Prioritizing Peers with Lived Experience to Address the Behavioral Health Workforce Crisis

As the demand for behavioral health treatment skyrockets alongside rising staff vacancy rates, behavioral health agencies are facing a true crisis in building enough capacity to meet the need. After an extensive literature review and working with more than a dozen behavioral health agencies, Third Sector believes one of the most strategic shifts agencies can make to confront this crisis is to invest heavily in roles for individuals with lived experience, known as peers. 

Increasing peer positions and expanding peer responsibilities not only provides necessary staffing capacity, but is also an

At Third Sector, our mission is to transform our government agencies’ ability to serve everyone in our communities, no matter their race, background, or circumstance. And one of the most exciting and challenging things about this work is how trying to solve one set of problems reveals some other challenges we might not have understood in the same way. This is particularly true in the work we’ve been doing over the last five years in California to transform how nine counties in the state are serving and supporting tens of

Alabama, Michigan, and Rhode Island have joined the Partnerships to Achieve Student Success (PASS) cohort of states that are envisioning a future in which adult learners, many of whom have some college education but no degree, obtain a credential or a degree that will help them to build a career of their dreams. Everyone, no [...]

In less than six months, a new mental health crisis and suicide prevention number, 988, will go live nationwide. This new tool could provide people in crisis with a number to access trained counselors who can help immediately. But right now, most states are not as prepared as they should be. Unless states act now, [...]

As the mental health crisis continues to grow across the country, a group of eight California counties are taking an innovative approach to transforming critical mental health services. Over the past two years, counties have partnered to design ways to serve people more effectively and equitably as part of the Multi-County Full Service Partnership (FSP) [...]

The Better Careers Design Group is a multi-year project funded by The James Irvine Foundation focused on developing solutions to local workforce problems elevated through community engagement. The goal of the Design Group project is to support the work of the Irvine Foundation's Better Careers initiative to equitably connect Californians to good jobs with family-sustaining [...]