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...

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...

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...

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 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...

This report explains in detail the criteria that govern the Employment Strategies for Low-Income Adults Evidence Review (ESER), a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of employment and training programs for low-income adults. This detailed look includes the criteria for searching the literature, screening studies for eligibility, assessing each study’s strength of evidence, and extracting information reported in the studies...

The Welfare Rules Database tracks state TANF policies over time, from 1996 to the present. The database includes hundreds of variables related to initial eligibility, benefit amounts, work and activity requirements, and ongoing eligibility and time limits. This report describes the ways in which policies vary within the context of the federal program requirements, and includes dozens of detailed tables showing each state’s policy choices.

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.

The Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Scholars Network (the FSSRN) supports independent researchers working to enhance and improve family self-sufficiency research at the state and local levels. The FSSRN promotes productive partnerships between social science scholars (the grantee’s Principal Investigators, or PIs) and state or local human services agencies...

This fact sheet summarizes the criteria that govern the Employment Strategies for Low-Income Adults Evidence Review (ESER), a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of employment and training programs for low-income adults. The summary includes the criteria for searching the literature, screening studies for eligibility, assessing each study’s strength of evidence, and extracting information reported in the studies.