Accomplishments
Behavioral Diagnosis and Peer Practicum
Over the past several months, the BIAS team has been working with several site partners across ACF program areas in order to determine how behavioral economics may be able to suggest improvements to existing programming. The team's approach involves a diagnostic framework called behavioral mapping, which is comprised of a series of steps that allow the team to
- identify possible behavioral problems in a given program,
- focus on the key behavioral bottlenecks in program process, and
- propose a set of behavioral solutions that can potentially address these issues within the context of the existing programs.
Mapping is ongoing with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, Illinois’ Department of Human Services, Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services, Texas’s Office of Child Support, and Kentucky’s Division of Child Care. The team has begun to make preliminary intervention suggestions at several sites such as changing outgoing messages, reducing and simplifying forms, changing the sequence of activities, and revising letters that inform recipients of opportunities.
The Bias Peer Practicum: On July 16 and 17, the team hosted a two-day event that brought together policymakers, program administrators, and behavioral experts for an exploration of the application of behavioral economics to human service programs. The event included presentations from behavioral experts and a series of facilitated breakout groups. The breakout discussions focused on understanding how different psychological tendencies influence human services and how to design low-cost, high-impact changes to existing programs informed by an understanding of these psychologies.
Human services program administrators from across the country learned to look in new ways at the problems they face every day and came away excited about applying behavioral insights to their work. Behavioral experts learned more about the problems that human services providers face in the field and brainstormed about how behavioral interventions might help improve program outcomes.
