The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Data Collaborative Pilot Initiative is a component of the TANF Data Innovation project. The 30-month pilot offered technical assistance and training to support cross-disciplinary teams of staff at eight state and county TANF programs in the routine use of TANF and other administrative data to inform policy and practice.
This brief highlights key takeaways from APHSA’s work on young families, starting with an overview of the young families work and its early years, followed by key takeaways and highlights from its final year, ending with opportunities for future work in the young families space.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
This toolkit offers strategies and tools to help agencies build the culture and infrastructure needed to apply data analysis routinely, effectively, and accurately – referred to in this publication as “sustainable data use.”
This Urban Institute report identifies strategies to improve young people’s access to public benefits through targeted outreach, benefit navigation, cross-organizational partnerships, and streamlined eligibility processes.
The Urban Institute's report outlines actionable approaches for state governments and organizations to enhance the accessibility and retention of public benefit programs, focusing on service delivery, policy reforms, and technological advancements.
A guide to navigating New York City’s public services. It was made with and for families of students living in temporary housing or experiencing homelessness and the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Students in Temporary Housing (STH).
This report explores policy options Utah and other states can adopt to mitigate benefit cliffs, which occur when small income increases lead to sudden loss of public assistance.
This guide highlights approachable ideas for state and local public benefits agencies to improve applications, renewals, and correspondence. As outlined in this resource, even small improvements can be transformative for residents and caseworkers alike.
Our work with Pennsylvania to implement user experience and user interface changes shows that innovation can be easier to implement than it might seem.
Innovators inside and outside of government are working to improve access to the social safety net using data, technology, and design. This report highlights innovations carried out by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Data and Technology grantees from 2018 to 2021, including extraordinary efforts to meet the challenges of the pandemic. Those grantees are: Benefits Data Trust, Code for America, Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation, U.S. Digital Response, and the Digital Innovation and Governance Initiative at New America. In 2020, these projects secured more than $200 million in benefits for close to 100,000 people across at least 36 states, and helped millions more through policy change, training, and guidance.
An America where no one experiences poverty is possible. Already, the U.S. has programs with the potential to make this vision a reality, including programs that provide cash assistance, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The current TANF program provides very little cash assistance and is marked by stark racial disparities, but it has the potential to reduce child poverty, increase economic security, and advance racial equity. This report offers a vision for an anti-racist approach to the TANF program, with new statutory goals and policy recommendations to advance racial justice.
