It is no surprise to many that we are in the midst of a mental health crisis. Ask a teacher, ask an employer, ask a caseworker, and I’m sure they would agree that they do not need statistics to confirm the abysmal state of mental health in our country. Students are struggling to self-regulate and stay engaged and employers are trying to support workers while navigating burnout and limited resources. There is no community or sector that has not been impacted by this issue, including the mental health system itself. Agencies continue to struggle to find and keep the staffing necessary as caseworkers struggle to carry overwhelming caseloads as they attempt to respond to increasingly complex needs with limited support. This issue is an example of what we call a “wicked problem,” a term coined by theorists Horst Rittel and Melvin Weber to describe a complex social issue that doesn’t have a single, clear solution, and where interventions to address the issue often produce unintended consequences. Within any city and county, you will find a range of these interventions, including calls to action, coalitions, task forces, community listening sessions, and advisory boards that have been created with the sole purpose of addressing wicked problems, whether it’s food insecurity, poverty, homelessness, or mental health disparities. Institutions secure thousands of dollars in funding a year to convene “community stakeholders” with the aim to work collectively to create solutions to ever-evolving challenges. However, the elephant in the room is that those around the planning and decision-making table are often not the people most impacted by the issue itself.

Could it be that the reason we are in the midst of a mental health crisis, with our marginalized and disinvested communities bearing the greatest burden, is because many of our “interventions” are top-down approaches that tokenize community involvement to superficial participation with no real decision-making or leadership capacity given to those with lived-experience? Could it be because these same initiatives override or overlook the work already being done within our communities by grassroots organizations? Could it be that many of the same institutions that are commissioned to “fix” the problem have concentrated resources, remaining fixated on fulfilling their organizational missions, which may be misaligned with the needs of the community, thereby limiting the capacity for the community to drive change?  Could it be that even some of our philanthropic organizations have constrained our community-based organizations by requiring them to produce outcomes through metrics that are not equipped to measure transformation of such a complex nature?

For true change to truly occur and for us to truly realize the recalibration of our mental health system, it is essential that we reimagine and recenter who holds power in shaping the system. In order for transformative, sustainable change to be grasped, the community must be central to any initiative. Participation without power is not equity. Voice without influence is performance. Many of our community mobilization efforts settle for community buy-in rather than community engagement. Buy -in is obtaining agreement. People may understand it, and they may even support it, but they didn’t help shape it. Meaningful engagement requires letting go of some control, investing in people’s ability to participate, and truly believing that community members bring expertise without a title or a degree. It also means that the metrics used to evaluate success are defined by the community and move beyond numbers served to assess growth in community capacity, leadership, and collective power. Community buy-in may be expedient but often results in surface-level outcomes that can be mistaken for progress without generating the lasting transformative change that comes from an empowered and transformed community.

While institutions certainly have a responsibility to create conditions for meaningful engagement, community members and grassroots organizations also play a critical role in stepping into these spaces to engage, advocate, and position themselves as co-creators in shaping the change they want to see. “Nothing about us without us” is not enough if we only move from exclusion to inclusion but not shared power in shaping the solutions that impact us. If we’re serious about addressing the mental health crisis in our country, especially within marginalized and disinvested communities, then we have to move beyond just listening to community voice to sharing power with it. Mental health outcomes won’t improve simply by expanding services and increasing awareness if the systems themselves remain unchanged. In order to truly recalibrate, those most impacted by mental health disparities must not only be present, but leading in shaping the solutions and determining what healing looks like in their community.