Nia Baucke on Creating Policy by Listening
Sitting in Cohear’s office, with her youngest son happily crawling around at her feet, Nia Baucke spoke with us about her passion for the work she gets to do through Cohear. Nia worked in the social good space throughout her career. While these experiences gave Nia a chance to contribute to her community, she knew something was missing from that work: the voice of people most affected by the issues she and her colleagues were trying to solve. Now with Cohear, Nia spends time talking with Everyday Experts and helping them find actionable solutions to the issues they face day-in and day-out.
Interview by Michaela Rawsthorn. Photography by Chelsie Walter. Sponsored by Cohear.
This interview is a part of our series, “Cohear: Harnessing the Power of Everyday Experts.”
The following Q&A is based on the interviewee’s firsthand account of their experiences and opinions alone. Look for editor's notes with additional information in [bold brackets] throughout the article.
If you had to explain Cohear’s work in a sentence or two, how would you define it?
We’re genuine about changing decision-making by engaging people who have lived expertise.
Tell us about your role at Cohear.
My role has a lot to do with facilitation and report writing, or what we call insights. I facilitate the conversations after Nikita does an amazing job of bringing everyone to the table. I get to lead the conversations, draft the agenda and ask questions that help them come up with ideas for whatever issue we're ideating on. Then, after those conversations, we have an awesome group of people that transcribe them. From there, I work to identify the insights and give those to our clients so they can make better decisions.
What has your experience with Cohear been like?
I love it, obviously. Or else I wouldn't be doing it after having two kids!
I'm committed to this work because I genuinely believe in it. When I first graduated from college, I went into the social good workspace. I was passionate about it, but I wouldn't say that I had any lived experience. I wasn’t a mom. I’m not even from Cincinnati. I did not grow up in the circumstances of the individuals we were trying to serve. I always felt like there was this disconnect – I was speaking on behalf of a group of people that I wasn't meaningfully connected to.
This is the first time in my professional career in the social good space where I genuinely feel connected. Not just because of one conversation, but because of endless conversations we're having with the people that we say that we serve.
That's incredibly powerful. Something that I haven't experienced at other places. That's why I like the work. I get to talk to the people we say we care about. That's awesome.
What is an everyday expert?
Well, it depends on the issue that we're trying to solve. If we're talking about child care issues, and women going back to work, then the expert on that issue is a woman with children who is trying to figure out her work schedule. If it's related to schools, the experts are students – this is the one that I love because I do so much work with it. They're the people that are sitting in the classrooms.
It's really about who is the closest to the issue that we say we're trying to solve. Who is the person who is living and breathing it every day? That just comes from the belief that they're the ones that are going to have the most insightful and meaningful ideas.
What is expertise?
So often other organizations are so focused on the person's title or these wild credentials that they have. For us, it's about lived experience more than anything.
Why do you think harnessing the power of everyday experts is so important?
The importance of it is twofold. One is that we're often not asking the people most affected by an issue their thoughts on it. For example, we ideate a lot and come up with a lot of solutions without asking students what they want to see in schools. Or asking working mothers who are making less than $20 an hour what they want or need in terms of child care. A lot of the time, people working in the social good space get around a table and say, “Wouldn't it be great if…?”. And then we just run it by one person, check it off, and go.
The second reason why it's super important is that the ideas you get are a lot more innovative when the person is living it. It's almost like when you're the one in it, you know the nuances and the little things about an issue. That's actually where you can start to come up with real solutions. You can be like, “Oh, it would be great if I had this as a mom,” versus someone who's not experienced motherhood. If you don’t have that issue in your life, your ability to come up with ideas is just so limited.
How do you create that space where everyday experts are comfortable engaging in honest conversation?
Well, it starts with our organizer. I wish that I could take credit, but I cannot. We have good outgoing people who get to know the community. Our organizers get to know people in the community and make connections with people we call our Bridgebuilders, who are these people that are well connected in their communities, neighborhoods, and schools. It builds trust when they know Nikita, Monique, and Jessica.
And then from there, my job is to make it as safe of a place as possible. That's through making sure that I set the table properly. I let them know, “Hey, you're here to speak from your own experience. You don't have to speak on behalf of all women from the west side. You don't have to speak on behalf of all Black students today. You just get to speak like you, and you alone are enough.” My goal as a facilitator is to let them know they're here to share their experience and no one else's. And, of course, it's private.
I try to honor everything that people share. It can get emotional when we're talking about certain stuff. So, I do my best as a facilitator to let them feel heard and valued when they share and repeat back what they're telling me. Then make sure everyone feels good and heard by the end of the conversation.
How receptive are leaders to the recommendations offered by Cohear after a study is conducted? Can you give an example?
They're very receptive. A lot of times, when leaders are engaging with us, what they get is a confirmation of what they already know. They're very receptive to like, “Okay, that's what we're thinking. And now, it's really good to know that the community is on the same page with us.”
It can be hard to hear things sometimes, so we serve as a kind of buffer. For example, with C.P.S. [Cincinnati Public Schools], you have parents who can sometimes get frustrated with a district. It can be hard to receive that frustration from a parent because they're going to be your hardest critic. However, if we take that information, make it actionable, and then present it to C.P.S., they're a lot more open because they're not as defensive. We try to focus on the ideas because that way, it opens people's hearts and minds to explore how to problem solve, as opposed to focusing on the criticism.
So, it's how we present the information, but we have amazing clients. We've worked with public schools, the Women's Fund, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. I think they all just really care, so it's easy to give them ideas because they're just waiting for new stuff.
How do you loop your everyday experts back into the result of their input?
First, we share our reports. We like to share what they've created because we use their words, not ours. And then our organizers manage these relationships with the people who contribute to the work. We always make sure we follow up and say thank you. And if there was something that they suggested that we know is getting implemented, we'll share that with them specifically.
Can you tell us about a project you’ve worked on with Cohear that felt especially necessary or important?
The Speak Up, Speak Out series with Cincinnati Public Schools (C.P.S.) has been one of my favorite projects. In June of 2020, in the midst of all conversations that were happening in Black America, C.P.S. was like, “We need to be a part of this. Our students are impacted by what they see in their community. And we need to have these conversations.”
They formed this group called Speak Up, Speak Out to talk about what it looks like to be an African American young person seeing all this stuff right now. They wanted to ask students questions about their experiences. What do you wish the district did better for you in the future? How are you feeling about the police? How does the violence make you feel? How do you feel about your school resource coordinators? All these meaningful topics. We got the groups together to hash it out. The group is still going and now meets district-wide.
And in the process, the students came up with a list of demands that we give to the superintendent. One of those things was to launch a version of Speak Up, Speak Out at every high school. They made that happen.
One of the other things from their list of demands was a life skills course because they talked about how so many Black students graduate from high school not knowing about finances, student loans, what to do if they don't want to go to college, etc. The students said, “You guys need to prepare us for that.” They advocated for it. And now C.P.S. is in the process of creating a curriculum to launch that class next year.
Every quarter, now, we facilitate a large district-wide conversation. We had one for Black History Month. In that conversation, two students said that this group made them feel more confident. I could literally cry when they told me. Teenagers have my heart in a unique way.
One of the girls said that she felt like a more confident person by joining the conversation when she didn't always feel confident being a young Black woman. It was an affirmation that these conversations not only lead to really cool stuff happening, but they also lead to people learning that it is okay to share your experience and that it is valued. And you can be heard in the right environment.
That work is just super cool and really important. And you know, corny enough, kids are our future. Our work with C.P.S. overall has been amazing. They're a great partner. They really care about the kids.
What are some of the common struggles you hear during listening sessions?
Moms feel overwhelmed. People who are working hard every day and still can't make ends meet feel overwhelmed. People who can't find housing feel overwhelmed. And then, of course, if they went to a public school, students were not physically in a school building for over a year. That was hard for a lot of them. When we have conversations with students, they talk about being stressed out. When we have conversations with moms, they are stressed out. And I feel that. We have conversations with people who are trying to figure it out every day.
The need is for mental health support and access. There is a collective level of understanding, patience, and community support that many people are asking for right now. Everyone is just like, “I just want you to know that I'm on my last leg.” A question for us as Cohear is: how do we communicate that so our clients can offer support to the people you say you want to help? [According to 1n5.org, 20% of youth ages 13-18 live with a mental illness and 18.1% of American adults live with anxiety disorders.]
Another really big one, of course, is around child care. That’s been a huge source of stress for moms. It's always been a source of stress – I could go on a tangent about child care and work-life balance – but then the pandemic just illuminated it to the next level. That's a big one. It impacts moms, of course, but obviously affects employers as well. [Daycare for one child can cost about $300/week, or $15,000/year, in Cincinnati where the median income is just over $38,000.]
Do you relate to any of those struggles yourself?
When I was pregnant recently, that was a trying time. I already have one at home. My husband was working a lot. He had been promoted at work. I was working while pregnant, when you've got all these hormones and all these things happening. During a pandemic, I was at home, doing it, and not seeing many people because our families couldn't visit. And so mentally, it was a really tough time for me to navigate.
With the work-life balance and mental health piece, I just personally put a lot of pressure on myself to want to do everything. I think a lot of people like me found out in the pandemic that sometimes you’ve got to let something go. I got proactive about getting therapy and taking care of myself mentally. That helped get me back on track.
And then, with the child care piece, I relate to it in many ways. I'm not full-time with Cohear anymore because I do not have the physical and mental bandwidth to show up as both a mom and an employee in the way that I want to. I feel really lucky that I work at a company where that's a possibility. I definitely appreciate having the flexibility to do that.
But child care has been a challenge for me, just like it's been for everybody else. It just feels like high-quality child care continues to disappear slowly. So, unless you have immediate family here, which I don't have, you're a little bit on the struggle bus when it comes to finding child care.
Who is an influential woman in your life, and why?
I don't want to go with the obvious one, but my mom. Especially right now in the season of life that I'm in – in the thick of it with kids.
I remember when I ran for student council, my mom picked out an outfit for me, and we prepped the night before I did the speech. When I came home from school, I told my mom that I didn't get it. And I pretended like I was crying a little bit and she started bawling. But I was joking. I was like, “Oh, just kidding, Mom! I won.” But she was still crying. She was like, “Don't do that!”
I always tell that story because it's the best way to describe her. She was just this incredibly empathetic person. I wish I had the heart that she did because she just connected with every single person that she interacted with. She tried to understand where people were coming from. If you told her a goal, it was her goal. If you told her you were sad about something, she was sad about something. I love any woman that connects with other women in that way. I just adore them. So, my mother is my answer, but also other people in my life who've just been there for me in that way. I just try to take that energy and be that for other women.
Visit womenofcincy.org/everydayexpert for the full series.
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