National Human Services Assembly

Two-Generation

Building Stronger Families and Communities With a Two-Gen Approach

Building family well-being and maintaining it across a lifespan is one of the most powerful ways to create the opportunity for everyone to reach their potential and fully contribute to our communities. The Two-Generation (Two-Gen) approach builds well-being by working with families to support early childhood education, elementary education, economic stability, and family engagement.

The policy and programmatic changes that support these interconnected and systemic efforts happen on a continuum, over time. The Two-Gen approach begins with establishing a new mindset focused on family-centered program design, continues with the alignment of services across multiple organizations, and culminates in providing coordinated services to children and parents together, while tracking family outcomes over the long term.

More About Two-Gen

The National Assembly has focused on Two-Gen programming for several years, and as a result, has published multiple reports on the subject, in addition to collecting resources from other colleague organizations doing similar work. Key Two-Gen publications from the National Assembly are:

Below are some of the other resources to learn more about Two-Gen.

Resources

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The State of Two-Generation Work

“State of the Field: Two-Generation Approaches to Family Well-Being” is a new report released by Ascend at the Aspen Institute. This resource is designed for policymakers, philanthropists, practitioners, researchers, and others interested in learning what the two-generation (2Gen) approach has accomplished, why and how it has accelerated so quickly, and what different sectors can do […]

Elevate Your Two-Gen Communications

Two-generation approaches to updating human services systems are making sure that there are equal, simultaneous, and intentional efforts to build the well-being of children and the adults in their lives. This simple idea should be a no-brainer —– but 2Gen proponents have found that, too often, key audiences don’t quite get it. A new resource, […]

Place Matters: A Two-Generation Approach to Housing

With collectively more than 100 years of policy expertise and values-based leadership between us, Ascend at the Aspen Institute and the Housing Opportunity and Services Together initiative at the Urban Institute partnered to develop a set of recommendations on how to harness assisted housing and public-private housing partnerships for better outcomes for families. By Dr. […]

The Two-Generation Approach Framework: A Closer Look at State-Level Implementation

Building Family Well-Being with State-Level Two-Generation Frameworks The National Human Services Assembly has released “The Two-Generation Approach Framework: A Closer Look at State-Level Implementation” funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report explores how three states–Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah–are developing and implementing a Two-Generation (Two-Gen) framework in their human service programs. The Two-Gen approach […]

Two-Gen Outcomes Bank from Ascend at the Aspen Institute

Ascend at the Aspen Institute’s 2Gen (Two-Gen) Outcomes Bank is designed to help capture and organize the outcomes, research, tools, and evidence base for two-generation approaches, strategies, and programs. Within the database, you will find outcomes, indicators, and research organized by child, parent, and family across the core 2Gen components of education, economic assets, health […]

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Young Families (Issue Brief)

Over 1.4 million youth ages 15–24 are out-of-school and out-of-work (OSOW) and raising dependent children. When youth are out of the education system, lack early work experience, and cannot find employment, the likelihood is poor that they will have the means to support themselves and the needs of their children. Too often, this traps their […]

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