MDRC will host a webinar on December 10, 2025 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET for program administrators, program staff, and data teams working in programs who want to spark improvement ideas based on the science of how people actually make decisions. Participants will leave the webinar with practices that can be applied to their programs immediately. Following the webinar, MDRC will host an optional 30-minute peer learning session for participants to reflect on and share ideas with colleagues with similar interests.

The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network will host a webinar on December 11, 2025 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET to help Tribes who operate kinship support service programs, including kinship navigation programs, know about and understand how they can prepare to take advantage of new resources afforded under the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act. This new law reauthorizes and updates Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, a critical child welfare law that provides funding to Tribes, states, and territories, to create and operate coordinated child and family services programs.

Alex J. Adams, PharmD, MPH, serves as Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. Assistant Secretary Adams brings years of health, human services, education, and regulatory expertise to advance President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s broader vision to Make America Healthy Again. Prior to leading ACF, Dr. Adams spent more than ten years in Idaho State Government. He led the Governor’s zero-based regulation initiative, which resulted in Idaho becoming the least regulated state in the nation. Dr. Adams also made significant efforts to improve Idaho’s child welfare system, enacting kin-specific licensing standards, announcing paid family leave for foster parents, extending foster care to age 23, and overseeing record recruitment and retention of foster homes. This webpage showcases resources that support the priorities identified by Assistant Secretary Adams.

Kinship navigator programs offer information, referrals, and follow-up services to kin caregivers to link them to benefits and services that can support them and the children they raise. Some of these programs are over twenty-five years old and provide robust case management, concrete goods, and other supportive services for the families, while others may be limited to information and referral.

This Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network webpage offers a list of known kinship navigator programs, organized in alphabetical order by state and territory with tribes listed separately at the end. Each entry notes which families the program serves, in addition to providing basic service information and a website link.

Research shows that separating children from their families causes lasting trauma. Child protection agencies should exhaust all means to ensure children and families receive essential support to safely remain together. In instances when temporary out-of-home placement is necessary, finding the best possible family-based setting helps to mitigate trauma. Placement preferably should be with kin, but when kinship care is not possible, placing children in a safe family setting with a resource caregiver in their community is essential.

To ensure family-based placements meet the differing needs of children in the child welfare system, child protection agencies should actively recruit and retain resource caregivers from varied backgrounds. This Casey Family Programs brief highlights a menu of strategies for recruitment and retention of resource families, as well as a selection of tools and resources to help develop comprehensive, integrated recruitment and retention plans.

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is a critical period and can be particularly difficult for youth aging out of foster care. Administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program supports youth in or formerly in foster care as they transition to adulthood. Selected state officials told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that they decide on their service array by using data, participant feedback, and information from other states. These officials also reported offering youth services based on individual skills and needs. The most widely used services in selected states are related to education, health, and housing.

This U.S. Government Accountability Office report addresses: (1) how selected states support youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood, (2) ACF resources for states on effective Chafee services, and (3) the extent that state and federal funds are used to support services for older youth.

In American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities, Elders are highly respected and are referred to as the community’s leaders, teachers, keepers of knowledge, and role models to all. Elders ensure the continuation of traditional native customs. Research confirms that connections between Elders and children protect and support the well-being of both groups. For children, benefits of these intergenerational connections include social-emotional gains, such as increased self-awareness, improved relationship skills, and better decision-making. Intergenerational connections also have been shown to contribute to greater academic success, better self-esteem and mood, and healthier habits. Even though intergenerational connections benefit children, very few child welfare programs include intergenerational services.

The Elder Connections Project was designed to better understand how American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Elders’ knowledge, experience, and observations are helpful in developing strategies, resources, and culturally safe and appropriate practices to prevent children from entering foster care. This Casey Family Programs brief offers a summary of those findings, which are applicable to children and families of all communities.

Coaching is not an approach you bring to supervision occasionally – it’s a set of tools and behaviors you use in some combination daily. The Coaching for Supervisors modules aim to leverage coaching techniques to support supervisors of case managers. These four self-paced modules will help supervisors develop and sustain a person-centered, relationship-based, goal-driven mindset.

The Coaching for Supervisors modules build upon and incorporate the previous modules from the Coaching for Success series designed for TANF employment case managers.

The "Other" category should only be used for expenditures that cannot be reported in another line item. Expenditures reported in the “Other” category must meet one of the four purposes of TANF. OFA regularly follows up on "Other" category expenditures to ensure proper classification. This resource covers the permissible types of "Other" expenditures:

1. Tribal TANF Programs;
2. Expenditures for Compact of Free Association (COFA) States; and
3. Expenditures That Don't Fit Other Categories (Requires strong justification), such as:
   • Programs combining multiple categories that cannot be meaningfully separated.
   • Services with unique aspects not captured in Lines 6-22.

It helps users understand the proper use of the "Other" category to help avoid misclassifications.

Each template in this guide is designed as a standalone resource for specific expenditure categories. State TANF administrators and financial reporting staff can select and use any template that applies to their specific program expenditure. There are four templates:

1. Assistance Authorized Solely Under Prior Law (Lines 7a-7c);
2. Non-Assistance Authorized Solely Under Prior Law (Lines 8a-8c);
3. Other Expenditures (Line 23 - includes Tribal TANF Programs and unique programs); and
4. Estimation Documentation Builder (Any estimated expenditure).