July 2016Vol. 17, No. 5Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Consortium
In 2013, the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) developed the Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Consortium (the Consortium) in an effort to help improve the lives of low-income families and children by integrating research, policy, and practice on family self-sufficiency and stability. This year, OPRE and Mathematica Policy Research published the Consortium's first "year in review" report, highlighting its members' individual and collective achievements in the field of family self-sufficiency and stability.
The Consortium consists of the following:
- Advancing Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency Research Project: Led by Mathematica Policy Research, Project AWESOME provides timely and flexible research and evaluation support to a variety of stakeholders, including policymakers, researchers, and practitioners.
- Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Scholars Network: The Scholars Network is a multidisciplinary collaborative of seven scholars who are investigating critical issues in family self-sufficiency and stability through independent and collective research.
- Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center: Led by the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and Chapin Hall, the Data Center provides technical support to States and builds State capacity for high-quality data management, linkage, and analysis.
Some of the highlighted efforts and achievements include the following:
- Project AWESOME developed a toolkit and practice brief for program administrators aimed at helping them identify and implement opportunistic experiments in family self-sufficiency and stability programs.
- Scholars Network members worked on examining the gaps in family self-sufficiency and stability programs, policies, and research from a variety of angles, including authoring works exploring implementation analysis, the accuracy of State-level safety net policies' predictions of monthly income dynamics, and the connections between family self-sufficiency and increases in the city of Seattle's minimum wage.
- The Data Center hosted a workshop for representatives from State human services agencies and other stakeholders interested in administrative data use. Participants were introduced to several opportunities for using administrative data to improve service delivery and performance management.
Learn more about the Consortium and access the report, Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Research Consortium Year in Review—2015, on OPRE's website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/research/project/family-self-sufficiency-and-stability-research-consortium.