Why Systems Change Requires Street-Level Trust
“Change moves at the speed of trust.” That’s what Nathaniel Smith, Chief Equity Officer at the Partnership for Southern Equity, says, and I’ve lived that truth across school hallways, workforce initiatives, and neighborhood-based trauma response programs.
But over time, I’ve come to add something of my own:
“And trust moves at the speed of relationships.”
Because policy doesn’t change hearts. People do.
And if we want to shift systems really shift them, not just rebrand them—we have to invest in the relationships that make trust possible in the first place.
Systems Say “Scale.” But Communities Say “Stay.”
In every role I’ve held, from building trauma-aware workforce programs to co-leading multi-city public safety initiatives, I’ve watched the same dynamic play out: Institutions prioritize structure. People prioritize relationship.
We talk about implementation science, but if the strategies we scale aren’t grounded in lived reality, we’re not scaling solutions, we’re scaling disconnection.
That’s why systems change requires street-level trust. Not just stakeholder alignment, but soul alignment. Trust that the people designing the plan have walked the streets, sat with the elders, and asked young people what liberation looks like on their block.
Trust Is the First Deliverable
Before we can expect attendance at a program or adoption of a policy, we have to prove that we’re not just another short-term intervention parachuting in. Trust is the first deliverable. And it’s earned through:
Consistency: Showing up when there’s no camera, no funding announcement, no grant deadline.
Co-design: Including youth, returning citizens, and grassroots leaders as partners, not afterthoughts.
Compensation: Paying people for their expertise, especially when it’s rooted in lived experience.
As someone who’s built out trauma-informed training modules for school districts and career coaching systems for returning citizens, I can tell you: If you skip the trust, you will replicate the harm.
Data Can’t Drive What Community Hasn’t Approved
There’s power in dashboards. But there’s also power in the auntie on the corner who knows where the danger is. In the youth organizer who can tell you which buildings need more lighting. In the cafeteria worker who hears more from students in 10 minutes than some school boards hear in a year.
Policy must be porous enough to let lived experience in.
Street-Level Trust Is a Strategy
We don’t get to equity by assuming that technical excellence is enough. We get there by aligning vision with value, with validating people’s stories, presence, and wisdom.
I’ve seen what happens when we center trust in the work:
Violence interruption programs that lead with healing, not surveillance.
Workforce pipelines that treat career coaching like soul recovery, not just job placement.
Schools that shift from compliance to care—and—watch both attendance and joy rise.
Street-level trust doesn’t slow down the work. It is the work.
The Invitation
If you’re a district, a foundation, or a nonprofit leader looking to move from performance to transformation, I invite you to begin here:
Ask who’s not at the table.
Then make the table longer.
And don’t forget the people who already built one on their own.