The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) Office of Family Assistance (OFA) hosted this webinar that highlights the redesigned OFA PeerTA (PeerTA) website. PeerTA facilitates information sharing between states, counties, localities, tribal organizations, and community-based organizations working with TANF participants and families. The PeerTA website functions as the communications vehicle for the PeerTA model by facilitating dialogue at the state, county, local, and tribal level. In this brief webinar, we provided a demo of the key features of the PeerTA website and how the website can support TANF stakeholders in their work with families.

Associate Commissioner Joo Yeun Chang of the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Children's Bureau released a letter to Child Welfare Agencies and providers highlighting the importance of financial capability. This letter also identifies resources available to support financial capability work with children, youth, families, and the child welfare workforce.

This resource from FindYouthInfo.gov consists of an interactive mapping tool to locate federally supported youth programs in communities across the United States. Users are able to search by full address or zip code, and then can click on the program markers to see the program title, CFDA number, department, funding agency, recipient name, and full address.

Iowa’s Reliable Employment and Child Support Help program, or REACH, aims to improve the financial well-being of children by increasing the engagement of non-custodial parents in Polk County through different service offerings. The non-custodial parents are provided with job development, child support assistance, and parenting and financial education training.

In January 2014, Ms. Gwen Gua, SPIPA’s Social Services Manager, submitted a TA Request to the Welfare Peer TA (WPTA) Network seeking onsite training on wraparound services; SPIPA hoped to enhance its case management services for the three Tribes currently operating Tribal TANF/Child Welfare coordination grants by incorporating the principles of wraparound services into its service delivery. SPIPA requested that the Native American Training Institute (NATI) conduct a five-day culture-based wraparound training session titled: “Wraparound in Indian Country: The Ways of the People Are Who We Are.” OFA PeerTA provided technical assistance by facilitating a five-day onsite Wraparound Services training for SPIPA staff that are a part of the wraparound process or are supervising individuals that are implementing the process. The training was designed to prepare the participating Tribes to implement a wraparound care framework that defines agency roles, identifies areas for resource sharing to strengthen services, and establishes a common language to facilitate collaboration. Outcomes included understanding the wraparound process and how it can enhance service delivery for multiple complex needs individuals and their families, and learning the skills necessary for the implementation of wraparound services, including facilitating the wraparound process and conducting wraparound meetings.

“Our American Story” is an interactive virtual community of low-income families, service providers, and community leaders seeking to increase economic opportunity for all by sharing their personal stories. Contributors share personal stories of how they or other people have been assisted by child care, affordable housing, low-income tax credits, and many other important services.

This report from the Work Support Strategies (WSS) initiative describes leadership among state health and human services officials implementing large-scale systems reform. The WSS initiative is a multi-state demonstration that offers six states the support needed to integrate and streamline delivery of work support benefits, like SNAP, Medicaid, and child care. The report offers lessons based on surveys of staff and leaders in WSS states, including communicating a clear vision for serving clients, promoting shared accountability for achieving goals, and making progress on those goals.

On Monday, March 2, 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced its second round of 811 Project Rental Assistance (PRA) awards of $150,369,989 in rental assistance to 25 state housing agencies. In turn, the state agencies will provide permanent affordable rental housing and needed supportive services to approximately 4,584 households who are extremely low-income persons with disabilities, many of whom are at high risk of homelessness or transitioning out of institutional settings. A list of the 25 state agencies that were awarded funding is included in HUD’s press release.

The Future of Children at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution released a research report that highlights the causes of food insecurity among children and examines the effectiveness of public policies aimed at addressing this issue.

This report discusses the Behavioral Interventions to Advance in Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, which utilizes tools from behavioral economics to improve the livelihood of low-income individuals and their families. The report illustrates how the project draws on principles of behavioral economics to develop solutions for ACF programs and shares insights from three case studies.