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National and Area Poverty Research
Centers
FY 2003 will be the second year of the multi-year commitment to support the
National Poverty Research Center and three Area Poverty Research Centers.
The National Poverty Research Center, located at the University of Michigan,
will continue to plan and conduct a broad program of policy research to describe
and analyze national, regional and state environments (e.g., economics,
demographics) and policies affecting the poor, particularly those families
with children who are poor or at-risk of being poor. The Center will continue
the mentoring and training of emerging scholars. The three area centers located
at the University of Kentucky, the University of Missouri, and the University
of Wisconsin, will also continue a more focused agenda to expand our
understanding of the causes, consequences, and effects of poverty in local
geographic areas, especially in states or regional areas of high concentrations
of poverty. The areas centers will continue the mentoring of emerging scholars
with interests in exploring more geographically focused poverty research.
For more information, see the Overview.
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Wage Progression and the Dynamics of the Low-Wage
Labor Market
This project examines wage progression among low-wage workers by tracking
the dynamics of low-wage employment over a four-year period from 1996 to
1999 using the newly released 1996 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program
Participation (SIPP). Given the strong work-focus of TANF and time limits
on the receipt of federal TANF assistance, policy makers are interested in
understanding the potential for advancement in the labor market among low-wage
workers. Do individuals in low-wage jobs have opportunities to progress
economically? What helps low-wage workers advance? Do low-wage workers need
to change jobs and/or employers to make wage gains? Do individuals need to
take on multiple jobs to make significant economic gains? While past research
has examined the dynamics of low-wage employment, wage progression, and
unemployment in the 1980s, the same in-depth research has not been conducted
after the passage of PRWORA. The upcoming public release of the full longitudinal
1996 SIPP panel offers a valuable, rich data resource for examining these
critical wage and labor market issues in the mid to late 1990s.
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The Effects of the Work Pays Demonstration, EITC
Expansions, and the Business Cycle on the Labor Market Behavior of the California
Caseload
This project will examine the effect of: 1) welfare changes, 2) the
1990 and 1993 expansions of the EITC, and 3) changes in the business cycle
on three specific issues concerning the California welfare population. These
issues include: 1) how do these factors contribute to the economic
well-being of families; 2) how do they affect labor market and transfer program
participation; and 3) how do they affect employment changes and earnings
trajectories? The project will use California administrative data drawn from
the welfare, unemployment insurance, and tax systems.
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Panel Study of Income Dynamics: Core Support
and Expanded Sample for Child Supplement
This project continues ASPE's ongoing core support for the
Panel Study of Income Dynamics
(PSID). The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of US
individuals and the families in which they reside that has been ongoing since
1968. The data files contain the full span of information collected over
the course of the study. PSID data can be used for cross-sectional, longitudinal,
and inter-generational analysis and for studying both individuals and families.
PSID data have been utilized in a variety of ASPE-sponsored research projects
as well as by the broader research community to address key questions related
to the health and well-being of low-income families and individuals. ASPE
support will focus on the maintenance of the size of the low-income sample,
the addition of core sample households for the child development supplement,
and the inclusion of an extensive set of welfare participation-related questions
in the survey instrument.
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Household
Definitions
Currently, the family is the basic unit for measuring poverty based on the
premise that family members share resources to an extent that unrelated persons
do not. In the last quarter century, however, the structure of the American
family has changed significantly — with a rise in single parent
families, nonfamily living arrangements, and cohabitation. Working with the
Census Bureau, a technical report will be prepared that examines the effects
on reported poverty rates of broadening the family unit to include nonfamily
household members. Measures of well-being will be used to examine whether
there are differences in well-being among households that result from resource
sharing with nonfamily members. Data for this analysis are from the 1996
longitudinal panel of Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
[ Go to Contents ]
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Spending on Social Welfare Programs in
Rich and Poor States
This project is will examine the effects of fiscal capacity on state spending
choices on programs to support low-income populations. Although research
has been conducted in the area of state fiscal capacity, little is currently
known about how fiscal capacity directly affects the spending choices of
state budget officials regarding social welfare programs. The project will
include a two-part study of state spending on social services. The first
part will use existing data sources to build a multivariate, fifty-state
model. This model will examine social welfare spending choices made by states
at different points in time. The second part will include site visits to
a half-dozen of the poorest states to develop a more detailed analysis of
the spending decisions across social welfare programs.
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Private Employers and TANF
Recipients
This project will assess the current state of knowledge of private employers
and TANF recipients and identify options for future study. Despite the crucial
role of private employers in a welfare system that emphasizes work, employers
themselves have received relatively little attention. Many companies are
known for ingenuity in recruiting, training, retaining, and promoting TANF
recipients. Several case studies and pilot projects have examined innovative
practices and several surveys have examined particular industries locales.
Nevertheless, we lack a comprehensive portrait of the prevalence, variety,
and limitations of employer practices. This project will synthesize recent
research and identify gaps in knowledge by reviewing existing studies, survey
instruments and data sources, and consulting with experts, to help ASPE identify
research projects that it may fund in the future.
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Analysis of Labor Market Outcomes
of TANF Recipients
This project will integrate TANF administrative data with the
Longitudinal Employer Household
Dynamics (LEHD) database, which contains detailed longitudinal records
on employment outcomes and employer characteristics. The expanded database
will be used to generate state and local indicators of employment-related
TANF outcomes and to analyze the worker and employer characteristics that
promote or hinder job retention and wage growth. By building on an existing
program (LEHD) at the Census Bureau, the data needed to undertake this depth
of analysis will be assembled at relatively low cost. Census has done extensive
cleaning, matching, and longitudinal linking of administrative records for
both workers and employers, and the data currently represent 18 states and
contain several million observations. Under this project, TANF records also
will be linked to the database, the number of states represented would increase
from 18 to 28 (for coverage of about 70 percent of the population), and analyses
and indicators specific to employment-related welfare outcomes will be generated.
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Building Administrative Data Capacity
Around Low-Wage Employment Outcomes
This project will analyze job retention and wage advancement among low-wage
workers and former welfare recipients, focusing on the role played by worker
characteristics, firm characteristics, and issues of location. With the
tremendous success achieved by welfare reform in moving large numbers of
former recipients into jobs, the ability of these workers to move ahead in
these jobs and achieve self-sufficiency is now a key concern. To understand
better the factors that promote or hinder job retention and wage advancement,
we need up-to-date data that capture recent developments in labor markets,
that describe not only the characteristics of the worker but also the firm,
that can track worker outcomes longitudinally over time, and that contain
a large sample that is broadly representative. No single, national survey
data set combines all these attributes, so this project will use the
Longitudinal Employer Household
Dynamics (LEHD) data. This project will produce a report showing the
role of worker and firm characteristics in job retention and wage advancement,
the importance of location, how these outcomes differ for former welfare
recipients compared to other low-wage workers, and how these outcomes have
changed following recent changes in the labor market.
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Welfare Closed Cases — Job Entry
and Earnings: Data Match TANF — FPLS: Data Matching
to Assess Welfare Outcomes for the 50 States and
DC
This project will utilize five, Federally-administrated databases to assess
outcomes for former TANF recipients. The project will assess six outcomes:
four are related to employment: job entry, earnings, earnings gains, and
job retention. By linking various databases: ACF's TANF Database of closed
TANF cases, New Hire Database (NDNH), Quarterly Earnings Database, and possibly
the Child Support Case Registry Database this project will provide state-by-state
estimates of important welfare outcomes.
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A Profile of Families Cycling on and Off
Welfare
This study focuses on the subgroup of TANF families who exit and re-enter
welfare, particularly those who return for multiple times. It builds on past
ASPE-funded studies of welfare leavers and welfare applicants that found
that many leavers re-enter welfare, and similarly, that many applicants have
prior welfare history. This study also builds on a National Academy of Sciences'
study that recommended that HHS conduct research focused on caseload dynamics
and particular TANF subgroups including former recipients who return to TANF.
Using administrative and survey data from multiple welfare program evaluations
and from the project on Devolution and Urban Change, this study addresses
research questions about cyclers in two main areas: (1) What are their
demographic characteristics and employment outcomes, as compared with other
comparison groups of welfare recipients? and (2) How have patterns of benefit
receipt and the phenomenon of cycling changed since PRWORA?
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Implementation of TANF
Sanctions
This project examines variations in sanction policies, practices and outcomes.
Previous studies have found wide variation in sanctioning rates across sites
(e.g. Urban Change) and even across offices within a single city (e.g.
Legislative Audit Bureau study of W-2 in Milwaukee). The study looks at outcomes
for sanctioned families, including welfare exits and re-entries and participation
in work activities. This project, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research,
draws largely on administrative data, as supplemented by site visits to improve
our understanding of how sanctions are implemented. As part of this project,
MPR conducted a review of the existing literature on TANF sanctions, including
tables describing state policy choice (see
Review).
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Serving TANF and Low-Income Populations
through Workforce Investment Act One-Stop
Centers
This project explores the ways in which one-stops serve TANF and other low-income
populations and identifies successful approaches to program coordination.
Site visits were conducted to New Jersey, Illinois, and South Carolina. These
states were selected both to maximize variation in sanction policies and
to leverage existing administrative data sets. The Workforce Investment Act
(WIA) one-stop system is likely to become the nexus of support for ever larger
numbers of low-income and low-skilled people seeking employment and
employment-related services. DOL Welfare-to-Work grant activities are winding
down, possibly further increasing pressure on one-stops to fill the gap in
serving the hardest-to-employ. Anecdotal evidence indicates that some employers
may be reluctant to participate in one-stops that serve a largely low-income
or welfare client base and that some one-stops are hesitant to take on
special-needs clients such as those with substance abuse histories or learning
disabilities. This project, conducted by Abt Associates, involves a literature
review and intensive visits to seven purposively selected sites to identify
challenges and successes in serving these vulnerable groups through one-stop
centers designed to serve people at all income and skill levels.
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Study of Child Support and TANF
Interaction
This project examines how child support status (i.e., paternity established,
order established, receipt of child support) interacts with TANF exit or
reentry and self-sufficiency, as well as how different child support and
TANF policies may affect this relationship. Child support is an important
component of family self-sufficiency, and therefore increased knowledge about
the interaction between child support and TANF could be used to increase
self-sufficiency for families served by these two programs. Research questions
will be answered based on analysis of national survey data and state level
experimental data. MDRC and Lewin Group are the contractors.
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State Innovation Grants Program
New approaches to integrating diverse funding streams, expanding services
to new populations, or redesigned service delivery systems often emerge from
innovations at the state or local level. Secretary Thompson initiated the
State Innovation Grants program to stimulate states to develop new and creative
approaches to program planning and health and human service delivery. ASPE
will also facilitate information exchange among grantees, other States, and
others interested in new and creative ways to deliver health and/or human
services. In FY 2003, ASPE awarded three new demonstration grants, for a
total of eight.
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State Studies of the TANF
Caseload
In September 2001, ASPE awarded about $1.4 million in grants to states to
study the characteristics of individuals receiving cash assistance from the
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. The funding allows
states to enter cooperative agreements with ASPE to examine the characteristics
of current TANF recipients and their households in terms of demographics;
personal, family, and community barriers to employment; and employment and
economic outcomes. To foster comparability across states, ASPE provided a
common telephone survey instrument to state grantees for use in collecting
data on their TANF caseload. The instrument has been supplemented by states
according to their particular needs. This project will enhance understanding
of the current TANF caseload in a range of states, and in so doing, will
inform ASPE, individual states, and the research and policy community. See
State Studies of the
TANF Caseload for current reports.
The cooperative agreements are the result of a competitive announcement of
the availability of funds and request for applications to study the current
TANF caseload that appeared in Volume 66, Number 87 of the Federal
Register on May 4, 2001. The following grantees were selected for funding:
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Access to Welfare Outcomes Data
Sets
State and county grantees conducting Welfare Outcomes studies are preparing
and submitting research data sets that combine the state-specific administrative
and survey data they have collected on former, current, and potential TANF
recipients. Most of the grantees are expected to request storage of their
files in a controlled environment where confidentiality can be protected.
The funds in this interagency transfer will support storage of these files
at the Research Data
Center (RDC) of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The
funds will 1) support NCHS staff time in working with the Welfare Outcomes
Grants; and 2) lower the cost to researchers of accessing the files by providing
subsidies of not more than 75 percent of the RDC fee usually charged to
researchers, up to a total of $2,000 per project.
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Demonstration and Evaluation of Enhanced
Services for the Hard-to-Employ
State and local agencies are making substantial investments through TANF
and other sources to help low-income families with demonstrated difficulty
entering and sustaining employment. A significant amount of activity and
a variety of approaches are being used to help low-income parents address
or cope with the personal and family problems that interfere with their
employment stability. Under this project, ACF, ASPE, and the Department of
Labor are supporting a multi-site evaluation of programs working with
hard-to-employ low-income parents to identify effective strategies for promoting
employment and family well-being and to determine the effects of such programs
on employment, earnings, income, welfare dependence, family functioning,
and the well-being of children. MDRC was chosen as the contractor to design
and conduct a multi-site evaluation that studies the implementation issues,
net impact, and benefit-costs of selected programs.
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State and Local Contracting
for Social Services under Charitable Choice
In FY 2002, ASPE funded a project that focused on TANF, which has had an
explicit Charitable Choice (CC) provision for several years. With the Executive
Order broadening the range of programs affected by the principles of CC,
it is important to learn how CC has been implemented thus far in other programs
as well. This expands the CC study to include SAMHSA's Substance Abuse Prevention
and Treatment (SAPT) program, a major program that includes a number of
faith-based service providers. The project involves a national survey of
state and county contracting officials in the TANF and SAPT programs. Results
of the survey will be analyzed to answer questions about how CC rules are
understood and implemented at the state and county levels.
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Use of Social Security Summary Earnings
Records to Assess Welfare Reform Outcomes
This project continues ASPE's support of a study to determine the prevalence
of job-holding associated with a living wage in the post-1996 period for
adults who received AFDC benefits in calendar year 1996. The sample of 1996
adult recipients will be drawn from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income
and Program Participation (SIPP), the Annual Demographic Supplement (ADS)
to the March 1997 Current Population Survey, and the 1997 base-line interview
sample of the Survey of Program Dynamics. Post-1996 earnings activity will
be documented using earnings records obtained from the Social Security
Administration (SSA) administrative records matched to the samples for each
of these surveys. Initial tracking of job holding and earnings levels via
administrative records will be restricted to calendar years 1996, 1997, and
possibly 1998. Job holding of female family heads with dependent children
who were not receiving means-tested benefits will also be tracked to provide
a broader context for interpreting the observed patterns among adult AFDC
recipients. Employment and earnings outcomes will be differentiated by both
baseline characteristics and earnings patterns established on the basis of
the pre-1996 year-by-year lifetime earnings histories stemming from the SSA
administrative records files.
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Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A.
FANS)
Begun in 1999, the L.A. FANS is a longitudinal study of children, families,
and neighborhoods in Los Angeles County, funded primarily by the National
Institutes of Health, with ASPE and Los Angeles County providing supplemental
funding for the first wave of data collection conducted by RAND. L.A. FANS
includes a representative sample of 65 neighborhoods (census tracts) throughout
Los Angeles County, with an oversample of poor neighborhoods. In each
neighborhood, interviews are conducted with a total of 40 to 50 randomly-chosen
households; households with children (0 to 17) are oversampled. Extensive
information is collected on household socioeconomic status, health care
utilization, immigration, and other characteristics. In addition, L.A. FANS
collects a detailed, two-year, month-by-month calendar of changes in employment,
unemployment, health insurance coverage for adults and children (by type
and reason for changes), and program participation (TANF, SSI, GA, food stamps).
Information is also collected on the characteristics and available health
services in each sampled neighborhood. For more information, see The
Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood
Survey on RAND's web site.
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Devolution
and Urban Change
This ongoing project (which is primarily foundation-funded) is a
multi-disciplinary study by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
(MDRC) of the implementation and impacts of welfare reform and welfare-to-work
programs on low-income individuals, families and communities in four large
urban areas: Cleveland, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami. Other
Federal partners include HHS' Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
and the Economic Research Service at USDA. The project brings together data
from an unusually wide array of sources: longitudinal administrative
data for all families receiving AFDC/TANF or Food Stamps dating back to 1992,
survey data, an implementation study, neighborhood indicators, an institutional
study focusing on local service providers, and an ethnographic study of a
limited number of families. Publications from the study are available at
MDRC's web site:
Project on
Devolution and Urban Change.
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National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work
Grant Program (See Overview)
ASPE continues to work on a Congressionally mandated evaluation of the Department
of Labor's Welfare-to-Work Grant Program, grants to states and local communities
to promote job opportunities, and employment preparation for TANF recipients
and noncustodial parents of needy children. The evaluation consists of four
main components: a descriptive assessment of all grantees; an in-depth
process and implementation study; an assessment of participant outcomes in
11 selected sites; and a process and implementation analysis of tribal WtW
grantees. Reports available so far:
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Urban Partnership for Welfare Technical
Assistance Initiative
Beginning in October 2001, ASPE, ACF/OFA, and ACF/OCS collaborated to fund
the Urban Partnership for Welfare Technical Assistance Initiative, which
promotes collaboration among state and local TANF agencies and other entities
to increase jobs and services for TANF clients in large urban areas. The
goals of the initiative are to: help larger urban welfare programs learn
from each other's experiences; build capacity to take greater advantage of
available assets and resources; and improve employment and child well-being
among the most vulnerable citizens. Urban area teams met in Dallas, TX in
February 2003 to strengthen their partnerships and share information with
their colleagues. After the meeting in Dallas, the teams developed strategic
plans around collaboration. Urban area teams receive ongoing, tailored technical
assistance to continue to strengthen collaborative efforts. They participate
in monthly conference calls with the Federal Project Officers to provide
input into the next Academy meeting in October 2003 in Minneapolis. In the
next phase of the project, teams will have the opportunity to take part in
a series of subject matter teleconferences. A web conference on EITC was
recently hosted by ACF. Areas of focus for future project efforts include:
homeless families, substance abuse and mental health problems, hard-to-employ
populations, issues affecting working parents with young children, and family
formation. Teams continue to work with the contractor, Caliber, to build
local partnerships, and to implement their strategic plans for collaboration.
[ Go to Contents ]
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Early Childhood Education and School
Readiness
This project will provide the next phase of funding to support research on
the effectiveness of early childhood interventions and programs for children
from birth through age 5 in promoting children's school readiness. This project
is part of a joint HHS/DoEd initiative announced by Secretaries Thompson
and Paige at the White House Summit on Early Cognitive Development in the
summer of 2001. No Child Left Behind Act, the Good Start, Grow Smart Early
Childhood Initiative, and the Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development
have called for the development of a scientific knowledge base to inform
early childhood practices and policies that support school readiness. This
interagency early childhood research initiative responds to this call by
studying the effectiveness of early interventions in promoting school readiness.
In FY 2003, interagency partners will fund 8 to 10 new 5-year grants to study
a range of early childhood programs, interventions, and curricula for children
from birth through age 5. The project has two components: funding of research
grants, and provision of technical assistance to researchers to help ensure
that funded projects yield data that are useful for making informed policy
and practice decisions in early childhood.
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Early Childhood Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study
(ECLS-B)
The ECLS-B is a large scale (N=12,500), nationally representative, longitudinal
study launched by the Department of Education to follow a single age-cohort
of children from birth to their entry into first grade. ASPE has sponsored
enhancements to the research focusing on: the study of minority children
(language minority and other minority children); the study of the impacts
of non-resident fathers on children's early development; and, the study of
policy contexts for children's development. In addition, we are working with
other potential funding partners on the expansion of the sample to include
non-resident fathers, which will fill a major gap in the knowledge base for
understanding basic developmental processes and for understanding a group
of children and families of key policy interest.
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Evaluating Approaches to Professional Development
in Child Care Settings
This project will support the design phase of research on professional
development interventions in child care settings being funded by ACF, and
ensure that the research designs include rigorous assessments of children's
well-being and school readiness. ASPE's support in this important early childhood
research will focus on having child outcomes rigorously assessed as part
of the study. The project will identify and prioritize constructs that should
be covered when measuring children's progress, outcomes, and learning
environments; help develop rigorous research designs; and identify sites.
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Science and Ecology of Early Development
(SEED)
The Science and Ecology of Early Development (SEED) initiative promotes work
among federal agencies to fill gaps in the early childhood science base in
areas that have implications for young children and their families, with
a focus on low-income populations. The project will provide continuing support
to the SEED initiative to address key research and policy issues in early
childhood, such as school readiness. This year, participating agencies will
begin strategic planning for a new SEED research grant announcement to be
funded by NICHD. It will build on issues related to childcare, school readiness,
professional development, and measurement. ASPE's support will foster the
development of a research agenda and research capacity building activities.
Areas of focus will include aligning early childhood services with formal
schooling (K-12) in the context of education reform and assisting researchers
to disseminate new evidence without over-interpreting policy implications.
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Collaborations to Address Domestic Violence and Child
Maltreatment
This project will support the continued evaluation of a multi-agency
demonstration project that is addressing the co-occurrence of domestic violence
and child maltreatment. The evaluation is designed to assess whether child
protection agencies, child maltreatment courts, and domestic violence programs
can, by participating with others in multi-disciplinary, community-based
collaborations, achieve significant organizational change that helps children
and parents in abusive families to become safer and more stable. Several
analytical approaches are employed including network analysis and pre-post
evidence of changes in agency practice. The national evaluation documents
changes that take place and studies factors that contribute to project outcomes.
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Understanding Adoption Subsidies
This study is exploring how adoption subsidies are implemented by states
and used by the growing population of families who have adopted children
from foster care. Little information currently exists about this growing
portion of child welfare expenditures. However, projections indicate that
in the next few years the number of children with adoption assistance agreements
will outnumber those in foster care nationally. This study seeks to create
better information about how the program is operating, the population being
served, and the benefits achieved through this substantial federal investment.
Specific research questions include: (1) What proportion of children adopted
receive a subsidy initially and how many have one instituted later? (2) What
factors go into subsidy rate decisions? (3) With what frequency do adoption
subsidy levels change and for what reasons? (4) Does the availability of
adoption subsidy affect the likelihood, timing and success of adoptions?
Data sources for the study include title IV-E claims data, the Adoption and
Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System, and state administrative data.
Secondary data analyses will be performed on questions of federal interest
and several states will be assisted in answering additional questions of
their own.
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Study of Fathers' Involvement in Permanency Planning
and Child Welfare Casework
This study is examining the role of fathers in child welfare casework.
Identifying, locating and involving non-custodial fathers in child welfare
activities is essential to the prompt attainment of permanency for the many
children in foster care whose biological fathers did not live with them at
the time of placement. This study will describe current practice regarding
non-custodial fathers and how state and local policies and practices support
or discourage father involvement. Study methods include a literature review;
interviews with child welfare caseworkers about their efforts to identify,
locate and involve fathers of children in specific child welfare cases in
several child welfare agencies; testing whether standard child support
enforcement techniques (including use of state and federal parent locator
services) would have yielded additional information in cases where fathers
had not been located; and visits to several child welfare agencies implementing
practices to improve the identification and involvement of fathers.
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Dynamics of Foster Parenting
Foster parents play a critical role in the lives of children in state custody.
But while many studies have explored the dynamics of children's experiences
in foster care, we know little about the patterns in which foster parents'
take in children. Existing studies of foster parenting have been based primarily
on surveys of current or former foster parents and concentrate on foster
parents' characteristics, motivations and practices. This study will instead
use administrative data from several jurisdictions to examine the patterns
and dynamics of foster parents' care giving careers. Issues under examination
include: how many children are cared for at once and over time; how quickly
new children are placed in a home after a child leaves; system capacity and
utilization of foster parents; and turnover rates. This study is using
methodologies previously developed to study children's experiences in foster
care to examine the patterns in which foster parenting is conducted.
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Secondary Data Analysis on Child Abuse and Neglect
Topics of Current Policy Interest
This project will support secondary analysis of the
National
Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). National data regarding
victims and perpetrators of child abuse and neglect have become increasingly
detailed in the past few years as more states have voluntarily submitted
data to NCANDS. This project will generate a more complete understanding
of the characteristics and short-term service dispositions of children subjected
to abuse or neglect, and of the perpetrators of abuse and neglect. The study
will involve (1) an examination of how abuse by parents, particularly fathers,
differs from abuse by non-parental men living in the household, results of
which would relate to healthy marriage initiatives and related Administration
priorities; (2) an examination of the characteristics of families served
by so-called "alternative" child protective services that do not involve
investigations (an increasingly popular service model about which little
is currently known); and (3) construction of longitudinal files that would
be used to examine patterns of repeat investigations on individual children
as well as recidivism of perpetrators.
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National Evaluation of Safe Schools/Healthy Schools
Initiative
The Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) National Evaluation is collecting
and analyzing data to assess the overall impact of the SS/HS Initiative across
the 100 SS/HS sites. The Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative (SS/HS)
is a collaboration between the Departments of Education, Justice, Labor,
and Health and Human Services. The Initiative provides funding to schools
and communities for implementing comprehensive community-wide strategies
to create safe and drug-free schools and promote healthy child development.
The evaluation is gathering a minimum level of process and outcome data on
all of the sites and conducting in depth case studies in 15 sentinel sites.
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Maternity Group Homes Evaluation Design and Site
Selection
This project will design a rigorous evaluation of Maternity Group Homes,
a service model that offers an array of on-site social support services for
the most at-risk teen families. These programs aim to prevent second pregnancies,
help young women move toward self-sufficiency, and improve outcomes for the
children of teen mothers. Limited evidence suggests that Maternity Group
Homes may be effective in addressing subsequent teen pregnancies, school-related
outcomes, self-sufficiency, and childhood immunization rates. However, a
rigorous impact evaluation of Maternity Group Homes has never been conducted.
The design phase will include the development of an evaluation design, a
site selection process, and measures. The final products for the first phase
of the project will include a rationale for site selection, as well as a
detailed description of the study design and proposed measures.
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Evaluation of Abstinence Education Programs Funded
Under Title V, Section 510
Since 1996, HHS has provided funds to states for the operation of programs
that teach abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage as the expected
standard for school-age children. This evaluation will determine to what
extent are abstinence education program effective in persuading youth to
be sexually abstinent and in changing teen sexual behavior. The evaluation
was mandated by Congress in 1997 and focuses on eleven programs, representing
a range of program models and serving different target populations. The
evaluation includes an extensive implementation and process analysis as well
as rigorously designed impact studies of five "targeted" programs that provide
services to specific, identifiable groups of youth. The current evaluation
design is following a sample of approximately 2,500 youth in 5 sites for
up to 3 years. Currently, the evaluation is in the third round of data
collection. This funding will provide for another round of data collection
and longer follow-up, allowing for the measurement of impacts on behaviors
with a greater number of youth who are older, when the likelihood of engaging
in risky behaviors is higher. Depending on funding available, cohorts will
be surveyed an additional time. Funds will also be used to support additional
communications tasks and to build evaluation capacity in the field.
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Evaluation of Community-Based Abstinence Education
Programs and Other Teen Pregnancy Prevention
Approaches
This project will continue to develop evaluation designs for the community-based
abstinence education program and other teen pregnancy prevention approaches.
It will include the development of evaluation instruments and evaluation
designs for a competitive contract. This project will also document the range
of existing strategies and services available to prevent teen pregnancy in
order to inform an evaluation design specific to these services. Ultimately,
the evaluations will add to the current knowledge about the effectiveness
of strategies designed to promote abstinence and prevent teen pregnancy.
Congress earmarked a portion of the Community-Based Abstinence Education
grant program funds (up to 2.5 percent of the amount of the FY2001 appropriation
and up to 3.5 percent of the FY2002 appropriation) to support comprehensive
evaluations, including longitudinal evaluations, of abstinence education.
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National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health
(AddHealth)
Add Health is a school-based study of adolescents in grades seven to twelve
that provides information on physical, mental, and emotional health status,
and health behaviors, including sexual behavior and contraceptive use. The
Add Health cohort is aging into adulthood and represents an opportunity to
track transitions into adulthood (e.g., family formation, welfare receipt,
labor market transitions). Add Health has already provided essential adolescent
health data for many of the HHS agencies. It has multiple funders. This
contribution will help fund Wave 3 data collection, which will be available
in Spring of 2003.
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HHS Programs State Statutory Rape
Laws
This project has several objectives: (1) describe what HHS programs have
done in promulgating guidance for their grantees about their obligations
to report suspected violations of State statutory rape laws; (2) summarize
major features of state statutory rape laws; (3) survey grantees of selected
HHS programs to determine what policies and procedures they employ to comply
with state laws; and (4) make recommendations about strengthening HHS guidance
to, and training for, grantees on complying with laws in their states.
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Project on Child Outcomes: Enhancing Measurement
of Child Outcomes in State Welfare Evaluations and Other State Data
Collections
With other federal and private funders, ASPE and ACF are working with states
to improve measurement of child health and well-being outcomes in state welfare
evaluations. Five states are using a common protocol to add child outcome
measures to their welfare reform evaluations. Continuation funding is enabling
states and their evaluators to receive research technical assistance on
collecting survey data using the common protocol, using administrative data
sources, and developing and coordinating data analysis and reporting strategies.
The focus of the current phase of work is the production of syntheses of
the findings from the state evaluations.
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Study of Children in TANF Child-Only Cases With
Relative Caregivers
Child-only cases have continued to grow, reaching 782,000 cases by FY 2002
and representing over a third of the total TANF caseload. These are cases
where only the children in a family/household are receiving TANF, and the
adults in these cases are ineligible (e.g., caretaker relative, SSI parent,
immigrant parent, sanctioned parent). Despite the growing proportion of these
cases in the overall TANF caseload, we know very little about these cases,
such as whether these cases pose special issues for TANF agencies and whether
there are any issues related to the well-being of children in these cases.
This study will begin to provide information about the majority of child-only
cases where there is no parent in the household and the children are cared
for by a relative. The study will: (1) systematically review and analyze
existing data and studies to describe the health and social service needs
and well-being of children who are receiving TANF assistance and being cared
for by non-parent relatives who are ineligible for TANF; (2) describe whether
states have established any goals or outcomes related to children in these
child-only cases, and if so, what strategies are being employed to achieve
those outcomes; and (3) determine how such cases are handled at the local
level, and the degree to which the service needs and the well-being of children
in these families are taken into account.
[ Go to Contents ]
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Child Support
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Fatherhood
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Teen Parents
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Analysis of Topics Related to
Marriage
This project describes trends in participation of married and two-parent
families in TANF and Food Stamps and the factors related to those trends.
With growing emphasis on the TANF goals related to promoting health marriage,
it is critical to first gain an understanding of existing programs and the
role they might play in either supporting or discouraging the formation of
such unions. Recent data have shown that participation rates in these programs
have typically been lower for two-parent families than single-parent families
and that the rates are falling faster. This project will use output from
the MATH and TRIM simulation models to examine trends in both eligibility
and participation among eligibles for both married parent and all two-parent
families. The study will also incorporate regression analysis to examine
the likely importance of state-level program rules and economic variables,
as well as family and individual characteristics as they influence both
eligibility and participation in TANF and Food Stamps.
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Feasibility Study on Generating Data
on Marriage and Divorce
This project will examine alternatives to developing a complete and systematic
approach to generating data on marriage and divorce. These data are key to
addressing issues relating to family formation, family dissolution, and other
aspects of family dynamics. The study will examine system characteristics
at the state and local levels, including an examination of their laws and
procedures and variations among state practices in gathering and storing
data. The issues to be examined are: (1) the minimum and uniform data
elements that are required to study marriage and divorce across states that
will provide the information basis for implementing a nationwide strategy;
(2) the pros and cons of various data collection strategies (universe vs.
sampling, survey-based, piggybacking, etc.) and their costs and benefits;
(3) data analysis plans under various options and their promises and limitations;
(4) assignment and enforcement of responsibilities in the cooperative
federal/state data collection system; and (5) the administrative costs of
maintaining a marriage and divorce surveillance system.
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National Survey of Family
Growth
This project continues ASPE's support of the
National
Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). It is an important, ongoing survey for
informing policy development on teen pregnancy prevention, out-of-wedlock
childbearing, family formation, welfare, child support and paternity
establishment, and father involvement. Our involvement has ensured that questions
and sample sizes have been, and continue to be, sufficient to follow trends
and do analysis on such issues as teen childbearing, men, minority groups,
cohabiting vs. married couples, how teens get responsible messages about
sexual behavior, religiosity, and child care usage.
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The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), TANF,
and Medicaid Database
PRWORA authorized HHS to retain data from the
Federal Parent Locator
Service (FPLS) for TANF and child support enforcement research purposes.
This is a rich source of wage and employment data, but does not include key
program participation and demographic variables. The purpose of this project
is to insure that all child support administrative data is used to the full
extent of its statutory authorization to support child support management
information and research uses. Some child support information is already
part of a cross-program research initiative to match child support, TANF,
and Medicaid data. This project examines how all child support data might
be used in conjunction with the research initiative to understand child support
performance. The FPLS is primarily a national data system to help States
locate non-custodial parents, alleged fathers, and custodial parents so they
can establish and enforce child support obligations. PRWORA expanded the
data available in this system to include information on child support cases
and wage and employment data on nearly all workers. The law also authorized
HHS to retain samples of this data and use them for research likely to contribute
to achieving the purposes of titles IV-A (TANF) or IV-D (Child Support
Enforcement). Conference Committee language from the FY 2002 Appropriation
for the Department of Health and Human Services recommends that Welfare Reform
Outcomes funds be used in part for the collection and use of "data
administratively linking that National Database of New Hires (which is part
of the FPLS), other child support enforcement data, TANF, and Medicaid records
together." The design and implemention of the FPLS, TANF, and Medicaid data
warehouse is a joint ASPE, ACF, and CMS project to monitor the progress of
welfare reform. Child support data, TANF client data, and Medicaid client
data will be merged into a research data warehouse that will assist with
federal and state program oversight, research, statistical reporting, policy,
and evaluation for the populations served by TANF, Child Support, and Medicaid.
One major advantage of the data base is that it will help us understand program
participation and interactions over time. For example, information on child
support, medicaid participation, and earnings will help us understand individual
and state differences in movement on and off TANF cash assistance and develop
policies to increase family self-sufficiency.
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Emerging Issues in Paternity
Establishment
This project will analyze legal, ethical, financial, and psychological challenges
around paternity establishment, focusing on how the science of DNA testing
may impact the child support enforcement system, family economic security,
child well-being and the principles of family law that underlie child support
practices. Potential changes to the paternity establishment process, particularly
in response to challenges to paternity acknowledgements established without
benefit of DNA testing, could have a major impact on the performance of the
child support enforcement system as well as Federal and state child support
financing. Given the potentially controversial nature of this project, it
will be a low-profile project that will provide the Department with an analysis
for internal use only. Background papers will be drafted in consultation
with experts.
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Determinants of Child Support
Arrears
This joint ASPE/ACF' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) project will
identify causes and consequences of the accumulation of arrearages (past
due child support) in the child support enforcement (CSE) program, and profile
who owes the debt, through analysis of state administrative data and state
child support policies. Wage data and state child support policies on child
support order establishment and arrearages also may be analyzed. The findings
will help OCSE and state CSE programs develop policies and procedures to
increase current support payments to families and increase family
self-sufficiency.
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Benefits and Costs of Child Support
Pass-Through and Disregard Policy
This project will model the effects of child support pass-through and disregard
policy to estimate the benefits and costs of various federal and state policy
choices. We will estimate the effects of both program variables, such as
changes in other public benefit payments and administrative costs, and individual
variables, such as custodial parents' employment (and subsequent tax payments)
and noncustodial parents' payment of child support. The cornerstone of the
Administration's child support proposals for welfare reauthorization are
a range of state policy choices designed to encourage them to pass through
more child support to current and former TANF families. The findings from
this project will inform the Department and states about the potential effects
of different choices that can be made under the legislation. National survey
data, such as the Child Support Supplement of the Current Population Survey
and state administrative data, may be used in developing the model.
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Improving Child Support and Visitation
Data in the SIPP
The project will make the SIPP more useful for monitoring child support and
visitation trends, identifying determinants of self-sufficiency and well-being,
and improving microsimulation tools. The project will include secondary data
analysis and an invitational conference of research experts. Data from the
modules will be examined for internal consistency, response rates, and utility
in current analytic uses.
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Evaluation of the Partners for Fragile Families
Demonstration Projects
The Partners for Fragile
Families (PFF) demonstrations are designed to help fragile families (young
unwed parents and their children) by helping fathers work with mothers in
sharing the legal, financial, and emotional responsibilities of parenthood.
In March 2000, the Department approved ten state waivers for the PFF
demonstration projects. The PFF projects will test new ways for state-run
child support enforcement programs and community-based organizations to work
together to help young fathers obtain employment, make child support payments
and learn parenting skills; and to help parents build stronger partnerships.
Unlike previous efforts which have focused on fathers with unpaid child support
obligations, the PFF projects will test approaches to serving young,
never-married, non-custodial parents who do not have a child support order
in place and may face obstacles to employment. The five-year evaluation,
conducted by The Urban Institute, has three broad purposes: to increase knowledge
about systems change; to build knowledge about program operations and delivery
of services to fragile families; and to describe client behavior. Process
and outcome evaluations will be conducted by interviewing all service providers,
including child support enforcement, community-based organizations, and partner
agencies; and by analyzing client data a case study will also be conducted.
This project is jointly supported by ASPE and the Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE).
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Augmenting the Early Childhood Longitudinal Birth
Cohort Study (ECLS-B)
The Department of Education's Early
Childhood Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study (ECLS-B) is the nation's first
study of a representative sample of over 10,000 children from birth through
age five (or longer). ASPE funds will continue to support a focus on
strengthening one or more of the following areas: measuring policy contexts
at state and possibly local levels, expanding the sample of fathers to include
non-resident fathers, supporting sample retention for low-income children,
and/or addressing measurement issues for minority children. The omission
of non-resident fathers would leave a major gap in the knowledge base for
understanding basic developmental processes and for understanding a group
of children and families of key interest in policy, especially poor children
in minority families. The study is proceeding well, but has had to overcome
a number of early design and measurement hurdles to satisfy state review
boards and pilot test instruments. These changes have resulted in overall
increased costs being shared by the Department of Education's National Center
for Education Statistics (NCES) and study partners.
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Follow-up to the Prison to Home
Conference
This task order provides logistical support to the government for the development
of a research and practice baseline on the effects of incarceration on
individuals, their children, families, and communities. Needs of children
and families with incarcerated parents will be addressed through continued
efforts to strengthen health and human services and criminal justice systems
interaction and coordination. This funding also supports HHS' efforts to
strengthen cross-program coordination by providing targeted information to
program managers about population overlap and program interactions. Finally,
ASPE's support will ensure our involvement in the development of a
multidiciplinary research agenda around children and families with incarcerated
parents. Two separate government efforts will be supported by this logistical
contract: The first effort provides support for the Public Health and Housing
Work Group of the Council of State Governments' (CSG) Re-entry Policy Council;
the second effort supports the development of a research agenda on children
and families with incarcerated parents.
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Effect of Post Release Job Placement on Child
Support Payments
ASPE, OCSE, and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) within the Department
of Justice are funding a small study to get a preliminary look at child support
issues for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated fathers. Under an NIJ contract,
Caliber Associates, working with partner agencies in New York City, is examining
the effects of incarceration on the ability of child support agencies to
establish paternity and child support orders for noncustodial parents during
their incarceration and following release and assessing how post-prison
employment services might increase payment of child support. Caliber is using
a sample of incarcerated offenders released from shock incarceration in upstate
New York to a community work program in New York City, the Center for Employment
Opportunities (CEO). Among the principal research questions to be answered
are: What was the impact of incarceration on the child support agency's ability
to proceed with actions related to paternity establishment, order establishment,
and enforcement?; For those offenders with active orders prior to incarceration
how much debt did the average ex-offender accumulate while incarcerated?;
and What payment history does the ex-offender establish following release?
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HHS Fatherhood
Initiative web site.
This frequently updated web site contains a wealth of information on what
is being done under the auspices of the Department’s Fatherhood Initiative.
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Early Head Start Research and
Evaluation/Fathers Studies
The Early Head Start (EHS) Research Network, working with ACF and Mathematica
Policy Research, is continuing the longitudinal core evaluation of the Early
Head Start Program through the preschool school years and is currently developing
a funding strategy for continuation through kindergarten and into first grade.
NICHD is committed to continuing its ongoing support for the
Fathers
Studies component of the Early Head Start Evaluation, however, additional
dollars will not be available until the start of FY 2002. This project, in
concert with ACF/ACYF would provide bridge funding to the Early Head Start
Evaluation/Fathers Studies Project to provide resources to maintain contact
with the fathers between interviewing cycles and to support the Network in
the development of the father interview protocols for fathers of children
who are turning five years of age and are entering kindergarten. The Early
Head Start Evaluation is measuring both child and program outcomes and is
one of the only father-involvement studies that has randomly assigned treatment
and control groups. The bridge funding will make it possible for the EHS
Research Network to take advantage of the NICHD grant and will keep interview
schedules in their appropriate time sequences.
[ Go to Contents ]
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Social Indicators
This project will expand the work of indicator development beyond traditional
measures like family living arrangements and union formation and include
measures that provide greater social context such as religiosity, family
functioning, community interaction, and volunteerism. The work will build
on HSP's leadership role in developing and disseminating key indicators of
well-being and will provide important context for the welfare reform agenda
of strengthening families. Products will include a report on key indicators
available through existing data as well as a series of papers discussing
what additional measures are needed and approaches for developing those measures.
The project will wrap-up with a meeting of key researchers and policy makers
to present the products, solicit feedback, and generate continued interest
in expanding work in this area. An expert panel will provide guidance on
choice of indicators, data, measurement, and conceptual issues.
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Technical Assistance to States on Developing
and Using Youth Indicators
This project will convene experts in the areas of youth programming, state
policy and indicator data collection to develop a technical assistance effort
that will support states' self assessment of their needs. This will help
states develop tools they can use to assess the services, supports and
opportunities are available to youth; quality of available services, supports
and opportunities; how funding is allocated to youth across departmental
lines and finally what kind of data is or could be collected to assess youth
skills, attitudes, behaviors, status (e.g. educational, employment, marriage,
parenthood, living). This work builds on previous work by ASPE on state
indicators and by ACF's Family and Youth Services Bureau on youth development
in states.
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Analysis of Social and Economic Conditions
in Rural Areas
The purposes of this project are to: (1) Review and analyze a wide variety
of research literature and data pertaining to rural America in order to identify
and describe the social and economic conditions in rural America today. The
analysis will include identification of both persistent and emerging trends
across the spectrum of social and economic indicators, as well as a specific
focus on key human services. The focus on human services will address the
prevalence of certain conditions, and the availability and usage of services
to ameliorate those conditions. (2) Develop a compilation of data sources
that can be used to conduct research on rural issues, particularly with respect
to human services issues. The compilation will: a) identify the full range
of data sources appropriate for rural research (from national surveys to
state administrative data) that include information on human services, b)
summarize the content of each database, c) describe the strengths and weaknesses
of each data source for rural research purposes, and d) identify what data
can be made available to researchers, the circumstances under which it can
be made available, and any safeguards that must be in place for researchers
to have access to the data.
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State Use of TANF Administrative Data for
Program Management and Performance Monitoring
This project will work with states to improve their capacity to use the
administrative data they gather from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF) program for program management and performance measurement. By working
closely with several states in an iterative process through a series of working
group meetings and visitations to state TANF offices, the Contractor will
develop a software tool for using TANF administrative data to develop performance
indicators. This improved capacity for analyzing and presenting data will
be used to assist states in producing periodic reports for program management
purposes. As a positive by-product of the project, states will have an incentive
to improve the quality of the TANF administrative data collected and reported
to HHS.
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TANF Federal Administrative Data
Archive: Website with tabulation and analysis
facilities
This project will make available TANF individual-level, administrative data
for prior years on a web site, along with the ability to tabulate and analyze
the data online and to download full data files or extracts. The purpose
is to foster the use of the TANF administrative micro data by making quick
tabulations readily available. The contractor will gather the existing TANF
micro data sets for the years 1998 through 2001 (and 2002 if it becomes publicly
available before the end of the project) and post them on an HHS web site,
and provide the ability to tabulate and analyze the data. Complete documentation
and instructions will also be provided on the web site. The project builds
on two existing ASPE-funded projects — a web-based archive of AFDC
data and an analytical enhancement to ACF's web site for aggregate TANF data.
Data extracts will be limited slightly to protect privacy.
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Support for the Interagency Forum on
Child and Family Statistics (ChildStats)
This project will provide support for the continuing work of the
Federal Interagency Forum on Child and
Family Statistics (the Forum). The Forum consists of 20 federal agencies
as well as partners in private research organizations and ensures coordination,
collaboration, and integration of federal efforts to collect and report data
on conditions and trends for children and families. Among its activities,
the Forum produces a annual report on the well-being of children in the United
States titled “America's Children: Key National Indicators of
Well-Being” and maintains the web site
www.childstats.gov. The report tracks
approximately 24 national indicators of child well-being in four areas: economic
security, health, behavior and social environment, and education.
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Update of the Welfare Rules
Database
Under this project, ASPE and ACF will support an update of the Welfare Rules
Database (WRD). Under TANF, states vary greatly in how they set the parameters
of their welfare programs. Researchers and policy analysts need to know state
and local welfare policies to monitor implementation and to link specific
welfare policy parameters with outcomes. The state TANF plans submitted to
ACF do not describe state welfare program rules in any detail. The WRD was
developed to meet this need and is the only readily available, central source
for information on state welfare policies. Currently, the database contains
information on eligibility and benefit rules for 1996 through 2002. Under
this project, a contractor will bring the information in the WRD forward
through 2003 by reviewing state welfare manuals and other documents and by
having the entries reviewed by state officials.
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Indicators
of Welfare Dependence
The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 requires the Secretary of Health and Human
Services to prepare an annual report to Congress on indicators welfare
dependence. The Indicators of Welfare Dependence report is prepared within
the Office of Human Services Policy and delivered to Congress each spring.
As mandated under the Congressional act, the report addresses the rate of
welfare dependency, the degree and duration of welfare recipiency and dependence,
and predictors of welfare dependence. Further, analyses of means-tested
assistance in the report include benefits under the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) program; the Food Stamp Program, and the Supplemental
Security Income (SSI) program. The report also includes risk factors related
to economic security, employment, and non-marital births, as well an appendix
with data related to the above programs.
(Previous reports)
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Measures of Material
Hardship
Although a number of national and state surveys have begun gathering measures
of material hardship (e.g., utility cutoffs, inability to get needed medical
attention, food insecurity, evictions), it is hard to respond to Congressional
interest in gathering information on a state-by-state basis, given the small
sample size of most national surveys and the lack of comparability across
state surveys. The purpose of this project is to advance understanding of
the value and limitations of measures of material hardship as a component
of family well-being. The contractor, Abt Associates, will be responsible
for convening a working meeting on measuring material hardship; commissioning
papers on various aspects of material hardship measures; and producing a
final report summarizing the one-day meeting and options for further steps.
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National Survey of Family Growth
This project continues ASPE's support of the
National
Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). It is an important, ongoing survey for
informing policy development on teen pregnancy prevention, out-of-wedlock
childbearing, family formation, welfare, child support and paternity
establishment, and father involvement. Our involvement has ensured that questions
and sample sizes have been, and continue to be, sufficient to follow trends
and do analysis on such issues as teen childbearing, men, minority groups,
cohabiting vs. married couples, how teens get responsible messages about
sexual behavior, religiosity, and child care usage.
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Panel Study of Income Dynamics: Core Support
and Expanded Sample for Child Supplement
This project continues ASPE's ongoing core support for the
Panel Study of Income Dynamics
(PSID). The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of US
individuals and the families in which they reside that has been ongoing since
1968. The data files contain the full span of information collected over
the course of the study. PSID data can be used for cross-sectional, longitudinal,
and inter-generational analysis and for studying both individuals and families.
PSID data have been utilized in a variety of ASPE-sponsored research projects
as well as by the broader research community to address key questions related
to the health and well-being of low-income families and individuals. ASPE
support will focus on the maintenance of the size of the low-income sample,
the addition of core sample households for the child development supplement,
and the inclusion of an extensive set of welfare participation-related questions
in the survey instrument.
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Microsimulation Support for Tax, Transfer, and Health
Insurance
This project maintains highly expert technical support services for performing
the wide variety of complex tasks that are necessary to operate and maintain
a microsimulation model used to estimate the effects of altering tax, transfer,
and health programs and policies. The current ASPE model simulates the effects
of changes in twelve cash and income transfer, health insurance, and tax
programs and analyzes the effects of these changes on individuals, families,
and households. Five major ongoing tasks will be supported, including: (1)
providing for the basic maintenance of the model; (2) obtaining expert technical
assistance in analyzing the costs and impacts of alternative proposals for
modifying tax, transfer, and health programs; (3) incorporating new data
and program changes into the model to keep it up-to-date; (4) upgrading the
model to reflect program changes and computer enhancements; and (5) continued
documentation and training.
[ Go to Contents ]
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Study of Children in TANF Child-Only Cases With
Relative Caregivers
Child-only cases have continued to grow, reaching 782,000 cases by FY 2002
and representing over a third of the total TANF caseload. These are cases
where only the children in a family/household are receiving TANF and the
adults in these cases are ineligible (because they are a caretaker relative,
SSI parent, immigrant parent, or sanctioned parent). Despite the growing
proportion of these cases in the overall TANF caseload, we know very little
about these cases, such as whether these cases pose special issues for TANF
agencies and whether there are any issues related to the well-being of children
in these cases. This study, conducted by RTI International, provides information
about the majority of child-only cases in which no parent is in the household
and the children are cared for by a relative. The study: (1) systematically
reviews and analyzes existing data and studies to describe the health and
social service needs and well-being of children who are receiving TANF assistance
and being cared for by non-parent relatives who are ineligible for TANF;
(2) describes whether states have established any goals or outcomes related
to children in these child-only cases, and if so, what strategies are being
employed to achieve those outcomes; and (3) determines how such cases are
handled at the local level, and the degree to which the service needs and
the well-being of children in these families are taken into account.
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Collaborations to Address Domestic Violence
and Child Maltreatment: A Public-Private
Initiative
This project will support the continued evaluation of a multi-agency
demonstration project that is addressing the co-occurrence of domestic violence
and child maltreatment. The evaluation is designed to assess whether child
protection agencies, child maltreatment courts, and domestic violence programs
can, by participating with others in multi-disciplinary, community-based
collaborations, achieve significant organizational change that helps children
and parents in abusive families to become safer and more stable. Several
analytical approaches are employed including network analysis and pre-post
evidence of changes in agency practice. The national evaluation documents
changes that take place and studies factors that contribute to project outcomes.
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Evaluation of the Collaborative
Initiative to Help End Chronic Homelessness
This project will examine the effectiveness of the collaboration among HUD,
HHS, and VA in ending chronic homelessness. This research is consistent with
the Administration's priority of Rallying the Armies of Compassion. The
Administration has stated a specific goal of ending chronic homelessness
in a decade, and the three Departments will blend resources and expertise
in up to 15 communities to test how the integration of permanent housing
with health and social services helps to end homelessness among persons with
disabilities and protracted homelessness patterns. The evaluation will examine
which collaboration approaches used by the communities lead to effective
partnerships. The program will focus on the most-difficult-to-treat categories
of homeless individuals, and the evaluation will examine the extent to which
services were targeted to this subgroup, their placement in housing, delivery
of appropriate treatment services, changes in health status, rates of housing
retention, and effectiveness in using mainstream service programs to deliver
care.
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Evaluation of the SAMHSA/HRSA Collaboration
to Improve Access to Behavioral and Primary Care Services for Chronically
Homeless Persons
Homeless clients frequently present providers with complex health care needs
that must be comprehensively addressed. Service delivery fragmentation is
a significant challenge to address the needs of such multi-problem clients.
To overcome this, SAMHSA and HRSA have developed a collaborative program
of service delivery for homeless individuals. Its goal is to improve access
to primary and behavioral health care by supporting 12 community-based approaches
that link these providers. The project will describe the collaborative approaches
implemented and measure the outcomes for homeless clients. ASPE is a partner
in the evaluation, which is being done by the National Center on Family
Homelessness.
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Policy Academies to Improve Access
of Homeless Persons in Mainstream Service Programs of
HHS
Under this study, all States will be offered assistance with developing and
implementing a homeless action plan that explores new policies and approaches
for integrating housing and treatment for homeless persons. States have been
selected as the focus because of their responsibility for developing and
administering programs that are responsive to the needs of their residents
and because the State is the principal level for administering HHS assistance
programs. Teams of state personnel responsible for treatment, housing,
employment, and veterans affairs participate in one of seven Policy Academies.
The teams receive assistance in advance to help them prepare, facilitation
at the Academy to develop a draft action plan, and follow-up assistance to
implement a more integrated response to homeless individuals. HUD, VA, DOL,
ACF, CMS, HRSA, and SAMHSA are co-sponsors. A national conference is included
to help State to State exchange of examples of effective new policy approaches
to homelessness.
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Developing Performance Indicators for Services
for Homeless Persons
This study, being conducted by Capital Research Corporation explores the
feasibility of developing a core set of performance measures for the four
DHHS programs that focus on
services to homeless
populations — Programs for Homeless and Runaway Youth, Health
Care for the Homeless, Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness
(PATH), and Addictions Treatment for Homeless Persons. The core set is expected
to include both process and outcome measures. Both routine administrative
reporting and homeless registry/homeless management information systems will
be examined as sources for indicators for these programs. Based on common
goals in these programs and measure usefulness, up to 10 common measures
will be proposed and vetted with the programs. To determine if these performance
measures have utility in documenting services to homeless persons in generic,
non-homeless-specific service programs, the contract will explore whether
routine reporting in selected block grant programs and Medicaid could generate
any of the measures. The final report will include specific recommendations
on performance measures for programs serving homeless individuals, including
recommendations for both targeted and mainstream programs.
-
Establishing an Approach
for a National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients in
2004/2005
Two previous national surveys — in 1987 and 1996 — produced
useful descriptions of homeless populations, allowed for more complete
understanding of the existing services system, and provided a foundation
for policy evaluation and formulation. The value of these previous surveys
makes another national survey desirable as HHS seeks solutions in a changing
environment. The contract, funded in collaboration with the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, convenes a group concerned with homelessness
to critically review the 1996
National Survey
of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) and to set goals
for a potential repeat of NSHAPC or other approaches. The contract with Westat
will permit HHS to assess which methodologies and operations approaches used
in NSHAPC 1996 should be retained and/or revised in the potential repeat;
whether additional variables can be identified to describe the scope of the
homeless assistance system and its services, e.g., by affiliations, funding,
and geographic variations; and new conceptualizations of homeless clientele
and other users, e.g., by risk and protective factors or their prior homeless
histories. Based on these considerations, a final report will identify up
to three design options for a national data collection effort.
-
Assessing the Effectiveness of
Discharge Planning to Prevent Subsequent
Homelessness
The purpose of this project is to ascertain the evaluability of discharge
planning as a strategy to prevent subsequent homelessness as this planning
occurs in several settings — foster care, residential treatment
for adolescents, inpatient psychiatric hospital treatment for adults, and
residential treatment for adults with substance abuse problems. The project
has three purposes: 1) to determine the feasibility of conducting a
rigorous evaluation; 2) to identify key evaluation questions by setting and
across settings; and 3) to develop alternative evaluation designs. This study
is related to a strategy in the Department's plan that recommends identifying
and promoting the use of effective, evidence-based homelessness prevention
interventions including discharge planning. Methods to be utilized in the
study include an expert panel, documentary analysis, site visits, and logic
model analysis by and across settings.
-
Evaluating Interventions for Substance Abusing Welfare
Recipients
In collaboration with partners from several agencies, this project is funding
a comprehensive evaluation of several innovative programs in New York City
for welfare recipients with substance abuse and mental and physical health
barriers to employment. It is part of an evolving national evaluation of
programs across the country with these problems. Core funding for the evaluation
is being provided by the Department through the Administration for Children
and Families' Employment Retention and Advancement project, a national evaluation
of programs serving TANF clients with significant and multiple employment
barriers. Funding from ASPE and several other agencies (particularly the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) will enable a longer
follow-up period as well as the collection of more detailed data through
in-person interviews.
-
Support to the New Immigrant
Survey
The New Immigrant Survey is a
large, longitudinal survey of recently arriving immigrants beginning in 2000.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the National Institute
for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD of the National Institutes
of Health) are the principal funders of the survey. ASPE has contributed
to this effort and also has provided input to the planning of the study and
the development of the pilot instruments. ASPE's contribution helps ensure
that comprehensive and relevant data are collected and analyzed about program
utilization and hardship and well-being over time among newly arriving low-income
immigrant families in different states. In particular, ASPE's continued support
will ensure that the study focuses on what is happening to children in these
families under welfare reform.
What Now?
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