A shift in child support enforcement practices now emphasizes a less punitive approach and serving the whole family, not just child support recipients. Lessons from the Alternative Solutions Program, run by the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services’ Division of Child Support, show how this makes a difference during the economic decline caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building connections among staff members can feel especially challenging in a time when remote work and video conference calls make up most of our working day. Icebreaker activities are fun, useful tools that managers, supervisors, training facilitators, and coaches can use to enliven meetings and strengthen team and group bonds. This post highlights some of the icebreaker activities that programs use internally, and some of the ones MDRC’s technical assistance teams use when working with programs. The exercises are separated into ones that work well in short online gatherings and ones that help break up longer sessions.

As programs across the country adjust to working and serving clients in the context of COVID-19, many of us are spending considerable chunks of our days on conference calls and group meetings. We’re expanding on our February post that shared ideas on how to organize effective, engaging remote learning communities, with tips for establishing connections between groups that meet virtually for check-ins and training. We’re expanding on that theme with tips to help you run remote group meetings with staff, stakeholders, and participants and stay productive in this uncertain, unsettling time.

Program managers frequently put staff training near the top of their lists of ongoing challenges. The mix of diverse, complex training needs in many programs means managers may be responsible for orienting new staff, implementing new administrative proce­dures, or facilitating steps toward long-term pro­gram improvement. Change can be hard, and often, managers find that one-time training isn’t enough to ensure staff apply new con­cepts and procedures in their daily work. In much of MDRC’s work with programs, we view training as taking place within an iterative cycle of learning that we call “Learn-Do-Reflect,” in which trainers, program managers, and program devel­opers work collaboratively with front-line staff.