Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI²): Lessons from Adams County’s Efforts to Increase Engagement in the Colorado Works Program

Publisher: Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research

Jun 30, 2018

Authors

Jonathan McCay, Rayna Jefferson, Hayley Ballinger, Ruby Nolasco, and Heather Lower

Key Findings:

Results from this evaluation showed that the outreach strategy had a statistically significant impact on parents’ attendance rates at orientation sessions and initial case manager meetings:

64% of parents who received outreach from Adams Works attended their scheduled orientation session compared with 51% of parents who did not receive outreach
67% of parents who received outreach from Adams Works attended their first scheduled one-on-one meeting with a case manager compared with 58% of parents who did not receive outreach

Adams Works—the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in Adams County, Colorado—created a proactive outreach strategy to address high rates of missed orientation sessions and initial case manager meetings among their clients. This simple approach was designed using insights from behavioral science and guided by Mathematica’s “Learn, Innovate, Improve” (or LI²) framework for creating evidence-driven innovations in public programs. Adams Works implemented and tested their new outreach strategy using a random assignment experiment over the course of five months (January – May 2018).

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