Policy and Practice | December 2022

The underlying issues that have created the divide within human services and healthcare are largely structural—financing systems, regulatory requirements, procurement processes—amplified by racial disparities that have gone unaddressed for far too long.

effectiveness, rather than building on the opportunities and common mission. We know that many across the human services sector have figured out ways to advance their mission in this environment and we look forward to identifying success stories from across our collective network that demonstrate what the future can and must look like. We are excited to work collaboratively to create a new way of working and leading within the field, one that helps to align our respec tive efforts and build an approach that equips leaders to understand the structural power we sit with and identifies the key competencies we need to co-develop for leaders to truly work in support of communities in ways that shift that structural power to these communities. The alignment across these important voices will create the conditions and foundation for a stronger, broader collective voice between communities, public agencies, CBOs, and healthcare and public health systems working collaboratively toward the same goal: to more inten tionally align the healthcare and public health systems to address disparities and bring greater equity to the delivery of both health and human services. https://www.social-current.org 2. Oliver Wyman and SeaChange Capital Partners, A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America , 2018, (American Public Human Services Association and Alliance for Strong Families and Communities), p. 25 3. Butler, S. M., Bowen Matthew, D., & Cabello, M. Re-Balancing Medical and Social Spending to Promote Health: Increasing State Flexibility to Improve Health through Housing , (The Leonard D. Schaeffer Initiative for Innovation in Health Policy) 4. Davis, K., Schoen, C., & Strimikis, K. U.S. Ranks Last Among Seven Countries on Health System Performance Measures , (The Commonwealth Fund) 5. Oliver Wyman and SeaChange Capital Partners, A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America , 2018, (American Public Human Reference Notes 1. Social Current,

leaders across the ecosystem to unify as one voice and support a sustainable flip to a new power-sharing paradigm. This work is the precursor to our future goal to develop and imple ment a leadership learning academy for new executive leaders (both CBOs and the public sector) to develop and demonstrate these new competencies; routine learning opportunities across our shared networks and platforms through mentoring, experiential opportunities, and shadowing cross sector leaders; and ideally a range of convening and symposium opportuni ties to further refine and evolve the next generation of human services eco system leaders. Conclusion Today the health and human services ecosystem is working to function effectively in a disruptive environ ment, fueled in part by the pandemic and systemic health inequities. Our newest partnership is one of our col laborative strategies to respond and support leaders across the ecosystem to more effectively address work force challenges and long-standing systemic issues in partnership with community and those with lived experience. The underlying issues that have created the divide within human services and healthcare are largely structural—financing systems, regulatory requirements, procure ment processes—amplified by racial disparities that have gone unaddressed for far too long. Together we intend to better equip leaders to navigate and manage through this very difficult landscape that too often focuses on challenges and obstacles that divide the system and hamper its impact and

seat. At the same time, we will work to enable both public and CBO leaders to exercise their influence over the policy, practice and fiscal changes required to develop and sustain high-impact, equi table, community-led solutions that lead to long-term, positive outcomes in population health and well-being. Our Approach To create this sea change in how health and human services leaders (public and community-based) work together across system boundaries and within communities to address struc tural racism, while also addressing the financial challenges of the sector, our work will include a multifaceted process to leverage the learning and systems-level thinking of our combined network of more than 20,000 human services professionals. Intentionally embedding commu nity voice and power sharing in the design, development, implementation, and evaluation is essential. Working together, and in partnership with community, our work will infuse data- and field-informed practices within the framework that will allow us to achieve a stronger, healthier, and more impactful human services ecosystem that can better serve all people. Beginning in early 2023, our teams will work together to unearth and synthesize information from existing literature, focus groups, and other engagement opportunities, which will serve as the foundation for the leader ship framework and a strategy to infuse and embed these key competencies throughout human-serving organiza tions, both for CBOs and the public sector. Ultimately, the intent is to instill patterns of behavior that can equip

Services Association and Alliance for Strong Families and Communities)

6. Gawthrop, E. The Color of Coronavirus: COVID-19 Deaths by Race and Ethnicity in the U.S. , (APM Research Lab).

December 2022 Policy&Practice 25