Passport to Pittsburgh
Date
September-
December 2018
Team
Annie Gould
Avonelle Davis
Amanda Kennedy
Methods
Interviews
Policy Review
Service Blueprint
Storyboarding
My Role
User Research and Service Design Lead
The Problem
What supports are missing from the current system in Pittsburgh that prevent newly arrived refugees from accessing and understanding basic financial concepts, services and tools?
How can we improve that system?
Imagine that you have just arrived in Pittsburgh after a two-year application process to escape the trauma and violence of your home country. You are here to settle in Pittsburgh with your extended family, and none of you know any English. You grew up in a refugee camp and have never handled money before. What is a bank? Can you trust the bank to safely keep the money that you earned at your new job, or are they just taking it from you? How do I save money and support my family?
In my Design and Policy for Humanitarian Impact class at Carnegie Mellon University, two classmates and I put ourselves into the shoes of newly arrived refugees in Pittsburgh as they navigated the financial system.
Exploratory Research
Our team made a deliberate decision to not conduct user research with refugees due to the brevity of our project, as we would not be able to form meaningful relationships with refugee communities, in addition to our lack of funds to hire a translator for our research activities. However, our team conducted Interviews with 5 key stakeholders in the region involved with various nonprofit and government agencies who interface with refugees on a regular basis:
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Leslie Aizenman, Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services, Jewish Family and Community Services (JFCS)
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Benedict Killang, Acting Manager, Allegheny County Department of Human Services, Immigrant and Internationals Unit
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Simone Vecchio, Program Coordinator, Immigrant Services and Connections
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Betty Cruz, Founder and Director, Change Agency
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Colin Kelley, CEO, NeighborWorks Western Pennsylvania
We also made extensive notes from various policy reports about refugees within the City of Pittsburgh.
Key Barriers
Based on findings from our interviews, we honed in on the following barriers facing newly arrived refugees in Pittsburgh:
We also learned that more established refugees who have been living in Pittsburgh: for 5-10 years face a different set of challenges. They are often at a stage where they are more financially stable and ready to buy a home:
A Crossroads
Based on these different refugee populations and their own unique challenges, we needed to decide which refugee population to focus on in order to ideate and create a solution.
We ultimately decided to focus on newly arrived refugees in Pittsburgh because of the more urgent needs that they faced. We worked closely with Leslie Aizenman and JFCS, a resettlement agency.
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Leslie Aizenman of JFCS shows us the flipbook that their case managers use to teach basic financial literacy skills, often with the help from a translator.
Storyboarding
We used storyboards to draft initial solution ideas. Our goal was to introduce our solution in three phases to help JFCS gradually start implementing solutions and slowly build out toward our ultimate systems change.
Phase One is a take-home flip book with an audio component that refugees can practice financial concepts on their own time without relying on their case manager. This solution will act as a low-fidelity prototype for phase two.
Phase Two involves turning that flip book into a Duolingo-style app. By turning the solution from Phase One into an app, refugees would have a more seamless opportunity to learn financial literacy concepts.
Phase Three would need to rely on creating new technology so that an ATM could read the RFID chip on the Pennsylvania State ID Card. When case managers take their refugee clients to the bank to open a bank account for the first time, the refugee could insert their ID into the ATM. The case manager would help them to select their native language on the ATM screen. Then, they could use the provided headphones to review on the screen how an ATM works, along with other key banking concepts.
Concept Testing
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To see if our solutions were on the right track, we showed our storyboards to Carnegie Mellon students from FORGE, a club that works with refugees in the Pittsburgh region, and staff from JFCS.
The solutions for Phases One and Two were received well. In fact, a JFCS case maanger requested that the app in Phase Two be tied to a platform where she could track her caseload and send clients reminders for bill payment and other financial to-do’s through their app profiles so that case managers can better support them.
However, we realized that we needed to change course for Phase Three. Both JFCS staff and FORGE members envisioned refugees taking too long at the ATM, which could anger other customers. JFCS also worried that if refugees were going through the ATM program outside, they could be viewed as “prey.”
Both JFCS and FORGE suggested that we implement a practice ATM that could be permanently housed at JFCS’s offices so that refugees could practice learning how to use an ATM in a safe space with minimal foot traffic. But we went back to the drawing board
Rethinking Our Idea
We needed to come up with a solution that catalyzes systemic change within Pittsburgh. This solution would need to rely on the City of Pittsburgh implementing a municipal ID program. It involves pop-up municipal ID enrollment stations at locations in refugees’ communities, where refugees could learn more about financial concepts and services as they enroll for their municipal ID. Not only would they learn financial concepts with the help of on-site translators but they could also embody a sense of belonging as they enroll for their Municipal ID.
We mapped out our solution for Phase Three via a service blueprint to make sure we understood all involved stakeholders and their roles:
Moving Forward
We will be handing off a plan to JFCS to see if it will be possible for them to carry forward our solution ideas.