Casework Resources

In its simplest form, casework is when Members of Congress and their staff work on behalf of constituents to resolve difficulties with federal agencies.

Designing a thoughtful team structure and standard operating procedures is crucial for supporting both constituents and caseworkers.

A solid, welcoming intake process can make the rest of a case easier by building trust with the constituent.

Building professional working relationships with agency liaison staff is critical to a casework team’s success.

Closing a case is the last opportunity to make a good impression with the constituent.

Members of Congress and casework teams have an important ethical obligation to handle constituent data responsibly.

By better understanding what the US government typically does in emergency situations, casework teams can rapidly respond to urgent constituent inquiries.

An introduction to the legislative toolkit available to Congressional offices and tips for caseworkers to build relationships with legislative counterparts, and how casework expertise can contribute to a team’s legislative work.

Incorporating data into casework strategy can offer valuable insights for optimizing efforts, addressing emotional demands, and fostering collaboration among team members.

Analyzing the casework process from a constituent’s perspective can be a helpful tool for casework teams to evaluate their operations.

The redistricting process creates a complicated set of decisions and operations questions related to transferring open cases to constituents’ new representatives.

As the “front door for Congress,” district staff have the challenge of designing and managing an office space where everyone—staff, constituents, interns, and visitors—can feel safe and welcome.

For Congressional staff, especially district staff, it can be difficult to understand the rules around your employment in Congress, and the support offices and institutions available.

Direct constituent service has been part of Congressional responsibility since the nation’s founding, but casework has looked very different through the last two hundred years.

“Administrative burden” describes the obstacles constituents face in accessing benefits that do not reflect their legal eligibility—it also happens to describe a significant proportion of reasons constituents seek casework help from their Members of Congress.

Every government program starts with good intentions—it’s how they’re carried out that can make them fail in big ways or in small ways that add up.

One of the most challenging aspects of casework is when programs and benefits collide. For individuals, these interactions can be confusing; for the economy and government spending as a whole, they can have huge impacts.

Caseworkers' willingness to go above and beyond to help constituents in distress can easily cross over into burnout and compassion fatigue.

Told effectively, the stories constituents share with caseworkers can illustrate problems with existing federal programs or the need for new federal initiatives.

Caseworkers bear witness to the stories of constituents experiencing the federal government. Told effectively, these stories can build support for policy change through legislation and oversight.

In this session, we'll share starting points to integrate interns and fellows into casework tasks, and think strategically about how to use short-term staff to maximize your casework.

This crash course will help caseworkers understand and be an asset to their teams' legislative work, from appropriations to NDAA.

In this overview session, learn how tracking casework data can be a tool to help your team improve your casework process.

The most effective tool caseworkers have at their disposal is a good relationship with an agency contact.

Earmarks can be an effective tool for caseworkers to strengthen relationships with local programs and stakeholders.

In this session, a veteran caseworker shared insights from her casework career and answered questions from new and returning offices.

April 19, 2024

AI tools for casework (including sample prompts) plus a roundup of news stories affecting casework operations.

April 11, 2024

Instead of a roundup of a lot of small articles, we dive a little bit deeper into two big stories that have the potential to really impact casework in different ways, and one fun other project from our team where we’d love caseworker input.

Through constituent service, Members of Congress build public trust and create tangible improvements for constituents — but these interactions must be handled with great care, given the sensitive nature of information disclosed.

February 8, 2024

Upcoming event discussing the findings from American Ingenuity: Congressional Casework in the Afghanistan Withdrawal, casework news, and more!

January 25, 2024

Recording of Casework History webinar featuring Senate Associate Historian Daniel Holt, casework news, and and more!

January 10, 2024

Upcoming webinar with Senate Associate Historian Daniel Holt, casework news, and and more!

December 7, 2023

A checklist to guide Congressional caseworkers through the end-of-year tasks that will let you and your team start 2024 with a clean slate and fresh ideas.

November 22, 2023

Join us for the last in our series of webinars on Unpacking the Causes of Casework: Administrative Burden with Georgetown’s Inaugural McCourt Chair of Public Policy, Professor Donald Moynihan. Plus, news you can use!

November 8, 2023

It’s been a busy week for the Social Security world, including a major hearing in the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on the growing backlog for disability benefits.

One of the most frustrating parts of casework is seeing the same cases come up over and over again. But the recent House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Social Security focused on some of the most sticky, intractable problems of the SSI and SSDI programs.

October 26, 2023

If your office is seeing an uptick in threats, we have a safety guide; if you’re handling Israel/Gaza casework, we have resources; if you’re thinking ahead to November, we have a guide to preparing for a government shutdown. All that and a few agency updates you may have missed.

October 17, 2023

No matter how many times casework teams handle crisis situations, they are uniquely difficult every time. This week's newsletter rounded up a few resources for handling casework abroad, serving constituent needs at home, and taking care of yourselves through a difficult period of casework.

Congressional tech modernizers, innovators, and legislative nerds gathered for the 5th Congressional Hackathon. The event focused on ideas and works-in-progress for how tech can streamline Congressional operations and make Congress a safer, more efficient, and more enjoyable place to work.

Lapses in government funding have happened with enough regularity that it is good practice for Congressional offices to have a plan in place for navigating the challenges of continuing their own operations and serving constituent needs.

September 18, 2023

Depending on the nature of a shutdown, casework teams can expect a significant increase in inquiries from constituents facing delays from agencies operating on minimum capacity, and/or requests for assistance and information from federal employees furloughed.

August 25, 2023

It’s rare to see the staff get the credit they deserve—especially when it comes to casework. This week, we’re thrilled to congratulate the winners of the 2023 Democracy Awards, and as always, there’s a ton of agency news to cover.

August 4, 2023

The Casework Navigator program has been up and running for six months! As we hit this milestone, we wanted to take a moment to round up what we’ve been working on, and some key takeaways from the last few months (and years) of casework.

Katherine Long, POPVOX Foundation’s Casework Programs Senior Fellow, was invited to participate as a delegate of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Technical Assistance Consultancy with the National Assembly of Armenia as part of the the House Democracy Partnership.

July 24, 2023

Agency and casework news, a call for participation in research on professional development opportunities for caseworkers, and an upcoming event with the Schwartz Center on caseworker burnout.

How can caseworkers elevate constituents’ stories and issues while respecting and protecting their privacy and confidentiality? This is a vital question for casework teams to consider in concert with their colleagues on the communications team.

July 14, 2023

Service delivery is a hot topic in the federal government right now—and who better to weigh in than constituent services staff? This newsletter covers some agency developments, some coverage of casework from around the country, and then dive in a little deeper on efforts to modernize and streamline federal services.

How can the Federal Government effectively and responsibly leverage AI to improve Federal services and missions? This question touches on the work that caseworkers do every day at the front lines of how constituents interact with government and the issues or difficulties they experience.

June 14, 2023

There’s no policy without implementation. This newsletter covered district office safety, what we're watching, agency news, upcoming events, additional resources, and more!

May 24, 2023

Coming to DC for the CAO Fly-In Day? Don’t miss our event on modernizing government bureaucracy! Plus, a new blog post and an upcoming webinar focused on making use of interns and fellows to supplement your casework team’s capacity, other upcoming events, and more!

Interns are invaluable for handling typical tasks like answering phones, opening mail, and staffing the front desk. But it can be hard to find appropriate tasks for interns in a casework program where interns can learn new skills and add value to your team without requiring undue amounts of supervision and training.

May 19, 2023

Following the attach on Congressman Connolly’s district office, this newsletter featured ways for caseworkers to share what’s on their mind, and some starting points to think about their team’s safety.

For the true nerds interested in diving into casework studies (a political science specialization that we fervently hope will exist one day), we present an unsolicited wish list of questions we wish scholars would help answer on casework in a US context, and a short reading list of existing scholarship.

New and experienced casework teams consistently bring up questions about handling the non-stop pace beginning in March of 2020 with the repatriation of American citizens at the start of the pandemic, and continuing through stimulus payments, pandemic relief, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and the current passport backlog crisis.

One group that received unaccustomed attention from the Select Committee is Congressional caseworkers — those professional staff, mostly in district offices, who do some of the most direct, accountable work in Congress to solve constituent problems with the federal bureaucracy.

A customized online workshop for new offices to build constituent trust and a strong casework track record from day one

A customized in-person workshop that will critically assess your office’s casework operations

Recently-developed — and Congress-approved — generative AI tools aren’t a magic bullet to fix casework, but they can go a long way toward leveling the playing field, making it easier for new staff to quickly get up to speed and experienced staff to more effectively use their time where it counts the most.

This report presents a narrative account of Congressional casework in the Afghanistan withdrawal, and points to ways that Congress can tap into its strengths to evolve in the 21st century and beyond.

POPVOX Foundation has issued guidance on the implementation of “Recommendation 172,” drawing upon the POPVOX Foundation team’s technical expertise, personal experience as caseworkers, and ongoing interactions with district staff through the Casework Navigator program.

While Congress and the federal agencies in its oversight jurisdiction have changed drastically in the last fifty years, Congressional casework has remained stuck in place. POPVOX Foundation convened caseworkers, researchers, and Congressional advocates to a virtual forum on envisioning the future of casework.

At this ModComm hearing on modernizing constituent services, witnesses, including POPVOX Foundation’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, focused on the need for better technology to streamline the constituent experience, how casework can be used to hold federal agencies accountable for customer service failures, and the importance of supporting the professional staff tasked with this responsibility.

Material que aplica o conceito de casework em perspectiva comparada, especialmente em países que têm o português como idioma oficial