How to provide better (governmental) services
Creating more equitable services
“Becoming requires equal parts patience and rigor. Becoming is never giving up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.” — Michelle Obama
“Becoming” is a difficult concept that recognizes that we constantly change. It runs counterintuitive to our innate desire for instant gratification and fulfillment. While most people associate “becoming” with personal growth paradigms, over the past year I’ve begun to think of it in terms of the work I do as a civil servant.
In government there is very little incentive and often negative consequences to change. Government workers are under heightened scrutiny, which creates a focus on accountability above all. In reality, we operate in and design systems that prioritize certain groups of residents over others. As a result, we worry more about perception than we do about ensuring services are equitable.
Need proof? Look at the legacies of housing and criminal justice systems, as well as child protective services, just as a start. It can be easy to think of these things as theoretical, but the government and the employees working within that system have a major impact on people’s lives.
“Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change.”
— Frank Heber
We have historically not been critical or inclusive enough in our work to overcome personal and systemic biases, and the lack of diversity in our institutions ensures that those spaces remain echo chambers. To be truly effective, to truly “do good,” which is a major motivator for the numerous city employees I’ve met, we have to change the ways in which we work and think. If we don’t, we continue to reinforce racist patterns embedded in the very DNA of our organizations. These patterns can at the very least unfairly penalize or exclude communities, and at the worst can result in a person losing their life.
It might be tempting to rely on broad policy changes or quick design fixes. But these alone rarely ensure necessary or enduring change. The diversity of residents’ experiences is boundless and often in flux depending on the environment, requiring complex, evolving solutions. For example, as a resident in one of our accessibility co-design workshop explained:
“[At] our building, we’ve had a number of people [wanting] to be able to access our patios since we have events out there. They just want to go out there when the weather is nice, play a game, read a book, whatever, sit out there. Elderly people can’t push the doors because they’re too heavy.”
The resident stated that although the building is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, it still lacks the accommodations to make it accessible to everyone.
Traditional methods for evaluating and measuring accessibility are incomplete. We need to re-imagine how standards, guidelines, and policies can make systems and services more equitable and accessible.
Over the past year, my team at the City of Austin’s Office of Design and Delivery has been working across city departments and with residents to create more accessible services. We began by working with residents to co-design what accessible services look like. Then synthesized our finding about all of the blockers that residents experienced trying to get access to city services. We realized there is no silver bullet for creating a truly accessible service. The secret is in continually trying and doing better with residents, and prioritizing communities that have been historically underserved.
Let’s look at some frameworks we’ve created to describe the accessibility journey and map out users’ experiences.
A framework for transforming services
The framework below walks through a maturity model for making services more equitable. Beginning with unaware leading all the way to equitable.
Unaware — Accessibility problems aren’t recognized. This stage is often reinforced by a lack of feedback from people with lived experience. People are unwilling to engage in services because they are inaccessible, but without their engagement and input, services remain inaccessible.
Compliant — Policies exist, but don’t necessarily make the service accessible. For example, there may be ramps on one side of the building, but that entrance is locked unless you call in advance.
Accessible — People are able to access the service, and barriers don’t exclude individuals from entering into services. Accommodations are added through special requests and complaints, and other piecemeal processes.
Inclusive — People with diverse perspectives of lived experience are actively included and engaged in the process of designing services. While their feedback may be integral to what gets implemented, they don’t have the ability to make decisions or set priorities related to services.
Equitable — People with diverse perspectives of lived experience have the ability to set priorities, driving and implementing changes in services.
Unfortunately, organizations tend to fall short of the Accessible phase. Often, government workers — the people delivering the services — don’t have access to the perspectives of the people with lived experience, or are reliant on existing policies to make services accessible. To make policy evidence-based and effective, we have to be intentional. We have to use multiple tools, from outreach to co-design, to capture critical missing contextual experiences.
Becoming equitable can be even harder for organizations because it requires sharing power directly with residents. Good democracy is fractious, requiring constant negotiation between groups with contradicting points of view. Giving up authority means more work, more negotiation, and more complexity.
A framework for mapping residents’ journeys through services
Awareness — The process during which people become conscious of or informed about a service. The work done in this phase generally deals with outreach, engagement, and education.
Cities often rely on partners like nonprofits and community groups to help spread the word about services and opportunities. This is one of the most vital parts of a service journey, because without it, the rest of the process isn’t possible for a resident.
Navigation — Individuals attempt to discern whether a service is the right fit. Does the service address my needs? Where is the service located? How do I get there? What are the hours? Individuals must have the answers to these questions before they can access services.
Access — People enter into the system to receive services at a physical location, by phone, or online. This process can occur once or over multiple visits and attempts.
Maintenance — The details of this phase depend on the service, but it always requires the resident to renavigate the service to either continue to receive it or to receive it again after a lapse in service. For example, if you want to renew your driver’s license, you have to update your information once every few years.
Exit — People leave the service, and potentially the system. The delivery of services has finished. Ideally the service has provided the needed outcome and the resident no longer needs it. This phase also depends on the service. For example, utilities will continue to be required, as long as someone is housed.
Feedback — A process that runs throughout the entire service journey. It allows residents to address problems, ask questions, and interact with city staff. It can also help city staff to identify issues that need to be improved.
Co-creation, including co-synthesis — A necessary process before services are offered or designed. This is where you can begin a relationship with members of the community to identify problems they’re facing and propose and design services that can provide solutions.
Outcomes, both qualitative and quantitative — The process during which city staff and residents measure whether or not the service has delivered the agreed-upon outcomes for both the individual and the community.
There is an interplay of digital and physical delivery throughout service journeys. Components like content, such as written or spoken information, span the entire journey and are needed for both the digital and physical delivery, while elements like location and time are largely limited to physical delivery. For more information about these components and their impact on residents check out our previous work.
Undoing harm and providing equitable services means continually working to improve. It means mapping out users’ experiences to understand what does and doesn’t work, changing our facilitation and decision-making processes, and sharing power with the community. We must reimagine the work done across our organization, including purchasing, policy, budgeting, and human resources, and the direct delivery and management of services.
Don’t give up on the idea that there’s more growing to be done.
Thanks for reading! Thoughts on our frameworks, or providing better services in government? We’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or contact us at access@austintexas.gov.
For more information on our work on accessibility:
