People First. Systems Follow.
I’m a bilingual (English/Spanish) behavioral health leader and consultant with 15+ years of experience helping leaders and coalitions navigate real-world complexity. Through Arms Avanza Consulting, I partner with nonprofits and collaboratives—especially those serving Latino and underserved communities—to strengthen leadership capacity, streamline services, and design community-rooted solutions that last.
Thinking About Change
Adaptive Leadership
Many challenges aren’t solved by a new policy or template. I help leaders and teams distinguish technical work (apply known expertise) from adaptive work (learn, experiment, and shift mindsets). Together, we build the trust, safety, and shared ownership needed to move from reactive decisions to proactive, systemic change.
Collective Impact
Cross-sector work succeeds when everyone rows in the same direction. I design and facilitate structures that align partners around a common agenda, shared measures, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and strong backbone support—so efforts add up to impact instead of silos.
Cultural Humility
I bring a bilingual, culturally responsive lens that elevates community voice alongside institutional perspective. We create spaces where lived experience informs decisions and accountability.
Experience That Shapes Strategy
Where lived experience informs strategic action
Cross System Collaboration
Convened C-suite leaders and providers to launch shared pharmacy, psychiatry, and quality improvement initiatives.
Program Leadership
Directed multi-system projects embedding behavioral health into primary care and streamlining substance use services.
Workforce Development
Co-chaired NBHP’s Workforce Roundtable, driving equity and solutions to strengthen the behavioral health pipeline.
Facilitation Training
Trained through the American Leadership Forum and Adaptive Leadership Intensive, gaining tools in inclusive dialogue, systems thinking, and adaptive leadership to guide diverse groups and advance equity.
The Arms Avanza Way
Centering people, aligning systems, and sustaining impact long after the project ends.
Listen and Assess
We start by listening—through interviews, observation, and document review—then map stakeholders, incentives, and hidden dynamics. This step surfaces the “stuck points” and clarifies what’s technical (needs expertise) versus adaptive (needs learning and mindset shifts).
Step Back and See the System
Using tools like “getting on the balcony,” we pause the day-to-day firefight to spot patterns, power dynamics, and opportunities. We surface productive tension, create safe spaces for honest dialogue, and elevate community voices alongside institutional perspectives.
Co-Create & Test Solutions
Together we design adaptive and technical workplans, then test them in short learning cycles. Strategy mapping, Liberating Structures, and shared measurement workshops ensure every partner contributes meaningfully and knows what success looks like.
Align, Embed & Sustain
We clarify roles, build backbone infrastructure, and strengthen partner alignment. Finally, we embed accountability systems and practical tools your team can own—so the work continues long after the engagement ends.