Project Background The Administration for Children Services (ACS) childcare voucher program supports more than 25,000 families across New York City and is used at hundreds of home-based and center-based providers. Eligible families in NYC are provided vouchers to cover childcare costs. In February 2022, leadership from the Division of Child and Family…

It is no simple task to document data in ways that can easily be understood. Too often, information about data — for example, its origin, quality, meaning or use — may be hard to come by. …

Making the case for co-design in branding, communications, and storytelling — Background In the summer of 2022, the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYCO) launched the Community Navigators Institute (CNI). CNI, a partnership between NYCO’s Service Design Studio (SDS) and CUNY Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work, brought together a team of Navigators and Social Workers with lived experience to teach the…

Happy New Year! This month marks the start of the second year of the Adams Administration. We want to take this opportunity to talk about some of the recent work we have done advancing the goals the administration has set out for itself and for New York City. — The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity ‘s (NYC Opportunity) work is focused on breaking down barriers that make it difficult for New Yorkers to access government services and benefits. Digital products like the next generation of Working NYC, described below, connect New Yorkers to two things the administration has put…

The Service Design Studio within the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity reflects on 2022, and the ever-growing role of participatory practices in NYC government. And just like that, another year has flown by! As we kick off 2023, the Service Design Studio (SDS) team is taking time to reflect on…

The Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity), CUNY School of Professional Studies, and the John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity are launching a free new e-learning course, Unlocking Employment: How to Partner with Job Seekers Impacted by the Legal System. Unlocking Employment was created to realize our…

A new study from the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity) highlights the promise of credible messenger programming and the need to center lived experience in service delivery and policy making. Based on this positive assessment, it calls for increased support for the credible messenger field and for individuals…

If you weren’t able to attend our virtual information session for the Designed by Community Fellowship, you’re in luck! You can review the recording of the session here. If you want to take a look at the slides presented, those can be found here. …

The Navigator series spotlights staff in community-based organizations and mentors within peer workforce social service models. In our second feature, we are supporting the work of Shonique Hill, one of the facilitators leading the Community Navigator Institute. — “Service navigation builds the community. It allows community members to learn about the services available and hope they will pay it forward by sharing and helping someone else.” Shonique Hill, Associate at the Community Navigator Institute