Listening
Families already know a great deal about what they need.
That’s why reliable methods for really listening to families are so important. We partner with families across the country who have young children and who are experiencing financial insecurity. Using traditional desk research as well as human centered design and service design methods, we work together to explore what it would mean for their families to thrive, and what resources and supports might be necessary to help them get there. Sometimes, this means going deep with the same families over multiple years to understand their lives comprehensively. Other times, we work together on more responsive, program-specific research around particularly timely policy or implementation questions. Our ongoing research informs lawmakers and civil servants who are developing policies, looking to improve program delivery, or working to better understand family priorities and realities.
Why This Matters For Families
Families across the United States — especially those with young children — are struggling. Childcare costs are skyrocketing, rising at a faster rate than inflation. Concurrently, the cost of living remains high, forcing many families to live paycheck-to-paycheck. Though designed to support families, existing policy and programs in this country often fail to address root causes, and poor delivery leaves families disconnected from critical supports — keeping too many families from achieving economic stability.
At the New Practice Lab, we believe families know a great deal about what they need, and a co-design approach allows those with lived experience to uniquely speak to the ways that public programs and social issues intersect and interact to impact their lives. Failure to include the people policies are meant to serve in the issue spotting, prioritization, drafting of policy, and design of implementation increases the likelihood programs are inefficiently delivered, inaccessible, or ineffective at best, and the risk of failure at worst.
Our Approach
We work with cohorts of families across the country - importantly varied in their backgrounds and makeup - their common thread is that they experience financial insecurity and have children under six. Together, applying human centered design and service design practices and methods, we explore what it would mean for their families to thrive and the resources necessary to get there. Through multi-year participatory research with families as well as responsive program deep-dives on timely questions, we’re able to examine real-world scenarios facing American families. Through our ongoing listening, the Lab can inform lawmakers and civil servants who are developing policies, looking to improve program delivery, or working to better understand family priorities and realities.