The Lived Experience Expert Partnership (LEEP): Implementing and Evaluating System-Level Family Engagement In the New Jersey Department of Children and Families

Background: Increasingly, state child welfare agencies are prioritizing the integration of constituent voice into system-level program and policy decision-making. Thirty-three out of 50 states have adopted at least one system-level family engagement model. The most common model (n=29) is advisory boards that identify priorities, develop policy recommendations, and advocate for legislation. A less common, understudied model for centering constituent voice in state-level decision-making is a partnership where lived experience experts (LE)—parents and youth with firsthand involvement in the child welfare system—collaborate with agency staff as consultants. LEs are compensated to work alongside child welfare agency staff on projects or initiatives. Co-designed by LEs and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (NJ DCF) in 2023 and launched in May 2024, the Lived Experience Expert Partnership (LEEP) contracts LE consultants to partner with NJ DCF staff on policy and program development. LEEP is a formal mechanism through which the agency aims to operationalize its goal of integrating family voice through shared decision-making and co-design at the state level.

Methods: From September to December 2025, NJ DCF’s Office of Applied Research and Evaluation (ARE) conducted an independent evaluation of LEEP’s first year of implementation. This is the first study, to our knowledge, to evaluate a lived experience expert model within a state agency. Using a mixed-methods approach, we conducted in-depth interviews and surveys with LEEP consultants and NJ DCF staff to examine implementation and early outcomes of LEEP, including satisfaction, empowerment, skill development, and perceived effectiveness.

Results: In this session, a LEEP Consultant and partner researcher will describe the LEEP model and key findings regarding LEEP’s successes and barriers. Survey responses indicated high satisfaction: all 7 LEs reported feeling seen and considered by staff and believed the partnership provides agency staff with better perspectives on constituent engagement. Similarly, 89% of NJ DCF staff surveyed reported the partnership contributed significantly to the agency’s goal of centering family voice. Interviews revealed that LEEP drives change by: motivating staff to shift from deficit-based to strength-based approaches; assessing and validating the agency’s ability to meet service-user needs from constituents’ perspectives; and providing insights that make services more accessible and empathetic. However, interviews also revealed barriers to equal decision-making. Key challenges included communication misunderstandings, limited pathways for professional development, and resistance to partnership among some longer-tenured staff. Despite these limitations, all respondents support the partnership and recommend expanding it.

Conclusions and Implications: LEEP is a promising model for formalizing shared decision-making with LEs within government agencies. Opportunities to improve this model include: 1) training staff on shared leadership best practices, 2) maintaining responsive liaison support throughout projects to assist LEs and agency teams, and 3) creating career advancement opportunities for LEs. The findings demonstrate that child welfare system transformation requires elevating LE’s engagement from distant collaboration to models that embed LEs into agencies’ daily operations. By getting proximate to LEs, agency staff come to recognize LEs as child welfare experts whose input is essential to finding solutions to the problems agencies seek to address.