Tangible tools, scoring guides and strategies to embed equity and wellbeing into your procurement process. Designed for human services with opportunities to apply these principles to other fields.
In recent years, there has been a deliberate shift to move our public systems that support child and family well-being upstream. These efforts reflect the growing consensus that true and lasting progress toward a nation where everyone can thrive requires we get to the root of the barriers that keep people and communities from achieving their potential. A foundational building block of this effort is the work happening to advance prevention strategies within child welfare agencies. In this brief, we focus on the challenges and opportunities that the Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First) offers to accelerate the shift toward a prevention-oriented child well-being system.
American Public Human Services Association (APHSA)
This report from the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program outlines efforts to use identity verification to reduce improper payments in government programs, while mitigating bias and disparate impacts.
The Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP)
The Urban Institute's report outlines actionable approaches for state governments and organizations to enhance the accessibility and retention of public benefit programs, focusing on service delivery, policy reforms, and technological advancements.
This report describes key elements of the American Rescue Plan Act and how it would reduce the projected poverty rate for 2021. Various projections regarding the effects of the policy are described in this report.
This report reviews the features of intergovernmental software cooperatives, examines several different examples, looks at different categories of cooperatives and their governance structures, and inventories known cooperatives both within and outside of the United States.
This proposal recommends a set of new federal performance standards that would measure and improve UI access. The proposal is intended to supplement existing federal UI standards, but all UI standards and metrics should be periodically reevaluated and updated as the conditions facing unemployed workers and benefit delivery change.
Policymakers, program administrators, federal leaders, researchers, and advocates are increasingly focused on using administrative data to build evidence for improving government programs. Achieving this goal requires accessible data sources and the capacity to use them, yet stakeholders have little information about the baseline level of state capacity in these areas. How does one measure concepts such as “effective data use” and “analytic capacity?” This brief reports findings from a pioneering and comprehensive needs assessment that examined the capacity of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs in 54 U.S. states and territories to analyze data used for program improvement, monitoring, and evidence-building. The needs assessment provides a foundation for technical assistance and continued improvement for the TANF program and may also provide valuable insights and frameworks for other state-administered human services programs.
A guide to navigating New York City’s public services. It was made with and for families of students living in temporary housing or experiencing homelessness and the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Students in Temporary Housing (STH).
Testing (and re-testing) your designs with users will help you build the best possible product. Our Validate Methods cover varied testing scenarios and potential user groups.
Implementing flexible interview scheduling in Los Angeles County's CalFresh program significantly increased benefit approval rates and reduced processing times, particularly aiding working families, students, and individuals experiencing homelessness.
This benefits protection toolkit is a step-by-step guide to develop and integrate a benefits protection strategy into your Direct Cash Transfer (DCT) program design. This toolkit includes a set of customizable templates, letters, and other tools which should be downloaded and modified for your pilot and local context.
