Engaging people with lived experience in child welfare system improvement efforts

The Child Welfare Capacity Building Collaborative (Collaborative) provided technical assistance to states, territories, courts, and tribes to improve child welfare systems by engaging people with lived experience in system improvement efforts. Drawing on discussions with the Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) provider staff that made up the Collaborative, as well as the existing literature, this article describes how the T/TA providers incorporated lived experience and supported child welfare agencies across the country in building their capacity to integrate the voices of people with lived expertise into child welfare system reform.