Adapting to the Modern Workforce

Escrito por: Morgan McKinney, Former Senior Process Innovation Associate, Community Collaboration, APHSA. Current State Engagement Manager, Propel
Miranda Lauzon, Benefits Access Manager, Share Our Strength
Chloe Eberhardt, Senior Program Manager, Share Our Strength

El Coordinación de SNAP y apoyo nutricional (CSNS) program strengthens access to human services by aligning the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with other nutrition supports. CSNS also works to center individuals with lived experience by giving them a voice through the Community Impact Council (CIC), which guides the funding of innovative projects. The blog post below is part of a series from APHSA that will share insights and stories from each team involved, highlighting the program’s impact on service delivery and community engagement.

Throughout the CSNS initiative, APHSA and Share Our Strength’s Ningún niño tiene hambre campaign have fundamentally transformed how we approach community engagement. This initiative has strengthened our commitment to centering lived expertise and rethinking power dynamics in decision making, strategy development, and community engagement.

One of the most meaningful parts of CSNS has been the establishment of the Community Impact Council (CIC), a group of six paid consultants who bring lived expertise navigating the public benefits system. From the start, the CIC served as strategic advisors who helped to shape priorities, ask the hard questions, and held us accountable to the values we set out with. Their role was not symbolic; they had real influence, particularly during one of the most critical phases of the program—selecting the proposals that would move forward for funding and implementation.

Share Our Strength’s Key Moment

We received 22 proposals from agencies and community partners across the United States. Instead of narrowing them down behind closed doors, the CIC led the selection process. Through a democratic process rooted in discussion and consensus-building, they were key in selecting the final four projects.

During that selection process, we were admittedly struggling to decide on the final, fourth site. In the end, we set aside our own perspectives to truly listen to the CIC, which, after all, is exactly why it was formed: to authentically reflect community voices. We ultimately went with the CIC’s recommendation, and in hindsight, it was without question the right choice. This wasn’t just engagement, but also authentic power sharing in action and a real turning point for Share Our Strength.

APHSA’s Key Momena

While APHSA didn’t vote in the final site selection, we played a key role in designing the deliberation process for the in-person, two-day selection event. This event was the first time APHSA, Share Our Strength, and the CIC met in-person, and we intentionally designed the agenda to balance relationship building with thoughtful, consensus-driven decision-making around site selection.

At the end of the first day, our teams had dinner together. During the conversation, one CIC member asked why we hadn’t invited the CIC members to share their personal stories. Our intention had been to center the CIC’s lived expertise in evaluating site proposals, trusting that their firsthand experience navigating public benefit systems would naturally inform their insights without asking them to revisit personal trauma in order to be seen as equal partners.

Taking the CIC’s guidance, the full project team stayed up late reworking the agenda for day two. One CIC member offered to open up the day by inviting members of the CIC to share what brings them to this work, creating space for each person to share as much or as little as they wished about their own experiences or those of their communities. This grounded the group in the real, everyday realities of navigating public benefits systems and in the meaningful impact these systems can have when they function well.

APHSA and Share Our Strength staff also shared what brings us to this work, acknowledging that many of us bring our own lived experiences, which shape our commitment. Led by the CIC, this became a powerful moment of connection that shifted power dynamics and reaffirmed the importance of centering people with lived expertise. By putting those most impacted in the driver’s seat, we not only deepened learning and trust, but also laid the groundwork for strong, enduring partnerships.

How Share Our Strength is Building Off the CIC Model

The process with the CIC didn’t just impact CSNS. For Share Our Strength, it reshaped our organization’s broader programmatic approach to community engagement. We realized that if we are serious about transforming systems, then we need to embed lived expertise not just in one program, but across our work.

This realization led to the formation of the SNAP Parent and Caregiver Advisory Council, led by Chloe Eberhardt (Share Our Strength Associate Director, Benefits Access) and Chelsea MacCormack (Share Our Strength Program Manager), with implementation assistance from the National Parent Leadership Institute. Modeled after our experience with the CIC, this council consists of nine parents and caregivers from across the country who have experience using SNAP and other benefits like Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT), school meals, and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

This group meets monthly to help guide Share Our Strength’s SNAP strategies, including enrollment efforts, technology modernization, messaging, and advocacy. These are not one-time conversations, but an ongoing partnership rooted in mutual respect, transparency, and shared purpose.

Want to learn more about No Kid Hungry’s
SNAP Parent and Caregiver Advisory Council?

Dive into profiles of each SNAP Parent and Caregiver Advisory Council member on No Kid Hungry’s Center for Best Practices Blog. The first council member profile features Passion Rutledge and her family’s experience with SNAP benefits and SNAP restrictions in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Subscribe to the Center for Best Practices’ What’s New Newsletter to receive each blog and the latest news, resources, and webinars from No Kid Hungry’s Center for Best Practices.

The goal for Share Our Strength is not just to hear from those impacted by these systems, but to build better systems with them. The SNAP Parent and Caregiver Advisory Council ensures that those who know these systems best help design what they can and should be. Their insights have already shaped internal strategies, and they are helping us shift to stronger, more effective program priorities.

How APHSA is Building Off the CIC Model

Building on the success of the CIC, APHSA has deepened its commitment to embedding lived expertise not as a single initiative, but as a core principle informing how we work across the organization and across projects. We have replicated and expanded this model across other projects, including the ACCESS initiative, which is a cross-sector effort to better align state health, human services, and labor systems. Beyond individual projects, we have also deepened our partnerships with people with lived expertise throughout APHSA’s broader work, from centering lived expertise voices at our conferences to participating in the Aspen Institute’s Person-Centered Community of Practice, which focuses on strengthening sector capacity to leverage human-centered approaches.

As our engagement with people with lived expertise has grown, so too has our commitment to doing this work with greater intention and consistency. To advance this goal, we’ve launched an internal workgroup dedicated to strengthening our systems and processes for these collaborations. This effort is helping us develop streamlined, organization-wide practices that ensure all partners with lived expertise are supported fairly, no matter which project at APHSA they contribute to.

The Lasting Effects of CSNS on Our Approach

Through CSNS, we’ve learned that authentic community engagement requires more than feedback. It requires investment, trust, and a true willingness to co-create and share power. When we do, the results are smarter strategies, deeper impacts, and communities that see themselves reflected in the work. The ripple effects of this positive shift will continue long beyond the timeline of the CSNS project, and we believe that’s exactly the kind of change we need.