Policy and Practice | June 2022

PRESIDENT’S MEMO continued from page 3

is to ask them to re-live their experi ence, we risk defining them solely by the stresses they have experienced; in doing so, we not only miss the mark on being trauma informed, we may inadvertently limit their own view of what is possible, rather than lifting up their strength and resilience as inherent assets. n Building in feedback loops that show that the ideas and contribu tions coming from the community are not only being heard, but actively integrated into policies and practices. These feedback loops should be frequent, transparent, and celebrated as the community’s “win.” Moreover, we should be proactively asking if the changes we instituted are in fact responsive to the original input and be prepared to adjust again when we have missed the mark. n Being real with communities about the time needed for change to occur, especially for sustainable outcomes to materialize and build on each other. Leaders must be in it

do” or something that some leaders do better than others. As I speak with leaders across the country, it is increasingly clear that the proactive cultivation of community partnerships and deliberate building of a more “collaborative infrastructure” is foundational to shifting structural power. At its core this means: n Modeling what it means to authen tically engage with people. To do so requires leaders to recognize personal agency, actively seeking to under stand the dreams and aspirations that people have for themselves and their family, not just asking them to repeatedly recount their experience with agency services. Learning from people with lived expertise requires that system leaders invest the time—often during nontraditional work hours— to be with the com munity in active listening, and with an openness to exploring alternative paths forward. And, equally impor tant, we need to understand that if the only way we interact with people

for the long haul—always thinking beyond their tenure and working to institutionalize shifts in power dynamics at every level of the agency. These are just some of the ways human services leaders can model what it means for systems themselves to relinquish structural power. We are on this trek together and look forward to learning from each other. To share your stories, please contact Policy & Practice editor, Jessica Garon, at jgaron@aphsa.org. Reference Note 1. For additional insights, check out the new resources and tools collated by Chapin Hall in its System Transformation Through Community Leadership series. https://www.chapinhall.org/ project/system-transformation-through community-leadership/

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