Latest Publications

February 2024

Posture: The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Human Services

With member input, this posture lays out foundational tenets for the adoption of AI in human services. Given the rapid development of AI technology, it will remain a living document and be subject to updates for the foreseeable future.

February 2024

AI-Powered SNAP Modernization: An Introduction to Current and Potential Uses of AI in SNAP Case Processing

This publication—the first in a three-part series that APHSA will release on the use of AI in SNAP case processing—explores how AI is currently used, and how it might be used in the future, to support administrative actions that agency staff complete when processing customers’ SNAP cases.

February 2024

System Alignment for Young Families: Shifting Human Services to Improve Well-Being for Parents Under 24 and their Children

This paper highlights key takeaways from APHSA’s work on young families, starting with an overview of the young families work and its early years, followed by key takeaways and highlights from its final year, ending with opportunities for future work in the young families space.

December 2023

Understanding the Utilization of SNAP Administrative Funds from the American Rescue Plan Act

This paper looks at key findings and recommendations developed through a research project, conducted in partnership with APHSA, Urban Institute, and Share Our Strength’s Center for Best Practices exploring how state SNAP agencies used their ARPA funding by documenting 1) desired and actual investments made with the funding, 2) progress toward SNAP modernization, and 3) improvements in delivering equitable customer service.

December 2023

Navigating the SNAP Cliff (Part 2): Forging Stable Pathways from SNAP E&T to the Marketplace

In the sixth publication of our 2023 Farm Bill series, we explore a two-prong strategy to address two separate benefit cliffs in a SNAP E&T participant's journey to unsubsidized employment. In our Farm Bill Recommendations, we urged Congress to extend the state option to provide transitional food benefits to SNAP E&T graduates who are working to transition to gainful and lasting employment. This brief discusses what that option would mean for states and the SNAP E&T participants they support.

November 2023

Economic & Concrete Supports National Landscape Survey Research Report

In partnership with Chapin Hall, APHSA conducted a national landscape survey of child welfare leaders to learn how they perceive support options, service coordination and tracking, funding, and barriers to meeting families’ needs. This report explores the survey findings and highlights insights into how agencies currently leverage resources to help families meet needs and what improvements should be made.

October 2023

Supporting Elderly and Disabled Members of Our Communities by Simplifying SNAP

In the fifth publication of our 2023 Farm Bill series, we take a look at two demonstration projects, the Standard Medical Deduction and Elderly Simplified Application Project, and how they can be used to increase SNAP enrollment and enhance nutrition and food security for those in our communities who are elderly and disabled.

September 2023

The Role of Human Services Agencies in Advancing Climate and Environmental Justice

Through several conversations, facilitated meetings, and a national survey, APHSA and our partners at Mathematica have asked the question—what can be the role of the human services sector in advancing climate and environmental justice to build more resilient communities? This paper presents the what, who, why, how, when, and where of the relationship between human services and issues of climate and environmental justice.

August 2023

Payment Error Rates: Understanding What They Are and How to Support SNAP Agencies in Reducing Them

In the fourth publication of our 2023 Farm Bill series, we dive into the important role of payment accuracy in SNAP. We discuss what Quality Control and SNAP Payment Error Rates are and are not, why they increased in response to the pandemic and why there are differences across states, and how the Farm Bill can support SNAP agencies to strengthen their program accuracy for years to come.

July 2023

Strengthening Connections to Support Child & Family Well-Being: How Economic Supports, Inclusive of Child Support Programs, Can Work Together for a Whole Family Approach

In collaboration with parents and caregivers with lived experience in economic supports, APHSA, the National Child Support Engagement Association (NCSEA), and the National Council of Child Support Directors (NCCSD) highlight key practice and policy levers that states and localities can consider utilizing to better support the families they serve.

July 2023

Retrospective of Factors Impacting U.S. Human Services Delivery and Emergency Response During Evacuations from Afghanistan

In this briefing, we share learnings from interviews with human services agency personnel and related non-profit partners in order to assess the factors most impactful in shaping emerging conversations in optimal service delivery to persons evacuated from Afghanistan. The report aims to help highlight promising practices, as well as areas for continued development within emergency preparedness and effective human services delivery to individuals coming from other countries.

July 2023

Navigating the SNAP Cliff (Part 1): Building Bridges to Scale High Impact SNAP E&T Programming

In the third publication of our 2023 Farm Bill series, we take a look at the unintentional cliff effect within current SNAP legislation impacting E&T participants: the work-based learning quagmire. SNAP recipients ready to invest in their economic futures who enroll in subsidized work-based learning programs offered through their SNAP E&T services are paid a reasonable wage in their transitional jobs. As a result of these earnings, they are no longer eligible for SNAP and are simultaneously forced off their training program as well. Check out this brief to better understand this benefit cliff and learn about an easy solution lying at our fingertips.

June 2023

Leveraging Cross-Program Data to Modernize Outreach and Enrollment in SNAP and Connected Benefits

In the process of administering the Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports (CSNS) cohort and grant, APHSA and Share Our Strength gained important insights about cross-program data analysis. This brief shares observations specifically regarding data sharing and matching with groups across the human services sector in service of promoting promising practice and driving innovation. This brief also describes the ways CSNS sites leveraged three data sharing models to advance common priorities across the human services sector.

April 2023

Customer Experience Demonstration Project: Understanding What Works for Individuals and Families

In the second publication of our 2023 Farm Bill series, we dive deeper into our first recommendation to establish a Customer Experience Demonstration Project, which would allow state agencies to test flexibilities in SNAP application and certification processes to improve customer experience. While there have been several opportunities for states to test flexibilities—especially in the last few years with pandemic waivers—this demonstration project calls for an independent national evaluation that uses customer input to understand if the changes actually improve experiences.

March 2023

2023 Farm Bill: A Roadmap for Building a More Effective, Resilient, and Customer-Centered SNAP Program

This paper shares our recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill, a major piece of legislation reauthorized every five years that serves as the authorizing language for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Our recommendations represent the dedicated work of two of our affinity groups, the American Association of SNAP Directors (AASD) and the National Association for Program Information and Performance Measurement (NAPIPM), as well as our SNAP Employment and Training and SNAP Education and Outreach Work Groups, our Leadership Council, and countless other members from state and local agencies representing SNAP across the country over the past year. Stay tuned for additional policy briefs!

July 2022

Early Insights on SNAP Modernization through American Rescue Plan Investments

This brief created along with Urban Institute and Share Our Strength’s Center for Best Practices documents how states are using ARPA funds to improve customer experience, streamline access to benefits and services, and increase efficiency and effectiveness of program administration, sharing findings from a November 2021 survey of state SNAP agencies.

March 2022

Core Principles for TANF Modernization: A Legislative Framework for TANF Reform

As we round a quarter-century of TANF, APHSA is embracing the call to reimagine how TANF can work in support of the families it serves. APHSA and our members have laid out a legislative framework to unlock the potential of TANF. We call upon Congress to use this framework as a starting point to build common ground to achieve a TANF reauthorization that promotes a more equitable and prosperous future for all Americans.

January 2022

Aligning Systems to Advance Family and Community Well-Being: A Partnership Playbook for Community Action and Human Services Agencies

This Playbook, developed in collaboration with the National Community Action Partnership, is a shared exploration of the ways our two systems have partnered together in response to the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis and how we continue to move forward promising collaborative work focused on thriving families.

December 2021

Working Together – A Roadmap to Human Services System Alignment for Young Families

This policy brief establishes a framework to modernize health and human services agencies, realigning siloed programs and services focused on important, but segmented, aspects of community needs. In this Roadmap, APHSA identifies four essential components that must work in tandem to create inroads to genuine system alignment to support young families.

December 2021

Unlocking the “Prevention Services” in the Family First Prevention Services Act

This policy brief is the latest installment of our Cornerstone Series and focuses on the challenges and opportunities that the Family First Prevention Services Act offers to accelerate the shift towards a prevention-oriented child well-being system.

November 2021

Best Practices for Child Welfare in Working with Families with Immigrant Members

APHSA and the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) have released this new infographic based on our joint 2019 report and featuring recommendations made in the report.

November 2021

SNAP Employment and Training (E&T): Five Things to Know and Five Opportunities to Act

APHSA and the National Conference of State Legislatures partnered to create a resource to highlight opportunities for State legislatures to support economic recovery and decrease food insecurity. This resource serves as an opportunity to share more about SNAP E&T with legislatures, gubernatorial partners, and agency leadership.

October 2021

Documenting Pandemic EBT for the 2020–21 School Year

This report co-authored between APHSA and Urban Institute documents state SNAP administrators’ experience with planning for and implementing P-EBT in the 2020-2021 school year. It analyzes the challenges state administrators faced in launching this new program, as well as reflects on considerations for the future.

August 2021

Harnessing Data & Technology to Construct a Human Services System that Supports Thriving & Equitable Communities

This policy brief which is the latest installment of our Cornerstone Series, highlights how recent innovations in technology have opened a path for H/HS agencies to dramatically strengthen their data and technology infrastructure, while providing fairer and more equal access to crucial benefits and services. The brief shares recommendations on concrete policy steps that the Federal Government can take to help human services agencies create next-generation systems.

July 2021

Building a Foundation for Family Well-Being

This report from APHSA and ASTHO shares details on prevention programs focusing on the reduction of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and includes details of child welfare and public health partnering in incorporating evidence-based and promising practices, with examples from Baltimore, MD, Alabama, and Kentucky.

July 2021

Transforming Family Well-Being Though Primary Prevention

This document details the partnership of APHSA and ASTHO, joining to support transformation of the child welfare system through a prevention first model. APHSA and ASTHO are collaborating to construct a national plan to ensure a culture for systemic change and longer-term policy and program development and implementation.

June 2021

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Waivers and Adaptations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of State Agency Perspective in 2020

This report is co-written with researchers from the Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Social Policy based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The report synthesizes the results from our nationwide online survey with state SNAP administrators that sought to understand the opportunities and challenges to implementing federal waivers during the pandemic.

Read Executive Summary
Read Full Report

April 2021

Core Principles for TANF Modernization

This policy brief, which is the latest installment of our Cornerstone series, highlights how we can build common ground on what families need to thrive and how TANF can align with other key building blocks to achieve the outcomes we desire.

January 2021

COVID Response Project: Lessons Learned from State Adaptations and Federal Flexibilities

The COVID Response Project was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to document the real-time impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on state human services agencies and capture state perspectives on lessons learned to guide future federal policymaking and state implementation. The project was completed by APHSA in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Regional Operations.

December 2020

Funding Programs for Young Parents & Families

This APHSA brief provides a summary of potential federal funding sources and programs that can be used to support programs specifically targeted towards young families. While this list is not exhaustive, it highlights major sources that can serve as a starting point for braiding and blending of funding to create comprehensive programming to serve young families.

November 2020

Designing Better Programs for Young Parents & Families: Insights from The Southeastern Cohort on Young Parents & Families

This report, co-authored by Third Sector and APHSA, highlights lessons learned from phase one of the Southeastern Cohort on Young Parents and Families, focused on interagency collaboration and community engagement.

November 2020

Cornerstone for Resilient Communities and a Revitalized Economy: The Role of Human Services in Building Well-Being from the Ground Up

In this paper, intended to start initial and vital conversations with a new 2021 Administration and Congress during unprecedented times, APHSA shares how federal policymakers can help meet the most pressing needs of the nation while laying the necessary tracks for all communities to thrive.

November 2020

Laying the Tracks for an Equitable Recovery and Long-Term Repair

This policy brief, which supplements our Cornerstone paper, outlines principles for an equitable recovery that redesigns systems to counteract long-standing structural barriers and advance race equity.

August 2020

Changes in State TANF Policies in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This brief, co-authored in partnership with The Urban Institute, describes how some state agencies adapted their policies during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic to meet their states’ and families’ unique situations, needs, and challenges.