The Urban Institute published a feature on the GPL's Permanent Supportive Housing project in Denver. The feature explains how former Program Director Tyler Jaeckel and other stakeholders helped the City set up a social impact bond to build 160 new units of housing for the homeless and includes quotes from residents and photos of their new homes. Read the feature ...
Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab selects five jurisdictions to participate in Alternative 911 Emergency Response project to advance public health approaches to public safety
Cambridge, MA – The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) today announced the selection of five jurisdictions that will participate in a new initiative designed to implement alternative responses to nonviolent 911 calls—Durham, North...
Houston Public Media wrote a piece highlighting Harris County's Holistic Alternative Responder Team program, or HART, which plans to send public health staff instead of law enforcement to nonviolent calls involving issues like mental health, homelessness, and substance abuse. Read the...
In the Harvard Gazette, GPL Assistant Director Ana Billingsley breaks down how to translate an appetite for changing the justice system into a reality, with teachings from her work in Harris County, TX. Read the ...
Have you ever wondered whether your customer departments and other internal stakeholders are satisfied with the services and solutions they receive from the Purchasing Office?
Are you struggling with how to address an overly administrative, confusing, and lengthy contracting process? Process mapping is an excellent first step toward cutting down cycle times and engaging members across different departments to...
A purchasing office can be a valuable partner in collaborating with departments or agencies on solicitations by providing strategic support, whether through helping staff write effective and clear specifications, guiding them to use correct procurement processes, or by informing them of...
A purchasing office can be a valuable partner in collaborating with departments or agencies on solicitations by providing strategic support, whether through helping staff write effective and clear specifications, guiding them to use correct procurement processes, or by informing them of...
Writing a Request for Proposals (RFP) can feel daunting. As you face an upcoming need for goods or services, you may be tempted to fall back on a previously issued version of an RFP, simply mimic what a peer city or state has done, or renew an existing contract - even though you know you could...
As in many states, Black and Native children in Washington are overrepresented in the child protective system. To reduce these disparities, the Government Performance Lab (GPL) is working with the Washington State Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) to provide more culturally specific and responsive services for Black and Native families. With the GPL’s support, DCYF is developing and testing promising practices to procure culturally responsive programs and contract with providers serving local Black and Native communities. These new contracting practices have the...
While Massachusetts has some of the highest educational performance in the country, the state continues to face challenges in supporting the employment and career success of English language learners and those who have not achieved high school credentials. With pro bono technical assistance from the GPL, Massachusetts launched a project to provide vocationally-oriented adult basic education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) services to approximately 2,000 adults over the course of three years. The program is expected to improve earnings and education outcomes...
Michigan sought to expand prenatal and postpartum support in order to reduce the likelihood of negative health outcomes for new mothers and their children. With pro bono technical assistance from the GPL, Kent County is expanding comprehensive nurse home visiting services to every Medicaid-eligible, first-time mother to provide prenatal care, breastfeeding support, parenting and life skills-building, and additional services as needed. Assessed by a rigorous evaluation, the program is helping to reduce preterm births and rapid repeat pregnancies for new moms.
In 2012, Massachusetts was home to 1,200 chronically homeless individuals, who were among the highest utilizers of expensive emergency services such as shelter, hospital, and jail beds. To better serve this population, the Massachusetts Supportive Housing Pay for Success project aimed to shift spending on homelessness away from temporary shelters towards permanent supportive housing. The GPL worked with project partners to remove funding barriers, allowing for the establishment of 500 housing units across the state and greater access to wraparound,...
The Government Performance Lab (GPL) provided pro-bono technical assistance to help New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services better identify caregivers with substance use concerns in child welfare investigations and match them with appropriate support, in an effort to reduce the number of incidences of child abuse and neglect and improve caregiver health.
Texas is seeking new ways to support families, elevate family preservation, and prevent abuse and neglect before it occurs. The GPL’s technical assistance aims to leverage data, family voice, and community input to help design, demonstrate, and spread upstream innovations that create greater access to services and offer supports before crises occur to families with complex needs.
Boston faced a number of challenges with its bike share system – some stations frequently had no available bikes while others were completely full, total ridership was lower than expected, and access was limited in low-income and minority communities. To address these challenges, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help the city reshape the bike share system through the procurement of a new system operator. The procurement implemented performance metrics that better...
The Boston Public Works Department’s contracts for road resurfacing were overly focused on achieving mileage targets to the detriment of other key goals, such as maintaining steady work flows and minimizing inconvenience to constituents. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city incorporated results-driven contracting strategies to reorient the roadway resurfacing contracts around a holistic set of goals, provide vendors with incentives to meet these goals, and increase the flow of performance data enabling the Department to course correct issues in real-time. The...
Improving workforce participation and employment outcomes for TANF employment programs through more integrated service array and active contract management
"The city of Seattle, Washington has been changing the way they deal with homeless populations, and gathering data to drive some evidenced-based solutions. Now, with clear incentives and data collection, employees have a path forward for helping the homeless." Journalist Rebecca Gale discusses the GPL’s What Works Cities project to improve homelessness outcomes through results-driven contracting in Seattle. ...
Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth, and Families was highlighted as the nation’s single leading example of contracting for outcomes by the organization Results for America in its 2018 Invest in What Works State Standard of Excellence....
The GPL announced that New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will receive pro bono technical assistance. In particular, the GPL will assist the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) with providing consistent and effective services to children and families who need protection or are at risk of future harm and with increasing the number of children cared for by families by strengthening the recruitment and retention of foster family resources....
