Project Summary
Senate Bill 21-118 created an Alternative Response (AR) pilot within Adult Protective Services (APS). The pilot establishes a dual-track model for responding to reports of mistreatment or self-neglect of an at-risk adult. In this model, pilot counties can tailor their response to the level of risk and implement practices to improve collaboration and drive well-being for clients. The pilot is a leading innovation nationally in APS. The Colorado Department of Human Services partnered with the Colorado Lab to rigorously build evidence for AR.
The independent evaluation informs practice and policy development, scalability, and sustainability. The Colorado Lab’s analytic approach included articulating program design, implementation monitoring with learning indicators to guide rapid improvement, and a quasi-experimental design to assess client- and system-level outcomes and determine efficacy of the AR approach for low-risk allegations. The pilot ran from January 2024 through December 2025 in 15 rural and urban counties, with a 6-month follow-up period. A legislative report was submitted by the Colorado Lab to the Colorado General Assembly in January 2026 with a recommendation to scale the AR innovation statewide based on favorable results.
Steps to Building Evidence
The evaluation moved the AR pilot through the evidence-building process starting with program design (Step 1 and Step 2 on the Steps to Building Evidence) and then obtaining initial evidence about implementation through trend analysis of key indicators (Step 3). A quasi-experimental design was used to attain initial evidence of effectiveness (Step 4) on client- and system-level outcomes before and after the dual-track model was introduced in the fifteen pilot counties.
Actionability
Evidence of effectiveness and lessons learned on implementation contribute to the research evidence on best practices in Adult Protective Services in Colorado and nationally. Results of the evaluation directly inform legislation on whether the state expands AR to all Colorado counties and what it will take in policy and practice to strengthen and sustain a dual-track model for at-risk adults experiencing mistreatment or self-neglect.
Get Involved
For more information about working with the Colorado Lab, see Government Partnerships or Research Partnerships.