Trust the People: JCPH’s Journey Toward Community-Led Change
A story about shifting from a traditional planning model to a collaborative approach grounded in shared leadership, trust, and deep community engagement.
Systems Design Lab helps social sector organizations use systems thinking and human-centered design to collaborate, innovate, and amplify their community impact. We work with technical tools, but we focus most on people. We are really good at bringing together diverse perspectives to make radical changes that lead to radical social change.
Now more than ever, supporting each other and leveraging strengths is essential. We shared a bit about how we approach this at SDL last week. If you’re interested in learning more about your own strengths and motivations, and how they influence your relationships, come hang out with us TODAY at 12 pm ET for Why They Do That (and Why You Do, Too): A Real-Talk Session on Relationship Intelligence. You’ll walk away with some new ideas to try and an opportunity to take the SDI assessment.
TL;DR // Jackson County Public Health teamed up with SDL to try a new approach to community health planning that focused less on check-the-box processes and more on working with the community. Together, we launched InCoLab, brought together partners from across sectors, and hosted a Community Innovation Summit that helped people connect, build trust, and take action on shared priorities. The result was a more connected, confident team ready to lead meaningful change alongside their community.
This week, we’re digging into a project we worked on in 2023. SDL had the opportunity to work with an inspiring team at Jackson County Public Health (JCPH) as they launched a bold new initiative: InCoLab, a community health innovation lab rooted in systems thinking and collaboration. This week, two years out from our direct work with the team, we shared this post with a JCPH team member to get her feedback.
I just looked over your post, and it was like memories flooding back in! What a journey – it seems very accurate of our journey together. I’ve been leading our strategic plan team and efforts this past year, and reading this reiterated that your approach and support has stuck with us, it has truly set a foundation for our thinking and approach here.
At a time when public health departments across the country are facing shrinking resources, polarized political environments, and waning institutional support, JCPH is a source of inspiration. Their commitment to collective action, community leadership, and systems-level change is exactly the kind of work needed to meet the moment. We are really grateful they trusted us to play a small part in it.
JCPH came to us ready to break the mold. They didn’t want another compliance-driven plan; they wanted to accelerate innovation through a systems-focused, community-centered process that prioritized collective action. We helped them organize a multi-sector steering team, identify top priorities from their recent community health assessment, and launch collective action “labs” to address them. These efforts culminated at the inaugural Community Health Summit.
The Design Challenge
Like many public health departments, JCPH is required to complete a Community Health Improvement Plan. But this time, they didn’t want to just check the boxes. Inspired by MAPP 2.0, they sought a new approach that would engage community partners more equitably and tackle systemic barriers head-on.
Instead of “doing for,” they committed to “doing with.” That meant letting go of linear planning in favor of complexity, ambiguity, and co-creation. Their goal was to deepen relationships with under-engaged partners and build a foundation for collective action rooted in community priorities.
Leaders across public health, mental health, early education, housing, legal aid, libraries, and philanthropy accepted an invitation to work differently and joined the Innovators Network, a smaller steering team responsible for driving change forward. Their goals:
Use data to identify priority areas to advance health equity
Shift JCPH’s role from implementer to convener of community-led change
What We Built Together
We began by helping the JCPH core team clarify their vision and define big-picture milestones. the result was the arc of work below. SDL focused on supporting the team through the launch of the “labs,” at which time the JCPH team would take over the facilitation of two working groups focused on different community health outcomes.
Design Principles That Stuck
When we were getting started, we co-created guiding design principles to inform how we thought about each engagement with community members. Instead of abstract values, we focused on how the work should look and feel, translating ideals into actionable design choices. They were:
Bring the user into the room
Do intentional equity checks
Learn by doing
Hold space for routine reflection
Check on our community agreements
Apply a systems approach
Co-design with our participants
Core Team Clarity and Structure (Without Rigidity)
We also spent a lot of time setting the JCPH team up for success. The team members came from multiple departments, so we implemented tools like shared notes and flexible agendas to support collaboration. Shared notes and flexible tools gave the team a central “home” for their work, providing structure without stifling creativity. Then, we set up a cadence of design and reflection meetings to support the JCPH team as they convened their Innovators Network.
We co-designed retreats and monthly meetings that the JCPH team would eventually design on their own. We prioritized supporting these spaces because they helped shape a shared vision for the InCoLab, build strong community agreements, and foster internal champions through ongoing reflection and learning. One important step with the Innovators Network was setting up community agreements. (We like to adapt the National Equity Project’s approach because it leads to clear practices rather than concepts.)
Leaders Comfortable with Uncertainty
The team became more at ease with not having all the answers. As one person put it, “It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to get us to the next step.” In turn, the Innovators Network also didn’t dwell on creating the perfect mission and vision; the JCPH team supported them to come up with a “good enough vision” because they knew that vision would continue to evolve as they got further into data analysis and sensemaking with community members at the Community Innovation Summit.
Facilitation That Went Deep at the Community Innovation Summit
SDL facilitated a Summit that brought together a diverse group of community representatives to explore complex health data and identify shared priorities. The JCPH team prepared data from their Community Health Assessment, and we guided community representatives through sense-making of the data and prioritization of focal areas.
After a full day of engagement, the group decided to focus on two areas:
Housing & Economic Stability: Including legal protections, safe and affordable housing, and living wages
Mental & Behavioral Health: Expanding access and diversifying the mental health workforce
Beyond the data, the Summit created real human connections: people talked, questioned, built trust, and broadened each other’s thinking. SDL spent time teaching the group about system dynamics and interdependencies while the JCPH team had the space to sit at tables and facilitate conversations. External facilitation gave JCPH team members space to be present, build trust, and engage in meaningful conversations with community members. Participants left feeling excited about their continued engagement.
Roles That Made Sense for What’s Next
The handoffs at the end of an engagement are always tricky. To ensure that the JCPH team was set up to carry the work forward independently, we prioritized role clarification and learning systems practice tools. We went through an exercise that supported the team in identifying all the responsibilities in leading InCoLab, then specifying which person was responsible, and finally determining if these individuals had the capacity to do the work. Clear role definitions helped people focus, specialize, and feel confident navigating a new way of working in the health department.
We also curated a practical toolkit to help them practice systems thinking and human-centered design with confidence and then practiced using some of the tools together before they used them with the InCoLab.
Why This Work Matters
This wasn’t just about sharper plans or better facilitation; it was about mindset shifts. JCPH chose collaboration over control and courage over compliance. The JCPH team saw a required planning process as a vehicle for experimentation, relationship-building, and community-driven transformation that lead to better, more sustainable community health outcomes.
“I hear people using SDL language like ‘I have a prediction’ even when not talking about this work. It’s coming up in other spaces.”
InCoLab is still evolving, in part due to its strong foundation. The JCPH team now has the tools, trust, and collective energy to lead bold, equitable systems change.
At SDL, we believe that systems don’t change until people change how they work together. The JCPH team embraced that belief, and their journey offers a glimpse into the future of public health in Eastern Jackson County.
Ready to Rethink the Way You Work?
Whether you’re part of a health department, nonprofit, or multi-sector coalition, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re facing a big challenge, launching a new initiative, or just want to work in a way that feels more connected and adaptive, let’s talk.
» TODAY! Join us at 12 pm ET for a conversation about motivation and conflict: Why They Do That (and Why You Do, Too): A Real-Talk Session on Relationship Intelligence
» Want to try something like JCPH did? The Systems Practice Workbook from Omidyar is a great place to start. We love the first tool, which is a chart to help you decide how complex your challenge is.
» Read JCPH’s 2024 Summit Recap Blog Post to see how the work is evolving in their own words.
» This quick summary of common misconceptions about psychological safety.
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