CASE STUDY
Peer Support Services: Improving the Parenthood Journey
Role
Co-Lead & Principal Designer
Year
October 2022 - March 2024
Client
Office of Management and Budget & the Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthy Start Program
How can we improve the experience of having a child and help families connect with the resources they need?
Situation
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) manages a life experience portfolio as part of the President’s Management Agenda. Life experiences are significant events or transitions that often require interactions and touch points with multiple Federal agencies and even levels of government. During the Biden Administration, the Domestic Policy Council determined “having a child” as one of OMB’s priority life experiences.
Task
As Co-Lead and Principle Designer, I was tasked with developing, launching and refining a product or service that improves the experience of having a child in the United States through the power of human connection. The goal was to create a product or service that makes it easier for families to apply for benefits. Our team worked with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Healthy Start program, which co-sponsored this project.
Action
To address this challenge, I took the following steps:
Secured talent resources and helped recruit, retain and mentor a 35-member team in delivering Alumni Peer Navigator Services while conducting design advocacy and education to support agency change management.
Conducted a tour of in-person and virtual learning visits with 10 Healthy Start grantees to learn about the Healthy Start program and gain staff input on what’s working, what challenges are keeping them from doing more of what they want to do, and where they see opportunity for innovation.
Identified 23 peer support and navigator programs through a literature and market scan and developed the team’s theory of change, drawing on evidence-to-date. We knew it’d be important to learn from and build on the work of our predecessors and just as important for us to share our learnings forward as part of the collective effort to improve maternal and child health. Notably, this effort uncovered Zimbabwe’s Friendship Bench model, WIC’s Peer Counselor role and SAMHSA’s Peer Recovery Center of Excellence.
Synthesized data to recommend and support a strategic shift in the work from a sole-benefits focus, which is a lagging indicator, to a benefits-and-beyond upstream focus that addresses maternal mental health and builds capacity.
Co-facilitated a series of 20+ in-person and virtual design sessions with Healthy Start staff and their families to create the Alumni Peer Navigator Services. This included asking community health workers and families to work through WHO should deliver the services, WHAT services they should offer, WHEN the services should be offered and HOW. Inputs came together to create the service model, APN role description, and service support materials.
Co-created a service blueprint and a suite of support tools and training documents for Alumni Peer Navigator Services.
Mentored a team of early career designers to be named a 2024 Don Norman Design Finalist, for their work in co-creating Alumni Peer Navigator Services.
Presented pilot findings on an OMB-hosted public webinar and co-authored three blog posts detailing our process and sharing pilot findings.
Result
The Alumni Peer Navigator pilot:
Launched. Services started across 6 communities in less than 8 months, hiring an initial cohort of 15 alumni navigators that served urban, rural, Tribal and immigrant families.
Delivered. Improved access for 81% of clients and achieved a 4.6 out of 5-star customer satisfaction rating. 63% of families who received support from an Alumni Peer Navigator enrolled in benefits and 71% of families found it easier to access federal or community resources with their APN’s help. See infographic sharing more pilot results.
Expanded. The 6-month pilot was extended to 10 months. Given positive results, a Phase 2 is continuing thru December 2024 that involves rolling out Alumni Peer Navigator Service to the Nation’s 115 Healthy Start sites.
Sustained. Co-designed an initial toolset and playbook for Healthy Starts and similar organizations to use when creating their own Alumni Peer Navigator Services. Supporting tools include a service model, service offering description, a menu of services, navigator role and competencies, navigator role description, and an onboarding checklist.
