This week, the OPRE Insights Blog turns one year old! We launched OPRE Insights on May 28th, 2020, announcing that we had a new way to share what we were doing and thinking here at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. We aimed to use this space to share timely information about OPRE and the principles that guide our work; summarize key research findings; provide information about ongoing activities; share methods and evaluation technical assistance content; preview or recap OPRE-sponsored or related events; offer insights from OPRE staff and leadership, and more.
Looking back over the past year of posts, we are proud of all we have been able to share in this space. Here are some highlights from our inaugural year!
- As our nation continues to cope with COVID-19 and its impacts, OPRE Insights was a place for us to share our thoughts and progress on pandemic-related learning. In July 2020 we shared how we were responding to challenges and embracing learning opportunities from COVID-19, and in March 2021 we shared an update on how over 60 OPRE projects planned or began collecting and analyzing information relevant to our COVID-19 learning questions.
- In January we used the blog to introduce the ACF Research and Evaluation Agenda, highlighting our work developing learning questions across nine ACF program areas.
- Throughout the year we shared research findings on topics ranging from the impacts of demonstration projects serving noncustodial parents to the effectiveness of different job search assistance strategies for TANF recipients to how healthy marriage and relationship education and responsible fatherhood programs can work to prevent and address domestic violence.
- We used OPRE Insights to provide information on ongoing OPRE projects and their products, including the Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse, a project Examining the Conversion of Enrollment Slots from Head Start to Early Head Start, and OPRE’s work on the Annual Survey of Refugees.
- In August we presented two new compendiums geared towards data analysts and researchers interested in taking greater advantage of rich administrative data sources for their work.
- We shared highlights from our Virtual Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency 2020 and our 2020 Methods Meeting on exploring core components research in social services settings.
- With our blog, we observed Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month, Black History Month, National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month, Native American Heritage Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Father’s Day. These observances allowed us to spotlight the wide breadth of our work, as we were able to share findings on projects ranging from the American Indian/Alaska Native Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES) to the Preventing and Addressing Intimate Violence when Engaging Dads (PAIVED) study to our Methods Inquiries work on innovations in research design, analytic techniques and data measurement.
Thank you for reading and joining us in our inaugural year. Are there other topics you’d like to see covered? Let us know on Twitter !