Center Lived Experience

• Learn about the Center for Lived Experience
• Watch this Ted Talk

• Share a Think of Us social media post about centering lived experience
• Share a project overview from Our Work at Think of Us with your circles of influence
• Ask groups, organizations, workplaces, grantees, etc. that you are involved with how they center lived experience 
• Invite those with lived experience to speak on a panel, report out findings, or speak at meetings.
• Host a town hall that centers youth voice, ideas, and questions
• Seek out training in trauma-informed care and research.
• At all times, be mindful of the trauma of foster care. When asking sensitive questions, when strong emotions come up, and when intense stories are shared, respond in a trauma-informed way and seek to minimize re-triggering youth.

• Include lived experience in all child welfare work you do. “Nothing about us, without us!”
• Spark a conversation a colleague about strategies to center lived experience in your work
• Integrate people with lived experience as teammates on a project and prioritize their feedback from start to finish.
• Invite participation of people with lived experience through:
• ~One-on-one interviews 
• ~Group interviews, workshops, or co-design sessions
• ~Sharing a prototype, idea, or draft document
• ~Consulting advocacy groups that are composed of people with lived experience
• ~Creating artistic and non-traditional ways for those with lived experience to express their thoughts, like with cultural probes where youth can share a photo, drawing, or poem. 
• ~Inviting youth to share their experiences with a service over time through a diary study.  For example, invite youth to record their experiences interacting with social workers over a month’s time by completing a Google form after each interaction.
• Design a participant or lived experience “peer review.”  If the project produces an idea or report, host a session where project participants or those with lived experience can weigh in on the findings and recommendations.  Incorporate their feedback into the final draft, and weigh it the same as you would another external peer review.
• Ensure all participants know their rights when participating.  Use a “bill of rights” model if applicable.  
• Best practices for working together:
• ~Be very respectful of participants’ time.  Avoid asking them to participate at the very last minute.  
• ~Be mindful of the way you are showing up and of the way that participants are being asked to assimilate. Language matters! 
• ~Compensate all participants fairly, generously, and quickly!  Ensure stipends are sent as fast as possible. Send cash payments whenever possible and avoid gift cards.  Some participants rely on this stipend to meet basic needs.
• ~Make it easy for participants by sending a calendar invite, texting or emailing a reminder the morning of the event, and making the instructions for joining clear.
• ~Put as much power in the participants’ hands as possible. Allow them to be on or off video, ask their own questions, end the session early, take a break, etc.
• ~Conduct a read-out session with those with lived experience who participated in the project. Make sure that those with lived experience who participated in the project understand the outcomes of the project.
• Close the loop! Let participants know what happened with the project and what their experience informed/produced.

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Prioritize people with lived experience in the research, design, and implementation of policy changes through offerings such as:

• Integrated Research and Design Process:  Design a campaign. Build a new department. Develop and offer services. Inform policy. Apply immediate improvements to practice. Explore and scope a problem, as well as design interventions that address the problem at hand, while directly centering individuals with lived experience at every stage in the process.  ‍
• Research Process: Map out the aging out process for transition age youth. Uncover the challenges youth face in applying for housing vouchers. Understand the perspectives of youth on group care. ‍
• Build Proximity: Gather insights, ideas, and feedback on a new service you plan to roll out, a new position that will interface with foster youth, or a campaign that you want to launch.