Overview
The Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) sought to better understand the challenges, perspectives, and meaningful moments of customers and providers within the Home Services Program (HSP). The HSP is a program within the Division of Rehabilitation Services (DRS) that providers services to individuals with severe disabilities so they can remain in their homes and be as independent as possible.
DHS experienced challenge in balancing how to broadly support the needs of diverse stakeholders under fiscal and other constraints faced by the State of Illinois. As increasing the wages for service providers was not financially or politically viable, the state seeked to more creatively provide individuals with disabilities quality care through a labor model that was both attractive and sustainable.
My Role: During the 12 week engagement I led a team of researchers during the interview process and insight generation. Co-designed the flow and layout of the Insights Presentation and Co-Creation Workshop, while also presenting the research insights to our audience. Collaborated with the team in the final mapping of the HSP system and design concepts.
Social Innovation
Team
Shaunali Shenoy
Emily Xiaomeng Jiang
Maho Kohga
Asmina Shaikh
Madison Loew
Shannon Delaney
Jessica Lee
Meng Yang
Xuanbai Li
Wanying Zhu
Hongxuan Ge
Sarah Tashakorinia
Advisor
Vijay Kumar
Jenni Schniderman
Partnering Organization
Illinois Department of Human Services
Phase 1 Research Planning
Research Goals
Understand the process of getting and providing HSP services to identify the pain points and opportunities.
Understand relationships and interactions between stakeholders, providers, and customers to find challenges during these experiences.
Our team completed 24 interviews to build context around the Home Services Program and the individuals involved. By interviewing members of the state, union, people with disabilities and their providers we were able to see the system from multiple viewpoints. Through this process we learned about the Living Independently Philosophy, struggles the program encounters to support customers and providers, and the work of union stakeholders to provide a voice to the people.
Phase 2 Research
After diving deep into understanding the system and the people we mapped out the intricacies of each touchpoint involved in the program. The data revealed outdated processes, relationships between entities, and strong perspectives based on the memories shared.
Phase 3 Insights Presentation
& Co-Creation Workshop
Once research was completed we invited members of this community to join as we shared our findings and hosted a co-creation workshop to create impactful solutions. With the multiple parties at the table we were able to address differences in opinions as we brought together parties that are normally at other sides of the table. These conversations addressed trust, relationship building, and issues of implementation as we worked together to design alternative solutions.
Phase 4 System Designs
We Evaluated the co-creation design concepts against metrics of desirability, viability, feasibility while working out the specific details to build out the concepts. Once finalized we shared our designs with stakeholders illustrating the current customer journey, system level mapping, and a roadmap to implementation.
Once this phase of work was competed we handed our concepts off to another design team where they were contracted by DHS to prototype and build out the most desired and implementable concepts into the current system.
