Category: North America

Tackling Homelessness in Scottsdale, Arizona

Cardboard sign displaying "Help" in a grocery card with blankets

Guest blog by Sue Oh, IPP’ 22  I had been in my role as the Homeless Outreach Coordinator for six months before I was presented with the opportunity to be a part of the Implementing Public Policy Program.  There was an increasing number of people experiencing homelessness in the City and I had been tasked…Continue Reading Tackling Homelessness in Scottsdale, Arizona

Implementing Public Policy in Maryland: The Journey is the Final Destination

A road through mountains

Guest blog by Chelsea Hayman, IPP 2021 Initially, I signed up for the Implementing Public Policy (IPP) Online course with the hopes to help my department secure more sustainable funding for our regular operations. Several other Directors within our agency have been under the constraints of a rapidly depleting federal grant from over a decade…Continue Reading Implementing Public Policy in Maryland: The Journey is the Final Destination

Minimizing impaired driving in Colorado using insights from IPP course

Guest blog by Michelle Stone, IPP 2021 My expectations for the Public Policy Implementation course were to gain a broader perspective and strategies on how to implement sound public policy, with creative and innovative solutions. I wanted to learn how to engage and develop conversations even when various industry members’ perspectives are divergent while being…Continue Reading Minimizing impaired driving in Colorado using insights from IPP course

Implementing Public Policy (IPP) and the Art of Sticking with Problems

Guest blog by Maurya West Meiers, IPP 2021 I began the 2021 Implementing Public Policy (IPP) online course thinking that I would come away with tools and approaches to solve problems. I knew that the IPP course is organized around the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach. Working in international development, I’m confronted every day with problems….Continue Reading Implementing Public Policy (IPP) and the Art of Sticking with Problems

My IPP Journey in Louisiana: The World Got Smaller as the Process Deepened 

Guest blog by Delery Rice, IPP 2021 The COVID pandemic offered many challenges and horrible outcomes for so many people across the world. If I find myself searching for anything that resembles a positive result produced over the last two years, I would undoubtedly pick my experience with Harvard Kennedy School’s Implementing Public Policy (IPP)…Continue Reading My IPP Journey in Louisiana: The World Got Smaller as the Process Deepened 

Using PDIA to tackle Claiborne Expressway challenges in New Orleans

Guest blog by Derek Chisholm, IPP 2021 The Implementing Public Policy (IPP) course attracted my attention as it seemed to focus on providing direct, hands-on means of implementing public policy.  Successful public policy, in my experience, is much more dependent on implementation than on the passage of initial policy legislation, especially when that legislation is…Continue Reading Using PDIA to tackle Claiborne Expressway challenges in New Orleans

The Importance of Entry Points in Long Term Policy Problems

Guest blog written by Jacob Lestock After a little over a year working from home during the pandemic, I quickly realized that returning to ‘normal’ was still far from sight in a professional sense. Virtual work has become the new norm even in public policy settings. Many of the benefits of living in a political…Continue Reading The Importance of Entry Points in Long Term Policy Problems

Building sustainable and equitable transportation systems in Toronto

Guest blog written by Judy Farvolden I am passionate about vibrant, equitable, sustainable urban life. My journey began in Paris when, as a 17-year-old living for a year in the City of Light, I wondered at the difference between living in a place where every day-to-day thing I needed was on my own block and…Continue Reading Building sustainable and equitable transportation systems in Toronto

Developing deeper learning competencies in the United States

Guest blog written by Rholyn Barnhart I was born in a very small town in the Philippines. Majority of the source of income in our town relates to fishing and trading goods. My family is one of the many families who wanted to go out of our current state of life – working just to…Continue Reading Developing deeper learning competencies in the United States

Examining Rising Teacher Shortages in the United States

Guest blog by Razan Alayed, Aleena Ali, Ryan S. Herman, Cecilia Liang, Krizia Lopez There were many lessons to be extracted from this course and through applying the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach to our concurrently ordinary and extraordinary problem. The issue of teacher shortage has existed for many years and is persisting in the…Continue Reading Examining Rising Teacher Shortages in the United States