Society fractures when people fail to address underlying principles, values, and assumptions. CEPA respectfully engages on this level and promotes solutions based on shared values.

If a medical disease is misdiagnosed, the best doctors and most sophisticated equipment cannot cure it. The same is true of public policy, where decisions based on poor or incomplete understanding can lead to new laws that make the situation worse. CEPA follows the money and locates the principles and assumptions hidden in program regulations, identifying where the real problems are and finding changes that can bring about genuine improvement.

A cook may have the best utensils and the desire for a meal, but these do not by themselves produce a good meal. Cooks also need the right ingredients and a recipe. Just so, the best of intentions and the desire for justice do not by themselves produce good social programs. Policy-makers also need correct knowledge about program components and a recipe to understand how the components work or do not work together. At some point in their life, almost everyone has suffered at the hands of somebody who thought they were helping but who did not properly understand the circumstances. Likewise, social policies made with good intentions but incomplete knowledge can be as hurtful–albeit unintentionally, but nevertheless as actually hurtful–as policies intended to hurt.

CEPA prevents these harmful outcomes by providing research that carefully explores the framing of problems and the development of solutions. In proposed programs, we can search for faulty logic and weak assumptions in their design, suggesting improvements to avoid problems before they occur. We can examine existing programs with laudable goals that are not being achieved, identifying sources of the failure and proposing solutions more likely to succeed.