CLASP’s policy experts regularly work with state and local administrators and leadership, policymakers, advocates, and other key stakeholders to plan, develop, and strengthen policy with a focus on eliminating poverty and increasing racial equity through anti-racist policies. CLASP can provide on-the-ground or remote technical assistance in several ways, such as:
- Assisting policymakers in responding effectively to federal policy developments and opportunities, Identifying and analyzing state-specific data for needs assessments and reporting purposes,
- Providing research, information, and analytical support around policy and program options and models based on best practices,
- Supporting stakeholders in using research and data effectively,
- Translating federal rules and regulations,
- Serving as a technical resource on federal and state policy implementation, and
- Supporting stakeholders in other ways.
CLASP’s team is experienced at working with diverse stakeholder groups, testifying to legislative bodies, presenting at public forums, facilitating advisory and planning groups, and providing written analysis to inform state policy and program development and federal policy implementation. CLASP can also conduct deep analyses of existing policies in our areas of expertise and offer individualized guidance for strengthening state policies to be more effective in addressing income and racial inequities.
To learn more about CLASP’s work in the states, contact Suzanne Wikle at swikle@clasp.org or Tiffany Ferrette at tferrette@clasp.org.
CLASP’s Content Expertise
Child Care and Early Education
Immigration Policy
Income and Work Supports
Education, Labor, and Worker Justice
Justice
- Divesting from law enforcement and mass incarceration;
- Investing in healing communities
- Advancing economic justice for people and communities impacted by the justice system
Youth and Young Adults
CLASP Technical Assistance Success Stories
The Communities Collaborating to Reconnect Youth Network (CCRY) is a national learning community focused on improving local systems that affect young people disconnected from education and the workforce. Representatives from CCRY member communities meet twice a year to discuss key policy and advocacy issues and share local cross-agency collaboration strategies. CLASP, with support from FHI 360, serves as the convener to make connections between federal policy and local practice.
CLASP’s Education, Labor, and Worker Justice team is engaged with state and local labor standards enforcement agency representatives, along with community-based organizations and advocates that focus on two critical new labor standards—paid sick days and fair scheduling. We organize regular webinars, host a listserv, maintain microsites with policy implementation and enforcement information about these two policies, and host an annual sick days implementation and enforcement convening. Our webinars also address other important wage and hour labor standards. We are also drafting labor standards enforcement briefs with the Center for Innovation in Worker Organization to provide concrete examples and share promising practices with agencies and advocates.
CLASP’s Postsecondary Education and Workforce Development team facilitated the Alliance for Quality Career Pathways for a network of ten states. We also created the California Career Pathways Tool to help practitioners and stakeholders understand how to leverage and align investments across California’s education, workforce development, and human services agencies. This ongoing research and data visualization project supports a career pathway system to achieve better outcomes for Californians with barriers to educational and economic success. CLASP also worked closely with state administrators and local practitioners to create an implementation study for the initial years of the state’s Adult Education Block Grant.
CLASP’s Child Care and Early Education team works closely with state agency leaders, including child care administrators, as well as advocates and other stakeholders to identify policy changes that increase equitable access to high quality child care. These efforts may take the form of immediate, one-time technical assistance on urgent questions or policy challenges, or longer term advocacy and system change efforts. For example, in Kansas CLASP worked collaboratively with both advocates and administrators to identify administrative policy changes and legislative efforts to simplify the state’s child care subsidy system and improve parent utilization and provider participation.
The Income and Works Support (IWS) team has worked with advocates in 12 states to reduce administrative barriers, such as excessive paperwork, to make Medicaid and SNAP more accessible to people who are eligible. In partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), CLASP provides technical assistance about eligibility and enrollment policies and state operations, helps advocates prioritize their requests to states, provides support to help advocates make the case for policy and operation changes, and facilitates peer-to-peer learning. Results of the work with states include: States eliminating the need for applicants to provide paperwork that is not legally required, improving their call center operations to better serve applicants and enrollees, simplifying applications by eliminating unnecessary questions, and working to reduce churn.
