Our white papers, issue briefs, and articles spotlight areas of improvement for social policies and programs, changing the way we see the world a little bit at a time.
Our white papers, issue briefs, and articles spotlight areas of improvement for social policies and programs, changing the way we see the world a little bit at a time.
Missouri’s food insecurity rate is 12%, slightly above the national rate of 10%. As the nation’s first line of defense against hunger, SNAP is a complex program with policies unique to Missouri. The Missouri SNAP Basics report demonstrates the importance of SNAP in Missouri and illustrates the choices the state has elected to operate the program.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March 2020, granted FNS the authority to grant certain programmatic waivers to WIC State agencies. These waivers provided flexibilities to requirements that could not be met because of the pandemic and supported continued access to WIC. This report analyzes the use, impact, and challenges of the physical presence waiver. State and local agencies reported that this waiver was extremely important to ensure participants received high-quality and safe WIC services during the pandemic.
This Needs Assessment Toolkit helps SNAP State agencies meet program requirements and enhance their existing needs assessment capabilities. The toolkit offers suggestions to increase the diversity of voices involved throughout the needs assessment process and strategies to link needs assessment findings to State goals and SNAP-Ed programming. The Needs Assessment process is organized into 6 stages including: 1) Plan needs assessment; 2) Collect and assess existing data sources; 3) Plan primary data collection activities; 4) Conduct data collection; 5) Analyze data and synthesize findings; and 6) Determine State priority goals
We are excited to highlight a new resource list that includes articles and books for readers wanting to learn more about applying qualitative and mixed method approaches to social policy research and evaluation. The list, authored by Westat Insight’s Hilary Wagner for OPRE’s 2022 Methods Meeting, defines qualitative inquiry and highlights how rigor and relevance can be prioritized, identifies key considerations for designing mixed methods studies, indicates strategies for effectively integrating qualitative and qualitative methods, and shows how qualitative and mixed methods approaches can promote equity and inclusion in research.
This brief, prepared by MEF Associates and Westat Insight researchers Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Allison Hyra, describes how the Race Equity for Fatherhood, Relationship, and Marriage Programs to Empower Black Families (REFRAME) project describes ways to center Black voices in research on programs serving Black families. It is the first brief to describe the REFRAME project and provides important lessons learned relevant for other research and evaluation efforts looking to center their work within the concerns, values, and desires of their population of interest. Objectives are to promote equity, leverage a mostly Black expert workgroup, and uphold the principles of equity throughout.
This brief, authored by Megan Worden, Hilary Wagner, and Debra Wright summarizes key themes from the 2021 Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation Methods Meeting on Community-Engaged Research. Not only is engaging communities in research and evaluation critical for implementing effective programs, community members can bring valuable input to program evaluation, improving the rigor and relevance of the research. Engaging communities in research and evaluation—especially when identifying research questions, designing and implementing the study or intervention, recruiting study participants, and interpreting findings—may lead to more relevant research questions, greater recruitment success, increased external validity, greater retention of participants, and enhanced understanding of findings (Viswanathan et. al 2004). In this brief we define community engaged research, discuss the motivation for incorporating this approach, and provide examples, tools, and strategies for implementing community-engaged research.
In this issue brief, Lyndsay Huey and Debra Wright summarize Insight’s experience conducting the FFS CAHPS during the 2020 and 2021 COVID-19 pandemic. We describe modifications that allowed the data collection to continue, the impact of COVID-19 on survey response, and recommendations for planning to conduct large-scale federal data collections during adverse events. The authors attribute successful survey implementation to contingency planning and early strategy discussions that promote safety and balance agency priorities.
This brief, authored by Rachel Holzwart, Hilary Wagner, and Megan Worden, summarizes key themes from the 2020 Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation Methods Meeting on using core components approaches in social services settings. Core components of effective interventions are the “essential functions and principles that define the program and are judged as being necessary to produce outcomes in a typical service setting” (Blase & Fixsen). Core components approaches can complement traditional social policy evidence building, provide information needed to successfully adapt programs across a variety of conditions, and determine which intervention elements are critical to achieving desired results and delivering benefit to participants.
As a partner to UNCF in their Career Pathways Initiative, Insight helped postsecondary institutions increase student engagement in noninstructional activities and career services during the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of these efforts, Insight created a resource guide consisting of curated strategies and tools to help the institutions address challenges and effectively engage students during this difficult time. In addition to providing basic strategies to increase student engagement, the resource guide provides guidance about how to build virtual communities, effectively use social media, and transition career services offerings to virtual settings. Insight compiled the resource guide using publicly available sources and data drawn from interviews with students, faculty, and staff.
This research guide, written by Insight’s education experts supporting UNCF’s Career Pathways Initiative, is designed to help postsecondary institutions support student mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The resource guide addresses key questions regarding the mental health challenges students face as a result of COVID-19 disruptions. It includes best practices from the field, strategies that help define these challenges, ideas for how to identify students in need of support, and suggestions on how to develop a strategy to attend to students’ mental health needs. The resource guide was compiled from publicly available sources.
