Resource Library

Social service organizations and policy makers increasingly recognize that they can accomplish more and improve outcomes for those they serve when they work together with other organizations. They forge new partnerships, develop new relationships, and often implement changes to practice as a result of collaboration and coordination efforts.

Collaboration and coordination efforts occur along a continuum, from early planning stages towards more fully developed or mature levels of partnership...

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has a long history of supporting rigorous research and evaluation on the broad range of human services programs that fall under ACF’s auspices. Many of ACF’s programs have components aimed at supporting employment among low-income populations, and, consequently, OPRE regularly supports...

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is a model for helping people who have serious mental illness find employment. There is a good deal of evidence showing the model’s success, but less is known about the model’s effectiveness with those who have other types of disabilities and health conditions, such as physical disabilities or less severe types of mental illness...

The Breaking Barriers program, based in San Diego, California, provided employment services to lower-income individuals with disabilities. 

MDRC carried out a random assignment impact evaluation of the program, funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, in order to assess the effectiveness of the program at improving employment outcomes for program participants. Findings from that evaluation were released in September 2019...

This infographic distills key findings from a literature review conducted as part of the Understanding Poverty: TANF Office Culture study sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The full literature review identifies key factors associated with a positive organizational culture as well as accompanying strategies TANF offices may employ to promote positive organizational culture.

Several ACF programs interact with justice-involved parents and youth in an effort to promote economic self-sufficiency and social well-being for the individuals and their families. Across ACF, we are implementing rigorous research and evaluation projects to better understand how to serve this population.

Employment and wages have been rising over the last several years of the recovery from the Great Recession that ended in 2009. But the recent wage increases are not enough to offset decades of stagnating or even falling wages for many groups of low-wage U.S. workers. A central policy question is how to ensure that economic growth is shared more widely and that people who work are not poor. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one option...

People served by public assistance programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) often have difficulty finding jobs in the competitive labor market. This report describes the ways in which eight TANF...