Hosted by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the Partners in Prevention conference is the largest annual gathering of prevention and early intervention professionals in Texas. The conference attracts parent educators, youth service providers, civic leaders, policy advocates, researchers, Prevention and Early Intervention grantees, and others with a professional interest in child and family well-being, youth development, and juvenile justice.
As part of the 2021 Partners in Prevention Conference, GPL fellow...
Four Jurisdictions to Receive Targeted Technical Assistance to Advance Alternative Emergency Responses
CAMBRIDGE, MA – The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab (GPL) today announced four jurisdictions will participate in its 2022-2023 Alternative 911 Emergency Response Implementation Cohort, an initiative...
In many governments, procurement is undervalued or misunderstood by leadership, leading to purchasing offices that are overworked, under-resourced, and underutilized. In a government where procurement is elevated, valued, and...
Certifying small, local, and diverse businesses can be an important step toward addressing disparities and increasing equity in government contract spending, but how you implement your certification program will determine whether you succeed. If certification programs are burdensome and confusing,... Read more about Strategies for Improving Vendor Certification Programs
If your government is looking for ways to help small, local, diverse firms receive their fair share of contracting dollars, unbundling large contracts, or breaking them apart into smaller scopes of work that multiple firms can bid on, is a great way to make contracting opportunities available to... Read more about Unbundling Large Contracts to Diversify Your Vendor Pool
Secretary Ross Hunter, the Director of Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), recently laid out the department’s plan for incorporating early childhood learning services into the child welfare system. DCYF is piloting projects at two sites to identify opportunities to strengthen connections to early learning resources for child welfare-involved families, which evidence suggests will help at-risk families develop protective factors and build resilience. Read his post...
The New Hampshire Union Leader wrote a piece covering the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services’ 2020 Procurement Forecast, which describes future investments in the system. The GPL has been supporting the state's procurement work. Read the ...
As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL supported the City of Mesa, AZ in procuring for a partner organization to implement the Love Your Neighborhood (LYN) program, which is a community engagement and home rehabilitation initiative. The City wanted to provide residents with resources and services to create sustainable improvements in a neighborhood that was particularly challenged with high instances of code violations, graffiti, police calls, and vacancies. A program was launched to help homeowners qualify for and implement home...
The GPL worked with DCYF on strategic planning to assess service needs and design an approach for improving services for children and families, executing a results-driven procurement for a new set of service contracts, strengthening their contract and provider performance management practices, and designing a strategic procurement management system to improve the results of contracted spending throughout the agency.
As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Charleston increase price flexibility for the City's waste collection contracts, and ultimately, improve service delivery.
In Charleston, the city provides a mix of in-house and contracted waste collection services and seeks to ensure that seeks to ensure that all neighborhoods – regardless of service provider - receive safe, high-quality, and timely waste pick-up. With key contracts for waste collection services set to expire, the GPL...
The New Hampshire Union Leader 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...
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) shared a press release, announcing partnerships with two social service agencies to provide community-based voluntary services for at-risk children and families. Governor Chris Sununu said, “The announcement of these two partnerships, which will serve to provide voluntary services, is yet another step forward in ensuring we continue to meet that commitment and in ensuring support services are readily accessible to New Hampshire families directly within their communities.” Read the full...
The City of Portland worked with Harvard Kennedy School's Government Performance Lab to make practical changes to a critical procurement process, establishing a more strategic approach to technology contracting. Via video conference, city staff from Procurement Services and the Bureau of Technology Services Check share their experience applying results-driven contracting strategies to improve the City's technology procurement process.... Read more about City of Portland: Results-Driven Contracting for Technology