Participation and Engagement Issues in Social Welfare Interventions

This presentation was developed for a collaborative of voluntary social welfare interventions that were struggling to achieve reasonable participation and engagement rates.  It was intended to generate discussion about the activities that each program had in place to encourage different levels of access.  The "Access Pyramid" is the focal point of the presentation, but several definitions and models of participation and engagement are presented, as well.

This pyramid could also be used to discuss different federal, state, and local government programs to assess where access may break down for all or some potential participants. Concepts like administrative burden and program culture can be discussed, as well as how programmatic structures, rules and activities can enhance or restrict access to those the program is intended to serve.