Behavioral Interventions

Brief

Using College Staff Members’ Perspectives to Improve the Student Experience

February, 2023

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.

Brief

How Community Health Workers Help Navigate Reentry

October, 2022
Ann Bickerton, Sara Ellis, Emmi Obara

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.

Brief

Customer Journey Mapping as a Tool to Identify Barriers to Program Participation

July, 2022

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.

Brief
March, 2022

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.

Report

An Introduction to the Strengthening the Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs (SIRF) Study

March, 2022

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...

Report

Lessons Learned from a Research-Practice Partnership with New York City’s Department of Education

May, 2021

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.

Tiffany Morton, Rebecca Schwartz, Camielle Headlam, Julia Schmidt, Caitlin Anzelone

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...

Issue Focus
February, 2021
Jorji Knickrehm, Kyla Wasserman

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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