Program Overview
The HEA is a yearlong graduate assistantship that equips students with real-world evaluation experience while supporting Hennepin County’s efforts to reduce disparities and strengthen public services. Each student is matched with a county-led evaluation project that informs decision-making on complex, high-impact challenges. Program evaluation involves systematically assessing a program’s design, implementation, or outcomes to inform decisions about improvements, effectiveness, or impact. HEA students work in partnership with county staff, supported by HUP, and contribute to lasting improvements in programs and systems. The program is a meaningful opportunity for students to explore public service careers while building evaluation capacity across the county.
Previous Project Topics
2025
- Assessing and Reducing Data Literacy Gaps of Newer Hennepin County Leaders | The ability to understand and make decisions with data is an essential leadership skill, comparable to communication, problem solving, and crisis management. Graduate student Dana Schmersal is assisting Hennepin County’s Integrated Data and Analytics (IDA) team in helping them to identify data literacy opportunities and needs among leaders and decision makers.
2024
- Streets to Housing Evaluation | Streets to Housing, which launched in August 2022, is Hennepin County’s response to unsheltered homelessness. Streets to Housing provides trauma-informed, housing-focused services for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. In 2024, HEA Student Sonia Harris conducted an evaluation of the program.
- Status Neutral Strategies to Reduce HIV Incidence Among Young Black Men | While Minnesota has seen an overall decrease in HIV incidence in recent years, incidence rates among populations of color continue to rise: specifically, incidence among Black men ages 15-34. To bolster efforts to reach this community, HEA Student Mary-Jayne Adole supported Hennepin County’s efforts to develop, implement, and evaluate status neutral (SN) strategies that provide culturally affirming, stigma-free, tailored care to address clients’ healthcare and social service needs regardless of their HIV status. This project was led by Hennepin County Public Health with partners Red Door Clinic and Youth and AIDS Projects at the University of Minnesota.
2023
- Affordable Housing Incentive Fund Evaluation | Hennepin County’s Affordable Housing Incentive Fund (AHIF) program funds the development of affordable rental housing units for low-income households. Graduate research assistant Margaret Stumbo-Turvey worked to evaluate AHIF and produce tools for ongoing evaluative work in the future.
- Safe Communities Evaluation | In 2021 Hennepin County created the Safe Communities Department, whose goal is to prevent, reduce, and mitigate gun violence, particularly among youth and young adults in communities of color. Graduate research assistant Mirinda Morency worked with Safe Communities to do an internal scan of violence prevention programs and conduct qualitative research to help build the unit's evaluation capacity.
