Policy & Practice | April 2022

BUILDING TOGETHER continued from page 6

county, Code for America designed and launched flexible SNAP inter views, which allowed clients to call in at their convenience, with the goal of serving clients better and increasing efficiency. Code for America ran a randomized control trial to test the intervention and found that access to flexible interviews meaningfully increased enrollment rates—and decreased the average days to deter mination by an average of four days. n Reduced churn through texting interventions. In partnership with Louisiana, Code for America ran a text message pilot, testing the impact of providing timely, specific reminders to help clients successfully navigate benefits renewal timelines. Clients who opted into text message reminders achieved dramatic results, including a nearly 80 percent increase in kept WIC appointments and a 67 percent increase in successful annual renewals for Medicaid clients. n Integrated public benefit appli cations. In partnership with Minnesota, Code for America launched a people-centered inte grated benefits application for nine programs, including SNAP, cash assistance, housing support, and child care assistance. It has reduced the client burden to apply from 60 minutes to 12 minutes, response. By diverting families from a traditional investigation and providing them with needed supports, FAR has the potential to decrease dispropor tionality. Moreover, research shows concrete supports provided to families living in poverty through a differential response result in fewer subsequent neglect reports and fewer removals into foster care 6 compared to families receiving no concrete supports. Integral to the provision of concrete supports is CarePortal —a technology platform that connects children and families to resources in their FRONT DOOR continued from page 7

“The future of human services delivery is changing—but in [our state], like many states, old processes and practices have slowed our ability to be transformational. As we attempt to balance many priorities with limited resources, new approaches are needed to transform how we work and deliver services. Partnering with Code for America on MNbenefits has shown us a sustainable approach for addressing old problems by building new processes that center the people we serve.” —JEFF JORGENSON, BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION OFFICER, MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES

policy challenges that serve as barriers to equitable access to programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC. We encourage states to visit our website— codeforamerica.org/ safetynetpartner —and let us know if they are interested in learning more about this initiative. We will release a request for information soon (https://codeforamerica.org/programs/ social-safety-net/partner-with-us) to gather input from states and partners to assess potential state interest and inform further development of this initiative. Aurelle Amram is the Program Director of Strategic Partnerships, Social Safety Net, at Code for America. She can be reached at aamram@codeforamerica.org. and involvement with child welfare. 8 Currently, there are 15 Guaranteed Income (GI) pilots nationwide and another 63 are expected by the end of 2022. 9 Promising outcomes of these programs include improved mental health, employment, and financial stability. 10,11 OCFS, in partnership with the Center for a Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) at the University of Pennsylvania, intends to launch a GI experiment. The project will enroll approximately 150 households to receive $500 per month, uncondition ally, over a one-year period. CGIR will

while offering new mobile, Spanish, accessibility, and document upload support. Code for America used qualitative research to prototype and iterate on versions of the application that accurately identify eligibility for the nine programs in the application. We have seen what is possible when states reimagine systems to respond to a crisis. Through this new initiative, we now have an opportunity to build further on existing systems and practices, to serve people equitably and effec tively, while making sure we design for people who have been historically excluded. The initiative also provides an opportunity for states to work together to break down and address community. The needs of a family are entered into the CarePortal by a worker, then, local churches, busi nesses, and community members are alerted to that need, allowing them to respond in real time. Several counties 7 in New York State are currently using the CarePortal . Through this public– private partnership of charitable supports and government funding, our goal is to implement this invaluable resource statewide. Even modest economic and concrete supports are associated with reduced child maltreatment

Policy&Practice April 2022 26