By Michelle Blouin, Communications Associate, Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School
The “Mother Up” pre-pilot program is an evaluation of a guaranteed income project targeting Black mothers in Washington, DC, who are in danger of getting involved with the child welfare system. The program is run in collaboration with the Mothers Outreach Network (MON), a racial justice and antipoverty organization in the DC area. MON has a stated goal of advancing “family preservation through focusing on engaging Black moms in the struggle to transform government income and child welfare systems,” and the Mother Up program aims to study whether monthly direct cash transfers to these mothers would assist in either resolving ongoing Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) cases or preventing future interaction with CFSA. ”
Guaranteed income implies “no strings attached”—the individuals chosen to participate in the program will receive the income without any qualifying determinants (even if one’s financial situation changes) and they may choose how to use the funds.
Various forms of guaranteed income studies exist and date back to the 1970s, but the Mother Up program differentiates itself through several qualifications:
- Focus on a specific demographic—here, MON’s target population of black mothers in the DC area
- Children of recipients remain in the home
- Mothers must have had some interaction with CFSA within the last year
- Program is privately funded to avoid involvement from Child Welfare Services and instead gain trust with the participants
In the most recent episode of Proof Over Precedent, six staff members of the Access to Justice Lab convened to discuss the Mother Up project, their roles in implementing it, and the results stemming from Phase II of the study. The A2J Lab initially got involved in the project due to the parallels between child welfare hearings—and the significance of a potential ruling to terminate parental rights or separate a child from the family—and criminal justice trials. “This is happening outside the traditional court justice system,” said Mandy Mobley Li, Associate Director of Research Innovations at the Lab. “And so that’s why the Access to Justice [Lab] is getting involved, because it is something that can significantly impact individuals’ lives, and they don’t necessarily have the right to an appeal that they would in a court system.” Unlike the criminal justice system, child welfare proceedings involving parental status termination do not provide an individual with a federal constitutional right to counsel, per Lassiter v. Department of Social Services (1981).
How We Implemented the Study
The pre-pilot Phase II study, which ran from 2024 to 2025, enrolled 19 active participants who were randomized to one of two groups: (1) the direct cash transfers group, who received $500/month for one year plus additional compensation for survey and interview participation, or (2) the compensated research group, who received compensation for survey and interview participation but did not receive the monthly stipend. The goal of the pre-pilot was to determine whether a full-scale randomized controlled trial would be feasible—it is!—and what results could be expected based on these initial results.
Phase II began with a wellbeing survey of all participants, which included measurements of parenting and family support, social support, perceived stress, financial wellbeing, health status, and housing status. Data analysis, though not fully in-depth for a small pilot study, did provide a “longitudinal” comparison of quantitative measurements over time for the two groups. For example, participants may have been asked about their level of agreement with a statement indicating that they have money left over at the end of each month; the answers offered insight into the participants’ financial wellbeing. “ We’re seeing a good variation where we have a range of answers, and the means are in the middle of the scales, which tells us that this is doing a good job measuring the ways that people in our sample differ from each other,” A2J Lab Data Analyst Patricia Gansert noted about the accuracy of the data, a good indicator for Phase III expectations.
The pre-pilot gave the A2J Lab its first-ever opportunity to conduct interviews in a study for the purpose of qualitative measurements. A2J Lab Research Specialist Alina Esanu notified participants of their randomization group in an enrollment interview. It was crucial to maintain a relationship with those selected for the non-compensated group—despite potential disappointment—to maintain the statistical rigor of the pilot. Compensation of $240 ($60 per survey and interview for a total of four sessions) provided something to offset the disappointment and preserve the enrollment. Interview questions ranged from finance management to participants’ relationship with their children and further requested that participants speak to the role that finances may or may not have played in their CFSA involvement.
The study then moved on to interview analysis, in the form of transcript reviews. “Transcribing the interview is a research choice. How do you get emotion into the transcript?” said Miguel von Fedak, project manager for the A2J Lab. “This is a very emotionally charged experience for most of these participants.” Interview analyses generally fall into one of two categories—deductive or inductive interview analysis. Deductive analysis follows a top-down method, in this case, of identifying themes from existing theories, and then citing evidence within the transcripts mapping to these themes. Inductive analysis involves forming themes and insights directly from the interviews themselves. For the pre-pilot program, the Lab conducted both types of interview analyses. The team identified such themes as ‘ability to meet basic needs’ or ‘parent-child relationship’ and coded the participants’ interview transcripts as such when conducting the deductive analysis. For inductive analysis, reading through 20 transcripts to identify common themes was a manageable task (compared to larger studies), and it further involved a level of rapport between the interviewer and interviewee in order to decode communication styles (e.g., insight from stuttering instances or understanding gained from clear answers versus convoluted answers on a given topic). The study’s scheduled hourlong interviews, in actuality, only required about 20 minutes of participants’ time, opening the door for researchers to add more detailed questions for Phase III.
Drawing (Preliminary) Conclusions
Given the small pool of participants and the short follow-up period, results from Phase II are not conclusive; it did, however, offer a successful operational path forward for a larger study. Among the observations the Lab made with the Phase II pre-pilot results:
- At least half of the participants demonstrated a link between additional funds and lower CFSA involvement; many who did not attribute a lack of funding initially realized the potential connection later in interviews (e.g., recognizing that an inability to take a child to the doctor due to physical limitations for the mother could have been resolved by having the funds to pay for assistance).
- A lack of finances was often cited as rationale for not exiting a domestic violence situation, leading to CFSA involvement; “ I just kept going back to the situation, not because I had feelings for the person, but because that was the only person I had to help with the kids,” said one participant.
- Participants who received the guaranteed income used the money (1) to spend more quality time with their children, (2) to resolve issues that contributed to the initial CFSA case, and (3) to pay off bills and debts.
- Participants who received the guaranteed income noted feelings of more security and independence due to the additional funds; one mother said she could pay the bills and then have money left over to get her kids a new pair of shoes if they’d outgrown their old ones.
- Insufficient funds may prevent people from entering the workforce; one participant cited the inability to pay for childcare as a reason for not being able to finish college when her job required a bachelor’s degree to continue working.
Next Step: Longer and Larger Study
The MON-A2J Lab partnership is continuing, now with a Phase III pre-pilot program currently recruiting 30 participants. The program will differ from its predecessor in that the $500 compensation for the direct cash transfers group will last for three years, as opposed to the one year in Phase II, and also receive other services provided by MON including advocacy, empowerment work, and legal services that can extend to non-child welfare-specific subjects like housing and benefits. The compensated research group will continue to receive compensation for the survey and interview participation only, though they will have opportunities for more surveys and interviews and, therefore, more compensation.
Eligibility marks another difference between Phase II and Phase III programs. While Phase II included mothers who interacted with CFSA but may not have had any follow-up action, Phase III is enrolling mothers who have had a child removed from the home within the past year.
If you are an eligible DC mother—or know someone who is—you may submit an application.
If you’re interested in more on this topic, listen to our Proof Over Precedent podcast episode.