Washington

Culturally Responsive Family Support Services in Washington State

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...

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Seattle, WA Homeless Service Contracts

Although the number of people experiencing homelessness in Seattle has risen over the past few years in part due to structural factors such as housing affordability and inadequate mental healthcare, the city’s increased spending on homeless services has had a limited impact on the problem. The city of Seattle held a conglomeration of contracts with service providers, but it renewed almost any contract that complied with requirements and rarely evaluated the effectiveness of the services themselves. The GPL worked with Seattle’s Human Services Department (HSD) to...

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How can child protection agencies partner with early care and education to improve outcomes for children?

July 17, 2020

Casey Family Programs published a new strategy brief on creating collaborative relationships between early childhood education and child protection agencies to improve outcomes for children. The brief highlights the GPL’s work with Washington’s Department for Children and Families to “strengthen efforts to provide prevention and early supports by connecting families to community-based...

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Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families: Strengthening Connections Between Child Welfare and Early Learning

March 18, 2019

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...

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HKS Magazine: Performance Specialists - The GPL Is on a Mission to Make Government Work Better

September 28, 2018

The GPL was profiled in the Harvard Kennedy School alumni magazine. The piece describes how the GPL grew from a small team pioneering Pay for Success to an organization of 45 undertaking projects to improve core government operations. Read the complete feature here, and download the PDF...

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