- Basic Skills & Workforce Training Education and training are drivers of economic mobility and opportunity. CLASP works to strengthen federal and state education and training policy to ensure that low-wage workers and low-income individuals can enter and advance in the labor market, and to make sure that American businesses have access to workers with skills they need to compete. Transitional jobs, career exploration, job placement, and access to work supports such as child care also are essential for helping individuals get better jobs, succeed in education and training, and advance along a career pathway.
- Child Care & Early Education High-quality child care and early education can build a strong foundation for young children's healthy development and ensure that children have all they need to thrive. This knowledge drives CLASP's work to promote policies that support both child development and the needs of low-income working parents.
- Child Support & Fathers The highly effective federal/state child support program secures billions in owed child support to custodial parents every year. Child support reduces child poverty and is the backbone of many poor families’ budgets. We advocate for adequate funding for the child support program and for policies that ensure collected resources go to custodial parents.
- Child Welfare CLASP’s child welfare work seeks to prevent child abuse and neglect and to ameliorate the trauma experienced by children who are maltreated. We promote policies that empower parents to care for their children when possible and provide alternative, loving homes for children whose parents cannot care for them.
- Civil Legal Assistance CLASP works to ensure that low-income and marginalized communities have broader access to civil legal assistance by promoting policies that strengthen the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and improve the quality of civil legal aid programs.
- Employment Strategies Helping low-income adults obtain higher-quality jobs can lead to better job retention and wage growth. These individuals and others who experience difficulty in the labor market need access to employment services that enable them to enter the workforce and become reemployed if they lose their jobs.
- Postsecondary Access & Success Postsecondary education and training are increasingly the gateway to family-sustaining employment. While access to postsecondary education is a barrier for many low-income students, too many students who enter college fail to complete programs and attain credentials. Some students may leave after achieving short term goals, but most students, even nontraditional ones such as working adults, enter college with the goal of earning a certificate or degree. CLASP seeks to address both access and success challenges to ensure more low-income people succeed in the labor market.
- Poverty & Opportunity Growing inequality, lack of economic mobility and persistent poverty in this rich nation are driving the reemerging government interest in strategies to reduce poverty. CLASP offers technical assistance to governments, advocates, and service providers and promotes policies that provide opportunity for all. We also manage Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: The Source for News, Ideas and Action, a foundation-led initiative intended to ensure poverty reduction is part of the public discourse.
- Prisoner Re-Entry CLASP works to help individuals who have recently been released from prison to re-enter society and reunify with their families. We promote policies to: increase the flexibility of child support policies; reduce underground employment and recidivism; increase employment opportunities and services for young people and adults who have served time; promote transitional jobs and other workforce models for individuals returning to the community; strengthen family relationships during incarceration and upon release; and increase the capacity of the child welfare system to provide appropriate services to families with incarcerated parents.
- Temporary Assistance In every state, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant supports cash assistance and a wide range of other programs and services for low-income children and families. CLASP conducts policy analysis and provides technical assistance on TANF to state and federal officials and administrators, advocacy organizations, grassroots groups, and research entities.
- Work/Life & Job Quality Promoting policy solutions that improve job quality is an essential part of CLASP’s agenda to reduce poverty, support families, reward effort and expand opportunity. CLASP’s advocacy on work/life and job quality concentrates on paid leave, predictable and responsive schedules, and advancement opportunities. Such workplace policies can significantly improve quality of life for those at the bottom of the labor market.
- Work Supports Over the past decade, there have been significant expansions in policies that support low-income working families, such as refundable tax credits, health insurance, child support enforcement, child care subsidies, and nutritional supports. These programs help hard working families who struggle to meet basic needs due to low wages, irregular hours and lack of benefits. However, this safety net is incomplete. CLASP advocates for improvements in individual programs and in the service delivery system to help ensure low-income families have the support they need to stay employed and provide for their families.
- Youth CLASP's youth policy work aims to advance policy and practice that will dramatically improve the education, employment, and life outcomes for youth in communities of high youth distress.