When COVID-19 prompted VADOC to suspend in-person religious services, the agency faced competing pressures: inmates hold a federal right to religious practice, and those services also contribute to order and structured behaviour within facilities. As positivity rates declined in spring 2021, VADOC needed a reopening plan that was operationally sound, legally defensible, and built on genuine consultation. Fitz and Barton describe the process that preceded the Dialogue itself: a preparatory meeting of regional office staff, prison leadership, and headquarters personnel first mapped all the voices needed, identifying gaps that included Health Services representatives and prison counsellors. Only then was the Dialogue and Business Practices Administrator brought in to facilitate the Working Dialogue proper, whose output served as the blueprint for guidance issued by the Chief of Corrections Operations. The paper is a practical account of how Working Dialogue was embedded into agency governance, turning a sensitive reopening decision into a process owned by those closest to its consequences.