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Office of Human Services Policy (HSP)

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

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

The Office of Human Services Policy has three divisions:

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

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy: Miranda Lynch-Smith

Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy: Jennifer Burnszynski

Reports

Displaying 171 - 180 of 972. 10 per page. Page 18.

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Review of Assumptions and Methods of the Medicare Trustees' Financial Projections

The Technical Review Panel on the Medicare Trustees Report was established by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2016 to review the assumptions and methods underlying the Medicare Trust Funds (Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance) annual reports to Congress.

Factors Associated with Prolonged Youth Homelessness

Organizations can use their resources more efficiently to reduce and end prolonged youth homelessness if they know who they are trying to serve, and the issues that these youth face.This brief aims to summarize factors associated with prolonged episodes of homelessness among youth.

Serious Mental Illness and Prolonged Youth Homelessness

Research about adults experiencing chronic homelessness shows a relationship with serious mental illness. This brief aims to explore whether this same intersection between prolonged homelessness and serious mental illness exists among youth.

Interventions for Addressing Prolonged Youth Homelessness

This brief aims to arm service providers with information regarding available evidence about interventions to prevent or reduce prolonged youth homelessness, in order to support providers in using their resources as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Pretesting a Human Trafficking Screening Tool in the Child Welfare and Runaway and Homeless Youth Systems

This report summarizes findings from a study to develop and pre-test a human trafficking screening tool with 617 youth in runaway and homeless youth (RHY) and child welfare (CW) settings. The tool was found to be accessible, easy to administer, and effective in identifying trafficked youth in these settings, though additional research is needed.
Report to Congress

Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors, Sixteenth Report to Congress

This report provides welfare indicators through 2014 for most indicators and through 2015 for some indicators, reflecting changes that have taken place since enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996.

Child and Partner Transitions among Families Experiencing Homelessness

New analysis of data from HUD's Family Options Study finds that about 30 percent of sheltered homeless families reported a separation from at least one family member. Family transitions continued in the following 20 months, with 10 percent of families experiencing new child separations and 8 percent reporting reunification with children who had not been with the family in shelter.

Predictors of Reentry Success

This brief uses a sample of over 1,000 reentering men in five states to examine reentry success.  The analysis uses a common measure of recidivism as well as measures of success in other areas, including employment, drug use, and two dimensions of family relationship quality that are very rarely examined in reentry studies: financial support for children and intimate/coparenting relationsh

Impact of Couples-Based Family Strengthening Services for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners

This brief summarizes findings on the impact of couples-based family strengthening services in four prison-based programs from the Multi-Site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering (MFS-IP) and discusses the implications for policy, programs, and future research.

Well-Being of Young Children after Experiencing Homelessness

New analysis of data from HUD's Family Options Study shows that twenty months after staying in an emergency shelter with their families, young children scored worse in pre-reading skills and had higher rates of overall behavior problems and early development delays compared to national norms for children their age.