Service coordination can help people achieve and maintain housing stability, wellness, and independence by identifying and connecting the services and supports they want and need. A strategy to increase access to this service coordination is “braiding”, which laces together funds from multiple sources - each funding unique activities - to support a common goal while maintaining the specific program identity of each individual funding source. The Housing and Services Resource Center, a partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, will host a webinar on January 31, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, which will feature two models for braiding funding streams across sectors to maximize the use of existing resources and broaden access to service coordination. Presenters will discuss program structure, funding and braiding process, partnerships, and outcomes, and participants will learn ideas for adapting these models to extend access to service coordination.

Benefit cliffs describe incremental increases in income that result in major, destabilizing losses to critical benefits. The cliffs are a major impediment to families successfully participating in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Employment and Training (E&T) services and transitioning from assistance into family-sustaining wages. Depending on the state and wage, the new job may come with the loss of other benefits like Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families as well. This American Public Human Services Assocation brief explores the challenges SNAP E&T participants face during the critical first months after they have obtained unsubsidized employment.

Read part one here.

Economic empowerment is a critical need for many individuals who have experienced human trafficking, from their moment of exit through their long-term recovery. An increasing number of service providers are beginning to address this need, offering programs focused on financial literacy, job training, cash assistance, and more. However, there is little guidance for practitioners as they support the economic well-being of clients. The Administration for Children and Families will be hosting this webinar on January 17th, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. ET. Attendees will hear guiding principles for the development and implementation of economic empowerment programs as well as key findings and recommendations for programming.

This issue brief describes three specific program improvement strategies employed by six state, county and tribal TANF programs. The three strategies drove changes that resulted in tangible TANF program improvements across all six programs. The improvement strategies are:

1) Revisit and reimagine your working relationships with your community partners to improve collaboration and coordination;
2) actively listen to and learn from your TANF families, community members, and program staff; and
3) reorient or adapt outcome structures and monitoring elements to strengthen TANF program performance-based accountability.

The programs featured in this resource were among a group of 10 TANF programs that participated in the Office of Family Assistance’s initiative “Leveraging America’s Social and Economic Resilience TANF Learning Community” {LASER TLC).

Project IMPROVE helps Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and related programs learn to use and produce evidence to improve their programs. This one-pager, developed by Mathematica and The Adjacent Possible, shares information about Project IMPROVE and how state and local TANF agencies can get involved.

Connecting children, youth, and families to the services they need is critical, but it can be a challenge for child welfare agencies and community providers. This Chapin Hall Evidence-Based Practice Desk Guide allows case workers and providers to make informed decisions and ensure a good fit between clients and the services they receive. This tool focuses on programs proven to support family well-being and stability. Services areas include mental health treatment, substance abuse prevention and treatment, and in-home parent skill-based programs.

While most employment coaching and other employment services are offered in a program office, school, other community location, or virtually, emerging evidence suggests that offering employment services in a participant’s home may have some important advantages. It puts the program staff and the participant on a more equal footing and encourages a strong relationship between them; it allows the program staff to gain richer information about participants’ strengths and areas of need; and it is easier, less costly, and less time-consuming for participants. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief describes why employment service practitioners more generally might consider offering services in participants’ homes. It also offers some considerations for program practitioners.

Self-regulation skills are the skills needed to finish tasks, stay organized, and control emotions. These skills are important for succeeding in work, school, and other aspects of life. But recent research suggests that the stresses and uncertainty of poverty can be overwhelming, leaving less mental bandwidth for effective development and use of self-regulation skills. For this reason, some TANF and other employment programs that serve adults with low incomes have begun to work on strengthening self-regulation skills by implementing employment coaching. This Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation brief shares promising strategies and lessons learned that human services staff might adopt to help program participants use and strengthen self-regulation skills.

Research suggests that the stresses and uncertainty of poverty can be overwhelming, leaving less mental bandwidth for effective development and use of self-regulation skills, including those that are critical in finding and maintaining employment. It also suggests that coaching can promote self-regulation skills and hence may be a way to help adults with low incomes become economically secure. For this reason, some Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and other employment programs that serve adults with low incomes have been implementing employment coaching. These four impact briefs by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation present estimates of impacts of coaching on participants’ self-regulation skills, employment, earnings, self-sufficiency, and other measures of personal and family well-being at 9 or 12 months after study enrollment.