The Art of Adaptive Facilitation: Lessons from the FieldLessons from Third Sector's Work with REINVEST, Sutter-Yuba iCare, and the California MHSOAC
Government projects rarely unfold exactly as planned. Funding shifts, capacity varies, and data and operations are often messier than expected. For consultants and public partners, success depends less on sticking rigidly to scope and more on practicing adaptive facilitation—the art of adjusting scope, style, and role to meet clients where they are, while still delivering impact.
At Third Sector, we’ve seen this play out across projects of every size and context. Whether stepping back to address foundational capacity issues, loosening rigid processes to prioritize authentic presence, or designing tools that account for local differences, adaptation has been central to achieving meaningful outcomes. Our work from three past projects with REINVEST, Sutter-Yuba iCare, and the California MHSOAC illustrate what adaptive facilitation looks like in practice.
Lessons from Third Sector's Work with Texas REINVEST, Sutter-Yuba iCare, and MHSOAC FSP
REINVEST: Building From the Ground Up
REINVEST (Rural Employers Infuse Vital Economic Success in Texas) was a $12 million workforce initiative led by Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area to expand career opportunities in health care, skilled trades, finance, and IT across six rural Texas counties. Funded through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Good Jobs Challenge, the initiative aimed to connect more than 700 workers to high-quality jobs. Third Sector provided technical assistance on system design, equity, sustainability, and evaluation.
We began the REINVEST project ready to focus on strategy — facilitating sector partnerships, shaping sustainability plans, and helping stakeholders strengthen their collaboration model. However, it soon became clear that Workforce Solutions Rural Capital Area and its local backbone partners had different levels of facilitation experience, varying levels of data skills and capacity, and weren’t fully aligned on priorities or processes.
The team shifted gears. Rather than pushing a strategy, we focused on building facilitation and data capacity across partners — helping them clean and make sense of data, strengthen coordination, and develop tools to identify and address implementation challenges in real-time. Through continuous-improvement workshops, the team introduced frameworks like root cause analysis and “How Might We” exercises to help partners reflect on what was working and where adaptations were needed.
We also supported the creation of a Sustainability Plan, a practical roadmap that clarified roles, timelines, and funding strategies across partnerships. This process helped partners identify new funding sources to sustain programs beyond ARPA dollars and align their next steps.
“We didn't stick to scope; we tailored to the client. At one time, we were working with two different backbone organizations and had to approach each differently, which involved a lot of relationship building. We meet them where they are, go the extra mile, and are open and honest. Lots of zoning out to big picture strategic thinking"
"The sustainability plan gave them a template and a plan of action. It started the conversation for them to be strategic in making decisions and coordinating."
By slowing down to strengthen these fundamentals, partners were able to zoom out and make more strategic decisions. It also allowed them to advance equity goals in a politically complex environment by reframing the language around “underserved communities” in ways that resonated locally.
Strategic impact often depends on addressing fundamentals first. Adaptive facilitation means slowing down, reordering priorities, and establishing a solid foundation before moving forward.
Sutter-Yuba iCare: Presence Over Process
iCare (Integrated Care Across Reentry) was a California-based Full Service Partnership (FSP) pilot project, part of Sutter-Yuba Behavioral Health, designed to provide wraparound behavioral health services for people with complex needs, including individuals experiencing homelessness, trauma, or substance use challenges. The program’s relationship-centric model focused on engaging people who often struggle to connect with traditional systems, meeting them where they are and rebuilding trust through consistency and care. Third Sector collaborated with county and provider partners to evaluate iCare’s impact through the perspectives of those receiving services. The goal was to understand what success meant from participants’ point of view, not just through program metrics.
"They don't really teach the quality of presence when someone is sharing something, and being willing to be moved by it. Sometimes that means ditching the script."
The evaluation relied on qualitative interviews with individuals ranging from former behavioral health consumers to current consumers with severe mental illness. The former behavioral health consumers co-developed elements of the evaluation survey used by county behavioral health teams, ensuring the survey included consumer-defined outcomes, such as a sense of belonging, giving back, and contributing to society. These outcomes reframed “success” as connection and purpose, not just service utilization.
The team also conducted on-site interviews with current consumers in crisis using trauma-informed practices that require flexibility. When engaging participants in crisis or with severe mental illness, rigid scripts could be inappropriate or overwhelming for the community member. Instead, Trauma-Informed Behavioral Health Director Jessica Headley Ternes practiced what she called a “quality of presence” — being present with community members and allowing herself to be visibly moved by stories without placing emotional caretaking on the participants. This included using trauma-informed, conversational interviews, starting with simple check-ins (“How’s your day?”) and allowing stories to unfold at the participant’s pace.
"You're on sacred ground — this person is sharing a wound. Being emotionally available in an authentic way means making sure they don't start caretaking you."
Strategic impact often depends on addressing fundamentals first. Adaptive facilitation means slowing down, reordering priorities, and establishing a solid foundation before moving forward.
California Oversight & Accountability Commission: Designing for Diverse Contexts
Full-Service Partnerships (FSPs) are county-run programs in California designed to deliver intensive, wraparound mental health services. To help counties learn from one another and improve service delivery across the state, Third Sector partnered with the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) — since renamed to Commission for Behavioral Health (CBH) — to create a Best Practice Toolkit for FSPs, a practical resource that highlights effective approaches statewide.
The Third Sector team identified the meeting topics in partnership with MHSOAC staff, drawing on findings from the statewide FSP Assessment Project. Building on that foundation, the team used stakeholder sessions to collect feedback, examples, and insights that shaped the toolkit’s structure and content. The goal was to create a resource that is both usable and context-specific, relevant to large urban counties and small rural areas alike.
From the start, team members suggested dividing participants by county size based on prior experience engaging California behavioral health teams. In sessions with a smaller number of participants, all counties remained together. Still, the team was deliberate in how it framed questions to ensure everyone felt comfortable speaking to their unique contexts. This combination of tailored breakout groups and intentional questioning created a peer-learning environment that was inclusive, balanced, and productive.
"We split the participants into larger and smaller county breakouts. In the toolkit, we named what was appropriate for small and big counties."
"We made sure to structure the toolkit so smaller counties weren't discouraged by big counties because of a lack of resources."
That change immediately shifted participation. Rural counties shared candidly about capacity constraints and innovation in resource-limited environments, while larger counties discussed scaling and coordination. This adaptive facilitation approach created a more balanced dialogue that directly shaped the final toolkit.
The final toolkit reflected this approach. It named which practices worked best for different county types, showcased peer examples from across California, and linked resources and training materials for easy use. Designed with usability in mind, it became a living resource that validated diverse experiences instead of prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions.
Adaptation can be built into tools by naming differences upfront and designing resources that fit a range of contexts and capacities.
Cross-Cutting Lessons
Across these projects, a few themes emerge:
- Balance structure with flexibility. Templates, scripts, and toolkits matter — but they must be adaptable to fit the context.
- Relationships are central. Meeting clients where they are requires presence, trust, honesty, and patience.
- Scope will shift. Adaptive facilitation isn’t about avoiding change; it’s about channeling it productively.
- Tools anchor adaptation. From sustainability plans to flexible toolkits, practical tools make adaptation actionable.
Adaptive facilitation isn’t about abandoning rigor; it’s about flexing processes to ensure impact lands. For government partners, the invitation is simple: look at your own projects and ask, Where can scope, style, or role shift to better meet stakeholders where they are?
Because in the end, adaptability is not just a consulting skill. It’s what makes long-term impact possible.
