Applying Behavioral Diagnosis and Design has allowed Monroe County DSS to identify opportunities for small but significant process changes. It’s exciting to see Monroe staff work to open existing bottlenecks to improve access to services. I love that Monroe is meeting clients where they are at, in using simple low-cost communication tools like text messaging.
Testimonials
Monroe County Department of Social Services
Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency–Next Generation (BIAS-NG)
The key to fixing problems in social programs is understanding the user’s perspective. By applying a behavioral lens, we understand that when parents have the ability to pay, low-cost, low-effort nudges like text message payment reminders can improve payment outcomes. By participating in this process, we learned we cannot assume that parents are going to value, remember, or understand what we tell them. We need to make things SIMPLER.
Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency
Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS)
Behavioral Diagnosis and Design has become engrained in almost all of our organizational thought processes, giving us an invaluable framework for understanding why our clients don’t always take advantage of programs that would benefit them, as well as tools for crafting practical solutions to bridge that gap. We now see more clearly that there are a variety of barriers embedded in our own programs and policies that we were previously oblivious to due to our own implicit and cognitive bias.
Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency
Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS)
MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative open-access webinar presented by the Center for Applied Behavioral Science, Using Behavioral Science to Improve Student Outreach presented innovative and evidence-based strategies of different communication and outreach practices. The discussion on best practices to communicate with students was both useful and illuminating, especially when working with practitioners, who find it challenging to keep up with the changing needs of students and adjust their methods accordingly.
California State University
College Promise Success Initiative (CPSI)
Because of our involvement with MDRC in the EASE project, Marion Technical College (MTC) is learning to apply behavioral messaging principles to every aspect of communication with students, from our initial encounter with a student who is considering attending MTC through presenting information about graduation and career services as the student is completing a program. The tangible results MTC has realized through our work with MDRC help our administration introduce behavioral science concepts to managers of all departments — financial aid, marketing, advising, tutoring, and most importantly faculty. We are starting to recognize that applying behavioral concepts is not just another educational fad, but a change in the way we operate across the College. The bottom line is that behavioral science is helping MTC improve student success.
Marion Technical College
Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE)
This was the first time the child support unit in my county has participated in a federal grant. The time it took to brainstorm ideas, develop the intervention, and then to implement it was a fascinating process. Parts of the intervention we will definitely continue in our everyday work which goes to show that by testing an idea you can continue to move the program forward.