In communities with a particular need for services for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers, Head Start programs can apply to convert some preschool-age enrollment slots to Early Head Start slots to better serve their local population.

As part of the Conversions of Enrollment Slots from Head Start to Early Head Start project, MEF Associates and the Urban Institute developed a new series of briefs on these conversions. Learn more about the project and the briefs here.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has two sets of work requirements, the general and the able bodied adult without dependents (ABAWD) work requirement, that a subset of participants must comply with to receive benefits. A new report describes how state agencies determined if an individual should be excused from the general and the ABAWD work requirements or had good cause a good cause for not meeting work requirements because of a physical or mental limitation. The project involved a survey of the 53 state agencies and in-depth case studies of four States, including qualitative interviews with state and local staff and an analysis of administrative records on determinations around work requirements. 

A new guide, for ECE coaches and organizations that provide coaching, aims to support coaches in building a foundation for a strong partnership with teachers and to ease some of the challenges encountered during the initial stages of implementing a coaching initiative. The guide was developed based on curriculum-focused technical assistance provided by MDRC and MEF Associates to coaches and ECE centers as part of the ExCEL Quality project, a large-scale study of approaches to improve classroom quality in preschool classrooms.

A new brief describes how Sacramento County’s Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) and its partner, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento, implemented the My Empowerment (M.E.) Project and lessons learned. The M.E. Project educates teens and young adults about the financial, legal, and emotional responsibilities of parenthood and is funded by a Charting a Course for Economic Mobility and Responsible Parenting demonstration grant from the federal Office of Child Support Services. This implementation summary brief is part of MEF’s mixed-methods evaluation of the M.E. Project for DCSS.

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) demonstration project aimed to address noncustodial parents’ reasons for nonpayment of child support orders, promote their positive engagement with the child support program and custodial parents, and improve the consistency and completeness of their child support payments by testing a new approach to service delivery. A new report and brief use data collected during the public health emergency to examine how three of those child support agencies experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. The report focuses on how employment, earnings, unemployment insurance, and debt balance patterns changed for members of the PJAC sample after the onset of the pandemic. The brief focuses on how child support service delivery, rates of enforcement, and use of contempt changed after the onset of the pandemic. Both the report and brief examine staff and parent experiences and perspectives during the pandemic. 

Federal guidance allows Head Start grant recipients to apply to the Office of Head Start to shift funding (i.e., convert enrollment slots) from Head Start services for preschool-age children to Early Head Start services for pregnant women, infants, and toddlers. This process necessitates strategic planning and the careful development and implementation of new processes with the aim of ensuring high-quality service delivery tailored to the unique needs of pregnant women, infants, and toddlers and delivered in accordance with the Head Start Program Performance Standards. This report presents findings from case studies of six grant recipients that converted enrollment slots from Head Start to Early Head Start in 2021.