that bring results.

Participants will be able to:

• Understand what the University of Louisville study results say about the effectiveness of Mind Matters
• Explain the theories used in Mind Matters
• Describe the research behind the Mind Matters Pinwheel Curls

This brief provides guidance on the process of recruiting, hiring, training, and supervising parent partners who have closed child welfare cases and serve as mentors to parents currently involved in the child welfare system. While parent partner programs may vary regarding the support they offer, their relationship with the child welfare agency and court system, and how they are structured, a common element includes parent partners providing guidance and education about the child welfare system. Being able to identify, prepare, and support people who serve as parent partners is critical to the success of any parent partner program.

This article outlines lessons learned from a study that looked at workforce development programs serving 16 to 24-year-olds that were convicted, adjudicated of, or charged with serious crimes in the juvenile or criminal justice system. Insights include the importance of strategic job placement to help youth explore their career interests while working toward stable and lasting employment, building partnerships with employers who are willing to hire young people with system involvement and subsidizing employment for employers who are hesitant to do so, and recognizing that young people are entrepreneurial and want to explore opportunities in fields like information technology and business.

This Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast discusses the National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC) for Foster and Adoptive Parents, an organization developed to provide free curriculum and resources for potential foster or adoptive parents to give them the information and tools they need to parent a child that has experienced trauma, separation, or loss. Podcast topics include common technical and implementation challenges and knowledge gaps that current training presents to child welfare agencies and trainers; how NTDC for Foster and Adoptive Parents offers trainers and facilitators flexibility to meet both their jurisdictions and parents’ needs; key messages woven throughout the curriculum’s themes to help parents understand trauma, culture, and how to best respond to conflict; and takeaways participants have shared with their facilitators.

This blog entry discusses the potential impact of new state legislation in South Carolina that seeks to tap into federal funding to help cover the costs of its extended foster care programming, which serves young adults between the ages of 18 and 21. The federal funding is expected to be allocated towards employing more caseworkers and tailoring support to meet the needs of more young people across the state.

Both the early childhood and child welfare systems are investing in promising new ways to support families with young children, particularly as they strive to recover from COVID-19 challenges and to become more equitable. These investments are creating new opportunities for child welfare and early childhood systems to align services and collaborate across both systems to better support children. This brief provides a rationale for better coordination between the two systems, followed by recommendations for alignment and examples of strong alignment in the field. Recommendations are structured around three main areas of opportunity for coordination: preventing child abuse and neglect, supporting children and families with open child welfare cases, and creating stronger functionality and supports in both systems.