The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) studies Administration for Children and Families (ACF) programs and the populations they serve through rigorous research and evaluation projects. These include evaluations of existing programs, evaluations of innovative approaches to helping low-income children and families, research syntheses and more. Within OPRE, the Division of Child and Family Development focuses on child care, Head Start, Early Head Start, and child abuse and neglect. Visit OPRE to navigate their current and past research on Head Start and Early Head Start.
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections provides a continually updated, free and easily searchable collection of research on child care and early education for researchers and policymakers. The website provides access to more than 26,000 resources, including original scholarly research, government reports, fact sheets and briefs, datasets, and instruments. The site also features a 'Topics of Interest 'section on policy relevant topics and resources. Additionally, Research Connections produces various 'Research-to-Policy Resource Lists' and 'Research-to-Policy Research Briefs' on key topics in the field.
An initiative of the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, the Self-Sufficiency Research Clearinghouse (SSRC) is an ever growing virtual portal of research on low-income and TANF families and an online hub for professional networking among researchers, policymakers and practitioners who serve these populations. SSRC offers a library of resources and periodic webinars on topics related to family self-sufficiency.
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was established in 2002 as an initiative of the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education and is administered by the National Center for Education Evaluation. The goal of the WWC is to be a resource for informed education decision making. To reach this goal, the WWC identifies studies that provide credible and reliable evidence of the effectiveness of a given practice, program, or intervention, and disseminates summary information and reports on the WWC website.