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 Implementation Is Intervention: Building Behavioral Health Systems

With Dr. Will Rhett

Stories to Solutions

Interview Recorded On: March 20, 2026
Will Rhett was doing anthropological fieldwork in Mexico when the Indigenous communities he was working with asked why he was studying them. He turned the question around: if he was an outsider in someone else's community, why wasn't he there to help? He finished his PhD, earned a clinical degree in marriage and family therapy, and became a bilingual, bicultural counselor for Indigenous families from Mexico living in California, brokering access to services that language or an unfamiliar system had kept out of reach. By the time most families reached him, counseling was the last hope. What they placed in him, and in the system behind him, was almost a sacred trust. When services did not deliver, they kept coming anyway. He moved into changing how those services are delivered, and as Managing Director at Third Sector Capital Partners he works alongside the county teams responsible for them. Policy changes that once came every ten years now land several in a single year, and the rollout can fall to one or two people inside one program. Through the Transformational Change Partnership, those teams get time set aside to plan, along with coaching, and the people who use the services sit at the table for the design. A county ready to spend five years on a new clinic might start with a one-day mobile clinic at a community fair, ask people whether they would come, and learn that what works is a clinician sharing an office with a local organization people already trust.
Interview Recorded on: March 20, 2026
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Will Rhett was doing anthropological fieldwork in Mexico when the Indigenous communities he was working with asked why he was studying them. He turned the question around: if he was an outsider in someone else's community, why wasn't he there to help? He finished his PhD, earned a clinical degree in marriage and family therapy, and became a bilingual, bicultural counselor for Indigenous families from Mexico living in California, brokering access to services that language or an unfamiliar system had kept out of reach. By the time most families reached him, counseling was the last hope. What they placed in him, and in the system behind him, was almost a sacred trust. When services did not deliver, they kept coming anyway. He moved into changing how those services are delivered, and as Managing Director at Third Sector Capital Partners he works alongside the county teams responsible for them. Policy changes that once came every ten years now land several in a single year, and the rollout can fall to one or two people inside one program. Through the Transformational Change Partnership, those teams get time set aside to plan, along with coaching, and the people who use the services sit at the table for the design. A county ready to spend five years on a new clinic might start with a one-day mobile clinic at a community fair, ask people whether they would come, and learn that what works is a clinician sharing an office with a local organization people already trust.
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Links to Solutions
Behavioral Health Systems: People with serious mental illness tend to die 25 years younger than those without it. As California's public system turns toward the most acute needs, more of those patients will be seen in general healthcare.
Space To Plan: Stakeholder engagement is now mandatory in many new policies, and for an overwhelmed team it turns into one more box to check. The Transformational Change Partnership sets aside time for county teams to bring end users in to co-design the rollout.
Peer Workforce: California now certifies peers, people who have received behavioral health services and want to give back, yet many of the jobs waiting for them are tokenistic, stigmatized, and lead nowhere. Third Sector is working with employers and educators to change that.
Meet Our Guest
Dr. Will Rhett
Will Rhett, PhD, is a Managing Director at Third Sector Capital Partners, where he leads the Behavioral Health practice area and draws on more than 20 years of clinical and consulting experience. Third Sector is a national nonprofit that provides technical assistance to government agencies on policies, systems, and services. He holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University, a PhD in anthropology from UC San Diego, and two master's degrees, including one in psychology, marriage, and family therapy, and his clinical background includes work as a bilingual, bicultural therapist for Spanish-speaking families and youth. Before joining Third Sector, he spent nearly 14 years at the California Institute for Behavioral Health Solutions, where he served on the executive management team and led technical assistance and training for state and county agencies implementing new behavioral health programs and policy. That work included the rollout of the Prevention and Early Intervention and Innovation components of the Mental Health Services Act and of the Drug Medi-Cal Waiver. He also led the organization's Health Equity team, overseeing the review of county cultural competency plans and outcomes, and directed learning collaboratives based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Breakthrough Series Model. He has served as a reviewer for the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices at the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. His practice area's current work includes the Transformational Change Partnership, which Third Sector co-created with the University of the Pacific and which has supported four cohorts and 10 county teams, as well as implementation support for Orange County under California's Behavioral Health Services Act.
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Website:  https://www.thirdsectorcap.org/
Org Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/third-sector-capital-partners