Skills for Supervising People with Lived Expertise

We cannot solve big systemic challenges without the expertise of people with lived experience, but often, our work environments end up marginalizing, burning out, and excluding these critical voices. We are excited to create space to grapple together with the challenges and possibilities in our work to unleash the brilliance of our staff with lived expertise.

In this full-day, in person training, we will cover:

• Why hire people with lived expertise?
• Role of a supervisor
• Hiring & Onboarding
• Feedback
• Stories
• Structural Supports at our Organizations
• & the stuff you all bring into the space <3

Many of our experiences come from supervising staff with lived experience in the youth homelessness space, and this training content will be highly relevant for folks working in foster care, detention and incarceration systems, immigration and refugee systems, and other efforts to create a more beautiful and just world for all people.

Meet your Trainers!

Ashley Barnes-Cocke (they/them) is a queer youth homelessness prevention expert, focused on putting power and resources into young people’s hands. They have spent nearly 15 years working at the intersection of youth homelessness and other caring systems in Washington State and across the US, and have hired and supervised more than a dozen people with lived expertise over that time. They have built youth programs from the ground up with and for young people involved with systems, and love the challenge of collaborating with multiple stakeholders to build processes that work – because that is what young people deserve. Most recently, Ashley has been working with incredible local communities to build direct cash transfer programs, coordinate nationally around youth homelessness prevention, and redesign their homelessness response systems with quality by-name list data, prevention, youth expertise, and racial and LGBTQ justice at the center. Not only have they learned alongside those communities what it takes to make transformative change, but have gotten to coach the first two communities in Washington state to show measurable, sustained reductions in youth homelessness. Ashley holds a Master of Education in Prevention Science and Practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focusing on the intersections of adolescent trauma and liberatory education praxis.

Isaac Andrew Sanders (they/them) is currently a PhD student at the University of Washington in the School of Social Work social welfare program. Sanders received their BA from the University of Tulsa and their MSW from the University of Kansas. Sanders grew up as a military brat with firm familial roots in Kansas & Oklahoma. An afro-indigenous two spirit non-binary person affiliated with the Muskogee tribe, Sanders’ work is influenced by their lived experience and devotion to equity. Sanders is interested in how implementing advancing digital technologies for good could impact child welfare and youth homelessness service provision. Sanders believes these technologies can impact the disproportionate rate of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC young people in the system with the overarching goal of bringing youth and young adult systems of care into the 21st century. Sanders has over ten years of experience working with youth and young adults in various systems of care. Sanders has led multiple counties in Washington to functionally reduce their active youth homeless population. A positive youth development strategy expert, Sanders has worked with youth and young adults to impact governmental and local change by empowering young adults to advocate for change while demanding providers listen. Sanders has several publications encompassing transgender/non-binary and sexual minority experiences, along with blog posts discussing innovative ways to end youth homelessness.

Cover art sourced from: https://www.nps.gov/articles/groundswell-mural-project-ellis-island.htm

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Tacoma Community House, 1314 South L Street, Tacoma, United States