Starting a LEAD Initiative

In any jurisdiction, LEAD begins when even just one person says, “This isn’t working, and I’m committing to finding a better way.” This is the moment when somebody – or some group of people – decides that it must be possible to build a better approach to addressing the crime, public disorder, and human suffering that can stem from unmet behavioral health needs.

Sometimes, the conversation starts when a prosecutor realizes the futility of repeatedly filing charges against people whose unlawful conduct comes from unmet mental health needs or unmanaged substance use. Sometimes, it comes from police officers, who have first-hand experience of the suffering and disorder they see on the streets, and know that most people come out of jail no better off than they went in. Sometimes, officers are almost the only system representatives to have talked to a person cut off from all systems of support, and they can clearly see that other systems have failed to respond to this individual. Sometimes it’s a health department that realizes people are cycling through emergency rooms, psych wards, and jails without ever getting the help they need. Perhaps it comes from racial justice advocates, who recognize that criminalizing poor people with unmet behavioral health needs continues a legacy of racial discrimination and unequal access to resources across the board. Or it may emerge from an existing committee or governing body – a mental health task force, court commission, or a criminal justice coordinating council – whose members have assigned themselves to tackle problems that LEAD is designed to address.

LEAD begins when somebody – no matter their role – lights the spark in a given community. If the idea emerges from an existing committee or a public entity, or if there’s a particular, time-sensitive opportunity, like a potential grant, the process of expanding the conversation may be accelerated. But no matter how it originates, the idea begins to grow by broadening the conversation to include other people in the community who also have a stake in solving the same problem.

The exploration stage is dedicated to gathering information about your community and the needs it might try to meet by implementing LEAD. You might think of this as an outreach and discovery phase, where the community begins to learn about and discuss LEAD, a core group of people intentionally gathers input from a broad array of diverse voices, and you collectively begin to clarify the problems and priorities that LEAD could help address.

Remember that LEAD is intensely local, shaped by local priorities and conditions, and built on local relationships, and it’s important to take a broad view of community engagement. Despite their differing roles or beliefs, many people can be key stakeholders in developing or advancing a LEAD initiative – not just representatives of health and safety agencies, but store owners, business coalitions, nonprofit service providers, residents, elected and appointed officials, civil rights groups, faith leaders, and neighborhood groups.

The stakeholders and outreach methods will vary with every community, but in all cases, the core principle remains: think broadly and inclusively in identifying and engaging the community of people with an interest in the problems LEAD seeks to solve. This means bringing together the very people who might see their work as unrelated to that of other stakeholders, or who might even be historically hostile to one another. Rather than excluding dissenting or skeptical voices from the conversation, it is essential to bring them to the table–360 degrees.

Strong feelings exist on these issues across the political continuum, and they cannot be avoided, so knowing – and not arguing about – what each stakeholder finds most important at the outset can allow for problem-solving and prevent later controversy.

At base, the LEAD approach – with every stakeholder – is to shift the focus and energy: Rather than blaming each other for the problems everyone can see, LEAD asks people to aim higher, together, at the problems they all agree should be fixed.

LEAD is a systems-change initiative, which by definition requires that everybody be willing to make changes in what they think, say, and do. It can be very helpful to state this intention from the start, with every conversation, every interaction.

The insights and information developed through community engagement and data analysis may inform an emerging project plan. It can help sites define, at a minimum, the proposed geographic or jurisdictional boundary, the intended population and its potential size, and the unlawful or problematic conduct your community wants to address in a new way.

Once the essential terms are provisionally defined, your design team can begin designing the operational nuts and bolts of the project: which entities have a formal role in the project as you’re imagining it and need to be involved in the design? At a minimum, this stage typically involves conversations with the relevant law enforcementThe term “law enforcement” is used throughout this toolkit to describe police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and others… More agencies, the prosecutor’s office, public defense, municipal government, public health agencies, nonprofit service providers who operate in the region or who serve the intended population, relevant community leaders, and advocacy groups.

Sometimes, sites might need dedicated help at this stage of development: a design-phase coordinator, a consultant with expertise in designing justice-related partnerships, an experienced facilitator, or a formal LEAD project managerThe Project Manager (PM) is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the LEAD initiative and managing its day-to-day … More. If so, these resources may be cobbled together by in-kind support offered by participating agencies. Sometimes, local grantors or public officials can provide one-time financial assistance for this phase. If it’s likely that the project will need substantial grant funding once the design phase is completed, it can be very useful to bring on a combination project-designer/ grant writer, who can help shape the design while developing a compelling narrative of the project’s history and purpose.

At this stage, a site’s design documents might ideally include a data-informed statement of the problem, the potentially divertible charges, a summary of LEAD as the proposed approach, the initial location and scale, a description of the governing bodies (PCG, OWGThe LEAD Operational Work Group (OWG) is composed of line staff, including mid-level supervisors, who carry out the day-… More, and possible CLTA Community Leadership Team (CLT) is part of the stewardship structure for LEAD. Composed of members who represent multi… More), a list of the essential implementation partners, and a sense of the outcomes you hope to achieve over some defined period of time.

All of this should reflect the insights gleaned from your outreach and data-gathering process; it can be developed through the active collaboration of your design team; and it can be workshopped back to the community and broader partners to ensure that it reflects shared intention.

Once the project’s conceptual design is complete, it is important to communicate with everyone who participated in its development process, letting them know that the project has reached that milestone, thanking them for their participation to date, informing them that the project will communicate again as the process continues, and providing contact information. If a site is considering whether to form a CLT, this is a great opportunity to solicit indications of interest from people who might like to serve in that capacity.