Work requirements for key safety net programs are currently being discussed across the country. It is important that this debate be based on an understanding of what recipients need to meet those requirements and to successfully place themselves on a path toward self-sufficiency. Among those potentially subject to work requirements are low-income parents with limited education and low skills who need education and training to find and keep stable jobs. However, a lack of quality, affordable child care often stands in their way. To inform current policy deliberations, we have compiled…
Brief
This FRPN research brief reviews some of the ways in which federal, state and local initiatives in the U.S. have attempted to ensure that father involvement is reflected in programs and policies dealing with children and families. It begins with a summary of how father involvement issues emerged at the national level and describes key federal funding mechanisms. The brief provides examples of state and local initiatives, most of which focus on providing direct services to fathers in the child support system to increase their employment, child support payments and parent involvement,…
Brief
The Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI2) process is a systematic, evidence-informed approach to program improvement. LI2 involves a series of analytic and replicable activities, supported by collaboration between practitioners and applied researchers, to help human services programs design, implement, and iteratively test programmatic changes. As a continuous improvement process, LI2 is intended to build practitioners’ capacity for better using and producing high-quality evidence; ultimately, this process can be institutionalized within the program environment.Human services programs (such as…
Brief
The social safety net is widely recognized as having been quite successful in providing major financial support to low-income families during the Great Recession, one of the most severe economic downturns in modern U.S. history. Safety net expenditures grew in aggregate and were widely distributed to all types of needy families. Before the recession, however, while aggregate transfers to the low-income population also exhibited steady growth, the growth was not equally shared across different types of families. Transfers grew much more for the elderly and disabled relative to the nonelderly…
The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) Project team implemented 15 behavioral interventions, involving close to 100,000 clients. This compendium contains all the printed materials that were designed as part of those interventions. (Some interventions included nonprinted components, like robocalls and personal phone calls, which are not reflected in this document.) The interventions contribute to a body of knowledge about what works in human services settings. The BIAS team’s objective in sharing these materials is to assist practitioners and program designers in…
