Held in-person for the first time since 2018, OPRE’s 2024 Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency (RECS) featured five plenary sessions, 38 concurrent breakout sessions, two Emerging Scholars Lightning Talks and Poster Sessions featuring the work of 14 scholars, 11 in-person roundtables, a careers panel, a lunchtime symposium, and many opportunities to network and connect. A total of 877 individuals attended, with 551 of those attending in-person. Participants experienced the highest number of content-focused sessions of any RECS to date.
RECS still retained virtual offerings to ensure that a portion of the sessions were accessible to those unable to join in-person. All plenary sessions and one breakout session per time block were recorded and livestreamed to virtual attendees. The first day of the conference also featured virtual-only facilitated roundtable sessions that were held via Zoom.
Over the course of the three days, attendees were able to choose from sessions covering the following topics:
- TANF Programs, Policies, and Populations
- Employment and Mobility in the Labor Market
- Youth Well-Being and the Transition to Adulthood
- Strengthening Families, Fatherhood, Marriages, and Relationships
- Evaluating Social Programs, Building Evidence, and Using Data
- Approaches to Alleviate Poverty and Expand Opportunity
Across the sessions, three key themes emerged— facilitating the use of evidence, advancing equity, and exploring family well-being.
1. Facilitating the Use of Evidence
The first plenary session of the conference highlighted methods for connecting evidence production and evidence use. Speakers discussed what evidence means in their unique contexts, who develops it, and how to facilitate evidence-informed decision making. This session highlighted contributions in this area from several OPRE projects, including the Supporting Evaluation Efforts for Demonstrations in Self-Sufficiency (SEEDS) project and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Collaborative 2.0, with a special focus on a toolkit from the TANF Data Innovation Project that was designed to help agencies build the culture and infrastructure needed to apply data analysis routinely. A breakout session explored recent updates to ACF’s Program Manager’s Guide to Evaluation. These updates are designed to further support effective and relevant program evaluations of human services programs. A third session featured a discussion about using research evidence to design, replicate, and scale relational-based work within a large community-based organization. This session was just one of several examples across the conference program of local organizations describing how they have used evidence to improve their programs and actively participated in the evidence-building enterprise to benefit their programs and the field more broadly. A forthcoming blog post will further discuss the exciting conversations about evidence use at both RECS 2024 and OPRE’s other signature biennial conference, the National Research Conference on Early Childhood. Continue to visit our blog for our ongoing discussion of evidence use.
2. Advancing Equity
This year, in soliciting and reviewing conference proposals, RECS expressed a special interest in proposals that included a focus on equity and featured diverse speaker perspectives. As a result, discussions of equity from a diverse group of speakers were featured across the conference, in every conference track. One plenary session focused on how healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs are well-positioned to support the healthy development and relationships of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, or two-spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) youth and adults, sharing lessons learned from OPRE’s Fatherhood, Relationships, and Marriage — Illuminating the Next Generation of Research (FRAMING) project. Breakout sessions focused on equity in a range of research areas and topics, including: American Rescue Plan investments; findings from different analyses and methodological approaches to assessing racial and ethnic differences in the TANF program, highlighting OPRE’s Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Human Services Analysis Execution Project (RED-X); the meaning of cultural responsiveness when evaluating programs with Indigenous communities; federal examples of integrating community engagement and lived experiences into research initiatives; and insights for conducting equity assessments in human services policies and programs.
Concurrent roundtable discussions provided multiple opportunities for interactive, facilitated discussions on topics with an equity focus, including:
- Incorporating lived experience as expertise in the development and conduct of research;
- Innovative strategies for capturing participant perspectives in federal research;
- Using data to evaluate equity in workforce development services;
- Data limitations in equity research; and
- Strategies for overcoming sticking points encountered when infusing equity into research.
One OPRE project featured in roundtable discussions is Advancing Contextual Analysis and Methods of Participation Engagement (CAMPE), which truly exemplifies OPRE’s commitment to equity. The project is designed to assist OPRE in better understanding, incorporating, and advancing equitable research practices. Engaging program participants puts “people at the center” of the government’s work.
3. Exploring Family Well-Being
Another plenary session was devoted to considering the well-being of the whole family, beyond the traditional lens of an individual’s employment and earnings outcomes. Three OPRE projects were highlighted during this plenary: Measuring, Supporting, and Understanding Child and Caregiver Well-being through Employment and Self-Sufficiency Research (Measuring SUCCESS), which works to integrate empirical findings from the literature on child development and family well-being into its welfare and family self-sufficiency research agenda; Supporting Family Economic Well-being through Home Visiting (HomeEc), which advances understanding of how home visiting programs can and do support family economic well-being; and the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center, which, among other goals, works to identify, validate, and develop culturally meaningful measures of program practices and outcomes for Indigenous families. A break-out session highlighted two-generation approaches that aim to meet the needs of both children and their adult caregivers and disrupt the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Additionally, a roundtable discussion shared findings from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report about reducing intergenerational transmission of poverty, Policies and Programs to Reduce Intergenerational Poverty: NASEM’s Report of Findings and Recommendations .
Overall, OPRE staff was thrilled to bring together federal officials, program administrators, local practitioners, and researchers to discuss innovative research on programs, policies, and services that support families on the path to economic well-being. We appreciate the engagement of so many attendees, speakers, and partners throughout the conference. As we begin planning for RECS 2026, please send any feedback on your RECS 2024 experience or ideas for 2024 to Marie Lawrence or Emily Ross.