What perspective is driving your human services agency?

As varied as human services is, everyone involved – from the legislators to the families and individuals seeking services – wants the same thing. Why, then, do agencies’ carefully crafted programs often miss the mark? Because between our good intentions and our outcomes, vital information is missing: the perspectives of the people we’re trying to help.

There’s a story about the time then-President Jimmy Carter spoke at a Japanese college. To warm up the crowd, he decided to tell a joke. He started to speak, and ?the interpreter began, but before Carter got to the punchline, the interpreter finished and laughter followed. Carter found out later that the interpreter had told the crowd, “President Carter told a funny story. Everyone must laugh.”

Talk about a disconnect between intention and results! Unfortunately, that’s what happens in human services when we establish policies, processes and technologies without considering the perspectives of the people at the center. Successful programs are based on insights from the real-life experiences of individuals who are receiving services and those who administer them. What perspectives drive your agency?

Seize the day

Human services agencies have been given a rare opportunity. Federal dollars are flowing to state and local agencies with the congressional intent to support resilience for families and individuals in need. President Joe Biden recently introduced the American Families Plan, which will invest $225 billion in childcare, right on the heels of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which includes $350 million that will help keep families together.

With funding, and needs, at monumental levels, human services leaders need to be strategic about allocations. But agencies don’t always have the processes they need to get the right help to the right people at the right time.

The traditional approach

Historically, social services policies have been written, processes implemented and technologies procured based on what a small number of individuals sitting in a conference room identify as the appropriate next steps. The point of view is from the legislative body and filtered down by the agency. And while their intentions were always good, and their intelligence was always sound, something vitally important was missing. They weren’t taking into account the experiences of the individuals they wanted to serve.

?Experience-led transformation

Mandates and educated guesses don’t drive transformative policies, processes and technology. The lives and experiences of real people do. That’s why the perspectives of staff and the people they serve need to be integrated into strategic planning. To help agencies get there, we’ve identified four goals that apply regardless of their size or their level of digital maturity:

1.?????Current state: Understand the life of a constituent and their application process for services and understand the current tasks of agency staff.

2.?????Pain points: Identify pain points of constituents and staff with the current experience and journey toward applying for and receiving state benefits.

3.?????Services and cross-agency: Identify similarities and differences that exist within each service and cross-agency.

4.?????Future state: Identify future state opportunities to alleviate constituent and staff pain points of applying for, and receiving, state benefits.

Personas and perspectives

Our experience-led transformation (ELT) process helps agencies to understand the perspectives that matter most. One of the ways we achieve this is by creating personas to document individual journeys throughout agency interactions. Recently, the ELT process provided an agency with insights into the real-life experiences of:

·??????A family needing economic assistance

·??????An individual experiencing unemployment

·??????A human services eligibility worker

?A day in the life

During the ELT process, agency decision-makers saw their services from the perspective of a single mother of three, who was trying to get government support. “Honestly, I do not know what I would do if I wasn’t receiving benefits from the state,” she said. “I have to pay daycare, all the bills, plus healthcare. It would just not have worked.”

When she was laid off due to COVID-19, unemployment paid more than her job, so the family no longer qualified for SNAP, and she no longer needed childcare. Now, returning to work, she’s trying to get the SNAP and childcare help that she had before.

“I called and was told that I will need to officially reapply for SNAP and CCAP as the programs ended for me when I went on UI,” she said.

“I knew this, but why can't they just reactivate it? Why do I have to start from the beginning? … This really could be easier for people. I’m just frustrated.” ??

?Human-centric digital evolution

Back to the question I posed at the beginning: what perspectives drive your agency? Implicit in it are many others: who is the constituent? What is daily life like for them, and what are their struggles and their needs? And do the tasks of your agency staff enable them to help?

It’s the right time to be asking yourself these questions. The massive infusion of federal funding that we’re experiencing provides more than opportunity; there’s the weighty responsibility of allocating it wisely.

Digital transformation that puts humans at the center and the forefront of everything that’s created or recommended is a concept that we strongly believe in. And it’s the way to turn congressional intent into what actually happens on the ground, in communities, with real human beings.

?If the idea of persona development and digital transformation is intriguing to you, be sure to check out our latest research on citizen expectations of a digital government. ?Read it here

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.

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