Resource Library

In the fall of 2016, OPRE brought together a diverse group of participants from federal agencies, research firms, foundations, and academia to discuss alternatives to randomized controlled trials and their assumptions, trade-offs, benefits, and challenges.

There is growing emphasis placed on evidence-based interventions, and opportunities to make programmatic decisions based on evidence reflect progress in promoting positive outcomes. However, some populations (e.g., ethnic and cultural minority communities, marginalized groups) may be left behind in efforts to build evidence, if they are more difficult to study. Over time, as evidence builds for the populations...

When there is evidence of racial and ethnic differences at any point in the service delivery spectrum—for example, in access to and take-up of human services, in the nature and quality of services received, or in the outcomes of service...

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This report represents the final synthesis of the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency project. Overall, the project’s findings demonstrated that applying behavioral insights to challenges facing human services programs can improve program efficiency, operations, and outcomes at a relatively low cost.

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The evaluation of the Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Projects (“Fatherhood Reentry”) documented the implementation of six programs designed to help stabilize fathers and their families, help move fathers toward economic self-sufficiency, and reduce recidivism...

This brief, one of three in a series, describes the key strategies Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Project (Fatherhood Reentry) programs used to provide responsible parenting activities to participating fathers and their families. The brief also provides recommendations, based on an implementation study of the Fatherhood Reentry programs, for practitioners implementing responsible parenting activities for the reentry population...

This brief, one of three in a series, focuses on Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Project (Fatherhood Reentry) programs’ efforts to support healthy marriage among program participants. Fatherhood Reentry programs included several activities to strengthen relationships between fathers and their partners/coparents and to encourage healthy coparenting and family reunification...

Policymakers and practitioners have a growing interest in answering questions beyond simply “does a program work?” They are also interested in learning how programs work. Mediation analysis is one tool that researchers can use to identify elements of an intervention that do, or do not, lead to improved participant outcomes. Researchers can use the results of a mediation analysis to build knowledge to improve programs...