Youth can face many challenges as they transition to living independently as adults. For youth in foster care, overcoming obstacles may require additional support and skills to be self-reliant. Caseworkers and child welfare professionals assist youth with securing employment, secondary education, housing, financial literacy, and other needs. However, additional support is needed to provide encouragement and stability as youth transition to adulthood. Support systems consisting of helpful, stable adults reinforce the goal of self-sufficiency and give youth a sense of community. This podcast explores how Alternative Family successfully creates effective support systems for youth in foster care which focuses on a highly individualized social support model with a goal of safety, stability, and well-being.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Administration will host the first of a series of webinars related to trauma and healing on May 2, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET. The webinar will discuss the neuroscience behind toxic stress, trauma, and healing, and offer practical strategies and tools for workforce professionals to cultivate healthy and more effective services and workplaces for staff, organizations, and participants in workforce programs. Presenters include guest speakers from the Trauma and Resilience at Work team at Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, and the City of Detroit.

Notable knowledge gaps continue to persist regarding how human services programs can best serve the needs and interests of rural communities. This study aims to address these knowledge gaps in the delivery of human services programs in rural communities. Goals of this study include providing a rich description of human services programs in rural contexts and determining the remaining need for human services in rural communities. The study also intends to identify opportunities for strengthening the capacity of human services programs to promote the economic and social well-being of individuals, families, and communities in rural contexts.

Research shows that families living in poverty have a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing crises, and that poverty is the greatest threat to child well-being and the best predictor of abuse and neglect. Further, research suggests poverty is a key driver of child welfare system involvement and preliminary evidence suggests even modest economic supports can stabilize families and alleviate the need for more intensive intervention. Although the relationship between poverty and child neglect is supported by research, there is not yet a clear national policy and systems approach to intervening on behalf of families in ways that preserve the family unit while resolving safety issues compromised by poverty. Scattered across the country, however, are innovative policies, system reform efforts, program models, and practice strategies for bridging this gap.

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA), in partnership with the Children’s Bureau, hosted a webinar on April 18, 2023, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET which examined research conducted and presented by researchers from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

The webinar

• Highlighted research findings contributing to the current knowledge base on the interrelationships among family economic insecurity and stability, income and concrete material supports, family well-being, and preventing child welfare system involvement.
• Described innovations introduced by states to bolster family economic security and protect children.
• Identified pain points and key challenges to collaboration and coordination derived from research and practice.

OFA Director Ann Flagg gave opening remarks. Webinar participants were able to ask questions and explore topics of interest in additional detail with the Chapin Hall researchers.

In Austin/Travis County, there is a substantial gap between the need for and supply of nontraditional-hour child care, with only about 2,000 regulated child care slots (or about 4 percent of existing regulated supply) that are licensed to provide child care during nontraditional hours -- before 7:00 a.m. and after 6:00 p.m. during the traditional workweek and anytime on weekends. This report presents findings from interviews, focus groups, and analyses of survey and administrative data to describe nontraditional-hour child care demand, supply, and preferences. Two of the report’s findings are: 1) the potential demand for nontraditional-hour child care is higher among groups facing structural barriers to opportunities and 2) an inadequate supply of nontraditional-hour child care has decreased families’ financial well-being and businesses’ ability to access talented employees.

The 2021 expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) led to a historic reduction in poverty in the United States, particularly for children. This essay discusses where in the country the expanded CTC reduced child poverty the most. It also examines how the reduction in child poverty varies across two characteristics: state-level cost of living and state-level poverty. The essay notes that there is evidence that the policy has reduced child poverty at both the family and regional levels.

TANF cash assistance and child support programs, with their restrictive policy environments and historically compliance-focused cultures, have opportunities for growth in how they engage families during continuous quality improvement efforts. To understand how TANF, child support, and other human services programs gather and use family input for program improvement, the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation has funded the TANF and Child Support Moving Forward: Further Incorporating Family Input Study. The study team collected and developed resources for a variety of audiences in TANF and child support programs, including program staff, program administrators, and families whom TANF and child support programs have served, currently serve, and aim to serve. This expansive toolkit provides guidance, real world examples, and resources to help TANF and child support programs engage the families they serve in improving service delivery, policy, and program operations.

The White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Domestic Policy Council spearheaded the Recovery-Ready Workplace (RRW) Resource Hub, an online resource hosted by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA), in collaboration with various government agencies including the U.S. Department of Labor. The RRW Resource Hub provides guidance, tools, best practices, and other resources to help public and private sector employers address substance use disorder in the workforce, hire people in or seeking recovery, and support recovery in the workplace. The ETA will host a webinar on March 30, 2023 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET on the Hub and Administration policy priorities on substance use disorders and recovery in the workplace.

People facing economic instability often need more than one program or service. This might be particularly true for participants in certain programs—for example, families receiving TANF benefits might be more likely to face food insecurity given other circumstances in their lives. Even when participating in a single program, a small earnings increase can cause a loss of benefits. Also, some working parents view fragmented program rules as difficult to navigate with programs not designed to support upward economic mobility. These as well as other barriers challenge agencies to streamline coordination among programs. This analysis by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, using pre-COVID pandemic data, looks at the reach of the social safety net, including the interaction of specific programs, to better understand program participation as the economy continues to recover.