From Resistance to Relationship: Balancing Accountability and Voice in Statewide Behavioral Health Evaluation

Large-scale behavioral health initiatives often launch before evaluators can meaningfully engage grantees. In this session, we demonstrate how we shifted from a top-down evaluation design to a grantee-informed, shared leadership model as part of an evaluation of one workstream under California’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI). Our initial evaluation plan developed before grantee awards quickly proved misaligned with grantees’ realities, leading to pushback and limited engagement. We’ll walk through how we built trust through active listening, iterative feedback loops, and responsive technical assistance. By engaging grantees as co-leaders, we achieved over 95% data entry compliance and improved the relevance and equity of our evaluation tools. This session offers practical strategies for evaluators working within large, complex systems who want to shift from resistance to partnership. Attendees will leave with tools to revise evaluation plans, embed community voices, and share leadership with diverse partners, contributors, and other interested parties.
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Rikke Addis – Principal, Behavioral Health Evaluation Strategies