Wolfle Action Lab @EPIC

The Wolfle Action Lab @EPIC is an important way to engage faculty in the school’s mission to “host communities to co-create solutions to pressing societal problems.” It’s premised on the idea that dialogue and exchange across diverse fields of expertise is necessary for the development and adoption of solutions. The Action Lab draws upon the skilled facilitation tools of EPIC – Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative – staff to host sessions where researchers, practitioners, those with expertise from lived experiences, and policymakers engage in meaningful dialogue across differences. More than simply sharing ideas, research findings, and perspectives, Wolfle Action Labs are intended to develop collaborative planning for program or system redesign, implementation strategies that can be administered in real-time, and feasible policy recommendations. The Wolfle Action Lab convenings and projects operates consistently with the Evans School’s values of equity, courage, and public service.

On April 5, 2024, Evans School faculty members Crystal Hall and Ines Jurcevic and the EPIC team hosted the inaugural Wolfle Action Lab convening at El Centro de la Raza. They gathered with people from community-based organizations, academia, and government to spark learning, share promising practices, and make authentic connections that seed relationships among people leading equity and behavioral science to enable community-informed change in the public interest. Throughout the day they engaged in various small group discussions around the following questions:

• When and why did you step into this work?
• What is the environment you are working in?
• What are the challenges you confront in trying to change the way you work to better incorporate an equity lens?
• What successes have you experienced bringing an equity or behavioral science lens to your work?
• What are opportunities you see in front of you to integrate your commitments to equity-based work with behavioral science?
• How does your own Identity shape your ability to lead change in your context?

These conversations centered around working to effect systems change were followed by a group teach and discussion on Two Loops – a framework for describing how systems rise and fall, as well as types of roles that often occur as this process unfolds. They wrapped up the afternoon with another conversation process called Pro Action Café, where participants had the opportunity to call on the collective wisdom of the group with calls, questions, or projects they wanted to workshop.

Interested in learning more?

• Read the recap newsletter.
• Check out the Public Service ReDesign Toolkit for tools and methods that were applied to host conversations at the inaugural Wolfle Action Lab @EPIC convening here.
• Collaborate with our EPIC policy lab!