Resource Library

As states and territories make decisions about child care policies, they may find it useful to collect data from child care providers. Survey data can be helpful for answering questions about providers’ characteristics and experiences. Yet surveys can be difficult to design. This brief discusses best practices for developing and testing surveys.

A one-page tip sheet lists suggestions for writing strong survey questions. 

The legislation authorizing the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct a continuous program of research and evaluation activities to build knowledge around the implementation and effectiveness of home visiting programs.

Since 2005, Congress has funded $150 million each year in healthy marriage (HM) and responsible fatherhood (RF) grants designed to improve the well-being of children and families. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded and overseen three cohorts of these grants (2006—2011, 2011—2015, and 2015—2020)....

This document is one of two products created under the auspices of the Evaluation Data Coordination Project…

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...

Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) programs provide child development, family support, and family engagement services to young children and their migrant and seasonal farmworker families. MSHS programs are designed to meet the unique needs of migrant and seasonally working families.  MSHS programs usually provide bilingual services and sometimes operate in non-standard hours or in varying locations throughout the agricultural season...

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.

This logic model was developed as part of the Descriptive Study of the ELMC Initiative. In September 2010, the Office of Head Start (OHS), in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF), awarded 17-month Early Learning Mentor Coach (ELMC) grants to 131 Head Start (HS) grantees. Contractors conducted a descriptive study of the ELMC initiative, detailing the coaching approaches HS grantees used in their programs. A key task of the ELMC project was to develop a conceptual model of coaching, both to provide a framework for the study and to help identify factors that grantee administrators should consider when designing and implementing a coaching initiative. The team chose a logic model framework for portraying coaching because it allowed them to characterize the entire coaching initiative—not only the structure and processes of various coaching approaches, but also the assumptions and resources, the intermediate outputs and potential outcomes, and the contextual factors that may influence the implementation and success of a coaching initiative. When establishing an early care and education coaching approach, program administrators will need to make decisions on multiple important dimensions. This brief presents key dimensions shaping coaching approaches, along with a graphic representation of the program logic model for coaching in early care and education settings.

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.

For several decades, the federal government has supported programs that encourage adolescents to wait to have sex. This support stems in part from the evidence and expectations that delaying sexual activity can have important benefits for adolescents and society as a whole. The most direct of these benefits are reductions in teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). However, research has also found benefits of delayed sexual activity extending beyond these physical outcomes...