Transforming Together: Implementation Guide
Key Component: Co-Created Outcomes Engaging those with lived experience and other community interest-holders is already an expectation for California agencies serving children, youth and families. However, in practice, these processes are often carried out inconsistently or without the structures needed to enable agency partners to authentically and comprehensively involve community members and seek input and advice on needs. Public agencies often struggle to build consistent, meaningful relationships with historically underserved communities—and also to involve these communities in any shared, authentic decision-making. 11 Reasons include: • Historical mistrust and harm: Many communities—particularly Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color—have experienced decades of systemic exclusion, surveillance, and harm at the hands of public institutions. This legacy of inequity and broken promises fosters deep mistrust, making it difficult for agencies to engage residents who have little reason to believe their voices will be heard or valued. • One-sided engagement practices : Agencies often rely on transactional or tokenistic outreach methods, such as town halls or surveys, that solicit input without redistributing decision-making power. These methods may check a box but don’t reflect the kind of relationship-building or shared governance that communities seek. Without clear roles, follow-through, or accountability, community members may feel their participation is performative or inconsequential.
Using “macrodata” to learn and set priorities: Essential… and legal Personally identifiable data are sometimes referred to as “microdata.” These include individual student assessment results, youth case plans, and other records tied to specific children, youth, or families. Aggregated and de-identified information—or “macrodata”—is often built from microdata but used at the system level. County leaders rely on this type of information to understand community needs, evaluate services, guide investments, and meet state and federal reporting requirements. One of the biggest barriers to local government agencies sharing data with each other has been a widespread perception that most data are too sensitive to share, even when it has been stripped of personal identifiers and is being used for big-picture planning. These concerns have led to delays, missed opportunities, and the repeated creation of new processes to solve the same problem: How can we use data to improve outcomes across systems? County and agency leaders should recognize that most de-identified data can be shared without issue. In fact, much of these data are already available through public reports and state-required submissions. Indeed, in many cases, formal data-sharing agreements between agencies may not even be necessary, and they should never become a barrier to moving forward with timely, coordinated improvements.
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