Mdrc

Filing Period

Jan 1, 2010 to Dec 31, 2010

Signed

Nov 2, 2011

Return Version

2010v3.4

Gross Receipts

$67,836,328

Major Activities

Activity 2

Family Well-Being and Children's Development Children who grow up in poverty face much greater risks of academic failure, poor health, and emotional distress and, as adults, are more likely to be unemployed and poor. MDRC's studies on children and families are providing a new generation of reliable evidence for policymakers about strategies that benefit the social, emotional, and cognitive development of low-income children - some by improving the life prospects of parents and others by working directly with children. Our two-generation approaches hold the most promise, as developmental theory predicts that improving outcomes for both parents and children together has more powerful effects than focusing on either generation alone. For two decades, MDRC has been a leader in an expanding field of research that examines how children are affected by welfare reform and other social policies that are primarily designed to affect the employment and income status of their parents. We continue to collect data on children in our studies of programs focused on parents' access to financial work supports, educational attainment, and career advancement, and we are learning which particular approaches to improving families' economic well-being are more beneficial to children. MDRC is studying several initiatives that seek to benefit children by improving their parents' emotional well-being or by building healthier family relationships. We are testing the effectiveness of a care management model in Rhode Island that aims to engage depressed Medicaid recipients in successful treatment. This study is allowing us to investigate ways in which a program aimed at reducing parents' depression may indirectly benefit children. In the Supporting Healthy Marriage project, we are testing relationship education programs for low-income married couples. Finally, our child care and early education studies aim to deepen policymakers' understanding of the effects of early care environments, both as a support for employment and as a context that directly affects children's development. Selected highlights in 2010: - Released findings and implementation lessons from our innovative Foundations of Learning demonstration, which is testing a new intervention to help preschool teachers promote the social and emotional development of children in preschools and Head Start centers in Newark and Chicago. - Implemented the Head Start CARES Project, which is examining the effects and implementation of a set of evidence-based strategies to improve the social and emotional development of children in Head Start classrooms. - Published implementation findings from the Supporting Health Marriage Demonstration, which is testing relationship and marriage skills programs for low-income married couples. - Released results from studies of child care subsidies in Illinois and Washington State. - Was contracted by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to lead the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, an unprecedented opportunity to apply and test insights about the science of decision-making in the context of ACF's social assistance programs areas and populations. - Was awarded the Design Options for Home Visiting Evaluation (DOHVE) project from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Home visiting programs provide preventive services to families with young children to prevent child maltreatment, improve maternal and child health outcomes, and increase school readiness. DOHVE will provided technical assistance to grantees of the new federal home visiting program and develop design options for conducting a national evaluation of this federal initiative. - Published an article on marriage and fatherhood programs in the influential Future of Children journal.

Activity 3

Health and Barriers to Employment MDRC was originally established to study programs for the "hard-to-employ," Americans who face serious obstacles to finding and keeping steady work. Our very first project, the National Supported Work Demonstration, tested the impact of paid work experience for long-term welfare recipients, ex-offenders, high school dropouts, and substance abusers, and it is still regarded as one of the most comprehensive sources of evidence on employment programs targeted to these groups. Today we are testing tailored interventions for specific hard-to-employ groups - people with work-limiting disabilities; those with physical, mental health, or substance abuse problems; long-term welfare recipients; and recipients who have failed in "work-first" programs. MDRC has built a portfolio of projects testing innovative strategies to enhance health care services and health outcomes for low-income people, with a particular focus on services for individuals with health- and disability-related barriers to employment. At the same time, we are testing programs for ex-prisoners and low-income people who are dependent on federal disability assistance. In addition, MDRC has a growing portfolio of projects focused on disconnected youth, which includes the Youth Transition Demonstration and evaluations of YouthBuild, the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe program, and Youth Villages. The findings of our new studies as they emerge will help expand the body of knowledge about how to address particular barriers to employment - and how to implement effective programs in the different public assistance, enforcement, and service delivery systems that interact with the hard-to-employ population. Selected highlights from 2010: - MDRC President Gordon Berlin testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the reauthorization of the federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. - The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration awarded MDRC a contract to lead a national evaluation of the YouthBuild program. YouthBuild, which operates at more than 200 sites, is one of the nation's most important programs targeting young high school dropouts. - With the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and Bridgespan, launched a new federal Social Innovation Fund initiative that will combine large grants, strategic business planning, rigorous evaluation, and capital aggregation to increase the scale and impact of up to 10 youth development organizations in communities of need across the United States. - Won two awards, one by the Department of Labor and the other by the Department of Health and Human Services, to test the next generation of transitional jobs programs. - Published interim results from our evaluation of the federal-state National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program for high school dropouts, showing large impacts on high school diploma and GED attainment and positive effects on working and college-going. - Published updated findings from a transitional jobs program in New York City for ex-prisoners that demonstrated effects on recidivism, as well as short-term results from the Transitional Jobs Reentry Demonstration, which is testing a similar model for ex-prisoners in four Midwestern cities. - Released interim results from random assignment studies of a telephonic care management program for Medicaid recipients with depression and of Early Head Start programs with enhanced employment services. - Released early results from the Accelerated Benefits demonstration, a five-year-long study that is testing whether making medical benefits immediately available to new Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries who are likely to benefit from treatment, as well as employment and case management services, improves their health and increases their likelihood of going back to work. - Continued work on the TANF/SSI Disability Transition Project, which seeks to better understand the relationship between the Temporar

Filer

EIN

23-7379473