Case Study

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago | Program Management

Solving Business Problems

Problem

The way to prevent youth homelessness is to prevent it. Education researchers at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago aimed to build on their research about youth homelessness to inform the next generation of prevention policy. With a diverse project team, there were a lot of moving parts to coordinate to understand and prescribe a more cohesive support system for young people experiencing housing insecurity.
Blue Seats Action

Action

Connie was the program manager for nine months for the Chapin Hall team. She facilitated weekly meetings with the team to manage and prioritize the work that would include a 75-person conference in DC and culminate in a policy brief. She collaborated every week with a social worker / organizer / researcher to support and prepare nine people with lived experience to advocate for change. She incorporated the expertise of an ethnographer, a graphic designer, a superb administrative lead, and several creative, passionate advocates to understand the ways that social services fail children and young adults, and how to prevent the systemic gaps from making lifelong adverse impacts on young people.
Blue Seats Consulting Outcomes

Outcomes

In June 2022, the staff of Chapin Hall hosted the New Opportunities Summit, an industry-wide convening of more than fifty researchers, advocates, policymakers, and people with lived experience. With an inspiring keynote address by Senator Patty Murray and cross-functional teams working on prevention methods, Dr. Anne Farrell and the Chapin Hall team gathered information to inform their next policy recommendations for federal, state, and local lawmakers. In July 2024, Chapin Hall released the New Opportunities Prevention Strategy, a policy brief designed to end youth homelessness.
The Best Part of Our Work

The Best Part

Mike Sweeney is an ethnographer who got to know each of the nine young people on the project. Through visits to their hometowns that involved hours and hours of conversation, he got to know about them. He heard their stories, the impact that housing insecurity had on them at the time and what endured, and what supports made a difference. In the most profound exhibit of listening I’ve seen, Mike invested time in seeing, hearing, and supporting these young people to define their story, and to define success for themselves in adulthood.