The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration hosted a webinar on March 21, 2023 about the Federal Highway Administration's Every Day Counts 6: Strategic Workforce Development initiative, which identifies, trains, places, and retains women in construction. Participants heard presentations from representatives of the Vermont Agency of Transportation and Vermont Works4Women.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will host a virtual training for parents and caregivers on children’s mental health on March 22, 2023 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. ET. The training will provide parents and caregivers with the information and resources to recognize, manage, and support their children’s mental health needs. ACF and SAMHSA recognize that parents and caregivers play a vital role and want to provide training participants all the tools and skills needed to support children.

Event facilitators and speakers will include January Contreras, Assistant Secretary, ACF; Lauren Behsudi, Senior Advisor, ACF; Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, Assistant Secretary, SAMHSA; Dr. Sunny Patel, Senior Medical Advisor, SAMHSA Center for Mental Health; Dr. Gary Blau, Senior Advisor, SAMHSA; Arc Telos Saint Amour, Executive Director, Youth MOVE National; and David Armstrong, parent and caregiver advocate.

The Promise is a public-private partnership dedicated to meeting some of the goals of the City of Philadelphia’s Poverty Action Plan. Key aspects of The Promise include “community challenges,” wherein community-based organizations receive funding to partner on efforts to improve city residents’ material conditions. Because eligible Philadelphians leave millions of dollars’ worth of public benefits and refundable tax credits on the table each year, the first community challenge launched, called the Family Stability Challenge (FSC), funds service provider coalitions to collaborate on connecting underserved populations with benefits and credits. The Urban Institute was invited to conduct an evaluation of the early implementation of the FSC. As a result, they released this report that provides a scan of relevant literature and contextual information important for understanding the FSC.

The Next Level Now (NLN) Collaborative is the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration's hub for delivering technical assistance (TA) to the public workforce system. NLN will host a webinar on March 9, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET, which will provide steps and strategies in building a strong network of partners and resources before the occurrence of a Rapid Response event, such as a natural disaster or mass layoff. The webinar will also demonstrate strategies from the field for supporting businesses and dislocated workers during these types of events. It will be followed up with a roundtable discussion with additional presenters and related topics for the Rapid Response program, through which dislocated workers are transitioned to new employment as quickly as possible.

Children rely on the adults in their lives to provide safety and security; unfortunately, this is often difficult for adults living in poverty to provide. As a result, some children living in poverty face developmental challenges that may affect their well-being long term. This article discusses how poverty affects children's brain development and mental health. It also covers risk factors that may affect brain development, how a family’s economic status impacts the amount of gray and white matter volumes in the brain (gray matter controls movement, memory, and emotions while white matter helps with the transfer of information within the brain), and medical and counseling recommendations. Further, the article identifies a number of existing anti-poverty programs, including TANF, that may help reduce the financial burden of living in poverty.

This Wisconsin Department of Health Services webpage includes a section featuring the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model. IPS is a supported employment model that helps people with mental health and substance use disorders find and keep jobs of their choosing. The IPS model is based on the philosophy that employment is treatment and leads to improved recovery outcomes. The webpage illustrates the eight principles of IPS and how stakeholders (including job seekers, businesses, counties, tribal nations, mental health providers, and vocational services providers) benefit from implementing IPS.

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) provides federal money to states, territories, and tribes to subsidize the cost of child care for working families with low incomes. Policies vary widely across jurisdictions, with states, territories, and tribes establishing different policies for: eligibility requirements for families and children; application, waiting list, and redetermination requirements; family copayment policies; and provider requirements and reimbursement rates. This report describes the ways in which policies vary within the context of the federal program requirements and includes dozens of detailed tables showing each state’s/territory’s policy choices.

Many young adults, ages 18 to 25, have earnings that are typically low at this stage of their lives, and often have trouble meeting basic needs while facing systemic barriers and discrimination that exclude them from crucial resources and supports. Policies and programs, as well as the systems that administer them, can help young adults both meet their basic needs and build a stronger foundation for a healthy and fulfilling future. This report presents the case for a guaranteed income to support young adults.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation will host a webinar on March 16, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, to help youth justice staff better serve Native American youth involved in the justice system. The webinar will address the reasons behind the higher risk of system involvement for Native American youth, the need for support and treatment for historical, intergenerational, and contemporary trauma, and the importance of identifying and working with Native nations. Participants will learn about a successful Native nation diversion program and have the opportunity to request more information on supporting Native youth.

The Aspen Institute’s Ascend initiative will host a national briefing on March 2, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET which will cover an analysis of families with low incomes across the country. Looking at children and the adults in their lives together, this new comparative analysis of 2011 and 2021 Census data will illuminate the diversity of families, examining single and dual parent households and families with young children and ones with at least one child under the age of 18, as well as young parent and multigenerational households.