As part of our ongoing dedication to conducting work that is rigorous, relevant, transparent, independent, and ethical, OPRE is committed to incorporating more equitable approaches into our research, evaluation, technical assistance, and data practices. To facilitate OPRE’s incorporation of these equitable approaches, we are taking various steps -- including assessing what we have been learning from OPRE publications and resources related to race equity and equity for underserved communities, more broadly. OPRE’s long-standing investments in work with Tribal Nations and communities and Hispanic children and families, especially through our Tribal Early Childhood Research Center , Tribal Evaluation Institute , and National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families , has helped us build a foundation of work that sheds light on different communities’ experiences with ACF funding streams and programs. In addition to those efforts, we’ve invested in an array of projects to better understand how the various populations served by ACF access, experience, and benefit from ACF programs, systematic differences in those experiences, and factors associated with any differences. We’re also developing expertise in how to center participants’ voices and experiences and in more sophisticated ways of using data to address equity concerns around program access and outcomes.
All of this work and more is captured on our new Race Equity Research and Resources page. There you will find links to all of our race equity-related publications and resources to date. We have organized these resources according the following five, overarching themes:
- Identifying barriers to program enrollment and access;
- Identifying disparities in enrollment, access, services, and outcomes;
- Assessing policies, program implementation, and practices that may (1) contribute to disparities or (2) reduce disparities;
- Disaggregating data by key demographic variables;
- Engaging community members and other interested parties;
Below are just a few examples of our published materials addressing these important themes. We encourage you to visit the page for more!
1. Identifying barriers to program enrollment and access:
- Practitioners in New Mexico’s TANF Program Offer Perspectives on Engaging Hispanic Families (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families) draws on a survey of TANF program practitioners in New Mexico to identify key activities that may facilitate effective program engagement with Hispanic families seeking cash assistance.
- Analysis of Data on Youth with Child Welfare Involvement at Risk of Homelessness discusses how grantees who were part of the Young Adults with Child Welfare Involvement At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) project used existing data and collected new data (with surveys and focus groups) to better identify and understand the risk and protective factors associated with homelessness among youth and young adults involved in the child welfare system.
2. Identifying disparities in enrollment, access, services, and outcomes:
- A National Portrait of Hispanic Children in Need (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families) examines the number and household circumstances of Hispanic children who may be in need of public safety-net programs based on their family’s economic resources and identifies the proportion of these children being served by some of the social service programs intended for them (specifically SNAP and TANF).
- Identifying Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Human Services: A Conceptual Framework and Literature Review provides a definition of disparities for human services, develops a conceptual framework for distinguishing racial and ethnic differences from disparities, and synthesizes the existing research on racial and ethnic differences and disparities in relation to six ACF programs.
3. Assessing policies, program implementation, and practices that may (1) contribute to disparities or (2) reduce disparities:
- State-level TANF Policies and Practice May Shape Access and Utilization among Hispanic Families (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families) describes state-level policies and administrative practices for TANF that may influence income-eligible Hispanic families’ use or non-use of the cash assistance component of the TANF program.
- Policy and Practices to Improve Access to Early Care and Education (ECE) for Low-Income Hispanic Families (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families) highlights key issues policymakers and providers can consider to expand the availability, affordability, and accessibility of early care and education (ECE) for young children from low-income Hispanic families.
4. Disaggregating data by key demographic variables:
- Improving Data Infrastructure to Recognize Hispanic Diversity in the United States (National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families) examines 34 commonly used large-scale data sets, identifies recommended data elements key to understanding the diversity of the Hispanic population, and suggests steps national surveys could take to improve their description of the characteristics and experiences of Latinos in the United States.
- A Portrait of American Indian and Alaska Native Children and Families summarizes existing data to create a national picture of the American Indian/Alaska Native population of young children and their families, and their access to and participation in early childhood services using the 2010—2014 American Community Survey.
5. Engaging community members and other interested parties:
- Lessons from the Field: Youth Engagement: Lessons Learned describes grantees’ experiences engaging youth in Youth At-Risk of Homelessness (YARH) interventions, including the methods they used to engage youth in services, and shares recommendations for effective engagement.
- Focusing on Participatory Research and Community Engagement is a blog post that shares OPRE’s commitment to advance the use of community-engaged methods in its own work highlighting two recent efforts showcasing that commitment: OPRE’s 2021 Innovative Methods Meeting on Enhancing Rigor, Relevance, and Equity in Research and Evaluation through Community Engagement and the Fiscal Year 2021 Advancing Contextual Analysis and Methods of Participant Engagement (CAMPE) project.
We encourage you to spend time on this page to explore additional resources.
Amanda Coleman is currently completing a 1-year assignment as Deputy Division Director of the Division of Child and Family Development. Her work focuses on education and training programs and financial capability interventions. She has a particular interest in precarious work and the intersection between economic insecurity and well-being.
Kim Clum is a Senior Social Science Research Analyst at OPRE. Kim's work focuses on adults with low incomes, economic self-sufficiency, the application of behavioral sciences to human services, and racial and ethnic disparities in the human services. She has a particular interest in qualitative methods and equitable approaches to conducting research and evaluation.