Inspiring Conversations with Jaleshia “Jay” Brown of Virtue Visionary, LLC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaleshia “Jay” Brown.

Hi Jaleshia “Jay”, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I spent 11 years in foster care and aged out of the system as a teenager. Like many young people navigating public systems, I entered adulthood without a clear transition plan and faced significant challenges early on. Those experiences ultimately shaped my determination to build a different future for myself and my son.

I returned to school, worked for several years as a State Tested Nursing Assistant (STNA), and gradually became involved in foster care advocacy. What began as sharing my own experiences evolved into designing and leading the Hamilton County Youth Advisory Board (YAB), a youth-led body that brought together young people with lived experience in foster care to inform policies, programs, and system improvement efforts.

The Youth Advisory Board became one of my greatest teachers.

For years, I watched young people show up with thoughtful ideas, identify problems adults hadn’t considered, and offer solutions grounded in lived experience. I also watched organizations become increasingly interested in hearing from youth. On the surface, that seemed like progress.

But over time, I began noticing a pattern. Many organizations had become skilled at collecting feedback, stories, and lived experiences, yet far fewer had built systems for integrating those insights into ongoing learning, decision-making, and improvement efforts. People were often invited to share their experiences, but there was rarely a clear structure for how those experiences would shape what happened next.

The question that stayed with me was this:

**If lived experience is valuable enough to seek out, why isn’t it consistently integrated into the way organizations learn, adapt, and make decisions?**

That question eventually led me to found Virtue Visionary LLC.

Today, my work focuses on helping organizations move beyond traditional engagement models by creating governance structures and systems that translate lived expertise into organizational learning, stronger decision-making, and lasting improvement. While much of my early work centered on youth-serving systems, the principle is much broader: the people closest to challenges often hold insights that organizations need to create meaningful and lasting change.

Looking back, I don’t see the Youth Advisory Board as the destination. I see it as the experience that revealed both the potential and the limitations of how many organizations approach engagement today. Virtue Visionary was born from that lesson.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, although many of the challenges have been different than people might expect.

Some of the personal obstacles were early in my journey—navigating foster care, entering adulthood without a strong transition plan, and learning how to build stability while raising a child. Those experiences taught me resilience, but the challenges that shaped my professional work came later.

As I became more involved in advocacy and systems change efforts, I noticed that many organizations genuinely wanted to hear from people with lived experience. The intention was often there. The challenge was figuring out what to do with that insight once it was shared.

I frequently encountered situations where individuals were invited to tell their stories, participate in focus groups, serve on advisory boards, or provide feedback, but there was little clarity around how those contributions would influence decisions, priorities, or future actions. In some cases, engagement became an event rather than an ongoing practice.

Another challenge has been organizational culture. Integrating lived expertise requires more than creating a seat at the table. It often requires organizations to rethink how expertise is defined, who is trusted to inform decisions, and how learning happens. That kind of change can be uncomfortable because it asks institutions to move beyond familiar approaches and share ownership of solutions.

I’ve also learned that meaningful engagement takes structure. Good intentions alone are rarely enough. Without clear pathways, accountability, and follow-through, even the most thoughtful insights can struggle to translate into action.

At times, those realities were frustrating. However, they also helped clarify the work I wanted to do. Rather than focusing solely on helping people share their experiences, I became increasingly interested in helping organizations build systems that can learn from those experiences and use them to drive meaningful change.

Many of the challenges I’ve encountered ultimately became the foundation for Virtue Visionary LLC and the work I do today.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Virtue Visionary, LLC?
Virtue Visionary LLC was founded on a simple belief: lived experience is a form of expertise, and expertise should inform how organizations learn, adapt, and improve.

For many years, organizations have invested significant effort into gathering feedback, collecting stories, and engaging the people most impacted by their programs and services. While those efforts are important, I believe the real opportunity lies in what happens next. How are those insights interpreted? What do they reveal about how a system is functioning? How do they influence decisions, priorities, and future action?

That is where Virtue Visionary focuses its work.

I help organizations move beyond traditional engagement models and build intentional structures that integrate lived expertise into governance, strategy, systems improvement, and organizational learning. While much of my work has focused on youth-serving systems, the principles extend far beyond youth engagement. Whether the population is youth, families, patients, residents, or community members, the people closest to challenges often hold insights that organizations need in order to create meaningful and lasting change.

What sets Virtue Visionary apart is that we are not simply focused on helping organizations hear lived experience—we help organizations learn from it.

Many engagement efforts are designed to gather feedback, collect stories, or create opportunities for participation. Our work focuses on what happens after the conversation ends. We help organizations create structures that capture insight, identify patterns, strengthen accountability, and translate learning into action. Rather than treating lived experience as something to be consulted occasionally, we help organizations integrate it into how they govern, make decisions, evaluate outcomes, and improve over time.

That perspective is heavily influenced by my own journey. I have experienced systems as a participant, advocate, advisor, facilitator, and builder. That dual perspective allows me to understand both the realities individuals experience and the realities organizations face when trying to create change. My work focuses on helping those perspectives learn from one another rather than compete with one another.

One concept that heavily influences my work is the belief that outcomes are lessons. Too often, organizations focus exclusively on successes or view setbacks as failures. I believe both outcomes contain valuable information. Every result tells us something about how a system is functioning, where barriers exist, and where opportunities for improvement can be found. When organizations learn to view outcomes through that lens, they become more adaptive, more accountable, and better equipped to serve the people they aim to support.

What I am most proud of is helping shift conversations from participation to integration and from engagement to systems learning. I am less interested in how many people were engaged and more interested in whether their expertise influenced what happened next. For me, meaningful engagement is not measured by who was invited into the room; it is measured by whether organizations are willing and able to learn from what they hear.

Ultimately, Virtue Visionary exists to help organizations transform lived experience into systems learning and systems learning into action. That commitment to learning, integration, and sustainable change is the foundation of our work and what I hope people remember when they encounter our brand.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something that surprises many people is that I’m also an author and poet.

Most people know me through my work in youth governance, lived experience integration, and systems change. They see the frameworks, facilitation, and organizational work. What they often don’t see is that writing has been one of the most important tools throughout my journey.

Long before I was helping organizations think about systems learning, I was using writing to make sense of my own experiences. Writing gave me a way to process challenges, identify patterns, and find meaning in situations that didn’t always make sense at the time.

That practice eventually led me to publish my first book, *The Child No One Asked: Existing Without Permission*, and continues to influence how I approach my work today. In many ways, the same curiosity that drives my writing also drives my professional work. I’m constantly asking questions, looking for patterns, and exploring what experiences can teach us about ourselves, our communities, and our systems.

While people often associate my work with governance and organizational change, writing remains one of the ways I stay connected to the human stories behind the systems. Writing reminds me that “behind every policy is a person” (-Yonnae Hobbs), and behind every experience is an opportunity for systems to learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.virtuevisionary.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094155007555
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaleshia-brown-472942212
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/virtue-visionary-llc/