Dr. Tami Gouveia, director of the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health at BU School of Social Work, recently appeared on WBUR’s On Point to discuss the ways President Donald Trump and Congress have been using the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda to inform executive orders and policy.  

Despite President Trump’s assurances that he had nothing to do with Project 2025 during his campaign, analysis reveals that the vast majority of the president’s executive orders so far were also proposed in either Project 2025 or the First Agenda.  

Excerpt from “How closely is Trump following the Project 2025 blueprint?” by Paige Sutherland and Meghna Chakrabarti:  

“When we [the Beyond 2025 team] did our deep dive, we really looked at both Project 2025 and the America First Agenda to really have a comprehensive look at what’s happening with the Trump administration and also with our new Republican led Congress as well, because they’ve taken up a number of the issues that are in both of these policy roadmaps. So that’s why we wanted to do a deep dive into both of them.  

We estimate that a large majority of the executive orders really tie closely to what’s in our database and what comes out of Project 2025 and America First.”  

Listen to the full episode here.

 In the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidential term, the administration has made sweeping cuts to the government workforce and drafted dozens of executive orders in the name of government efficiency.  In a recent news story for French-Canadian outlet La Presse, Dr. Tami Gouveia, CISWH director and Paul Farmer professor of the practice, explains how the Trump administration uses Project 2025 as a roadmap for these policy decisions. 

Excerpt from “Des coupes fracassantes”, originally posted on La Presse:  

Avec sa petite équipe, elle a conçu une base de recherches, Beyond 2025 Action Hub, pour répertorier les propositions du Projet 2025 et de l’America First Policy Institute, un autre groupe conservateur influent, et les politiques gouvernementales. 

« Je pense que ceux qui l’ont écrit ont réussi à rendre le Projet 2025 plus acceptable, avec les mots qu’ils ont utilisés, et des concepts devant lesquels on se dit : c’est vrai que c’est sensé de vouloir rendre le gouvernement plus efficace, analyse Mme Gouveia, ancienne membre de la Chambre des représentants du Massachusetts. Mais le diable est dans les détails. Et c’est ce qu’on voit. » 

Read the full article here. 

Boston University’s Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH) was featured in a recent news story for its partnership with the Amal Alliance. CISWH is the lead evaluator of Colori Playspace Express, a trauma-informed mobile classroom that supports the emotional well-being and development of young immigrant children experiencing homelessness across Massachusetts. CISWH will share evaluation results later this year.  

On MassLive, Danielle de la Fuente, executive director of the Amal Alliance, shared how the project fosters stability and resilience among the children participating in the program.  

Excerpt from “More than 600 homeless children have boarded this eye-catching bus. Here’s why it matters” originally posted on MassLive: 

The brightly painted bus, known as the Colori Project, brings early childhood education directly to children living in Massachusetts’ emergency shelters. Since its launch, the bus has reached more than 600 children, offering play-based learning focused on social-emotional growth. Each session incorporates mindfulness, storytelling, and expressive activities designed to help children process trauma and build foundational skills. Amal Alliance leads the project in collaboration with Horizons for Homeless Children and Neighborhood Villages, working alongside the Healey-Driscoll administration to bring critical developmental resources to families in crisis. 

Read the full article here. 

As tax and budget cuts, deportations, and a flurry of executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion become the new norm, social workers find themselves on the frontlines of a growing crisis. In a recent op-ed for My Social Work News, Dr. Tami Gouveia, director of the Center for Innovation in Social Work & Health (CISWH) at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), issues a powerful call to action. Gouveia outlines how policies stemming from Project 2025 and the America First Agenda are already having severe consequences for marginalized communities. Dr. Gouveia urges social workers to meet this moment with bold, collective leadership grounded in ethics and solidarity. 

Excerpt from “America at a Crossroads” by Tami Gouveia, published in My Social Work News: 

“This is just the beginning. It has been hard to watch and absorb that we are living in a new reality. Understandably, many who are in a position to say something or to take action are afraid to because of the very real repercussions. And sometimes, when the work day is done, it feels easier to look away and tune out.  

But we must bear witness to the programs and aspects of civil society that are being decimated. Staying tuned in helps us better understand what we are losing, what we need to try to save, and what we will need to rebuild when the embers of the scorched earth approach taken by the new administration and DOGE eventually flame out.” 

Read the full article here. 

Since the 2025 presidential inauguration, President Trump has signed an overwhelming number of executive orders, many of which follow proposals in Project 2025 and the America First Agenda. Prof. Tami Gouveia, director of the Center for Innovation in Social Work in Health (CISWH) at BU School of Social Work (BUSSW), built the Beyond 2025 Action Hub to track these policies as they move through congress or cross the president’s desk. Speaking to BU Today, Prof. Gouveia explains how social workers and public health professionals can use the Action Hub to better understand how orders and policy proposals impact their communities.

Excerpt from “BU Social Work Professor’s Database Tracks Trump Executive Orders Compared to Project 2025 and America First Agenda” by Rich Barlow:

Prof. Tami Gouveia leads a team of 10 part-time people—SSW staff and students—working on the database, which went live January 21, one day after Trump’s inauguration. “Project 2025 has gotten a lot of the attention, but the America First agenda is just as extreme. There’s a lot of overlap,” says Gouveia, who joined BU in 2023 after a career that included two terms in the Massachusetts State House of Representatives.

“We were noticing that in social work and public health, colleagues across the country didn’t know what was in Project 2025,” Gouveia says. “I decided we need to help everyday people—not just social workers and public health practitioners, but really everyday people—understand what’s in here. We’ve been breaking it down into bite-sized pieces.”

Read the full article here.

As the United States House and Senate prepare to debate the 2025 budget bill recently passed by House Republicans, cuts to Medicaid spending could total hundreds of billions of dollars. Medicaid, the largest health insurance program in the US, covers more than 70 million people. Meg Comeau, senior project director at the Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health (CISWH) at BU School of Social Work (BUSSW) explained to MotherJones how Medicaid funding cuts will deepen health disparities, particularly for marginalized populations.  

Excerpt from “Trump’s Medicaid Cuts Would Leave Millions of Americans Without Health Care” by Julia Métraux: 

The truth of the matter is that most disabled people on Medicaid qualify due to income, which puts them at the highest risk for losing coverage if Republicans decide they’re not “poor enough” to cover. The approval process for [Supplemental Security Income (SSI)] can take years, with tens of thousands of applicants dying annually while on wait lists. That leaves many disabled people too sick to work before the government agrees they’re “disabled enough,” if they end up qualifying at all. 

And while cuts to Medicaid will be devastating for tens of millions of Americans, said Meg Comeau of Boston University’s Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health, “We won’t be able to get a good handle for a while on how many people are in those optional categories whose coverage has been taken away.” 

Read the full article here.