Learn, Innovate, Improve (LI²): Enhancing Programs and Improving Lives (Practice Brief)

This brief is the first in a series that seeks to advance welfare and family self-sufficiency research and practice through enhanced linkages between social science and human services programming. This first brief provides a high-level overview of the LI² process; later briefs will offer more in-depth guidance for practitioners and applied researchers interested in using the process to improve program outcomes while generating actionable evidence for program decision making and the field. This brief can help research and practice audiences consider how a collaborative improvement process might work in their particular contexts and prepare them to execute such a process. Though participation in the LI² process will vary by setting, the program stakeholders involved often include administrators, supervisors, and frontline staff; research partners typically—though not necessarily—come from outside the organization, so as to bring a fresh, external perspective.