Parents with dependent children now make up almost one in four students pursuing higher education in the United States (Miller, Gault, and Thorman 2011). Single parents face particular challenges pursuing higher education, including securing safe and affordable housing. Single mothers often must spend over half of their income on housing expenses,…

This report focuses on pathways to postsecondary education (PSE), including high school completion, for pregnant and parenting teens. Although birth rates among teens have declined in the United States over the last 20 years, one in seven adolescent females (14.4 percent) is expected to give birth before age 20 with females of color (24 percent of…

Research Findings: This in-depth single case study explores the experiences of a single father with finding and maintaining child care for his son. This American middle-income, Caucasian father lives and works in Minnesota. Findings include difficulty locating and maintaining child care, dissatisfaction with child care quality, concerns about…

Used a three-group design to determine the effects on child development of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), a state welfare reform program. Findings showed that MFIP increased employment rates and decreased poverty. According to mother-reports, children were less likely to exhibit problem behaviors and more likely to perform better…

This report provides findings of an in-person survey of single parents in Ramsey County, Minnesota. The report is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides a current demographic, educational, and economic profile of single parents and examines whether the backgrounds of single parents relate to their present conditions. Chapter 2 describes…

This paper uses data from 2 randomized evaluations of welfare-to-work programs--the Minnesota Family Investment Program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies--to estimate the effect of employment on domestic abuse among low-income single mothers. Unique to our analysis is the application of a 2-stage least squares method, in…

This newsletter issue provides an evaluation of child support systems and services of the 87 counties in Minnesota. No county in the state collects enough to support children, child support is often late or not paid in full, children whose parents never married are especially dependent on the child support systems, and child support services vary…

Presents the results of a survey of Minnesota families on the waiting list for child care assistance--families eligible for assistance for whom no funds are available. Suggests that this waiting has a devastating economic and emotional impact on those families. Proposes the child care sliding fee program as a possible solution to these problems.…

Minnesota technical institutes developed a curriculum that can be used in regular adult classes or customized for workplace seminars. The curriculum covers management of work-family stress, time management, communication skills, decision making, concerns of dual career families, unemployment concerns, and other aspects of balancing work and family…

This study was designed to assess the monetary and human costs and benefits of the Pilot Child Care Sliding Fee Program in Ramsey County, Minnesota. A 21-item questionnaire was used to survey 53 of the 161 families who had participated in the program. The vast majority of the sample consisted of single, female, working-parent families with from…

This report examines implementation and impacts of Ramsey County's Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), a "work first" program. Chapter 1 lists key findings, provides an overview of the Ramsey County variant (MFIP-R) evaluation, and policy relevance of MFIP-R. Chapter 2 describes key features of MFIP-R and compares them with…

The Minnesota YouthBuild Program enables at-risk youth to gain useful job skills while working towards their high school diploma or GED. The program also provides affordable housing to battered women and children and very low income persons. The 226 youth participating in the program in 1994 were aged 16 to 24 and categorized as at-risk persons.…

Early Childhood Family Education is a voluntary public school program for Minnesota families with children through kindergarten age. The program's mission is to support parents' ability to provide for their children's development. To determine the program's effectiveness, participating parents were interviewed in the fall of 1990 and again at the…

This report uses text, graphs, and tables to present findings of a 1996 survey of 575 adolescents voluntarily participating in residential behavioral treatment facilities in Minnesota. Compared with public school students, these adolescents were: 62 percent male, more likely to be of color, especially American Indian, and twice as likely as other…

A follow-up study of the high school classes of 1997, 1998, and 1999 found Minnesota education faced peak enrollment numbers of 72,000-74,000, but numbers were projected to level off and decrease. Although graduating classes would remain predominantly white for the foreseeable future, the state was moving toward greater racial diversity, with…