Using College Staff Members’ Perspectives to Improve the Student Experience
Complex administrative processes in community colleges can delay graduation. The OnPath project aims to help students navigate those processes more effectively and persist in college. This brief examines OnPath’s use of research evidence and staff members’ perspectives and hands-on knowledge to build and improve college systems that benefit all students.
How Community Health Workers Help Navigate Reentry
Community Health Workers (CHWs) are critical to Los Angeles County’s Reentry Intensive Case Management Services program, which assists clients following incarceration or probation by connecting them to services. This brief describes CHWs’ role, outlines their strategies, and offers insights for incorporating “lived experience” into their approach to helping clients.
Customer Journey Mapping as a Tool to Identify Barriers to Program Participation
To identify ways to bolster participation in fatherhood programs, the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs project used “customer journey mapping,” a process that focuses on the needs and goals of participants. This document describes and illustrates each of five steps in the mapping process.
In 2020, MDRC and its partners conducted a literature review and held a series of conversations on the subject of engaging fathers in fatherhood programs that included practitioners, fathers, researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. This publication collects engagement approaches practitioners and other stakeholders have tried or are considering.
An Introduction to the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) Study
This report summarizes activities in the first two years of the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) study (2019 to 2021). SIRF aims to identify and test approaches to improving programs’ recruitment, engagement, and retention of fathers using rapid learning cycles.
Metropolitan transit systems increasingly limit payment to electronic and prepaid fares on board their vehicles to increase the speed of boarding, provide more opportunities to collect ridership data to inform planning efforts, and allow for more opportunities to provide discounts to riders. However, riders with low incomes and other populations, such as people age 65...
Financial aid reduces dropout rates, yet college students are unaware of many financial resources available to them. The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act requires colleges to tell students they can apply for more aid. These evidence-based strategies can help schools create effective messages about aid to get positive responses.
Lessons Learned from a Research-Practice Partnership with New York City’s Department of Education
A research-practice partnership between MDRC and the New York City Department of Education focused on mutual learning using insights from behavioral science and human-centered design to achieve five learning goals related to the kindergarten application process. This report discusses study results and lessons learned for each of the five goals.
MDRC ’s On the Path to a Degree project (OnPath) seeks to improve student persistence and success at community colleges through evidence-based messaging strategies. Through OnPath, MDRC will collaborate with five community colleges in New Jersey and five two-year Historically Black Colleges and Universities to design and develop student outreach campaigns that...
New approaches to child support enforcement aim to be less punitive and to serve the whole family, not just child support recipients. Lessons from Washington State’s Alternative Solutions Program show how this shift in perspective has made a difference during the pandemic.
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