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Office of Human Services Policy (HSP)

The Office of Human Services Policy (HSP) conducts policy research, analysis, evaluation, and coordination on various issues across the Department, including but not limited to, poverty and measurement, vulnerable populations, early childhood education and child welfare, family strengthening, economic support for families, and youth development. HSP serves as a liaison with other agencies on broad economic matters and is the Department’s lead on poverty research and analysis.

The Division of Children and Youth Policy focuses on policies related to the well-being of children and youth. Projects range from quick-turnaround policy analyses to large-scale experimental studies, and major policy initiatives. Key areas include early childhood, early care and education, home visiting, youth development and risky behaviors, parenting and family support, child welfare and foster care, linkages with physical and mental health, methods for evaluating what works, and strategies for improving research and data in these areas.

The Division of Family and Community Policy focuses on policies affecting various low-income populations. This includes policy development around major initiatives such as homelessness and reentry. It also includes conducting and coordinating analysis, research, and evaluation on the safety net, economic mobility and opportunity, welfare-to-work issues, strengthening families and responsible fatherhood, child support enforcement, and domestic violence. Other key priorities include place-based initiatives, the role of social capital in human services, human trafficking, benefits coordination.

The Division of Data and Technical Analysis focuses on policies and programs concerning low-income and otherwise disadvantaged populations. The Division provides data analytic capacity for policy development through data collection activities, secondary data analysis, modeling, and cost analyses. The Division focuses on cross-cutting human services policy issues such as income, poverty, cash and non-cash supports for low-income families, employment, fertility, and child welfare. The Division also issues annual updates to the poverty guidelines and reports to Congress on indicators of welfare dependence.

Topic Areas:

Reports

Displaying 381 - 390 of 964. 10 per page. Page 39.

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Assets, Poverty, and Public Policy: Challenges in Definition and Measurement

This report reviews the definitions and measures of assets and asset poverty in existing theoretical and empirical studies and suggests ways to make them more relevant for future research and policy development. In doing so, the report establishes a conceptual foundation for an emerging field of inquiry that focuses on the role of assets in social policy. [45 PDF pages]

National Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-Entering Fathers and Their Partners: Program Models of MFS-IP Grantees

The research brief provides an overview of the program models used by the twelve Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-entering Partners grantees. [10 PDF pages]

Ensuring Quality in Contracted Child Welfare Services

In 2006, ASPE funded the Child Welfare Privatization Initiatives Project to provide information to state and local child welfare administrators who are considering or implementing privatization reforms. The project has produced papers on a range of topics providing insights about factors that should be considered when approaching or improving upon privatization efforts.

Providing Unpaid Work Experience Opportunities for TANF Recipients: Examples from Erie County, New York; Montana; and Hamilton County, Ohio

This practice brief profiles three work experience programs that engage nearly all work-ready TANF recipients in unpaid work activities, either alone or in conjunction with education and training. Unpaid work experience is designed to mirror regular employment in the paid labor market.

Role of Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Providing Relief and Recovery Services After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

This report examines the relief and recovery services provided by faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) in the Gulf Coast region after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The study included a telephone survey of 202 FBCOs that provided services and in-depth case studies of eight selected FBCOs. [116 PDF pages]
Case Study

Achieving Higher TANF Work Participation Rates: Case Studies from Maryland and Utah

This practice brief profiles the multi-pronged, comprehensive approaches taken by Maryland and Utah to increase their state's work participation rates. Both states have more than doubled their state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work participation rates within a one-year period.

Providing Paid Employment Opportunities to TANF Participants Engaged in Vocational Education Programs: Examples from Denver, Colorado; Kentucky; and California

This practice brief profiles three programs, two statewide and one local, that provide work opportunities to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients who are participating in vocational education programs.
Research Brief

Indicators of Welfare Dependence: 2008 Research Brief

June 2009

Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates: Summary Report

This brief describes a range of strategies states have implemented to achieve higher Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) work participation rates. It describes four broad categories of strategies: (1) creating new work opportunities for TANF recipients; (2) administrative strategies; (3) TANF policy changes; and (4) creation of new programs.
Report to Congress

Indicators of Welfare Dependence: Annual Report to Congress, 2008

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 requires the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare annual reports to Congress on indicators and predictors of welfare dependence.  The 2008 Indicators of Welfare Dependence, the eleventh annual report, provides welfare dependence indicators through 2005, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Respons