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Office of Human Services Policy (HSP)

The Office of Human Services Policy (HSP) strives to improve the well-being of children, youth, and families and break down silos across government. It does so by providing timely, actionable, cross-cutting policy analysis and research, and by leading cross-government coordination to address urgent human services challenges. The office works closely with federal, state, local, and private sector partners on issues including economic mobility and employment, child poverty and well-being, child welfare, family strengthening and fatherhood, early childhood education, youth development, community initiatives, child support, recidivism, and homelessness.

HSP advises the ASPE and other HHS leadership on human services policy matters. It leads and actively participates in interagency initiatives to align federal programming; conducts policy analysis and other research on human services and related issues; shares findings with and provides technical assistance to a diverse range of stakeholders; and coordinates development of HHS’s human services legislative proposals. HSP serves as a liaison with other agencies on broad economic matters and is the Department’s lead on poverty measurement.

The Office of Human Services Policy has three divisions:

  • The Division of Children and Youth Policy focuses on policies related to the well-being of children and youth, including early childhood education and child welfare, and leads the Children’s Interagency Coordinating Council and the Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs.
  • The Division of Family and Community Policy covers policies to strengthen low-income families and communities and address barriers to economic mobility. The division leads the Interagency Council on Economic Mobility.
  • The Division of Data and Technical Analysis provides data analytic capacity for policy development through data collection activities, secondary data analysis, modeling, and cost analyses. The Division also issues annual updates to the poverty guidelines and reports to Congress on indicators of welfare dependence.

Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy: Jennifer Burnszynski

Reports

Displaying 141 - 150 of 965. 10 per page. Page 15.

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Building the Next Generation of Child Support Policy Research

This project brought together policymakers, practitioners and evaluators in October 2017 to identify key policy research questions in the child support program.  The discussions, coupled with a series of informant interviews from 2016, led to the development of the research agenda.  It is a framework for the broader child support community to collectively answer pressing policy questi

Child Care Subsidy Duration and Caseload Dynamics: A Multi-State Examination from 2004-2014

This Brief provides an examination of the amount of time that low-income families from 32 states received child care subsidies.  These families began receiving government-funded child care subsidies during Fiscal Year 2012, prior to the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act.  In general, families utilized child care subsidy programs for short time p

How many families might be newly reached by child support cooperation requirements in SNAP and subsidized child care, and what are their characteristics?

States have flexibility to require a person that receives SNAP or subsidized child care to cooperate with the child support program.  This infographic introduces the child support cooperation policy variation across the states and then presents characteristic information about the custodial and noncustodial parents that may be subject to cooperation requirements in SNAP and subsidized chil

Cross-Domain Instability in Families with Some College Education

This brief examines instability across key areas of family life for children and their households, and the characteristics of those most likely to experience instability.

Economic Opportunity and the Opioid Crisis: Geographic and Economic Trends

This study examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the United States. We have three primary findings:

Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic and the Child Welfare Caseloads: Methodological Details from a Mixed Methods Study

This brief describes the research methods used to produce the findings in Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic, and Child Welfare Caseloads: A Mixed Methods Study. It is a part of a series of briefs that discuss different aspects and issues surrounding the relationship between substance use disorders and the child welfare system.

Predictive Analytics in Child Welfare: Considerations in Contracting Vendors for Predictive Analytics

An increasing number of child welfare agencies are considering using predictive analytics in their work. Typically they do so by contracting with a vendor to develop and maintain a predictive analytics model that is used by the agency to predict risk of a specified outcome.
Report to Congress

Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors, Seventeenth Report to Congress

This report provides welfare dependence indicators through 2015 for most indicators and through 2016 for some indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

State Practices in Treatment/Therapeutic Foster Care

Treatment foster care (TFC; sometimes known as therapeutic foster care) is a family-based placement option for children with serious emotional, behavioral, or medical needs who can be served in the community with intensive support. This report describes how TFC is implemented and supported by states.

Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic and the Child Welfare System: Key Findings from a Mixed Methods Study

This study examined the relationship between parental substance misuse and child welfare caseloads, which began rising in 2012 after more than a decade of decline.