The Digital Benefit Network's Digital Identity Community of Practice held a session to hear considerations from civil rights technologists and human-centered design practitioners on ways to ensure program security while simultaneously promoting equity, enabling accessibility, and minimizing bias.
Through the ACCESS project, key collaborators have shared insights into current and future opportunities for alignment within their agencies, including potential enablers for and barriers to alignment activities.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
The Hawai‘i Department of Human Services (DHS), in partnership with the Hawai‘i Department of Health (DOH) and the Children’s Healthy Living Center of Excellence (CHL Center) at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, is building foundational capacity to share and analyze administrative data across the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). This groundwork will enable Hawai‘i to increase access to nutrition support programs, in alignment with Hawai‘i’s ‘Ohana Nui framework, which aims to dismantle intergenerational poverty.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Differing federal requirements for public benefit applications create significant barriers for applicants and complicate state efforts to integrate services.
The ubiquity of mobile devices makes it imperative to build “mobile first” services, i.e. services built with the expectation that they will primarily be accessed on mobile devices. This article also outlines important considerations and suggestions for implementing mobile-first user interfaces.
NYC's My File NYC and New Jersey's unemployment insurance system improvements demonstrate how successful digital innovations can be scaled across various programs, leveraging trust-building, open-source technology, and strategic partnerships.
This report details the development and deployment of My File, an open-source digital document management tool designed to help individuals securely store and share documents needed to access public services.
This report explores policy options Utah and other states can adopt to mitigate benefit cliffs, which occur when small income increases lead to sudden loss of public assistance.
