
Perspective. Strategy. Facilitation.
Bring a fresh perspective to your work and move confidently toward your goals with a well-crafted strategy. Our facilitated approach encourages an open, productive exchange of ideas that will drive your progress. At WRI Solutions, we prioritize relationships—leveraging our expertise to help advance your next project, grant, or change initiative.
From strategy to community engagement, WRI Solutions helps you turn ideas into action. We pair expert consulting with inclusive facilitation to align stakeholders, strengthen partnerships, and drive lasting impact.
Community Engagement Services
Real voices. Real guidance. Real impact.
Whether you’re starting or strengthening an existing advisory group, a taskforce, or community steering committee, WRI brings the structure, expertise, and sensitivity needed for meaningful and sustainable engagement.
Expertise in lived experience engagement
WRI staff, who also have a variety of lived expertise, work alongside people who have experienced foster care, homelessness, juvenile justice involvement, domestic and interpersonal violence, development disabilities, and behavioral health challenges. These experiences guide and shape our work. Our team is trained in trauma informed engagement, inclusive facilitation, motivational interviewing, youth and adult partnership models, and culturally responsive practices—allowing us to create spaces where people feel welcome and supported.
Advisory board expertise
WRI specializes in building and managing advisory boards that elevate community voices, strengthen equity, and produce actionable insights for government agencies, nonprofits, and foundations.
WRI can help your organization build and maintain an advisory group that is operationally sound and impactful. Our team manages the administrative responsibilities so you can focus on what matters most, making sure the insights of people with lived experience influence and guide policy, programs, and organizational strategy.
Some of the administrative services WRI provides:
The New York State Youth Advisory Board (YAB) is a statewide initiative created to uplift the voices of young adults ages 18–26 who have lived experience in the foster care system, juvenile justice system, and/or youth homelessness. YAB members influence policies in New York's care systems and embed youth voice into agency planning.
Through a contract with the NYS Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS), WRI Solutions manages YAB, overseeing its coordination and implementation. Our role includes recruiting diverse youth with lived experience, creating trauma-informed structures focused on safety and trust, facilitating youth leadership development, and supporting OCFS in integrating the youth voice in state-level decision making.
Through contracts with Local Department of Social Services and previous contracts with the Redlich Horwitz Foundation, WRI has helped support county-level, data-driven strategies to increase family and youth engagement, increase kinship care, decrease congregate care, and strengthen prevention services for children and families involved with the child welfare system. WRI works with county Departments of Social Services and key community stakeholders to meet each county’s individual needs and emphasize their strengths, creating plans for continuous quality improvement.
Citizen Review Panels (CRP) are important conduits for informed public input and provide an external perspective on the efficacy of New York State’s child protective policies, practices, programs, and fiscal priorities. Throughout the year, WRI coordinated and facilitated meetings for each region’s Panel. The Panels are responsible for making recommendations to improve the Child Welfare System. Recommendations are published in an annual report and distributed to stakeholders. WRI has produced the annual report for print and online publishing: https://www.citizenreviewpanelsny.org/annual-reports
In 2023 WRI also led a full rebranding of the New York State Citizen Review Panels website, unveiling a new visual identity and refreshing their website to enhance accessibility and engagement.
In 2024, OVS reached out to WRI for assistance in planning and facilitating their Seeking Solutions Summit on Challenges for Providing Victim Services in Rural Communities: Ensuring Sustainable and Effective Services.
To help shape the second day of the Summit, WRI surveyed registrants and collaborated with the OVS planning team to design breakout sessions that both shared information and gathered participant feedback. WRI provided support and facilitation to each of the breakout groups, and to the closing session reporting on the work. Throughout the Summit, WRI documented the entire Summit, identifing key themes, challenges, and suggested models for addressing challenges. WRI prepared a report on the Summit, incorporating findings from the post-event evaluations. The report was reviewed by OVS and can be downloaded from the link below.
In 2021, WRI served as lead facilitators for a series of six online workshop meetings sponsored by the NYS Office of Victim Services and Lifespan of Greater Rochester. The meetings brought together key stakeholders from around New York State to focus on better providing for the needs of underserved populations. The recommendations were incorporated into goals and strategies for a statewide elder abuse plan.
In 2022, WRI facilitated a session to review work on the strategic plan to date and make recommendations for community engagement.