C H ILD C A R E P O LIC Y R ES EAR C H C ON S OR T I UM P R OJ EC T B R IE F
Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency Project
Lashawn Richburg Hayes and David Butler, MDRC
Lisa Gennetian, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir, John Balz, ideas42
2010 to 2014.
Project Description.
The Behavioral Interventions to Advance SelfSufficiency (BIAS) project, sponsored by the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
in the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), is the first major opportunity to
apply a behavioral research lens to programs that
serve poor families in the United States –
programs like cash assistance, child care, child
support, and child welfare. The project, led by
MDRC in partnership with ideas42, will apply
behavioral insights to issues related to
operations, implementation, structure and
efficacy of social service programs and policies.
The ultimate goal is to learn how tools from
behavioral science can be used to improve the
well-being of low-income children, adults, and
families.
program goals and behavioral “bottlenecks” in
achieving those goals. A clear area of focus is
parental child care decision making in the
context of child care subsidy use, type and
stability of child care arrangements. Some
examples of themes that have begun to emerge
from conversations with these experts that
potentially show promise in the application of a
behavioral lens include:
 Can the administration of child care
subsidies be redesigned to be less variant to
job variability by lengthening subsidy receipt
eligibility, automating recertification, prepopulating forms, or the use of comparable
behavioral tools? And, might this align with
efforts to expand what qualifies as an
approved work activity without adding
verification or documentation burden?
The BIAS project consists of four phases. In the  Are there salient points in family or
children’s development that may be better
first phase, the team will engage in knowledge
suited to offering or recertifying subsidies?
development that will result in a conceptual
 Can interactions between CCRR agents and
paper about the application of behavioral
parents be re-formulated or triaged in some
principles to ACF programs and populations.
way-considering both the factors at play in
The second phase of the project will feature peer
parent’s identity and very immediate family
learning institutes, which will bring together
situations--to be better tailored to the current
policymakers, program administrators, other
needs and situation of the parent at the time
ACF stakeholders and behavioral experts to
of seeking the subsidy vs. a one-size-fits-all
jointly study and review the applications of
approach and might this increase subsidy
behavioral economics to ACF’s program areas.
use?
Insights and applications generated from these
 Is it possible to capitalize on “trust” as a way
first two phases will be tested through on-theto improve parent use of subsidies or
ground pilots in the third phase, and the fourth
encourage use of particular types of child care
phase of the project will further implement and
settings?
test the most promising pilot interventions.
 Are there ways to reframe or simplify
communication of parent purchasing power
Research questions.
through use of child care subsidies? And,
The project currently is in its knowledge
likewise, availability and quality of care
development phase interviewing a variety of national
experts and administrators to better understand
settings at time of application or
recertification?
Sample. The specific study sample at this stage of
the study is unknown. The knowledge development
work in the child care domain at this point is focused
on families eligible or engaged with the child care
subsidy system.
Methods. Over the next 6 to 12 months
conversations with stakeholders will continue. This
will be followed by two primary activities during the
learning phase of the project:
Behavioral mapping. We will choose at least one
site to delve more deeply into documenting and
observing the client and front line worker
experiences, as well as flow of services to isolate
behavioral bottlenecks. This will be used to generate
hypotheses based on behavioral concepts; and,
further to develop behaviorally-oriented
interventions.
Peer Learning Institutes. The learnings from the
base period will be shared with stakeholders,
behavioral scientists and the policy community
through a series of Peer Learning Institutes. Such
institutes will serve as both an opportunity to educate
and disseminate the application of behavioral
insights to child care, as well as share the results of
tools, such as behavioral maps. These institutes will
also function as recruitment for partners and
collaborators for piloting and scaling behavioral
interventions during the later phases of the project.
Progress Update. The results from the first 1.5
years of knowledge development in the
application of behavioral insights to parental
decision making in child care subsidy use, type
and continuity of care settings can be shared at
the November 2011 CCPRC meetings. This
may also include the results of a behavioral
mapping of one site reflecting results from a
very specific on-the-ground example.
Implications for policy/practice
One aim of the BIAS project is to expand the toolkit
of policy makers and practitioners leveraging
insights from psychology in a structured way. This
toolkit can complement the traditional policy levers
of price, budget constraints and decision making
predicated on clear cost-benefit trade-offs. Concrete
examples will be made available in the domains of
child care as one of ACF’s program areas of focus.
Implications for research
A second aim of BIAS is to introduce a new set
of conceptual insights for understanding parental
child care decision making, offering theories to
organize behaviors that do not seem to be
explained by cost-factors or clearly linked to
measurable aspects of quality of child care. The
behavioral approach also has methodological
implications as one that takes psychological
insights, links those to behavioral interventions
and is very context-specific about its on-theground application.
For more information:
Include any papers in preparation, publications,
URLs, or other resources where one can find
additional information regarding the project.
Include contact information (i.e., name, title/position,
organizational affiliation, email address, and phone
number or other preferred mode of contact.)
Contact Lisa Gennetian, ideas42
email: gennetl@nber.org
phone: 914-834-2200
Key Topics
Please select all that apply and briefly describe/explain.
This information will be used internally in planning the CCPRC Annual Meeting.
Child Care Subsidy Policies & Practices
e.g., How do policies and practices influence parents’ child
care decisions, parental and/or child outcomes, providers’
behavior, access to quality child care?
Collaboration, Integration, & Linkages
e.g., What are characteristics of different types of
collaborations? What are reasonable outcomes to expect? What
are we learning from coordination across different systems?
What is the value added of effective collaborations at the state
and local levels?
Quality Frameworks
How well are QRIS living up to promise of improved
outcomes at the systems, provider, family and child levels?
How are they influencing parent decisions, professional
development, workforce issues? What are we learning about
collaborative professional development strategies and effective
targeting of quality resources?
Other (please describe)
The BIAS project seeks to understand the
psychological underpinnings to child care subsidy
use and recertification, as well as subsequent
decisions on type of care used and whether such
bottlenecks interrupt subsidy goals of use and
retention as well as encouragement in high quality
settings.
BIAS will work closely with on-the-ground
partners at the state or CCRR level. Behavioral
mapping involves very detailed and specific
observation gathering.
BIAS is an opportunity to take a second look at
ways in which QRIS is communicated and used;
and, accessible to subsidy eligible families. This
project is an opportunity to apply new strategies
to optimize QRIS.