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A “Health-First” Approach to Behavioral Health Crises in Washington, D.C.

By Benjamin Appleton and Emily Audet

The Community Response Team in Washington, D.C., has responded to thousands of crisis calls, including some diverted from 911. Two-person teams of responders with specialized training in behavioral health aim to de-escalate behavioral health- and mental health-related crises and often seek to connect individuals with the care they need to stabilize. At a recent panel hosted by Blue...

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Scaling Alternative 9-1-1 Emergency Response Programs: Actionable Insights from Four Experts in the Field

By Gabriela Solis and Emily Audet

In early April, the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) co-hosted a webinar with the NYU School of Law’s Policing Project on scaling alternative 9-1-1 emergency response programs. Panelists shared first-hand, field-level insights about why, when, and how to scale alternative response programs, as well as common challenges to expansion. 225 practitioners from mayor’s offices and police departments, researchers, and others attended. Panelists included:...

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Louisville, KY Strategic Procurement System

As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Louisville design and pilot a strategic procurement system to improve the outcomes of the City’s contracted dollars.

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Rhode Island Workforce Development

To address a skills gap among the workforce, the State of Rhode Island rolled out a $14 million workforce development program called Real Jobs Rhode Island to help ensure that demand for talented workers was met across growing industries. The GPL helped Rhode Island's Department of Labor and Training develop a rigorous strategy for data collection and performance management of its new job programs, streamline intake procedures by eliminating burdensome application processes, and pilot collaborative, high-frequency meetings with program...

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Rhode Island TANF Work Supports

Improving workforce participation and employment outcomes for TANF employment programs through more integrated service array and active contract management

Saint Paul, MN Street Construction

As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Saint Paul expand the pool of vendors that bid on street reconstruction contracts and improve vendor management during construction.

The City of Saint Paul faced several key challenges with their street reconstruction contracts. Vendor competition was low, and projects ran past agreed-upon budgets and timelines. With pro bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city conducted a vendor survey and implemented pre-bid meetings to...

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Denver Permanent Supportive Housing Pay for Success

Denver sought to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with permanent alternatives to costly emergency services such as hospitals and shelters. As part of the Permanent Supportive Housing Pay for Success initiative, the GPL helped Denver identify the most costly chronically homeless individuals who were also involved with the criminal justice system as candidates for supportive housing. With its project partners, the City is building 160 new units and using 90 existing units to house these individuals and testing the results with a five-year randomized control trial....

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Connecticut Department of Children and Families Enhanced Service Coordination

Creating performance metrics, developing short- and long-term strategies for service allocation, and aligning the service array around the core needs of children and families served by the state

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Bottlenecks, Backlogs, and Breakdowns: Using Data to Identify Gaps in Service Referrals

Social service systems succeed by pairing the right people with the right services. Yet too often individuals who could benefit from a social service receive a referral but never connect with the service.

Our publicationBottlenecks, Backlogs, and Breakdowns: Using Data to Identify Gaps in Service Referrals, elevates three key questions that program staff can ask of their data to improve their processes...

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Denver Permanent Supportive Housing Pay for Success

Denver sought to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with permanent alternatives to costly emergency services such as hospitals and shelters. As part of the Permanent Supportive Housing Pay for Success initiative, the GPL helped Denver identify the most costly chronically homeless individuals who were also involved with the criminal justice system as candidates for supportive housing. With its project partners, the City is building 160 new units and using 90 existing units to house these individuals and testing the results with a five-year randomized control trial....

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Connecticut Family Stability Pay for Success

In 2013, over 50 percent of the 36,000 cases investigated by Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) had an indication of parental substance use. DCF hoped to support these recovering parents by matching them to recovery and support services while limiting removals of their children, so the agency worked with the GPL to launch the Family Stability Pay for Success project. This project identified a crucial gap in services for families with children aged 3-6 and expanded these services to support 500 additional families in need. The GPL also worked with DCF to...

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Michigan Strong Beginnings Pay for Success

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.  

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California Department of Social Services SNAP Job Training and Employment Services

The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) operates a workforce development program for CalFresh recipients called SNAP Employment and Training (E&T). In California, counties run their own E&T programs, with funding provided by the state and federal governments. GPL helped expand and improve E&T programming in three ways. First, GPL helped the state explore new ways to use federal matching funds that can create a perpetual, sustainable funding stream with a one-time investment of state dollars. Second, GPL facilitated a data match of county E&T...

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Rhode Island Workforce Development

To address a skills gap among the workforce, the State of Rhode Island rolled out a $14 million workforce development program called Real Jobs Rhode Island to help ensure that demand for talented workers was met across growing industries. The GPL helped Rhode Island's Department of Labor and Training develop a rigorous strategy for data collection and performance management of its new job programs, streamline intake procedures by eliminating burdensome application processes, and pilot collaborative, high-frequency meetings with program...

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Little Rock, AR Vendor Report Cards

 

As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Little Rock adopt results-driven contracting strategies across its entire procurement portfolio, improving consistency, vendor management, and data usage throughout the City.

Little Rock aimed to reform its entire procurement portfolio and to improve the city’s procurement process. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, a new outcomes-focused procurement template was designed based on in-depth interviews, and...

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Boston, MA Vendor Diversity

As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Boston improve its vendor diversity by contracting with more Minority- and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs).

Boston aimed to increase the racial and gender diversity of its vendors. The city established concrete vendor diversity goals and, with pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, created a performance tracking system to monitor progress, streamline procurement practices to improve accessibility and transparency, and...

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Boston, MA Capital Project IT System

The City of Boston spends over $120 million on construction projects every year but lacked the infrastructure to systematically share project information and effectively coordinate project management across departments. As a result, multi-departmental projects were falling behind schedule and running over budget. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city launched a problem-based procurement for a cross-department capital project management IT system. The procurement aimed to standardize project management processes, increase the flow of data,...

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Highlights

Concord Monitor: NH Waypoint to start new voluntary services program to head off child neglect and abuse

December 5, 2020

The Concord Monitor wrote a piece covering the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement of partnerships with two social service agencies to provide community-based voluntary services for at-risk children and families. Read the story, the...

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