CABS

What’s New

The OnPath project facilitated a powerful combination of people and knowledge by bringing together college staff members from 13 community colleges with operational knowledge about administrative barriers, evidence from rigorous MDRC research about what helps students persist in college, and facilitators from MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science. Learn more about the project and the behavioral insights that are being used to help improve the student experience in the first post in this blog series.

Engaging in a “reimagining a process” exercise can help an organization critically examine a current process and take action to make it more centered around needs of the people it aims to serve. Learn how to reimagine a current organizational process, and use our downloadable worksheet to put your ideas into action.

Behavioral science and human-centered design can help social service program operators better understand how the perceptions and experiences of participants influence how they react to program processes and policies. Learn five reasons why social programs should use behavioral science and human-centered design.

It is critical to consult the people receiving services when designing and improving social service programs. Learn about a few of the approaches and viewpoints that CABS uses to deepen our understanding of the customer experience.

The Lab for Equity and Engagement in School Enrollment worked on identifying “pain points,” especially digital pain points, that families of rising middle-schoolers faced in applying for middle school during the pandemic.

The Road to Engagement toolkit details a systematic approach—along with examples and worksheets—for using human-centered design and behavioral science to generate solutions to problems that may be limiting participation in work programs.

As community colleges consider ways to boost enrollment during challenging economic times, the interventions described in this post may help—they boosted summer enrollment rates through simple, cost-effective strategies.

The CABS approach uses a mapping process to guide partners through organizational and service-related improvements. Read more about why we believe mapping is useful and how we approach the process with partners in these two new posts.

The CABS approach to problem-solving covers a wide range of engagement strategies to elevate the perspectives of end users. Learn about some examples from our projects.

As word spreads about how behavioral science can bolster program effectiveness, many organizations want and need expert guidance to get started.