COVID-19 recovery solutions

With an influx of federal relief funds from across the government, it is critical for states to invest these dollars efficiently, effectively, and with no loss.

ICF works with our partners to establish comprehensive, long-term recovery for communities by implementing Community Development Block Grants and other federal funding. We will help you apply every dollar to make your community stronger and more resilient in the face of future public health disasters and how to ensure you can account for every dollar of recovery money. It is some of the most important work we will ever do.

To understand virus transmission in a community, we must ask people to recall what they’ve done and who they’ve interacted with. Technology can supplement this, but it is no substitute for the direct questioning from an empathetic interviewer trained to elicit the necessary information and provide guidance and reassurance to concerned citizens.

ICF has more than 40 years of experience with survey design, data collection, and analysis for a range of public health programs. ICF can use whatever system is already in place (like RedCap) or design a custom case management system using Microsoft Dynamics, ServiceNow, Salesforce, and ZenDesk. We collect data by phone, web, mail, and combinations of these. We use web chat (e.g., LiveChatNow) and chatbots to engage with participants. In fact, we’ve found that participants who engage via web chat are three times more likely to complete the task they set out to do. For contact tracing, participant engagement matters because follow-up is critical to fully understand the potential virus transmission to others.

The need to train a massive workforce to conduct surveillance activities or perform new jobs to reopen the economy now is acute. ICF works with employers and communities to train and employ displaced workers, returning veterans, the unemployed and underemployed, or those seeking to upgrade skills to ensure greater job security. These workforce development initiatives have served to increase the health and long-term sustainability of communities. We know what it takes to rapidly build a local workforce, train them, and provide them with the tools needed for success.

Even established workforces will require training to perform new tasks like contact tracing or deep cleaning, or to ensure every employee is kept as safe as possible. The ICF learning and development professionals have extensive experience in training public health partners including state and local staff and grantees using virtual training, online modules, and role-playing simulations. We can develop content, modify existing content for new learning platforms, or train using state or nationally developed materials. From preventing hospital infections to reducing overdose deaths, our staff develop engaging training for complex topics so that individuals are armed with the information they need to succeed.

The coronavirus crisis has underscored the importance of clear and trustworthy communication in our communities, states, and across the nation. As we understand how our lives will change, we must share this information broadly to change people’s behaviors.

ICF’s 1,000 person strong strategic communications group can build efforts to support outreach into any community to quickly promote the effectiveness and responsiveness of a contact tracing program, new restaurant and shopping guidelines, antibody testing, or whatever might come next in our new normal.

Our campaigns to prevent opioid misuse, minimize antibiotic resistance in hospitals, and stop tobacco use have won awards and changed behaviors.

Nowhere in the United States are the divisions of race, ethnicity, and culture more sharply drawn than in the health of our people.

The ICF team has 35+ years of experience in interacting with people from every racial, ethnic, and cultural identity. We have engaged with young African American women to educate about breast cancer risk, Hispanic audiences to prevent diabetes, Native-Americans to reduce the incidence of suicide, and LGBTQ audiences for HIV prevention.

Our public health experts can offer guidance in designing your contact tracing or other new program to reach the right people and then help to evaluate the effectiveness of those programs.