This Urban Institute report identifies strategies to improve young people’s access to public benefits through targeted outreach, benefit navigation, cross-organizational partnerships, and streamlined eligibility processes.
Michigan's UIA director, Julia Dale, is leading the agency through transition by prioritizing lived experience, hope, grit, and values. Virginia's SNAP Program Manager, Michele Thomas, highlighted the success of Sun Bucks, a summer EBT child nutrition program that fed over 700,000 kids in its first year.
This report poses the question of whether states are prepared to meet the new Medicaid work reporting and renewal mandates introduced by HR 1, given ongoing strain from the post-pandemic “unwinding.”
A research report that defines different local early childhood governance models and explains how communities can choose and design governance structures to support effective early care and education systems.
This report evaluates the effectiveness and implementation of a generative AI-powered assistive chatbot designed to help caseworkers navigate complex public benefit programs like Medicaid and SNAP.
Code for America helped expand GetCalFresh (a service that guides Californians through the SNAP application process and helps government deliver food assistance to people in need) from a small pilot into a statewide service. They also recently concluded a similar pilot in Michigan along with Civilla and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The Assessing Your WIC Certification Practices guide by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) provides state and local WIC agencies with a framework to evaluate and improve their certification and enrollment processes to enhance access and participation.
This case study highlights Michigan’s integrated, data-driven approach to reducing food insecurity through cross-agency collaboration, referral tracking, and targeted outreach.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
Applicants to federal aid programs face numerous barriers in accessing benefits they are eligible for. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare conducted an extensive qualitative user research study to better understand applicant experience in enrolling in public assistance programs. Based on the results, the study emphasizes the need for simplified, streamlined and less burdensome application processes.
