12 minutes
Your commitment: the two questions in practice Turn the course's two guiding questions into a habit you actually use, and commit to one concrete place you will apply it.
What you’ll be able to do Apply the toolkit question — what harm was this meant to stop, and who besides the wrongdoers might it reach — to a real situation in your own work, and commit to using it again. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most useful contribution you can make to this draft? Document a next step for Your commitment: the two questions in practice: Apply the two-question habit to one program integrity item, in the news or at work, within the next week, and tell the colleague you named what you found. A habit, not a debate position Across this course, two questions have done the actual work: what harm was this decision meant to prevent, and who besides the wrongdoers does it actually reach? These are not two sides of an argument to be weighed against each other and resolved into a single verdict. They are two facts that are both true at the same time, in nearly every real program integrity action. Fraud enforcement that ignores the first question tolerates real harm. Fraud enforcement that ignores the second question causes real harm of its own. Holding both is simply an accurate description of what a program integrity decision actually does.
This applies well beyond program integrity news. It applies to a screening requirement your unit is asked to communicate, a review your team is asked to help design, or a policy question raised in a meeting. The habit is the same size regardless of scale: name the harm being addressed, and name who else the response reaches.
Where to apply the habit this week A program integrity story in the news: what specific harm does it describe, and who else does the response affect?
A policy or screening change proposed in your own unit: same two questions, applied internally.
A conversation with a colleague who states only one half of the picture: ask the question that surfaces the other half.
A notice or communication you are asked to review: does it name what is happening and who it reaches, or only one of the two?
Name both halves out loud What you can change You control whether a conversation about program integrity, in a meeting or at your desk, states only the harm being addressed or also names who else the response reaches.
What to watch for Do not let a one-sided description pass unremarked, in either direction: neither minimizing real fraud nor ignoring real harm to people not involved.
Your next step The next time program integrity comes up in your work, say the sentence that names both: what this addresses, and who else it reaches.
I used to think being fair to the honest providers meant going slower on the fraud. It took me a while to see they're not actually in tension if you scope the response to the evidence.
Composite staff perspective, illustrative Commitment: “The program integrity item I will examine this month is… The harm it addresses is… Who else it might reach is… The colleague who will ask me what I found is…” Write it now.
Carry this forward The two-question habit — what harm was this meant to prevent, and who besides the wrongdoers does it actually reach — works on program integrity news, a policy proposal, or a decision inside your own team.
Writing the commitment down, naming a specific process and a specific colleague who will ask about it, is what separates an intention from a habit.
Holding fraud's real cost and enforcement's real cost together is not a compromise position between two sides; it is the accurate description of what is actually happening.
A scenario applying the two-question habit to a real-shaped internal decision, and a written commitment.
Apply the two-question habit to one program integrity item, in the news or at work, within the next week, and tell the colleague you named what you found.
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Previous lesson Back to course Carry this into practice Real fraud causes real harm. So does enforcement that isn't careful. Both are true at once, and DHS staff need to hold both.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
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.
