Families who qualify for multiple human services programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often face access challenges because of varying eligibility rules and administrative processes. 

Research shows state and local human services agencies can help families overcome these challenges by holistically considering the set of benefits and services families may use and coordinating across programs. 

Coordination is not always easy, especially when states and local agencies are facing a rapidly shifting policy and funding environment. And it will be increasingly valuable as agencies implement the significant changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including navigating new requirements in Medicaid and SNAP for verifying program eligibility and compliance. That’s because coordination may help agencies improve accuracy and efficiency of benefits administration, which will be critical given the administrative costs the law shifts to states and increased penalties it imposes for improper payments.

To help states and localities improve families’ experiences when they seek services or benefits from multiple public benefit programs, the Urban Institute and our project partners created a comprehensive toolkit. Administrators across the country can use this toolkit to better serve their customers amid change and uncertainty. 

A tool for state and local administrators to coordinate human services delivery

The toolkit is part of aproject led by MEF Associates and in partnership with the Adjacent Possible. It is one of the first of its kind. Though resources exist to support coordination and integration, they are often narrowly focused on one element or aren’t user-friendly. Our toolkit (PDF) is designed to support program administrators in their efforts to coordinate and integrate human services programs. It includes five modules, each with a set of curated resources to advance coordination and guidance to move teams forward in their planning and implementation. It’s designed so users may jump in at any point that’s aligned with their work, readiness for coordination efforts, and specific needs. It guides users through:

• establishing a vision, direction, and goals for coordination;
• identifying coordination strategies that could support those goals;
• implementing coordination strategies, with support from examples and implementation resources;
• implementing broader best practices for successful coordination efforts and other organizational changes to increase capacity for coordination; and
• monitoring coordination efforts and planning for continuous improvement. 

We also developed a companion facilitator's guide. 

How the toolkit can help program administrators coordinate across programs

We piloted the toolkit with seven state and local human services agencies, working with them to develop and refine content to meet their needs. Our team provided coaching and technical assistance to pilot sites over nine months. We observed progress in pilot sites’ understanding of other programs’ functions and processes, establishment of relationships across programs, development of procedures to facilitate collaboration, and action plan development. 

Our work with the New Mexico Health Care Authority’s (HCA’s) Income Support Division (ISD), which administers TANF, illustrates how using the toolkit may help agencies make progress on a short timeline and how it may be useful as agencies respond to changes to federal human services policy.

HCA is a new agency formed in 2024 that merged multiple human services arms of the state government. The merger was intended to improve coordination, so programs within the agency were already oriented toward that goal and looking for opportunities to move coordination forward.

For the pilot, the ISD team focused on improving how families applying for and participating in TANF engage with child support services. Using the service blueprint activity in the toolkit, they invited leaders from the Child Support Services Division (CSSD) and engaged a larger group of staff from both divisions to identify where families experience challenges when engaging with both TANF and child support services. One New Mexico pilot staff member noted:

“I think when we really got to drafting… the [service blueprint activity], I think that's when things just started coming together for us, because… you need to walk in these families' shoes. What do they go through? What does the process look like for them from their perspective?”

— New Mexico Health Care Authority leader

Following this exercise, the pilot expanded to include an even larger collaborative group of staff from the two divisions and the Department of Workforce Solutions. They identified strategies for improving coordination, like clarifying requirements for multiple programs with families, improving staff communication across programs, and improving integration of case management systems. Then the group began identifying potential action steps. 

It took patience to bring the right partners to the table and to engage with colleagues in new ways. But by the end of the pilot, staff from ISD and CSSD had developed an action plan for coordinating services to better serve families who engage with both TANF and child support. This includes identifying senior staff who will assume ongoing responsibility for communicating across divisions. A pilot staff member explained the shared vision for coordination moving forward: 

“Our plan here in New Mexico is to eventually remove a lot of the… middlemen in the process so that we can provide just better services all around.”

— New Mexico Health Care Authority leader

As other human services agencies around the country consider how to implement new work requirements and other changes to programs they administer, the toolkit can help them identify how to coordinate with other agencies to better serve their customers.

Urban team members who worked with pilot states and drafted the toolkit and facilitator guide include (in alphabetical order): Rekha Balu, Lauren Farrell, Heather Hahn, Leandra Lacy, and Eleanor Pratt.