Public Policy Lab

Join us on March 5 for a virtual conversation between Andrew Eickmann (Public Policy Lab), Emily Osgood (NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development), and Yasmin Fodil (Code for America) on the importance of human connection in public-sector innovation.

Public systems often invest in better data, clearer interfaces, and smarter tools — but tools alone rarely change people’s lives for the better. Drawing on lessons from Public Policy Lab’s latest blog post, Good Tools Aren’t Enough, this event explores what truly enables effective public service delivery: trust, relationships, and the human work that connects residents to systems.

This event is part of PPL15, a series celebrating the Public Policy Lab's 15th anniversary. You can find past blog posts and virtual events on our website.

https://good-tools-arent-enough.eventbrite.com

Good Tools Aren't Enough Join us for a conversation on the importance of human connection in public-sector innovation.

What makes public services work isn’t just better tools—it’s trust and human connection.

In the second essay of our PPL15 series, Andrew Eickmann—former planner with NYC Housing—reflects on improving the affordable housing application process and what it taught him about sustaining change in government. Through human-centered design, and his first fellowship with PPL, he learned that clear information and tools rarely succeed alone; meaningful change requires agencies to take thoughtful risks and invest in real relationships within communities.

Read the full essay here: https://www.publicpolicylab.org/resources/good-tools-arent-enough/

Are you a current or recent graduate student looking to improve public services? Apply to be Public Policy Lab’s next intern! We’re currently seeking designers with skills in product design, visual design, and/or communications design. We’re also seeking folks with skills in marketing and communications.

All interns are paid and mentored by PPL staff. Apply through our general application by February 23rd. https://airtable.com/appKgegBvIh64lggN/shrTsGlydaLcNdLFz

Innovation in the public sector often begins as an act of imagination: a belief that public systems can work differently and better. But sustaining that imagination over time—through bureaucracy, political cycles, funding constraints, and imperfect execution—turns dreaming into a practice.

As part of our PPL15 series, we’re hosting a conversation on dreaming as practice with Chelsea Mauldin, Sha Hwang, and Hilary Hartley—three leaders who’ve each launched and sustained innovation practices inside and alongside public systems. Together, they’ll reflect on what it takes to turn early visions into durable work, how imagination coexists with rigor, and how innovation evolves over the long arc of practice.

The event will take place on February 2nd at 4pm ET over Zoom. Register here: dreaming-as-practice.eventbrite.com

Interested in using first-hand data to enrich your research? Leverage our qualitative data from public service design projects to inform your work.

Through our human-centered research projects, we collect rich qualitative data on the experiences of people navigating public services across the U.S. We’re inviting scholars to explore this data and draw their own insights to support rigorous, practice-informed scholarship.

This opportunity is open to scholars, including professors, post-docs, supervised graduate students, and research fellows. Collaborators may work with data from current PPL projects as well as our fifteen-year archive of interviews, ethnographic research, and design research materials.

This is a research collaboration, not a job or consulting role.

Review the call for collaboration here:https://www.publicpolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Public-Policy-Lab_Call-for-Research-Collaboration_2026.pdf

Register here for our information session on January 22, 2026: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/call-for-research-collaboration-information-session-tickets-1980107163830?aff=oddtdtcreator

Sign up here to get more updates about this opportunity: https://airtable.com/appnsh4mbwoyvBZzA/pagQBJYLEGhpMnz5u/form

Call for Research Collaboration: Information Session Learn more about the Public Policy Lab's call for research collaboration at this information session!

Our PPL Midwest office is proud to be a partner on the City of Chicago-Cook County Violence Against Women Task Force, which had its first executive meeting yesterday. Bringing all relevant city, county, and state departments together on this singular mission is remarkable. We’re grateful for the leadership of Katie Dunne and look forward to facilitating productive sessions in the weeks and months to come.

New domestic violence task force holds first meeting as Cook County announces systemic changes to help survivors, victims The new domestic violence task force for Chicago and Cook County held its first meeting Wednesday, as the state's attorney announced new systemic changes to help survivors and victims.

In 2021, we were contacted by Hic-Me, an organization in Guadalajara, Mexico, focused on reducing the time children spend in the country’s orphanages. A team of 56 pro-bono volunteers, Hic-Me was looking for strategic guidance and collaboration.

After years of collaborating long-distance, we were thrilled to come together last month in Guadalajara to meet the team in-person and present at their first Foro Internacional de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes en el Sistema (International Forum on Girls, Boys, and Adolescents in the System). We presented our Layer Cake framework, translated into Spanish, and discussed strategies for transforming design ideas into real programs and policies. Thank you to Hic-Me for having us! Check out their website here: https://www.hic-me.org/home/

The Spanish version of our Layer Cake Zine is now available to purchase from our storefront (https://public-policy-lab-shop.fourthwall.com/products/disenando-mejores-servicios-publicos). Or, check out the digital version on our website (https://www.publicpolicylab.org/resources/layer-cake-zine/)

Last month, we gathered to celebrate Soul Care—a program providing culturally-responsive mental health support for young people in NYC foster care.

Designed in collaboration with young people in foster care themselves, Soul Care guides young people in understanding and identifying their therapeutic and wellness goals while also diversifying the offerings available to them. Together, we’ve reimagined what services are considered “mental health and wellness,” affirming that, when paired with therapeutic services, activities like dance, sports, performance, and art are integral to wellbeing. Through Soul Care, young people in foster care have already been connected to free services such as hip-hop dance classes, boxing lessons, knitting and crocheting circles, field trips to The Frick, ceramics and wheel throwing courses, and more.

We feel so grateful to be part of this collaboration alongside our partners from ACS, Fair Futures, the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health (OCMH), and Foster Youth Impact. Big thank you to everyone who came out to —including Jess Dannhauser, ACS Commissioner, and Eva Wong, Executive Director of OCMH—and our core service providers, Raquel Harris from Ring of Hope, Melody Centeno from Foster Care Unplugged, Jason Acosta from Hip Hop Therapy, and Nolan Hanson from Trans Boxing. And of course, thank you to ACS for organizing this event so we could break out of our Zoom boxes and all celebrate together!

Learn more about Soul Care here: https://www.publicpolicylab.org/projects/soulcare/

As AI rapidly enters health care, its use in primary care raises critical questions about equity and trust. In partnership with The Commonwealth Fund, we’re centering the perspectives of patients who have historically been underserved — those most likely to be affected by poorly implemented AI — to help shape guidance for AI adoption that truly meets their needs.

Read more about the project here:

Patient Voices on Artificial Intelligence – Public Policy Lab Project Background Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has been integrated into American health settings in many ways. While AI offers significant potential to improve health outcomes and system efficiencies, its integration into primary care settings also raises questions about equity, trust, c...

Last week, we had the pleasure of presenting at The BUILD Initiative's 2025 conference, which brings together researchers, policymakers, and service providers to strengthen early childhood systems. Together with our partner Prisca Tuyishime from Chapin Hall, we shared our project, Connecting Families to Economic Supports (CFES), a collaboration with the NYC Administration for Children's Services to embed economic supports—including public benefits, workforce development, and concrete resources like food and diapers—across ACS programs. https://www.publicpolicylab.org/projects/cfes/

During our session, we reflected on the importance of building cross-agency and cross-sector project teams and highlighted how participatory methods can advance large-scale systems change. We were joined by leaders in early childhood, social services, and child welfare who asked fantastic questions about facilitating cross-agency collaboration, tips for engaging providers with limited capacity, and strategies for long-term sustainability in this work. Thank you to everyone who joined us!

Next Monday! Join us for the NYC Care Coalition Annual Mixer, a networking group for New York City-based social workers, case planners, and other frontline staff who work to support low-income communities.

To celebrate all the hard work accomplished this year–and the Coalition's first birthday–we're hosting a mixer at the Public Policy Lab office. We'll have drinks, snacks, and activities to connect social care workers and highlight their work. *This event is open exclusively to social care workers. Register at the Eventbrite below:

NYC Care Coalition Annual Mixer Join us for our annual celebration of your work to support NYC communities! Enjoy refreshments and mingling with other social care workers.

From reparative wealth strategists to public space designers, we were thrilled to see such a range of people attend our Co-Designing to Build Capital Webinar last month. Together, we discussed how collaborative design methods can help individuals and communities build lasting forms of capital—financial, social, and beyond. Folks from the PPL team shared real-world examples from our recent project, Innovation Compass, where we co-designed with undercapitalized innovators to create a new innovator support tool.

Couldn’t make it? Check out the recording on our website:

Co-Designing to Build Capital Webinar – Public Policy Lab Tired of juggling research operations tools for participant recruitment, data collection, and project management? A well-organized research system is key to making sure your hard work leads to real impact. In this webinar, we pull back the curtain on how we run research operations at the Public Poli...