L.E.A.D. — Lived Experience Empowers Advocacy & Decision-Making
Advocacy — L.E.A.D.
Advocacy Program · Los Angeles County
Lived Experience
Time inside the system is a form of expertise. We treat it as a credential, not a disclosure.
Empowers
Training, mentorship, and placement support turn that expertise into practical governance skill.
Advocacy &
Members carry their community's realities into the rooms where funding and policy are set.
Decision-Making
The measure of this work is a vote held, a budget shaped, a policy rewritten.
Lived experience is a form of expertise. L.E.A.D. puts it where decisions are made.
ALi's advocacy program prepares formerly incarcerated Angelenos to serve on the advisory boards, commissions, and policy bodies that govern probation, reentry, community investment, and youth justice.
- PROGRAM
- L.E.A.D.
- INITIATIVES
- 01
- COUNTY
- Los Angeles
Initiative 01
The Justice Informed Leaders Initiative
Representation where the decisions are made — not adjacent to them.
- GEOGRAPHY
- Los Angeles County
- WHO IT SERVES
- Formerly incarcerated leaders
- THE WORK
- Training · Mentorship · Placement
The Justice Informed Leaders Initiative is designed to increase the representation of formerly incarcerated individuals in public decision making roles across Los Angeles County. The program recognizes lived experience as a critical form of expertise and prepares participants to serve effectively on advisory boards, commissions, and policy bodies that shape outcomes in probation oversight, community investment, reentry services, and youth justice.
Through structured training, mentorship, and placement support, participants gain the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in governance processes and contribute to informed and equitable decision making.
01 · PREPARE
Structured Training
How agendas get set, how motions carry, how a county budget is read — the mechanics of the rooms participants are entering.
02 · PAIR
Mentorship
Participants work alongside people already serving — commissioners, policy staff, and program directors.
03 · PLACE
Placement Support
Applications, appointment processes, and interviews — the paperwork that quietly keeps qualified people out.
04 · SERVE
Effective Service
Ongoing support once the seat is held, so participation lasts past the first appointment.
Influence systems from within
The initiative prioritizes meaningful participation by creating clear pathways for directly impacted individuals to influence systems from within. Rather than limiting engagement to public comment or external advocacy, the program equips participants to operate inside formal decision making spaces where policies, funding priorities, and program designs are established.
By building a sustainable pipeline into these roles, the initiative strengthens the quality of public decision making, ensures that policies reflect the realities of impacted communities, and advances more effective and accountable systems.
That is where we place our people.
- PROBATION OVERSIGHT
- COMMUNITY INVESTMENT
- REENTRY SERVICES
- YOUTH JUSTICE
Join the next cohort
Bring your experience to the table.
Applications for the Justice Informed Leaders Initiative open each spring. Nominations are accepted year round.