The Benefits Bundle aims to connect families welcoming a new baby to a bundle of supportive services through personal case management that is convenient, customized for language, and appropriately tailored to specific communities.

Project objectives

The Benefits Bundle will strengthen relationships across support systems to deepen health equity efforts in communities and ensure families are aware of and able to use services available at the Federal, State, local, Tribal, or territorial levels.

Primary deliverables in 2023 include:

• Benefits Bundle Playbook that outlines successful case studies for implementation of the pilot and describes how a community can launch its own Benefits Bundle
• Technical assistance and training for Healthy Start grantees

December 2023 update

The Benefits Bundle pilot assists grantees of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Healthy Start program, a longstanding Federal program to reduce infant mortality rates and address social determinants of health. The Benefits Bundle team developed a new peer-based model to help Healthy Start families navigate the transition to parenthood. For this peer-based model, the team created the role of “Alumni Navigator,” a mother who recently completed the Healthy Start program at the pilot location, and has experience navigating benefits enrollment (e.g., Medicaid and WIC) and accessing key community resources and supports. Alumni Navigators are therefore uniquely qualified to provide new families with social, informational, and emotional support and deliver a “bundled” set of critical resources. The six pilot partner grantees have collectively hired 16 Alumni Navigators who have served more than 170 families across grantee sites (Atlanta, Baton Rouge, New York City, Los Angeles, the PeeDee Region, and Turtle Mountain Reservation). The interagency Benefits Bundle team included perspectives from HHS (both ACF and CMS), DOL, HUD, and USDA in developing the “Benefits Bundle” set of resources for Healthy Start families. Among the set of Federal benefits, the Alumni Navigators are focusing on WIC and Medicaid.

The team expects to summarize insights from the six pilots in a Benefits Bundle Playbook to inform other Federal programs and State Medicaid programs; the team will iterate and fine tune the guide in FY24 Q2.

Milestones

Measures of success

Key outcomes

By connecting families via personal case management with a Benefits Bundle of core public benefits programs and reducing barriers to accessing those programs and benefits:

• Families will have greater awareness of and easier access to public benefits (increasing multi-program enrollment for those who are eligible)
• Enrollment gaps in core birth to early childhood programs will shrink
• Maternal and caregiver stress will measurably reduce

Design phase project measures

The Newborn Supply Kit is envisioned to be a one-time, universal service delivered in collaboration with hospitals and community organizations that provides families with basic physical supplies and health products for baby and mom, crucial to the first few weeks after delivery. Newborn Supply Kits will also include resources about Federal programs and benefits, key developmental milestones, and other helpful information to build trust and form a foundation of relationships for further service connections. The Newborn Supply Kit is being implemented through a public-private partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Baby2Baby, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides children with diapers, clothing, and all the basic necessities that every child deserves.

Project objectives

The project will allow some new families in pilot jurisdictions to receive a Newborn Supply Kit. The Kit, modeled on successful programs in other countries, seeks to reduce the time, stress, and burden on new parents to obtain immediately-needed supplies and increase knowledge about government services and community resources for new families. Equitable distribution of the Kits can help reduce the stigma associated with seeking government services and reduce disparities in communities that are typically underserved.

Target milestones in 2023 include:

• Announce pilot partners and jurisdictions
• Launch the Newborn Supply Kit pilots in a limited number of jurisdictions
• Conduct an implementation evaluation

Primary deliverables in 2023 include:

• Newborn Supply Kit prototype
• 1-2 pilots involving collaboration with non-governmental organizations and counties
• Case studies on the design and implementation of Newborn Supply Kits, including consideration of best practices for collaboration

December 2023 update

The team designed a Newborn Supply Kit to provide new families with basic educational materials and physical supplies needed in the first few weeks postpartum, modeled from successful programs in other countries. Following the establishment of a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between HHS and a nonprofit delivery partner, Baby2Baby, Vice President Kamala Harris and ACF Administrator January Contreras launched the pilot in May 2023. Since then, seven pilot site distribution partners have provided 3,000 Newborn Supply Kits to any mother having a baby at a pilot site hospital, which were selected based on high maternal and infant mortality rates, high rates of maternal mental health conditions, and areas that score highly on the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index. Pilot sites are currently operating in Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico.

Data available from HHS reflects that those receiving Kits include historically underserved populations, including those living in rural areas, Tribal populations, and those with very low incomes. Preliminary participant feedback suggests that families are very satisfied with the contents of their Kit. Early data shows trends that receiving a Kit may improve families’ trust in government and may make them more likely to enroll in support programs for which they are likely eligible. The team’s initial findings make the Newborn Supply Kit a compelling model for further research as a mechanism to reach and build trust with new families.

Milestones

Measures of success

Key outcomes

By providing families with a Kit, the project aims to:

• Reduce financial and parental stress on mothers and caregivers in the immediate postpartum period
• Increase awareness and thereby timelier enrollment of eligible families in critical support programs
• Increase trust in Federal benefits programs

Design phase project measures

The project will pilot a Federal notification service that will enable Federal benefits programs to use text messages (SMS) to send reminders and guidance to subscribers at crucial points throughout the benefits enrollment and renewal process.

Project objectives

The notification service pilot aims to improve the customer experience for families through better communication, reduce administrative burdens, and increase eligible families’ access to benefits.

Target milestones in 2023 include:

• Evaluate and develop agencies’ authorities to operate the notification service
• Partner with up to three benefits programs to send the first pilot messages via the notification service
• Assess the success of the pilots
• Expand product features to help scale the impact of the notification service

Primary deliverables in 2023 include:

• Pilot the design and launch the service
• Pilot metrics to evaluate the service
• Develop a synthesis of lessons learned during pilot

December 2023 update

The team designed and launched a prototype for a new Federal notification service, Notify.gov (now available in beta), to be used by State and local agencies that administer Federal programs. As envisioned, these agencies will be able to send text messages at crucial points throughout the benefits application and renewal process to help families know about, enroll in, and re-certify for the Federal programs that provide them with support.

For the first iteration of the prototype, the team has been collaborating with the City of Norfolk (Virginia) Department of Human Services to co-design a texting campaign. The end of the Public Health Emergency led to changes in eligibility rules for multiple Federal programs, including Medicaid and CHIP. In Virginia, the notification service will help thousands of Virginia families learn about Medicaid renewal deadlines and requirements to enable eligible families to maintain health insurance coverage.

Milestones

Measures of success

Key outcomes:

A successful notification service will streamline information about available resources and reduce the administrative burden on families navigating benefits programs. Outcome measures will include families’ responses to the pilot notification (such as if they choose to receive messages and engage with them), whether program participation increases, and whether program churn decreases.

Design phase project measures: