A healthy relationship can play a critical role in establishing family stability for both adults and children. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on families nationwide with reports of higher rates of stress and declining marriages. Understanding the importance of healthy relationships in promoting economic stability among TANF recipients, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) awards Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) grants for a variety of programs working to integrate skills-based relationship education into employment services. During this June 28, 2022 OFA webinar, HMRE grantees and subject matter experts discussed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on marriage and relationships. Webinar participants learned numerous ways HMRE grantees are engaging clients in programming such as family stability, healthy relationships, and economic security; explored how HMRE grantees adjusted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how their clients benefited from the pandemic adaptations; and heard about how these grantees will utilize lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to improve future efforts.

Webinar speakers included: Nikkole Abbas, Director of Family Support and Advocacy Services, Youth and Family Services of South Dakota; Robert Ketchum, Data Manager/Adult Educator, Youth and Family Services of South Dakota; and Mariana Falconier, Associate Professor of Family Science in the School of Public Health and Project Director of the University of Maryland’s TOGETHER program. The webinar was moderated by Robyn Cenizal, Project Director, Family Strengthening, ICF.

This brief shares lessons from four employment coaching programs that made major changes to their operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion provides employment programs information about modifying service delivery and meeting client needs. The lessons learned from the programs in this study may help other programs provide coaching during a public health crisis or other type of emergency.

This report details the rate of youth unemployment by racial demographic during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study described in the report includes unemployment trends by age group and racial make-up using both state and national level data. Among its findings was that while unemployment decreased during the second year of the pandemic as businesses reopened and the American Rescue Plan was implemented, Black youth continued to have the highest unemployment followed by Latinos and, further, that recoveries in the labor market did not lessen racial and ethnic disparities.

Though the tech industry offers opportunities for high-quality, rewarding jobs, traditional pipelines of workers seldom meet employers’ growing demands. Meanwhile, workers with tech aptitude have found it challenging to break into the industry if they lack formal credentials or direct job experience. In recent years, one promising solution for this mismatch has been registered apprenticeship.

The Urban Institute will host a discussion on June 22, 2022 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET where employers, apprentices, and educators will share what they learned about launching tech apprenticeship programs—including an innovative degree-based apprenticeship led by a consortium of historically Black colleges and universities—and discuss where the field is headed.

The American Rescue Plan temporarily increased the child tax credit (CTC) in 2021, including extending the credit to families who had not previously filed tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service automatically sent monthly payments of the CTC to families that had filed a tax return in 2019 or 2020. This report reviews the work of the Birth through Eight Strategy for Tulsa, an initiative to find low-income families who were likely to miss out on receiving the CTC. It also identifies how Tulsa’s existing network of service navigators worked to connect families eligible for the credit with tax preparation services to claim the CTC.

About 20 percent of U.S. American children grow up in poverty, and family income during early childhood is strongly associated with educational attainment and other social and economic outcomes. It can be difficult to separate the effects of family resources, however, from other aspects of a child’s early life, including family structure and stability, parenting styles, and the qualities of a neighborhood and schools. This research brief examines the effectiveness of unrestricted cash support for families facing economic hardship by estimating the long-run causal effects of cash transfers immediately after the birth of a first child.

On January 4, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Training and Employment Notice providing local workforce boards, American Job Centers, workforce development partners, and grantees with information on supporting community violence intervention strategies that include an employment or workforce component. This brief offers recommendations for supporting the design and implementation of community violence interventions, based on research and evidence-based practice.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Investment and the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) will host a webinar on June 9, 2022 from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET as part of a summer series of technical assistance on the role of the workforce system in serving individuals with substance use disorders. Guest speakers from CPWR will discuss how opioid use among the construction workforce has impacted the construction industry and the preventions the organization is currently implementing to fight opioid substance abuse.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announces a Notice of Funding Opportunity under the Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency Service Coordinator (ROSS-SC) grant program, which is designed to assist residents of Public and Indian Housing progress towards economic and housing self-sufficiency by removing educational, professional, and health barriers. HUD provides ROSS-SC grant funding to eligible applicants to hire a Service Coordinator who assesses the needs of public and Indian housing residents and links them to training and supportive services that will enable participants to move along the self-sufficiency continuum. Grant applications are due by July 18, 2022.

Grandparents serve a critical role in the tribal family structure. They are often the glue that holds the family together, providing the place to gather. They are keepers of family stories, cultural knowledge, and calm voices of reason. This compendium provides resources for engaging and supporting grandparents and other extended family members to help Native children and families achieve their best outcomes.