LEO leads the way in evaluating program effectiveness to fight poverty

 

Father Larry Snyder, President of Catholic Charities USA, visited the University of Notre Dame in February 2012, searching for new ways in which his organization and the university could work together to fight domestic poverty.  From this visit sprung the birth of the Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO).

Co-founded by Professors William Evans and James Sullivan, both of the Department of Economics, LEO is a research center that seeks to find and develop effective anti-poverty programs by working closely with local social service organizations through a network overseen by Catholic Charities USA. Though based here at the university, LEO possesses a research network that also includes academics from institutions such as the University of Chicago and the University of Virginia.

LEO’s website states, “the Lab for Economic Opportunities works to reduce poverty by evaluating program effectiveness, improving service provision, and improving policy design.” When asked about these three goals, Evans told the Rover that LEO focuses on “involvement in the first step, the research end, designing the evaluations that provide evidence of program effectiveness.” Sullivan added, “[T]he evaluating part is core to everything we do.”

Through their research in conducting rigorous impact evaluations, LEO measures the effectiveness of many programs with differing focus areas, ranging from early childhood development, K-12 education, job readiness, food and nutrition services, homelessness, and intensive care management.

For example, LEO is currently evaluating a program being conducted in Fort Worth, Texas. This program provides community college students with a “navigator,” a social worker who is on call to deal with problems that may interfere with the student’s academic endeavors.

“We’ve learned that there are certain problems that the students are more frequently having, so navigators have to have a certain set of skills to deal with these problems,” Evans explained to the Rover.  “[This evaluation] enables us to change the way that local agencies do their jobs,” he continued.

A key part of LEO’s task in reducing poverty is finding and maintaining those programs that lift people out of the cycle of poverty.

“Poverty is a complicated problem with no easy solutions,” Sullivan said, “and often times policies are designed to identify a problem.

“Take hunger as the problem,” he continued. “[W]e either provide food or money, and that provides an important service to people, but it doesn’t keep them from coming back. It only solves the problem until the money runs out.”

As such, LEO hopes that an understanding of the poverty cycle problem in combination with thorough, rigorous research will make inroads into public policy.  When asked about the implementation of federal policies that work to reduce poverty, Evans said, “It amazes me that we try things at the federal level without any notion that these policies will work … that policies are instituted without any evidence to back them up.”

However, policymakers are beginning to realize and understand the benefits of carefully examined programs and the value of evidence in the fight against poverty.  For example, Heather Reynolds, the CEO of Catholic Charities Forth Worth, an organization that works extensively with LEO, testified on July 9 in front of the House Budget Committee.  The committee’s poverty report included the idea of providing intensive case management that permanently lifts people out of poverty.  Reynolds cited extensively in her testimony research conducted by LEO.

This progress would not be possible without the partnership LEO shares with Catholic Charities USA.  It is through this partnership that LEO gains the ability to attack poverty on a national level with Catholic Charities providing over a hundred member agencies with programs ready for evaluation.

This relationship with Catholic Charities provides LEO a greater opportunity to fulfill that aspect of the mission statement of the university that aims “to cultivate in its students … a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice and oppression that burden the lives of so many … that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.”

Evans mentioned this point when asked about LEO’s importance in belonging to a university with a Catholic identity and culture.  “Part of the mission of Notre Dame is to generate a sensitivity to those most in need, and at Notre Dame we can integrate our academic work into the arena to fight poverty,” he said.

Sullivan added, “The university has a number of priorities, and LEO fits the bill for fulfilling the mission of the university.”

 

John Kill is a political science and economics intent in the First Year of Studies who enjoys playing soccer, following politics, and listening to Blink-182.  One day, he will be the President of the United States.  Contact John at jkill@nd.edu.