How to Lead with Integrity in Stakeholder Engagement WorkLessons from Third Sector's Work with California's Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health (CCJBH) Superior Region Lived Experience Project
Many people who have had contact with the criminal-legal system are also struggling with behavioral health challenges. Approximately 80% of people incarcerated in California have a substance use disorder, and 36% are living with a mental illness (CCJBH 2023 Annual Report). Yet among those released, behavioral health service utilization remains low. This gap points to the urgent need for coordinated, integrated care between the behavioral health and criminal-legal systems.
From December 2024 to April 2025, Third Sector collaborated with the California Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health (CCJBH) to form and support the Superior Region Champions Council to develop ways to build meaningful integration between criminal-legal and behavioral health systems. The Champions Council, comprised of community advocates from Northern California counties, including Sacramento, Nevada, Tehama, Lake, and El Dorado aimed to meaningfully elevate the voices of young people and adults with lived experience in behavioral health and criminal-legal systems, provide training on advocacy skills, and encourage engagement in local efforts to help shape policies and practices within and between the two systems.
To ensure that the Council met its goal, Third Sector conducted a series of community engagement activities to build trust, sustain connection, and navigate a condensed timeline, while remaining accountable to the voices of those most directly impacted by the behavioral health and criminal-legal systems. Below are six key lessons learned on how to lead with integrity during stakeholder engagement processes to build authentic power-sharing structures.
Lessons Learned: How to lead Stakeholder Engagement with Integrity
1. Center Lived Experience in Every Decision
This project was grounded in the recognition of the participants’ lived experience to increase intentional involvement and accessibility, and reduce participation barriers in stakeholder engagement activities, including skill-building workshops. Centering lived experiences requires building trust in a short timeframe with consistency and care. We prioritized trauma-informed facilitation to create space for honest conversations, knowing sensitive topics would arise. Our client’s trust and support of our vision created the conditions for a strong partnership and a successful lived experience project where community voices were meaningfully integrated into every stage of the work.
2. Create Opportunities for Connection
Equally as importantly, we made space for participants to build relationships with each other, recognizing that peer connection not only strengthens group cohesion but also deepens engagement. One of the most powerful outcomes of this was that participants created their own listserv to stay connected after the project concluded—a reflection of the solidarity that emerged from the work. Internally, a clear and intentional workplan with defined workstreams helped us clarify team roles, supported adaptability, and allowed us to meet community members where they were while delivering high-quality work on time.
3. Lead with Flexibility, Care, & Trust
Participants regularly faced real-life challenges, such as housing instability, caregiving, grief, and job responsibilities, that directly shaped their ability to engage. Our team demonstrated flexibility by adjusting timelines, workshop curriculum, and facilitation approaches to stay responsive and effective. We were extremely mindful of giving participants plenty of time to respond to our communications, intentionally pushing back against an urgent-culture environment that often leads to burnout. To reduce barriers to participation, we asked participants about their preferences, including meeting times, in-person versus online gatherings, technology knowledge and access, accommodation needs, food preferences, and sensitive topics to approach with care.
Our Champions Council Welcome Guide reflects this transparent and clear communication, setting expectations for participants to feel supported from the start. In. We also anticipated that, despite our best efforts, some participants would need to step away due to shifting personal circumstances. Rather than treating attrition as a failure, we accepted it as part of the process and focused on maintaining a supportive environment for all participants throughout their time with us.
“The Third Sector team made us feel safe, valued, respected, and welcome.”
“Thank you for creating this space for us and embracing this process with us."
4. Use Feedback Loops to Drive Continuous Improvement
We treated feedback as a cornerstone of the engagement process. After every workshop, participants shared how they felt it went, what could be better, and what they enjoyed. Feedback drove real-time changes in how we facilitated and what we prioritized for the following workshops. This constant loop of listening and adapting made the process feel genuinely collaborative. It also acknowledged that participants were experts in their own experience, and that their insights should shape how we move forward.
5. Create Opportunities for Skill-Building
Rather than assuming what the participants need without their input, workshops and skill-building sessions should be responsive to the needs and interests of the group. While each workshop had a core focus, the content of the session was tailored to the lived experiences within the group. The workshop, Establishing Connection & Building Meaningful Relationships, centered on building trust, while our Advocacy Planning Summit workshop focused on skill-building in communication, conflict resolution, and power mapping. During Advocacy Implementation: Planning & Sustaining Advocacy Efforts, we emphasized a long-term strategy for sustainability beyond our engagement. When energy surfaced around a topic or peer sharing revealed the need for deeper exploration, we created space for it. This approach honors lived expertise by increasing content relevance, making for stronger group ownership of the curriculum. Throughout the process, it was clear that participants brought rich insights and leadership that shaped the direction and depth of the conversations.
6. Provide Compensation to Build Power
Participants were compensated for their time, expertise, and leadership in recognition of the value they brought to the process. We developed a Stipend Distribution Best Practices Guide— shaped through conversations with community organizations in California— to ground our approach in transparency and care. This included being clear that stipends would be considered taxable income and encouraging participants to set aside funds and, if possible, consult a tax advisor. We honored our original compensation commitments, even amid contract changes, to improve potential financial hardships, build trust, and appropriately value systems change work. Transportation stipends were provided on top of the base stipend amount to reduce the financial burden of travel. To ensure the process remained supportive rather than punitive, stipends were structured with flexibility. We approached attendance with trust, recognizing that participants were best positioned to know when other priorities needed their attention.
Third Sector would like to express our deepest gratitude to the members of the Champions Council for dedicating their time and expertise to this project. Their advocacy for improving the behavioral health and criminal-legal systems positively impacts their communities in countless ways.
Contact Will Rhett, Managing Director, Behavioral Health (wrhett@thirdsectorcap.org) or Michael Berton, Manager, Projects and Partnership Development (mberton@thirdsectorcap.org) for more information about this work or to find out how Third Sector can support your state’s efforts.
