Managing Complex Inputs to a Learning Agenda
How the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation and the Office of Family Assistance Refined the Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency Learning Agenda, OPRE Report #2023-123
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Associated Project
Evidence Capacity Support for the Administration for Children and Families
Prepared for:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
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Key Findings
OPRE collaborated with the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) to manage complex inputs for a learning agenda. The spotlight describes how the Evidence Capacity Support project team helped develop tools and processes to summarize key findings and gaps in specific portfolios of work. ACF’s refined Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency Learning Agenda strengthens OPRE and OFA's infrastructure to plan for future research, evaluation, technical assistance, and other learning activities.
Learning agendas can help agencies systematically identify and prioritize their knowledge needs. When developing or updating a learning agenda, agencies and their programs often confront the challenge of synthesizing abundant and complex inputs — including summarizing what is known from the existing knowledge base as well as identifying the most critical knowledge gaps.
This spotlight describes how the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), in collaboration with the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), developed strategies for refining the learning agenda for the Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency research, evaluation, and technical assistance portfolio. To support this work, OPRE and OFA partnered with the ACF Evidence Capacity Support Project, led by Mathematica and its partner Child Trends.
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