Reflections on 15 Years of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families  Video

Jason DeParle (New York Times) will moderate this panel discussion on the state of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program with panelists:

• Mark Greenberg (Administration for Children and Families)
• Ron Haskins (The Brookings Institution)
• Pamela Loprest (The Urban Institute)
• LaDonna Pavetti (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)
• Deborah Schlick (Minnesota Department of Human Services)

Strengthening Families and Relationships: New Findings from Three Evaluations  Video

What do we know about the effectiveness of programs which aim to strengthen low-income families by offering relationship skills education and other support services? This panel, moderated by Nancye Campbell (Administration for Children and Families), will present the latest research findings in this important policy area.

• Robert Wood (Mathematica Policy Research) will present three-year impact findings from the Building Strong Families Evaluation, a large-scale study of programs aimed at improving relationship quality and stability, father involvement, and other outcomes among low-income unmarried parents and their children through relationship skills education and other support services. 
• JoAnn Hsueh (MDRC) will describe recent findings from the Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation, which assesses the impacts of a marriage and relationship education program delivered in eight locations. The program aims to improve marital quality and stability and other outcomes among low-income married couples with children.
• Anupa Bir (RTI) will discuss findings from the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative Evaluation, which measured the impacts at the community level of programs that used various methods to support healthy marriage community-wide.

Employment Patterns Among Low-Income Single Mothers

Brendan Kelly (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session on what is known about the work patterns of low-income single mothers, including recipients of TANF and other safety net programs.

• Susan Hauan (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will present a study of the labor market experiences of single mothers in the early- to mid-1990s and their subsequent employment outcomes over five years into the early 2000s.
• LaDonna Pavetti (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) will examine employment outcomes for single mothers through 2010 with a focus on examining how they have fared during the most recent recession and what the trends imply for the future.
• Deborah Schlick (Minnesota Department of Human Services) will present data on the work history of parents turning to TANF in Minnesota.

Adapting Social Service Programs to Differences in Cultural Context

In this session, presenters will discuss what is meant by adaptation of programs for cultural context and offer a range of perspectives about what we know about program effectiveness and cultural adaptations. Hector Cordero-Guzman (City University of New York) will moderate and serve as a discussant for this session.

• Luis Torres (University of Houston) and Allison Hyra (Hyra Consulting) will describe how Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative grantees used their knowledge of Hispanic cultural values, beliefs and practices to implement their programs and the impact of these adaptations from participant and staff perspectives.
• Stanley Huey (University of Southern California) will discuss what we know and don’t know about culturally adapted treatment for ethnic minority youth.

Federal Spending on Children

This session will explore the many facets of Federal Government spending on children, particularly the extent to which this spending is targeted towards low-income children. Julia Isaacs (The Urban Institute) will serve as moderator and will open the session with an overview of child poverty rates across the country.

• Heather Hahn (The Urban Institute) will present a report that provides a first look at the extent to which public resources are targeted and distributed to low-income children.
• Elaine Maag (The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center) will present an analysis examining tax expenditures for families with children, including total spending, broken out by individual tax expenditures, and showing the income distribution of who benefits from the various provisions.
• Gilbert Crouse (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will present a paper that uses State-level TANF financial data to examine how States’ TANF block grant allocations correlate with their child poverty rates.

Evaluation 101

This session will focus on the basics of developing and using evidence in social service programming and allow attendees an opportunity to ask questions about the evaluation process. Michelle Derr (Mathematica Policy Research) will moderate and discuss partnering strategies for practitioners and researchers working together for successful evaluations.

• Kristin Anderson Moore (Child Trends) will begin the session by discussing evaluation as a process, understanding the steps in evaluation, the importance of laying the groundwork for evaluation and the difference between outcome and impact evaluation.
• Diane Paulsell (Mathematica Policy Research) will discuss how implementation research can help guide programmatic decision-making.
• Diana Tester (South Carolina Department of Social Services) will discuss the importance of research and data in guiding decisions at the State level.

Perspectives on Responsible Fatherhood  Video

A new generation of responsible fatherhood programs seeks to promote increased father involvement through parenting skills training, employment services and child support assistance.  This plenary session will bring together leading scholars and practitioners in the area of responsible fatherhood programs for a stimulating conversation about the state of field.  Earl Johnson (Administration for Children and Families) will present opening remarks, and Michael Hayes (Office of the Attorney General, Texas) will moderate a conversation with the following panelists:

• Natasha Cabrera (University of Maryland)
• Kathryn Edin (Harvard University)
• Waldo E. Johnson, Jr. (The University of Chicago)

Please join us for this special event in the Regency Ballroom.  The poster session will be an opportunity to mingle with fellow conference participants, as well as to view posters summarizing work by emerging scholars—researchers and scholars early in their careers—who were selected to participate in the conference. Emerging scholars will be on hand to answer questions about their work.

• Adrienne Adams (Michigan State University)         
  The Impact of Intimate Partner Violence on Low-Income Women’s Job Stability and Economic Well-Being
• Carolyn Barnes (University of Michigan)
  Feedback Effects of Nonprofit Program Design on the Disconnected: An Evaluation of Starfish Family Services
• Sarah Bruch (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  Examining Changes in the Adequacy of State Safety Nets and Impacts on Low-Income Family Well-Being
• Pajarita Charles (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago)
  Evaluation of the Treatment Effects of a Relationship Skills Intervention for Economically Disadvantaged New Parents
• Terry-Ann Craigie (Connecticut College)
  Non-Resident Father Transfers under Formal and Informal Child Support Regimes
• Elizabeth Crowe (American University)
  Understanding How State Program Characteristics Affect Enrollment Decisions in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• Rachel Krefetz Fyall (Indiana University)
  Effects of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program on Poverty in Urban Areas
• Fay Hodza (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
  Addressing the Crisis of Youth Homelessness: A Qualitative Analysis of Comprehensive Community Based Youth Services and Basic Center Programs
• Saahoon Hong (University of Minnesota)
  The Role of Supportive Housing in Homeless Children’s Well-Being
• Shelley Irving (U.S. Census Bureau)
  Explaining Variation in the Well-Being of Poor and Low-Income Children: The Role of Program Participation
• Bridget  Lavelle (University of Michigan)
  Job Loss and Health Insurance in the Great Recession: Evidence on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act COBRA Subsidy from the Survey of Income and Program Participation
• Junqing Liu (University of Maryland-Baltimore)
  Mental Health Service Access and Need among Children Involved with Child Welfare: Fluctuations over Time
• Meirong Liu (Howard University)
  Low-Income Working Mothers’ Child Care Arrangements under Different Neighborhood and State Policy Contexts
• Caitlin McPherran Lombardi (Boston College)  
  Low-Income Women’s Employment Experiences and Their Health, Financial and Family Well-Being
• Tina Morris-Anderson (North Carolina State University)
  The Importance of Collaboration in Assets for Independence Individual Development Account Program Performance
• Benjamin Roth (University of Chicago)
  The Suburban Safety Net and the Immigrant Poor: The Challenges of Geography, Capacity and Partnerships
• Rebekah Selekman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  The Collaborative Strategies Project: A Collaborative Approach for Improving Outcomes for Low-Income Children and Families
• Dan Treglia (New York City Department of Homeless Services)
  Housing Court-Based Interventions as a Means of Improving Family Stability
• Lanlan Xu (Indiana University)
  Child Support for Undocumented Immigrant Parents

Understanding TANF Child-Only Cases  Video

Child-only cases—cases where no adult is included in the benefit calculation and only the children are aided—are an increasingly large percentage of the TANF caseload. Based on a survey of state TANF directors and administrative data analysis and key informant interviews from four states and two major metropolitan areas, the presenters will share information on three important types of child-only cases:

• Matthew Stagner (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago) will moderate and present on cases where parents are receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
• Richard Speiglman (Child and Family Policy Institute of California) will present on cases with ineligible immigrant parents.
• Jane Mauldon (University of California-Berkeley) will present on cases with non-parental caregivers.
• Kinsey Dinan (New York City Human Resources Administration) will discuss TANF child-only cases in New York.

Technical Issues in Random Assignment Evaluation

This session will include three presentations aimed at a technical audience of researchers and evaluators covering a variety of technical topics in designing, understanding and interpreting random assignment evaluations. Laura Peck (Abt Associates) will moderate this session.

• Anupa Bir (RTI) will present analyses of the actual experiences of members of the treatment and comparison group from a family strengthening evaluation that have implications for interpreting study impacts and will contribute to a deeper understanding of the intervention and the treatment differential in random assignment evaluations.
• Howard Bloom (MDRC) will explore the magnitude, consequences, predictors and causes of impact variation in randomized trials and consider the consequences of impact variation for public policy, professional practice and evaluation research.
• Randall Juras (Abt Associates) will present calculations of the relative statistical power of four types of potential random-assignment studies and discuss implications for designing future random assignment evaluations.

Understanding Disconnected Families

This session, moderated by Emily Schmitt (Administration for Children and Families), will review what is known about “disconnected” families who are neither working nor receiving cash assistance, present new research on the dynamics of disconnection and explore the meaning of disconnection and the conditions under which disconnection should be a focus of policy concern.

• Pamela Loprest (The Urban Institute) will give an overview of what is known about families who are neither working nor receiving cash assistance based on a synthesis of research on disconnected families and TANF.
• Maria Cancian (University of Wisconsin-Madison) will present new findings on patterns of program participation, incidence and prevalence of disconnection and pathways and consequences of disconnection based on data from a comprehensive merged administrative research data system that includes records for the entire Wisconsin population across multiple programs and over time.
• Kristin Seefeldt (Indiana University) will draw on qualitative work with low-income mothers in metropolitan Detroit to explore issues around defining disconnection and understanding the various ways in which disconnection occurs.

Career Pathways Research: Framework and Approaches

This session will focus on career pathways as an innovative approach to moving individuals and their families to self-sufficiency. Molly Irwin (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session, which includes researcher and practitioner perspectives, and will begin by describing the Administration for Children and Families’ ongoing research agenda in this area, including the Innovative Strategies for Increasing Self-Sufficiency project and the Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) program and evaluation.

• David Fein (Abt Associates) will start the session by presenting a working paper on career pathways as a framework for program design and evaluation.
• Gilda Kennedy (South Carolina Department of Social Services) will discuss the development of Project HOPE (Health Occupations Preparation for Employment), which provides health career training to TANF and low-income clients through the HPOG program.
• Cameron Wühr (Bellingham Technical College) will describe the Integrated Basic Education Skills Training (I-BEST) Program that integrates basic skills competencies with those of a technical program so that students earn credit toward a certificate or degree while receiving the support of basic skills instruction.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Participation and Consumption

This session will analyze how participation in SNAP affects spending, redemption patterns and household consumption. Anita Singh (U.S. Department of Agriculture) will moderate the session.

• Melissa Abelev (U.S. Department of Agriculture) will present findings on the spending patterns of zero-income SNAP recipients, including whether and when in the month they exhaust their monthly allotment, whether or not spending is steady throughout the month and what types of stores SNAP participants spend their benefits in and does that change by transaction amount or time of month.
• Kevin Fellner (City of New York Human Resources Administration) will present findings from a recent study conducted to better understand the benefit redemption patterns of New York City Food Stamp Program recipients.
• Ji Yoon Kim (University of Michigan) will describe a recent study comparing household consumption patterns over time for SNAP recipients and eligible non-participating households.

Omni Shoreham Marquee Bar and Lounge
We welcome conference attendees to gather for informal networking. Refreshments will be available for purchase.

Disconnected Youth: Exploring Youth Employment and Opportunity  Video

Timothy Smeeding (University of Wisconsin-Madison) will moderate and chair this interactive discussion among several leading public policy researchers and program operators who will offer their views on the challenges facing youth who are disconnected from employment and school and share potential approaches to connecting these youth.

• Gerald Chertavian (Year Up)
• Héctor Cordero-Guzmán (City University of New York)
• Harry Holzer (Georgetown University and The Urban Institute)
• Vivian Tseng (William T. Grant Foundation)

Coordinating Employment, Education and Training Services for Low-Income Individuals through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Programs  Video

Both the TANF and WIA programs provide employment, education and training services to low income individuals, but each does so within a broader context of services and/or target populations. The Administration for Children and Families has launched a new study to gather information that States and localities could use to improve the degree of TANF/WIA coordination in service delivery and to identify areas for federal support of coordination. Gretchen Kirby (Mathematica Policy Research) will moderate a discussion of the motivation for coordination, the incentives for and challenges to coordination and the research needs that can support policy and practice.

• Karla Aquirre (Utah Department of Workforce Services) will discuss the benefits of building a connection between the TANF program and the workforce development system and how this was accomplished in Utah.
• Reagan Miller (Texas Workforce Commission) will discuss ways in which the WIA program and workforce development system can respond to the needs of low-income individuals such as those on TANF based on the integrated structure in Texas.
• Don Winstead (Don Winstead Consulting) will discuss the changing context, both economic and programmatic, in which coordination now occurs, as well as the catalysts that can support coordination and the challenges that can make it difficult.

Engaging Tribal Communities in Research

This session will include presentations of three current ACF research projects involving tribal communities followed by discussion of strategies to engage Tribes in research. Anne Bergan (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session.

• Michael Meit (NORC at the University of Chicago) will give an overview of the Evaluation of Tribal Health Profession Opportunity Grants.
• Heather Hahn (The Urban Institute) will give an overview of the Descriptive Study of Tribal TANF Programs.
• Pirkko Ahonen (James Bell Associates) will give an overview of the Study of Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services.
• Wilbur Woodis (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will discuss how HHS is working with Tribes to engage in the research process.

The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Family Well-Being and Children’s Development

This session will present findings on the effects of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) on family dynamics and processes and child outcomes and discuss the implications for both research and policy. Brendan Kelly (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate the session.

• David Greenberg (MDRC) will present an overview of the effects of Opportunity NYC (ONYC) Family Rewards, an experimental, privately-funded CCT program that attempted to help families break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
• Pamela Morris (New York University) will present findings from analyses of effects of ONYC Family Rewards on children’s outcomes.
• Allegra Blackburn-Dwyer (NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, City of New York) will describe planned efforts by the City of New York and its partners to adapt and further test the most successful features of Family Rewards in two new, “second-generation” pilots in Bronx, NY, and Memphis, TN.

Fatherhood and Incarceration

Rising numbers of children are affected by a father’s incarceration. What are the implications for children’s development? And what promising strategies exist to strengthen the relationship between children and their incarcerated (or reentering) fathers? Kim Clum (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will moderate a discussion regarding these important questions.

• Amanda Geller (Columbia University) will present work examining the relationship between parental incarceration and developmental outcomes for children using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study.
• Tasseli McKay (RTI) will discuss strategies used by several innovative programs which support incarcerated and reentering fathers from the National Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-entering Fathers and their Partners.
• Michelle Foster (Kanawha Institute for Social Research & Action, Inc.) will share the Kanawha Institute’s experiences implementing fatherhood programs with incarcerated and reentering fathers.

Immigration Issues and Consequences for Children and Families

Meredith Sparks (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session on issues facing immigrant families, particularly related to enforcement, access to services and family outcomes.

• Randy Capps (Migration Policy Institute) will give an overview of the demographics of immigrant children and families in the U.S.
• Krista Perreira (The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) will discuss the mapping of the existing knowledge base on eligibility provisions and major barriers to access for immigrants and present summary findings on federal rules and variation across States in eligibility rules.
• Juan Pedroza (The Urban Institute) will present findings on how families cope following the aftermath of detention, especially how parents and children interact to deal with the stress as well as key factors that seem to help families plan for life after detention (and possibly deportation).
• Ajay Chaudry (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will serve as discussant.

Expanding the Capacity of State Welfare Research and Evaluation

Michelle Derr, Mathematica Policy Research
Robert Ek, American Public Human Services Association
Mike Fishman, MEF Associates
Brendan Kelly, Administration for Children and Families

Employer Engagement in Workforce Training Programs

James Vander Hulst, Disruptive Innovation for Social Change
Karin Martinson, Abt Associates

Asset Building for Low-Income Families

Gregory Mills, The Urban Institute
Erica Zielewski, Administration for Children and Families

Connecting Human Services Data Systems for Research and Program Management

David Mancuso, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services
Diana Tester, South Carolina Department of Social Services

Implications of Affordable Care Act (ACA) Implementation for Low-Income Children and Families and Human Services Systems

Stan Dorn, The Urban Institute
Jennifer Burnszynski, Administration for Children and Families

Postsecondary Education for Former TANF Mothers: Firsthand Perspectives

Tina Howerton, Yun-Sook Navarre, Laura Elena Ormand, Rasheedah Phillips, Shelly Robbins, Diana Spatz
LIFETIME: Low-Income Families' Empowerment through Education

Low-Income Hispanic Populations: Characteristics, Needs and Promising Interventions

Juan Pedroza, The Urban Institute
Clare DiSalvo, Administration for Children and Families

Administrative Data Sources for Self-Sufficiency Research

Jacob Alex Klerman, Abt Associates
Meredith Sparks, Administration for Children and Families

Understanding and Serving Low-Income Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations

Gary Gates, The Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law
Sarah Hunter, Administration for Children and Families

Research Dissemination: Communicating to Promote the Use of Research Findings

Matthew Borus, Administration for Children and Families
Ann Rivera, Administration for Children and Families

Implementing Responsible Fatherhood Programs

Armon R. Perry, University of Louisville
David Pate, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Research and Policy Issues with Drug Testing for TANF Recipients

Kristen Joyce, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Converting Training into Economic Advancement  Video

Doug Cotter (Grant Associates) will moderate and serve as a discussant for this session, which will describe programs that use training as a means towards labor market advancement, as well as discuss ongoing research on these efforts.

• Cynthia Miller (MDRC) will present final results from the Work Advancement and Support Center, or WASC, demonstration, which tested an innovative strategy to help low-wage workers increase their incomes, including effects on work supports receipt, training and earnings.
• Frieda Molina (MDRC) will present the research and theoretical background for the WorkAdvance model, a “next-generation” workforce development model that combines sector-focused strategies with post-employment career assistance, as well as early results on program implementation.
• Karin Martinson and Julie Williams (Abt Associates) will discuss the design of the Department of Labor’s Green Jobs and Health Care Impact Evaluation, and provide preliminary findings from the first round of implementation study site visits.

The TANF/Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Disability Transition Project: Strategies to Better Serve TANF Clients With Disabilities

The TANF/SSI Disability Transition Project (TSDTP) is examining the overlap in the TANF and SSI populations and identifying approaches to working more effectively with TANF recipients who may be eligible for SSI. John Martinez (MDRC) will moderate a session that describes recently launched pilots of interventions intended to address challenges in TANF/SSI program interaction. Presenters will discuss pilot development, implementation strategies, challenges faced and lessons learned to date.

• Mary Farrell (MEF Associates) will give an overview of the TSDTP project and describe the knowledge development findings that informed the pilots.
• Boyd Brown (Goodwill/Easter Seals Minnesota) will discuss the development of Families Achieving Success Today, or FAST, a supported employment intervention being piloted in Ramsey County in Minnesota.
• Sherri Cheatham (Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services) will discuss the development of the Los Angeles SSI Advocacy Improvement pilot, an attempt to increase the number of SSI applications approved at the initial stage of determination by improving the quality of SSI applications submitted on behalf of participants in the CalWorks program.

Behavioral Mapping: An Innovative Tool for Diagnosing Program Challenges and Uncovering Unique Solutions

In this session, the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project team will introduce their behavioral mapping method and present their experience doing behavioral maps with a welfare to work program in Illinois, a child care quality rating system in Maine, a child support system in Texas and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

• Lashawn Richburg-Hayes (MDRC) will moderate and provide overview remarks about the BIAS project and the motivation for behavioral mapping.
• Alexandra Fiorillo (ideas42) will describe the behavioral mapping process and present what has been learned from the process to date.
• Caprisca Randolph-Robinson (Illinois Department of Human Services) will reflect on the experience of participating in behavioral mapping of a welfare-to-work program in Illinois.
• Michael Hayes (Office of the Attorney General, Texas) will share his experience participating in behavioral mapping work with the Texas child support system. 

Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Topics

This session will cover topics related to the CCDF and the effects that child care subsidies have on child and family outcomes. Kathleen Dwyer (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate the session.

• Linda Giannarelli (The Urban Institute) will describe the methods for coding the CCDF Policies Database, show key aspects of cross-state variation using the most recent data available and explain how data from the database can be downloaded for use in statistical analyses.
• Anna Johnson (Georgetown University) will discuss whether receipt of a federal child care subsidy, a key support for low-income working parents, elevates child care quality. She will use nationally representative data and econometric techniques.
• Susan Roll (University of Maryland) will describe a recent secondary data analysis of State administrative records (TANF, child care and employment) in replication of previous research by Chapin Hall to compare child care subsidy take-up rates and employment outcomes for Maryland families from 2003 to 2006.

Improving Child Support Outcomes through Workforce Development Approaches

Men with little education, low skills and poor employment records who have acquired family responsibilities often fail to pay their child support obligations. This panel will focus on opportunities to improve child support outcomes by linking unemployed noncustodial parents to jobs.  Jennifer Burnszynski (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate.

• Jessica Pearson (Center for Policy Research) will describe positive findings from an evaluation conducted of a child support-workforce collaboration in Colorado.
• Jenny Taylor (Goodwill of North Georgia) will discuss the work her organization does to help low-income noncustodial parents find stable employment.
• Robert Nibbs (Georgia Department of Human Services) will discuss the role that his State plays in encouraging child support-workforce development partnerships.

These informal discussion groups will provide an opportunity for attendees to engage in self-directed conversations about various topics of interest suggested by conference attendees.

Improving Program Implementation Through Performance Management

Summer Jobs for Youth

Food Security

Subsidized Employment

Evidence-Based Policy

Implications of Recent Evaluations of Programs Designed to Strengthen Parent Relationships

Tribal TANF

Community-Based Organizations and Workforce Development

Human Services in a Time of Lean Government

Human Trafficking

Intergenerational Approaches to Addressing Poverty

Serving Pregnant and Parenting Teens

Youth Aging Out of the Foster Care System

The Safety Net During the Recession  Video

Shelley Waters Boots (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) will moderate this session on the effectiveness of the safety net during the recent recession.

• David Kassabian (The Urban Institute) will describe the extent to which States’ TANF rules changed in response to challenges posed by the recession.
• Arloc Sherman (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) will present estimates of the poverty effects of six provisions contained in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
• Sheila Zedlewski (The Urban Institute) will use data on the receipt of safety net benefits by unemployed families in 2005 and in 2009 to examine how the safety net responded during the recent recession.

Qualitative Research on Child Care Choices

This session will examine the various factors that go into child care decisions for low-income families, including income, access and employment. Julia Henly (The University of Chicago) will moderate.

• LaShawnDa Pittman-Gay (Georgia State University) will focus on barriers and strategies used to access child care among low-income grandmothers parenting their grandchildren.
• Sara Bernstein (Northwestern University) will present findings from a study examining how low-income families balance economic stability and child rearing through the lens of their child care choices, specifically asking: within the context of economic hardship, how do low-income mothers make their child care decisions?
• Juan Pedroza (The Urban Institute) will discuss how employment constraints affect low-income working parents’ child care decisions, including how parents’ work and care obligations do and don’t fit together.

Scaling Up Evidence-Based Programming: The Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP)

A new federal teen pregnancy prevention program, PREP, is currently replicating evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs in 45 States across the country. This session is the first opportunity for policymakers and others to learn about how this program is unfolding nationwide. Seth Chamberlain (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate.

• Dirk Butler (Administration for Children and Families) will discuss the overall design of the teen pregnancy prevention program PREP.
• Susan Zief (Mathematica Policy Research) will describe how States across the country are using PREP funding to scale-up evidence-based teenage pregnancy prevention programs and incorporate abstinence, contraception and adulthood preparation topics.
• One or more PREP State Administrators will discuss their own experience implementing PREP programs and discuss what lessons their experience may offer others who are scaling up evidence-based programs.

Homeless Families and Human Services

This session, moderated by Sharon McDonald (National Alliance to End Homelessness), will present research on family homelessness and explore how TANF and other human services resources can be used to effectively prevent and end homelessness for families.

• Dennis Culhane (University of Pennsylvania) will share findings from a study that examined administrative data from four communities to develop a typology of family homelessness and discuss implications for how TANF and other public funding resources are spent to intervene with homeless families.
• Alvaro Cortes (Abt Associates) will present findings from a study of 14 communities that link housing supports with social services for families at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
• Frank Cirillo (Mercer County, Board of Social Services in New Jersey) will share how his local community used research to design and test pilots of new interventions to end family homelessness, including how they use TANF resources to support homeless families.

Community College Innovations in Serving Low-Income Individuals

Gayle Hamilton (MDRC) will moderate and serve as a discussant for this session highlighting community colleges’ innovative approaches to serving low-income individuals, including TANF participants.

• Lashawn Richburg-Hayes (MDRC) will discuss emerging findings from the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, a study of how performance-based scholarships for low-income students support them in completing their courses and making more timely progress toward degrees in eight community colleges and one intermediary across six States.
• Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow (MDRC) will present findings from a 5-year study of the first 26 colleges that joined Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly among low-income students and students of color.
• Meghan Conlin (Madison Area Technical College) will describe the experience of Madison Area Technical College in implementing innovative programs to help low-income students achieve success in the community college setting.

Approaches to Evaluation and Replication: New York City’s Center for Economic Opportunity  Video

Panelists will discuss the Center’s overall approach to evaluation, replication and building the evidence base. Mark Greenberg (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate the session with panelists:

• Linda Gibbs (Office of the Mayor, City of New York)
• Kristin Morse (NYC Center for Economic Opportunity,
  City of New York)
• Richard R. Buery, Jr. (Children’s Aid Society)
• Robert Gordon (Office of Management and Budget)

The Young Men’s Initiative: Tackling Disparities between Young Black and Latino Men and Their Peers  Video

This session will provide an overview of the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, City of New York Young Men’s Initiative (YMI). Kristin Morse (NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, City of New York) will moderate the session.

• Carson Hicks (NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, City of New York) will provide an overview of the disparities between young black and Latino men and their peers in the areas of education, justice, employment and health. Specific YMI policies and programs that address these disparities will also be discussed, as well as examples of evaluation methods that will be applied over the next three years.
• Alan Farrell (Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, City of New York) will provide an overview of Project REDRESS, a new program that aims to remove barriers that fathers may face in interacting with City agencies, to make all City agencies as “father friendly” as possible, to assist in the creation of memorable moments between fathers and their children and to support fathers as they increase their capacity to be good dads.
• Kate Dempsey (NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, City of New York) will discuss the expansion of YMI’s evidence-based employment programs, including internships and training programs that have been proven effective with young adults.
• David Banks (The Eagle Academy Foundation) will serve as discussant.

Economic Instability: What is It and Why Does it Matter?

Chris Wimer (Stanford University) will moderate this session, which will provide an overview of the concept of economic instability, describe its prevalence in the United States and document the implications of economic instability for the well-being of children and families.

• Austin Nichols (The Urban Institute) will start the session by providing an overview of economic instability in the U.S., including defining the concept of instability and discussing recent analyses of the Economic Security Index.
• Bradley Hardy (American University) will discuss findings from an analysis to decompose trends in family income volatility across race, family structure and the income distribution, using data on families in the Current Population Survey from the period 1980 to 2009.
• Carly Tubbs (New York University) will describe trends in the magnitude and frequency of income changes in households with children and associations between measures of income volatility and child well-being using findings from an analysis of data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Opportunity New York City Family Rewards experimental study.

Using Data Systems to Understand Service Receipt and Participant Outcomes

This session will feature presentations that describe data systems currently in use in three different social service programs that collect program, participant and outcome data in order to understand and model service receipt and participant outcomes. Matthew Stagner (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago) will moderate this session.

• Diana Tester (South Carolina Department of Social Services) using administrative statistical data extracts will present various analyses on the characteristics of TANF clients and case worker behavior with a special emphasis on positive case closures through employment.
• Ken DeCerchio (Center for Children and Family Futures) will provide an overview of the Regional Partnership Grant Program and present case-level child/youth, adult and family functioning performance indicator data from across 53 grantees and describe modeling to identify which groups of services are linked to positive performance outcomes.
• Alan Werner (Abt Associates) will discuss how individual and grantee level data collected for the Health Profession Opportunity Grant evaluation will be used to understand participant service receipt and outcomes and to provide data for an analysis of the relationship of program design and implementation strategies and participant success.

International Perspectives on Poverty and Safety Net Research

This session will feature a conversation between evaluation leaders from the European Commission, the Administration for Children and Families and the U.S. Department of Labor on their agencies’ approaches to poverty and safety net research, including the methods used, the topics studied and opportunities to learn from one another. The session will begin with Georg Fischer (European Commission) discussing his perspective as Director of Analysis, Evaluation and External Relations in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. Mark Fucello (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session which will also feature:

• Naomi Goldstein (Administration for Children and Families)
• Demetra Nightingale (U.S. Department of Labor)

TANF Work Participation and Engagement Strategies  Video

This session, moderated by Heather Hahn (The Urban Institute), will explore issues related to TANF work participation and engagement strategies. The Claims Resolution Act of 2010 required States to document the activities of clients with zero hours of participation in Reports on Engagement, and there has been growing interest in understanding the status of TANF clients not counting toward the work participation rate. At the same time, the recent recession has created additional challenges to engaging clients and meeting the work participation rate including funding cuts to TANF programs and limited job opportunities for clients.

• LaDonna Pavetti (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) will give framing remarks about the federal work participation rate, zero hours of participation and the effects of the economic recession on State and local TANF programs.
• Michelle Derr (Mathematica Policy Research) will share preliminary findings from a new study on work participation and engagement.
• Arlene Steinbacher (Essex County, New Jersey Division of Training and Employment) will share the successes and challenges of engaging TANF recipients in work or work-related activities in Essex County, New Jersey.

Strategies for Providing Language and Vocational Services to English Language Learners

Ann Rivera (Administration for Children and Families) will moderate this session, which will look at the prevalence of English language learners in the U.S. and the strategies that workforce programs use to serve them.

• Margie McHugh (Migration Policy Institute) will begin the discussion by providing an overview of what is known about the prevalence and characteristics of limited-English proficiency individuals in the U.S.
• Marguerite Lukes (City University of New York) will discuss approaches to English as a Second Language services with a particular focus on services for adults and the incorporation of native languages to improve outcomes for participants.
• Ricardo Estrada (Instituto del Progreso Latino) will describe Instituto del Progreso Latino’s experience in providing workforce services to individuals with limited English proficiency, including the Carreras En Salud Program, a collaborative career pathways program.

What Have We Learned about Domestic Violence from Family Strengthening Evaluations?

A primary consideration in relationship education work – both for practitioners and for evaluators – is whether members of the couple are safe. In recent evaluations, much work has gone into measuring the safety of the partners. Linda Mellgren (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) will moderate this panel presentation of recent findings related to couple safety.

• Tasseli McKay (RTI) will describe what has been learned about domestic violence prevalence in families affected by incarceration through the National Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners.
• Anupa Bir (RTI) will discuss how domestic violence prevalence related to perceived safety in the evaluation of the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative.
• Luis Torres (University of Houston) will discuss lessons learned about how Hispanic Healthy Marriage Initiative grantees addressed domestic violence issues.

Innovations to Encourage Benefit and Service Receipt

Chauncy Lennon (Ford Foundation) will moderate and serve as a discussant for this session, which will highlight innovative efforts that States are utilizing to support the take up of services and benefits by low-income individuals. He will also discuss new efforts being undertaken by States as part of the Work Support Strategies: Streamlining Access, Strengthening Families demonstration.

• Erik Beecroft (Virginia Department of Social Services) will describe results of an experimental study that tested different outreach approaches to increase federal Earned Income Tax Credit claims among eligible recipients of public assistance in Virginia.
• Laura Castner (Mathematica Policy Research) will discuss how data matching and sharing techniques are being used to increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program through several demonstration programs being sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.
• Libby Makowsky (Mathematica Policy Research) will describe a recent effort, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to understand existing web-based and other electronic benefits access efforts, study the successes and challenges of a subset of these efforts and analyze the potential for sustaining expanding and replicating the most promising efforts.