Why LIved Expertise Matters
People with lived expertise offer a valuable partnership across systems change work. They offer insight into how the system directly impacts the community it was designed to serve. The participation of people with lived experience offers a cohort the chance to design equitable solutions by offering those directly impacted a seat at the table.
A person with lived experience is someone who has lived (or is currently living) with an issue caused by inequity. The presence of people with lived expertise transforms a cohort by moving broader participants away from looking at a community through the lens of scarcity and need, and to instead see them as real people with a voice and experience that can draw a more complete picture of the system a cohort is trying to improve to become more responsive.
According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, directly consulting with people who have the lived experience of homelessness is vital to ending chronic homelessness.
As RE!NSTITUTE moves into the launch of the CA Encampment Cohort next month, CEO Sean Whitten is committed to elevating the voices of people with lived experience in having equitable access to a seat at the table they will be discussed at.
“Our work is about placing the people in need at the center of the institutions designed to help them. A person who needs housing will be at the heart of re-thinking how the housing and homelessness system works…or a woman suffering violence, at the center of how the criminal justice system supports her. One way we can center these voices is by inviting people with lived experience to be a part of the chorus of voices that inform deep systems change work.”
This Year on Giving Tuesday
This year on Giving Tuesday, we’re rallying to raise $4,000 to pay for the expertise of those with lived experience on our 100-Day Challenge teams. Their knowledge and experience is a critical component to coming up with solutions in their communities, and like others on their team they should be paid for their time, expertise, and knowledge. We’ll use the dollars that we raise to pay for the expertise of four team members on the upcoming California Encampment 100-Day Challenge Cohort.
For Echo Collins-Egan, RRI’s Chief Impact Officer, the voice of those with lived experience is critical to real systemic change.
“Our work is about placing the people in need at the center of the institutions designed to help them. A person who needs housing will be at the heart of re-thinking how the housing and homelessness system works…or a woman suffering violence, at the center of how the criminal justice system supports her. One way we can center these voices is by inviting people with lived experience to be a part of the chorus of voices that inform deep systems change work.” - Echo Collins-Egan
Your support can help us transform systems with people power driving how change happens. This Giving Tuesday we're inviting you to be a part of this change by going to our website and donating, to pay those who have experienced homelessness for their expertise and honor their effort which is so essential to building the systems that truly work for those they serve.
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Sarah Robens becomes the new CEO of RE!NSTITUTE
We are delighted to share THIS REPORT which outlines how the 100-Day Challenge methodology has supported over 100 teams in 24 Mexican cities in 14 states in 7 years, as well as teams in the Dominican Republic and Honduras, to operationalize a people-centered approach to support the resolution of thousands of criminal cases, improve the quality of victims’ services, prevent femicides and build belief and momentum in change across Mexico and Latin America. We share people- driven innovations that have supported these results and how they were created. We analyze the lessons learned, including where we have fallen short and what the approach can teach us all about how we balance the inherent tension between the need for short-term results and the long hard journey to more accountable and fair justice systems everywhere.
A look back at our role as a founding partner of Nesta's People Power Results program as they reflect on 10 years of work.
Multi-sector approaches to homelessness response have been proven effective at more quickly and efficiently addressing homelessness in communities across the country. The research literature suggest ways of tackling the complexity of multi-sector coordination, and here we highlight examples from past 100-Day Challenges where communities have woven together expertise and services from their housing, healthcare, employment and education sectors.
Starting in October 2022 and ending in February 2023, Palm Beach County(PBC) Conducted a 100-Day Challenge® to both house and connect to service people experiencing homelessness and living with HIV.
That is our objective (to protect women and save lives). This innovation was born because we had a crisis on our hands of missing persons; It all started with a viral post through social media for a missing young woman.
Our 100-Day Challenges produce amazing ideas, innovations, and actions that create meaningful change, helping our teams achieve their unreasonable but believable goals. These innovations can be small or large, disruptive, or the start of a slight ripple; some are temporary, and others permanent. However they work, they all make things different, affecting systems in such a way that the changes we see as a result of a 100-Day Challenge last.
Treatment of wounds is a prerequisite for entering shelters and residential recovery programs. Most shelters have strict rules around substance use, which can be a barrier to entry for some; treating wounds is a first step toward recovery. Untreated wounds can lead to infection and, in extreme cases, amputation. This increases long-term health needs and can make permanent housing placement more difficult.
"Holy moly, it was, like, a pop!" - Christy McCammond, Program Manager at Merced County Human Services Agency
As a part of our journey to make equity a central part of what we do and an actionable part of our internal and external policies and practices, we hope to be transparent and share highlights of what we’ve learned and unlearned. We will be the first to own that this is a journey without a reachable destination, and we humbly acknowledge how far we still have to go but share these lessons in the hope that they will be helpful to others on their own equity journeys.
Catalyzing frontline staff to create successful, innovative solutions to complex challenges is a positive step in itself. But when those innovations are taken and adopted in a different area, the impacts are massively increased, and the possibility of wide-scale, systemic change starts to become a reality. This is what happened with one of the innovations generated through RE!NSTITUTE's 100-Day Challenge methodology.
Rapid Results Institute has now become RE!NSTITUTE, still offering the same impactful methodologies and partnerships.
Bringing together four California communities to discover new pathways to helping vulnerable populations move toward safe and stable housing.
“People deserve a seat at the table they’ll be discussed at.” – Sean Whitten, RE!NSTITUTE CEO