About MDRC
Freedman’s research focuses on programs that provide employment services, programs that serve young people, and reforms in the criminal justice system. She is primarily responsible for quantitative analysis design and management; she has also held roles in survey design, random assignment system setup, and visits to research sites to study program implementation. Freedman is the lead author of the report on Breaking Barriers, and co-authored the reports on the Families Forward Demonstration and PACE Center for Girls. Her current projects include Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-Income Families (BEES), the Pretrial Justice Collaborative, and the Roca Baltimore Study. Before coming to MDRC, she worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington, DC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Binghamton University.
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MDRC Publications
ReportAn Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Program
March, 2022A San Diego program used IPS to help people with a range of disabilities find employment. This report summarizes 15-month evaluation findings from an earlier report and presents new impact findings. Of note, the analysis found the program increased earnings by almost $4,000 over the two-year follow-up period.
ReportA Partnership Between Child Support Agencies and Local Service Providers
April, 2021The Families Forward Demonstration examined strategies to help parents with low and middle incomes make reliable child support payments by increasing employment and earnings. The model, which emphasized free occupational training activities, shows promise for helping parents qualify for jobs in their chosen fields and for improving child support compliance.
ReportBackground and Directions for Future Research
November, 2020This paper describes the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) model, a framework for providing employment services to those facing barriers to work. MDRC, in partnership with MEF Associates and Abt Associates, is studying IPS as part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-Income Families (BEES) project.
BriefMarch, 2020The Breaking Barriers program, based in San Diego, provided employment services to lower-income individuals with disabilities. MDRC carried out a random assignment evaluation of the program. As part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-income Families project, MDRC is collecting additional administrative records to extend the original evaluation.
ReportImplementing Individual Placement and Support in a Workforce Setting
September, 2019Breaking Barriers was a San Diego-based program that provided employment services to low-income individuals with a range of disabilities or other health conditions. Preliminary analyses based on a survey found that the program did not have an impact on the primary outcomes measured — employment, length of employment, and total earnings — during a 15-month follow-up period.
ReportResults from the Evaluation of PACE Center for Girls
January, 2019PACE provides academic and extensive social services in a gender-responsive environment to girls at risk of juvenile justice system involvement. Over a one-year period, PACE increased school enrollment and attendance, as well as girls’ likelihood of being “on track” academically.
ReportAn Implementation Study of the PACE Center for Girls
April, 2017To serve at-risk girls, PACE provides academic and social services in a gender-responsive environment, focusing on safety, relationships, and girls’ individual strengths while accounting for the effects of trauma. The program offers low staff-to-student ratios, counseling and case management, and a life skills curriculum targeted to girls.
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Other Publications
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Projects
Roca, Inc . delivers services to young men between the ages of 16 and 25 who are involved in the justice system and who are at a high risk of being incarcerated or reincarcerated. Roca uses a cognitive behavioral intervention model that aims to create behavioral change in such young men. Its four-year program starts with two years of intensive interaction with a young...
Kristin Porter, Bret Barden, Melanie Skemer, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Viktoriya Syrov, Lily Freedman, Emily Brennan, Sara Ellis, Olivia Williams, Sarah PicardJurisdictions across the United States are taking steps to reduce the number of people who are detained in jail unnecessarily while awaiting trial. In particular, they are seeking to reduce the use of cash bail as a mechanism to ensure court appearance. Many jurisdictions have introduced risk-assessment tools to inform release decisions and pretrial supervision...
The Bridging Access to Benefits and Care ( BABC ) project is a partnership among three organizations: Acacia Network (Acacia), St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction ( SACHR ), and Seedco. It is designed to address the social determinants of health for a vulnerable and disenfranchised, opioid-dependent population in the Bronx. The theory is that activities increasing...
Sarah Picard, Dan Bloom, Melanie Skemer, Bret Barden, Chloe Anderson Golub, Brit Henderson, Ann Bickerton, Emmi Obara, Sara Ellis, Lily FreedmanThe objective of the MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research is to help build a more effective and equitable criminal justice system through clear, rigorous, and actionable research evidence. We partner with national and local criminal justice agencies, policymakers, and community-based organizations to assess reforms, practices, and programs that seek to increase...
Many jurisdictions across the United States are rethinking the “front end” of the criminal justice system — the pretrial period between an arrest and the disposition of a criminal case. Often these reforms focus on the initial decisions that judges and other court stakeholders make about whether to detain individuals in jail while they are awaiting trial, and on the...
Megan Millenky, Dan Bloom, Susan Scrivener, Charles Michalopoulos, Dina A. R. Israel, Johanna Walter, Lauren Cates, Sally Dai, Caroline Mage, Emily Marano, Viktoriya Syrov, Emmi Obara, Nicole Morris, Douglas Phillips, Kyla Wasserman, Lily Freedman, Annie Utterback, Osvaldo Avila, Emily Brennan, Jillian Verrillo, Gilda Azurdia, Frieda Molina, Shelley Rappaport, Clinton Key, Nandita Verma, Cynthia Miller, Jared Smith, Shawna Anderson, Kelsey Schaberg, Caitlin Anzelone, James A. Riccio, Sharon Rowser, Keri WestMany Americans struggle in the labor market even when overall economic conditions are good. Unemployment is persistently high for some demographic groups and in certain geographic areas, and a large proportion of working-age adults — about two in five in 2019 — tend to be out of the labor force. Factors such as systemic racism embedded in the economy and...
Dan Bloom, Carolyn Hill, Caroline Schultz, Kyla Wasserman, Lily Freedman, Bret Barden, Jennifer (Jenny) HauslerMore than one-third of all children under 18 — about 24 million children — live in single-parent families, the vast majority headed by single mothers. Although there have been improvements (such as automatic deductions from paychecks) in collecting and distributing child support from noncustodial parents (those who do not have physical custody of their children), more...
Adults with disabilities and recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ( TANF ) often struggle to find stable and meaningful employment, while state TANF agencies struggle to provide effective employment services in a timely and cost-effective manner. In 2013, MDRC , in collaboration with MEF Associates, completed an evaluation of Families Achieving Success...
Megan Millenky, Jean Grossman, Louisa Treskon, Melanie Skemer, Sally Dai, Lily Freedman, Caroline MageYoung girls and women make up an increasing share of the youth in the juvenile justice system, despite a national decline in the overall rate of juvenile incarceration in this country. In 2011, girls made up nearly 30 percent of all juvenile arrests, up from 20 percent in 1980. However, girls account for a very small share of the juvenile arrests for violent crimes and...