I have sat in enough planning meetings to know how a beautiful program dies: it requires a Tuesday morning, a working smartphone, English paperwork, and a parent who already trusts the institution. Then we wonder why “engagement is low.”
Families are not hard to reach. Our systems are hard to enter. If we want developmental screening, parent education, and maternal health support to mean something off the slide deck, we have to design for the week a family actually has.
Design for the last mile
That can look like evening cohorts, childcare in the next room, materials in the languages people speak, a CHW who texts a reminder in plain language, and a referral that is a named person rather than a phone tree. None of this is extra. It is the work.
When I speak with clinics, schools, and funders, I ask a simple question: if this family does everything you asked, what will it have cost them — and who is standing next to them while they do it? The answer tells you whether you have a program or a poster.
