When designing a new initiative, program leads should be clear on what they seek to achieve and how their work will address the issue identified in the exploratory phase of the initiative. Clearly defining an initiative’s core framework—including its vision, mission, and goals—and explicitly outlining how it will address inequities will help program partners identify funding streams, develop inclusive steering committees, and structure the initiative to sustain its focus on equity. Intentionality in the planning phase can also build the infrastructure needed for initiatives to center equity for the long haul. Pivotal planning activities include bringing people with lived experience systems into early planning conversations, establishing formal partnerships and contracts with community-based organizations, and identifying and building capacity to collect metrics that reflect equity goals.

Strategies to Consider

• Tie the initiative to an existing commitment or strategy around racial equity in your community or state. Cast your net broadly to include not only criminal justice partners, but also public health, housing, and other municipal or state agencies and community-based organizations that prioritize racial equity to align related efforts.

• Bring people with lived experience of the criminal justice and behavioral health systems into the planning process from the start to ensure that their perspectives are centered in program design. Pay them for their time. Consider how to ensure traditional stakeholders are willing and able to work in authentic, sustained collaboration with community experts.

• Create a steering committee, workgroup, or advisory group that includes diverse voices from impacted communities and the trusted organizations that serve them. This group should have an explicit charge to guide and oversee work toward racial equity goals, ensuring that the program design and implementation are reflective of community perspectives, needs, and priorities.

• Build in strategies for ongoing, repeated community engagement, including mechanisms for accountability, transparency, and a feedback loop with the community. Recognize that these strategies may need to shift over time as new issues and challenges arise.

• Ensure regular cultural competency/humility and race equity training is a priority for internal teams, key stakeholders, and community members. Offer recurrent (rather than one-off) training and professional development opportunities to educate and raise awareness of issues impacting BIPOC individuals and the historical context that contributes to existing challenges and opportunities.

• Use the right data to measure your progress of decreasing racial disparities and increasing equity.  Identify metrics that align with the target issue identified in the exploratory phase and support partners in reliable data collection (e.g., providing sufficient training, staffing, and technology solutions). Take care to include community-defined metrics of success (e.g., changed lives) rather than a sole focus on moving the needle on disparity measures. Initiative leads should also take time to learn about Tribal data sovereignty and meaningfully partner with Tribal leaders on the categorization, use, and interpretation of data.¹

• Invest in relationship building. Trust is key! Forging relationships in communities with historic mistrust in justice and health systems won’t happen overnight and often requires dedicated staff time and funding. Consider hiring community members to act as liaisons to build trust with the population of focus and enhance community engagement.