The Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) supports local initiatives in vulnerable communities around the world to help strengthen their resilience to violent extremism. This report utilizes case studies of Kenya, Kosovo, and the Philippines to analyze how each country incorporates local level actors within their respective National Action Plan (NAP) to prevent and counter violent extremism. To understand local efforts, we completed a three-step analysis. First, we performed a literature review covering both decentralization and decision space analysis. Next, we reviewed each NAP, giving a summary of the plan, its goals, and the stakeholders involved. Finally, we developed a qualitative coding schema to comprehensively assess NAPs in terms of best practices laid out by the United Nations. The analysis suggests GCERF can strengthen their local effectiveness by focusing on the following policy initiatives: promoting empowerment, supporting capacity building, and connecting with development agencies and NGO’s to improve decentralization outcomes.

Climate change has wide-ranging negative effects on public infrastructure, socio-economic and demographic inequality, and physical and mental health outcomes. Children in poverty are at highest risk of experiencing these impacts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development requested the completion of an analysis mapping out the connection between climate change, child poverty in wealthy nations, and childhood development. We propose policy options to ameliorate potential high-risk harms to children in poverty living in OECD countries from climate change and mitigation of climate change. We also identify gaps in literature and research that should be pursued to better understand this urgent issue.

Emergency Assistance grants are a means-tested, one-time payment available to people experiencing a housing crisis in Wisconsin. Survivors of domestic violence have experienced declining rates of approval for Emergency Assistance since 2010 while increasingly applying for these grants. In this report for End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, we examine the barriers that domestic violence survivors encounter when applying for Emergency Assistance. Barriers include a complex application process, difficulty accessing the necessary documentation safely, domestic violence screening practices, and insufficient training of W-2 caseworkers in domestic violence responsiveness. We provide 35 recommendations to reduce these barriers in the categories of: (1) procedures, (2) training, (3) screening, (4) financial benefits, and (5) organizational culture. We prioritize our recommendations based on potential impact to survivors of domestic violence and implementation feasibility, and we provide eight high-priority recommendations.

Movin’ Out, Inc. is a nonprofit affordable housing provider that has developed more than 1,100 units of affordable housing in Wisconsin, many of which are designated for people with disabilities. This report analyzes the economic and social benefits of disability-integrated affordable housing development and shows that Movin’ Out supports significant economic and social benefits. The report offers recommendations to help Movin’ Out combat regulatory barriers and community opposition to affordable housing. The report also includes best practices for community engagement and an advocacy agenda for state and local policy.

In Wisconsin, many families working to move out of poverty and toward self-sufficiency face benefit cliffs – circumstances in which increases in income do not compensate for losses in benefits from state and federal programs. While many state agencies have studied means-tested program cliffs individually, few have looked across departments to see how these programs interact and create or temper cliff effects for Wisconsin families. This report uses eligibility and enrollment data from several public benefit programs to understand how and where cliffs emerge for households receiving support from various combinations of programs. The authors then provide recommendations regarding how to improve interdepartmental data collection and collaboration for mitigating these multi-program cliffs. Further, this report examines what other states and regions have done to combat benefit cliffs and recommends ways that the client, the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, can leverage this information to better support low-income families.