This U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service report illustrates the demographics and economic circumstances of SNAP participants, including age, disability status, household size and composition, benefit level, and households with earnings and those receiving other cash welfare benefits. Changes in SNAP participant characteristics over time are also discussed.

Family engagement has been identified as a key factor in children’s early learning and development at a cognitive and social level. Since few ways exist for early care and education (ECE) programs to determine the strength of family engagement supports and to identify areas for improvement, the Georgia Family Engagement Assessment and Planning Tool (FEAP-T) was developed. This National Center for Children in Poverty report presents findings from a FEAP-T pilot, suggests that the FEAP-T be revised, and highlights ways a revised tool could help strengthen family engagement practices in Georgia’s ECE programs.

The National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families will host a webinar on March 19, 2019 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to discuss best practices for coordinating care, delivering trauma-informed services, and offering treatment for opioid-addicted teens and young adults.

This Child Trends blog post illustrates how family engagement is now being recognized as falling along a continuum of services that support children’s development. The authors distinguish between home visiting, which works more with parents to improve outcomes for their children, and early child care and education that is more child-focused. The use of a family engagement continuum addresses these complementary roles that center on communications and how we engage families to set and achieve child and family goals.

The Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) developed this Administration for Children and Families Family Room Blog, which highlights three FYSB programs working to prevent or intervene against teen dating violence: the Specialized Services for Abused Parents and their Children grant program, the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, and the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program. Each of these programs offers direct services such as parent education, fosters the creation of support groups, or engages in behavioral interventions. This blog post also discusses partnerships between FYSB and other Office of Family Assistance programs, including the launch of PAIVED (Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads) within the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood initiative, which reviews approaches that federally funded Responsible Fatherhood programs could take regarding domestic violence prevention among fathers.

The Administration for Native Americans (ANA) seeks reviewers and chairpersons for the 2019 ANA Objective Panel Reviews. In May and June 2019, they will conduct remote reviews for the following panel sessions: Native Languages: Esther Martinez Immersion (EMI), Preservation and Maintenance (P&M), Environmental Regulatory Enhancement (ERE), Social and Economic Development Strategies for Alaska (SEDS-AK), and Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS). A two-week online training will be available in mid-March and is a requirement to be assigned to a panel review session. Information about reviewer and chairperson requirements, remote review expectations, and indication of interest is provided. If interested, please click here to participate.

This Center for Law and Social Policy report identifies challenges that state level officials encounter in implementing the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant program. State profiles from Alabama, California, and Louisiana are highlighted. Also presented are lessons learned as a result of the lack of resources and data needed to implement the law more effectively.

This Pew Trusts fact sheet illustrates the lack of capacity within rural communities to provide access to treatment for opioid use. Strategies to close the treatment gap include expanding the healthcare provider workforce, using technology and telemedicine models for medication management, and developing innovative and local responses.

This Urban Institute research brief offers a set of demographic data and definitions that addresses misconceptions about the reach of U.S. safety net programs. In particular, the analysis distinguishes between “means tested” and universally received benefit programs and those supports that are received monthly compared to those received annually. Programs outlined and reviewed in this report are SNAP; Supplemental Security Income; TANF cash assistance; public or subsidized housing; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; and the Child Care and Development Fund.

The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will hold a webinar on March 6, 2019 between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. ET to cover findings following the Family Options Study that was conducted for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Researchers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will review patterns of public assistance receipt, employment, family separations, the well-being of adolescents and young children, adult behavioral health, and predictions for reoccurrence of homelessness. Findings related to the experiences of homelessness in parents and children will also be presented.