11 minutes

Ask it early: how would this feel and function for the person most affected?

A five-line walkthrough you can copy into your own drafting, agenda or review checkpoint, plus what to do when the answer shows harm has already happened.

What you’ll be able to do

Use a five-line walkthrough at a real checkpoint in your own work to describe how a pending decision would feel and function for the person most affected, and record what you will change and what you will not.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the better way to make the question stick?
Draft a walkthrough for the person most affected for your work, including the decision and the checkpoint, who is most affected, and who is affected differently, what the person must do, and what it costs them.

The question, and what makes it honest

The question is short: how would this feel, and how would it function, for the person most affected? Both halves matter. Function is mechanical — can the person do what is asked, in the time given, with what they have. Feel is not decoration. A process that works on paper but requires somebody to explain a disability to three strangers, or to admit they cannot read the letter, will not be used by everyone who qualifies for it.

Two habits keep the question honest. First, answer in specifics: not “we considered impact,” but “a person with no printer, working days, reading this in a second language, has to return a signed document by the eighth.” Second, say what you will not change and why, in the same breath. A limit named plainly is something colleagues and partners can work around and challenge. A limit left vague is indistinguishable from not caring.

And the question does not replace people. It is what you do before and between the conversations, so that when people with lived and community expertise are in the room — invited early, paid for their time, and told afterward what happened to what they said — their hours are spent on the decisions that are still open.

A walkthrough for the person most affected

Five lines you can copy into a drafting note, a meeting agenda or the review before sign-off. Filled in below for one statewide decision.

The decision and the checkpoint A new annual verification step, answered at the drafting checkpoint before guidance goes to sign-off — not after publication.

Who is most affected, and who is affected differently Everyone who must return the form. Within that: people who do not read English easily, people with no printer or stable mail, people whose disability makes a fixed short deadline hard, and households whose only adult cannot take a weekday afternoon.

What the person must do, and what it costs them Read a two-page letter, obtain one document, sign it, and return it by mail within ten days. Realistically: an afternoon, one trip, one copy, and one call to ask what a term on the letter means.

What happens if they cannot, and who hears about it Services close for non-response. The person hears this from an automated notice. Nobody on the drafting team hears anything unless an appeal is filed.

What we will change, what we will not, and how we will say so Change: accept the document by mail, phone and drop-off; lengthen the window; call before closing. Not changing: the requirement itself, which is set in the program’s rules. Say so plainly in the guidance, the notice and the message to lead agencies.

Copy the five lines into your drafting note, agenda or review checklist. Answer them in specifics for one decision you are working on now, and send the answers with the draft to the people who own the parts you cannot change yourself.

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How to answer each line so it is useful

Use a checkpoint that already exists. The question belongs in the drafting template, the agenda or the review before sign-off, not in a new queue.
Be specific about people without inventing them: describe circumstances the program already knows it serves — language, distance, documentation, work schedule, disability, age, household.
Count in real units: minutes, trips, documents, calls, and days without an answer.
Write the failure path. Most harm in public programs happens in what occurs after somebody cannot complete a step.
Separate what you can decide from what you must hand upward, and name the office that owns each part.
Say what you are not changing and give the reason in the same sentence.

When the answer shows that harm already happened

Name it plainly

Say what happened and who was affected, in the record, without softening it into “challenges” or “lessons learned.” People can tell the difference, and the honest account is what makes everything after it credible.

Tell the people affected

The people who lost time, money or a service are the ones who most need to hear it — in the language they use, through a channel they actually receive. Telling only the people upstream is not accountability.

Fix the design, not only the case

Reopening one case repairs one person. If the design produced the harm, it is still producing it for everyone who never appealed.

Check whether the fix worked

Set a point to look again, with the people affected if they are willing and compensated, and be prepared to report that the first fix was not enough.

Write the answer down

What you can change

You control whether the question is asked while the decision is open, and whether the answer is written rather than spoken.

What to watch for

Do not let the answer live only in a meeting. An unwritten answer cannot be handed to the office that owns the part you could not change.

Your next step

Answer the five lines for one decision this month and send them with the draft.

Which answer to “what happens if they cannot?” is complete enough to act on?

“Participants who do not respond will be closed in accordance with program rules.”

“We recognize this may be difficult for some participants and will monitor the impact.”

“Services close after ten days. The person learns this from an automated notice. Nobody in the program hears about it unless an appeal is filed, so we are adding a call before closure and a regular look at closures by language and region.”

“Staff will use discretion and help participants who reach out.”

Related modules in this learning area

Intercultural practice in public disability services
Public power and institutional impact
Bias, assumptions, and accountability
Participation and voice
Choosing a learning focus

Try a situation

A senior leader likes the question and proposes a new review board: every statewide policy change would go to a standing group that asks how the change would feel for the person most affected. The group would meet monthly. Teams are already waiting on three other sign-offs.

What is the better way to make the question stick?

Create the board. A standing group gives the question authority and consistency.

Attach the question to checkpoints that already exist — the drafting template, the agenda for the decision meeting, the review before sign-off — and expect the answers in writing, with the draft.

State the question as a value in the program plan and trust professional practice to carry it.

Carry this forward

The question works when it is attached to a checkpoint that already exists: a drafting template, an agenda item, the review before sign-off. Left to good intentions, it gets asked after the decision.
Answer in specifics. “We considered impact” is not an answer. What the person must do, in what language, by when, with what proof, at what cost, and what happens if they cannot — that is an answer.
Say plainly what you will not change and why. Cost, law, timeline and system limits are real, and a named limit is something people can plan around and argue with. A vague one reads as indifference.
The question prepares you to work with people; it does not stand in for them. People with lived and community expertise are advisors and co-designers, invited early, paid for their time, and told what happened to what they said.
When the answer shows harm already happened, repair is practical: name it, tell the people affected, fix the design rather than only the case, and check whether the fix worked.

A completed walkthrough guide for a statewide decision, a scenario about where the checkpoint belongs, and a knowledge check on what makes an answer complete.

Put the five lines in the drafting note, agenda or review checklist for one piece of work this month, answer them in specifics, and send the answers with the draft.

Your next step

Where will the question live in your work?

Name the checkpoint that already exists and will carry it

Name what you will send with the draft: the five lines, answered in specifics

Name the person who will ask you for it if you forget

Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.