Brief
Over time, the American workforce has become more educated and the college-going population has diversified. Today’s students tend to be older and often have young children. About 1 million low-income parents who attend school or training also work. Further, many combine full-time work with full-time school attendance. This brief summarizes this population’s characteristics, how they address these competing demands, and the supports they receive while doing so. The brief suggests how existing federal policy initiatives such as the new Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Child…
Brief
A recent symposium on poor urban men began with a question: Why focus on men? Three reasons were cited. First, most men have children—nearly two-thirds of young low-educated men are fathers—and fathers represent an important potential source of family income and financial support for children. Second, since 2000, poor urban men have retreated en masse from employment as median wages for low-skilled workers have dropped and their incarceration rate has shot up. Third, much research on the 1990s' welfare reforms focused on poor single women with children, whereas relatively little attention has…
Brief
This research snapshot from the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project presents findings from the Cuyahoga tests, which demonstrate that low-cost, low-effort behavioral interventions can improve child support outcomes. However, interventions that are more intensive may be necessary to increase overall child support collection amounts, perhaps because some parents have a limited ability to pay. (Author abstract modified)
Brief
This brief builds on the insights from the Housing Opportunities and Services Together (HOST) Demonstration project to present an updated theoretical framework for two-generation models that target low-income children and parents from the same families in hopes of interrupting the cycle of poverty. The framework emphasizes the importance of using family goals as the lens for targeting individual family members, setting individual goals, and aligning tailored appropriate solutions. Information is provided on the benefits of two-generation models and the following components of the theoretical…
Brief
The federal government created the child support program in the 1970s to secure financial and medical support for children whose parents live separately. Today, the program collects $32 billion per year in child support payments and serves more than 16 million children and families. Still, about 35 percent of child support obligations go unpaid each month. Parents who do not pay often lack the ability to do so, due to unemployment, disability, incarceration, or other (sometimes multiple) barriers. These parents leave a significant amount of child support unpaid, and collecting that support…
Brief
This brief summarizes findings on the impact of couples-based family strengthening services in four prison-based programs from the Multi-Site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering (MFS-IP) and discusses the implications for policy, programs, and future research. In one of the four grantee programs, the low-dosage healthy relationship retreat had sustained positive effects on multiple partnership and parenting relationship outcomes for a low-income, justice-involved population. This evaluation attempted to isolate the impacts of relatively low-dosage couples programming.…
Brief
This brief uses a sample of over 1,000 reentering men in five states to examine reentry success. The analysis uses a common measure of recidivism as well as measures of success in other areas, including employment, drug use, and two dimensions of family relationship quality that are very rarely examined in reentry studies: financial support for children and intimate/coparenting relationship quality. The results suggest that most men were successful in at least four of the measured areas and that family contact during incarceration was positively associated with reentry success. Further,…
Brief
This brief from the Head Start Health Manager Descriptive Study explores family engagement through these research questions: In what ways do Head Start/Early Head Start programs support family engagement in health-related aspects of program services? What are the barriers to family engagement in health-related aspects of program services from the health manager perspective? To what extent do barriers to family engagement differ by program or health manager characteristics and the populations served? What are the implications regarding family engagement for Head Start/Early Head Start health…
Brief
This brief is a resource for human service professionals on child safety and risk assessments in AI/AN communities. It is informed by the work of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) with tribal child welfare professionals and by concerns in the field about the effectiveness of standard assessments in tribal communities. A majority of the tribal organizations that received ACF grants in 2011 to coordinate Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and child welfare services (9 of 14 grantees) used safety and risk assessments in their practice (Ahonen et al., 2016).…
Brief
This issue brief highlights the benefits of increasing the use of community-based alternatives for youth rather than incarceration in Illinois. It explains the use of incarceration has consequences that leave youth more likely to commit another crime and less likely to succeed in school, find employment, and become financially secure in the long run. It notes community-based approaches that promote rehabilitation are less expensive and that evidence-based therapies delivered in the community can reduce recidivism rates by more than 15% while helping youth remain in their community. Steps for…
