Best Starts for Kids Blog



ROUGH EDITED COPYKing County - Best Starts for KidsKing County-Best Starts for Kids Community Conversation-(Zoom)Remote CART CaptioningOctober 22, 2020, 7pmCART CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC**PO BOX 278LOMBARD, IL 60148* * * * *THIS IS BEING PROVIDED IN A ROUGH-DRAFT FORMAT. COMMUNICATION ACCESS REALTIMETRANSLATION (CART) IS PROVIDED IN ORDER TO FACILITATE COMMUNICATION ACCESSIBILITYAND MAY NOT BE A TOTALLY VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS* * * * >> Jessica: Hi, welcome. I think we're waiting on a couple more folks. >> Jessica: Hi. It might be time to get started. Am I seeing -- is Sheila on yet?I'm not seeing Sheila yet. But we can get started by first welcoming everybody. I'm Jessica warner. I lead youth development executives of King County and we're a coalition of over 100 nonprofits that work across King County to help support young people to thrive. Many of you are members of ours, we're glad to see you here today. And we have enough folks on and a short enough window that I think we're going to invite folks to share your name and your organization and your pronouns in the chat. So, we can know who's on the call. And feel free to also change your name to include those things if you would like to. And have space to do so. And I think with that, I'm going to turn it over to the BSK team. Although, if Sheila is up next, Kerry, would you advise that we do introductions while we wait?I see Marcy is joining now?>> Sheila's on. >> Hi, Sheila. Yea. Good to see you. >> Sheila: It's okay. We had technical difficulties. I was just let in the room. >> Jessica: Fantastic. >> Sheila: Hello. >> Jessica: So glad to see you. Thank you for hosting it today she.'S the leader of the best arts for kids levy. But even broader than that leads the relevantly new King County for youth and children and young adults. With that, we'll turn it over to Sheila. >> Sheila: Hi, welcome. Glad to see everybody here today. Excited about this conversation today. I'm sorry for the technical difficulties with the county. But we're all showing up. It looks like people are doing introductions in the chat?Is that what we're seeing?Beautiful, okay. I don't know if the announcement has been made, but we are ROFRDing this event. It is considered a public meeting and that makes it available for folks to be able to see. So I just want to make sure everybody knew that as you have an opportunity if you'd like to speak, know that's a recorded meeting. So, we are going to jump right in here. We have king county staff who have joined us who will be taking notes today. So our intention today is to go over a little bit of what -- where B -- what BSK is, kind of where we've been, a little bit of our history and break out to small groups to talk about what BSK, the experience of being a part of BSK or around BSK has been for you. Both what's been good and then what have been some of the challenges. And to talk a little bit about BSK2.0, sort of what's coming up for renewal and to ask you all what do you think you should be doing. So we'll go more specifically to those questions. Before we get started. , I wanted to introduce my co-lead for BSK, Marcy miller. Marcy and I are joined -- I was going to say joined at the hip. But from here until we get this puppy passed again, she and I will do deep work on leading this from a policy perspective. Do you want to give an introduction of yourself >> Marcy: Thank you so much for being here today. I'm really excited to hear from all of you. I'm the co-lead of best arts for kids, the policy manager in King County public health, so, thanks. >> Sheila: I just want to give a shout out to all of the King County staff who had volunteered to take notes. Thank you very much. You are turning out for the community conversations and we appreciate that. From the note taking, we are here to gather allf oh the information that we hear from you all today from our community and use that as our data as we move forward as we think about what we're going to do with the BSK renewal. So what I have prepared for you today is a PowerPoint to talk about where we've been with BSK. And I want to go through that. I will -- I'm going to sort of talk -- feel free to interrupt and ask questions if you have a burning question. Ly stop at the end and see if -- I will stop at the end and see if people have questions but as I'm doing this PowerPoint, I can't really see hands or if you come off of mute, you have to come on and interrupt me, maybe one of the few times where we can get rid of the social norm of not doing that to ask your questions. But, if you want, or you're able to, you can save that until we end. So, I'm going to share my screen, beautifully, I hope. I can see some of you. For some reason, you're the two that are still on my screen. All right, again, so, talk about the Best Start for Kids highlights and talk about what our community process has been other time and we'll do our breakout groups and discussion for today.So, best starts for kids, I hope most of you have seen these four words. I love these words. These are our vision, happy, healthy, safe, and thriving for all children, all youth, all young adults, all families, all communities in King County. We have a lengthy vision statement. And as we did our work, we realized it really just boiled down to these four words. So, if there's anything that I want you to keep in mind as I continue to talk about BSK and as you don't think about BSK, it's really those four words. This is what we're aiming for. Happy, healthy, safe, and thriving. The mission on our way of getting there is the best for kids works to strengthen families and communities. Children thrive to establish a strong foundation for life and grow into happy, healthy adults. We start from the beginning. We want to support kids throughout the childhood and we want to launch them to the adulthood from a happy, healthy standpoint. Some of our principles with BSK are important and are very different about this funding source and other ways that the county had funded things, we put a heavy emphasis on promotion of well being. We do make investments in prevention of risk factors and things that are harmful. But really the key for BSK is we want to talk about what we want to create in the world and not what we want to prevent for our young people. So, we look at promotion of well being, preventing some of the harmful things that can happen. Intervening early and wrapping around our children when things first begin to happen so we can get kids back on track before the big bad stuff happens. We recognize with best starts for kids that a lot of our investments are in direct services supporting organizations and supporting children and their families and young people. But that's not the only piece we need to be concerned about. We also recognize that we have policies and systems in place that have perpetuated harm for our children and families and we are working really hard to shift and undo those systems and policies within the county and where we can within our region have that kind of influence. Our strategies and investment areas based on the science and research that says invest early in our kids than way you form an amazing foundation. Most of you know by now that early signs tell us that our human brains are pretty much developed, 92% by the time we're 5 or 6. So being able to invest in the programming and supporting families in the early years will be able to set a really good foundation. So BSK, investing early to 5. We know from the research and certainly our community communicated this to us in many ways that that's just the beginning. We start with that foundation, but we need to be able to invest in key developmental times in a child's life in order to be able to sustain those earlier gains. When we don't have those later investments, we run the risk of being able to lose some of the gains that we made for young people. So, that is our 5 to 24 bucket. ( Communities matter. Communities of opportunity program. We have children, youth -- a youth and family homelessness prevention project. And evaluating all of that is a key part of our investments as well. To be able to that we actually are making the changes that we are trying to create in the world. So, doing a small deep dive into maybe medium-sized dive to actual strategies. Investing early from prenatal care to the first day of kindergarten, we -- we have worked with a theoretical framework which we continue from the beginning and we continue to use today. It is deeply important to us that BSK be grounded in science and research and what the research tells us. Are they important things that they need to be sure to be doing for our young people. We are also deeply in feedback. The framework is based on both of those important aspects of knowledge, both research, knowledge, and community knowledge. The theoretical framework in the easiest sense says if we increase the good thinges for our young people and decrease the bad things, we're going to end up in healthy development and well being for children and families. So, if we increase promotive and protective factors, things like resilience, parenting, child development, getting concrete support, social and emotional competence, if we can increase the promotive factors and pair it with reducing risk factors, stressors, unhealthy birth outcome, social isolation, then we would arrive at that middle part, that healthy development and well being for children and families, we can make sure this is available to people. But I want to emphasize here that everything that we do at BSK is actually based on this theoretical frame. And I'm going to go next to show you what our investments are. You can actually map each one of those programs to some part of these dot points and each one of these dot points research-based. So, our prenatal to 5 investments are 50% of the levy. Our parent-child health services is the place where we're guaranteeing the healthy birth outcomes, providing support prenatally up to the first year or two, making sure that infants and their families are healthy in that time. Home-based services about providing support and services to new families in their own homes. Most of those programs are in the first couple of years, a couplef -- the a couple stretched to children 3 and 4 but they're based out of the home and enabling parents to navigate the earlier years. Vroom is a parent education tool. It's fun. It communicates some of the early PRAN science that we know in young people in ways that are easy to understand with suggestions on how you can use that information in your parenting to be able to parent your children. One of my favorite examples because I used it with my little ones is talking about doing everyday chores like folding laundry. How can you fold your laundry to shapes while doing a chore but talking about this is a square, this is a circle, what is this?And just ways that you can play the education for little ones. We've invested in developmental promotion, which includes sort of looking at getting information to families and care givers about what is typical KWOMENT for young people and looking at potential screening opportunities. And partnering with that early supports for young people that may be identified as having some developmental delays was important for us to partner those two things. Once we sort of think about the family unit, the next circle out is how do we invest in community-based parenting and peer supports for our families and children. Support groups the way communities wrap around the little ones. We think about the next circle out is who else cares for our children when they're not with us. And the child care consultation investment is assuring that the spaces that our kids are in are healthy and promoting of their growth and development. That's about child care facility, child care -- the ways that it is done and making sure that it is healthy. Workforce development. So the folks that work with young people and with little ones, have the training that they need to understand brain development, to understand multiculturalism and language acquisition and to understand the positions around equity and access. Finally we go out to the bigger system level and we have invest in a program in a -- in an approach called help me grow, which is really about assuring that families have the connections that they need with the providers that they need and the providers themselves have a sense of being a part of the bigger system and know one another. And we have an innovation fund, which said there are folks out there doing things that are really interesting and let them come to us and talk about what does it look like to pull together as a program, the planning from the beginning, the evaluation. And let's see, it's something that works for the community and something potentially that can be replicated for other communities. Those are our P-5 investments. Again, 50% of the levy. You can see how they hang together and how they relate to our theoretical frame. To stay in the game, we also have a theoretical framework. This is our 5 to 24 investments. For this particular group, nothing in here should be a surprise. But we had the same model. We're wanting to increase promotive and protective factor, decrease risk factor, and get us to that healthy development and well being for young people. Some of the things that are dot points here we find on the early theoretical frame because of the Universal needs for humans prenatal to 24, and some of them are specific to the developmental time that we are working with young people. So, youth resilience becomes really important when we have a framework for youth development, social connections, knowledge, concrete support. We're looking at reducing some of the risk factor, unsafe and unstable environments. That gets us to what we're hoping is healthy development and well being for our young people. One of the things that I like about this framework is talking about not just the parents and what competencies they need to be able to help their children, but this comes to the young people and what do they need for themselves to develop and into healthy young adults. So our 5 to 24 investments are 35% of the levy. Don't pay attention to the nine strategies here. I'm not sure I keep saying that. There are more or less depending on how you look at this. We have our youth development as a megastrategy. And we rolled up in our youth development strategies four strategies that we had that we realized when we heard from community they wanted to RFP all together. We call it the youth development bucket. I know that many of you are funded through there. That includes mentoring, positive identity development, leadership, and healthy relationships. We have our school partnerships investments that are around our school-based health centers, trauma informed and restored practices and out of school time investments. There's the family and community connection which is is about engaging with families and parents and ensuring we have healthy and safe environments. Our transitions to adulthood is about support around -- for our older young folks. So, more of the 16 to 24-year-olds around education support, around postsecondary support, either moving on to postsecondary education or training or employment, and a little bit of the social-emotional behavioral health support during that time. And then finally we have a very specific focused investment in stopping the school-to-prison pipeline about young people who are at risk of touching the system or have been touchd by the system and providing some community-led support in that way. So, our communities matter is communities of opportunity, community opportunity is 10% of the levy. And it's a public-private partnership of the Seattle foundation. These are place-based and cultural community based community-led movement building type of investments. And we have four key priority areas such as affordable housing, the right to be healthy, increased community, and strong community connections. Every place-paced or cultural community-based group is made up of residents and stakeholders and different decision makers who come together and say of these priority areas, this is what we need for our community and how we need to do this within our community. And then finally, we have youth and family homelessness initiative. This was an interesting project that we undertook when BSK first was passed, we knew that 2016 we would connect on the levy but the implementation plan would not be approved until the end of the year. So rather than just collecting on dollars that are just going to sit there, we took the initial connections and spread them out over six years and fund uhhed the youth and family homelessness project that's turned out to be really successful the idea is we geared it to folks that the imminent risk of homelessness and provided two things, flexible funding, so if there's just a little bit of actual money that they needed to pay, you know, three months' rent or to pay for some training that they needed or something that that could keep them and their familiese housed and paired that with intensive case management and support that helped people through partnership Advocacy, work through what brought them to the point of imminent homelessness and at risk of it and bringing it back from that. 95% of the families we served did not become homeless a year after we served them. It's highly successful. We hope to continue that in BSK. So, a little bit of our history. In the early days, we started to do community conversations in the summer of 2015. They went through the early fall.This is prior to the initiative to the levy being passed. And essentially we asked people, if we were to have a large children's initiative, what should we do with that funding?What do you think are the programs and services that we need within our communities. So, we went out, we had ten different geographically based conversations throughout the county. We did a lot of stake holder meetings as well. We came to WIDEK a couple of times and different organizations doing work with young people. We also ended up speaking to a -- around 2,000 people, including youth during that time. The levy was passed in November of 2015 and by January of 2016, we formed a children and youth advisory board which helped us work through our implementation plan. We took the information we got from the community conversations and we brought them in house. We worked with King County Staff. We had development of the implementation plan, about 100 king county employees participated in work groups, taking all of that information from the conversations and saying okay. Let's write this down. We took it back out to the community. We said we asked you in the summer, this is what we heard, we wrote down, did we get it right?And we went back to the ten geographic conversations and talked to as many of the stakeholders that we could that spring to make sure we were really reflecting what we heard from the community. By June, we were able to transmit that plan. And by September of 2016, the council passed our plan for BSK with a budget in November. We were ready to go in January of 2017. Most of our investments have been multiyear investments and that was really following the guidance of the community. They said we need you to be able to cover more of the cost of the program and we need them to be multiyear so we have an opportunity to plan and be able to see the outcomes of what it was that we're seeking. We heard it was really hard to apply for government dollars sometimes, so we provided technical assistance by working with consultants in our communities who then work with nonprofits who wanted to apply for BSK dollars. Through 2019, more than 2,540 hours of technical assistance was provided to our community-based organization partners. Ed the final thing about history is if you had read our annual reports, you yao would see this format. But what we decided for the first round of the levy to talk about implementation in three category, laying the groundwork, building momentum, and delivering impact. We did that because we knew that some things that we were doing replicating an evidence-based program, for instance. We knew right away we could start delivering impact. But some of the things we were doing, because it was new and innovative, or because we wanted to do deep community-led work, we wanted to show that work so it wasn't the outcomes for the young people just yet. We wanted to show the outcomes of laying the groundwork and building that momentum and we could get to the actual service provision and delivering impact becomes both that community work and the work of working with young people. So all of the annual reports you see are within that format. So, let me stop there and -- woops, ask if there are any questions -- that was very quick. I recognize that. But I really want to get to an opportunity to hear from you all. So, ask for questions about where we are with BSK now or what our history has been with BSK?You can hop in, I probably won't see everyone coming off of mute, although I'll try. >> Janis: Sheila, it's Janis Avery. I looked briefly through some of the reporting. I got the e-mail in my report today. The first summary report is beautiful. Then a lot of data that takes a lot of digging around. But I wondered, out of -- what degree do you think this round of BSK had left in the community. Like how much does it need to grow in order to serve the right number of people to change population indicators for our community?>> Sheila: You're asking the wrong person, because I'm like, as much as it takes. So, some of that will come at the end of what we're talking about. But there are some needs that we did not cover with BSK that we as policy leads are actually recommending that we're trying to expand to cover. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I think two things. I think we met a lot of need. We're working with a lot of organizations. From our numbers that we've been able to collect, we've impacted over 400,000 children, youth, and families. It's a big initiative. I bounce between how big a government initiative needs to be, and how much we need to work harder to leverage public/private partnerships and dollars so we're able to move in the same direction and invest in that deep impact. Our history we've gone like this, been able do that. Sometimes we do, sometimes we move away from it. We're committed to the second round of the levy to say, okay, where are our private funders and how can we partner with each other to make sure that our organizations are getting the funding that they need to get at the outcomes that we all want. So, two answers to that. I think we need to leverage it more.We ear asking for BSK to be a little bit bigger. And that still won't be enough. I think we need to have that balance with private and government funding. >> Sheila: Did you mean to come off of mute, Brianna?Do you have a comment?Okay. We won't pick on you. Anybody else before we move on?There will be opportunity in the next steps to dive deeper. Right now, we want to hear from you all and what your experiences have been with BSK as a way of informing our next steps. So two breakout sessionings. The first one will be about 15 minutes apiece. The first one, we had two questions that we want you to constraint on. The first group is what do you think has gone well with best starts?What did you like?Why did it go well?And what do you think didn't go so well, or what were some of the challenges with BSK. So, what was good, and what didn't work so well. And are challenges. If we can keep this first conversation a deep dive into that. And the second question would be, therefore, what modifications or adjustments or changes do you think we need. But let's hear for now, what went well, what didn't go so well or were challenges. So I'm going to turn it to Charlene Jose who's helping with our tech support here and she will talk to you all about how to get you to the small groups. Take it away, Charlene?SHOIP hi, everyone. So, in a few moments here, you'll be whisked off in your groups for about 15 minutes, correct, Sheila?>> Sheila: Yes. >> Charlene: Great. You'll be whisked into your rooms here shortly. >> Sheila: Note takers, you're ready to be whisked into rooms soon. Too. (Captioner standing by) >> Brad: Hello, everybody. I guess, this is it. I guess when we all -- when we all land in the right room, we're all here. My name is Brad Finegood, I work for public health in Seattle, King County. I'm the note taker for today. I'm going to share my screen because it's super important for me to make sure that what you all are seeing, I'm capturing it correctly. In the language that you wish to be heard. We have 15 minutes. We have six people in this room including myself. So maybe if we can quickly go around and do some quick introductions. I can call on folks. And then -- if you just introduce yourself and what -- what group you represent or otherwise how you -- you want to be represented, that would be great. Let me start off -- Brian, let me start off with you. >> Brian: Brian Saelens, at the University of Washington, a member of the children youth advisory board. So I'm here to listen and Brad said here in your own words about the things you think are going well and maybe how we might change the limitations in the future. >> Brad: Thanks, Brian, Lydia. >> Lydia: I'm the project coordinator for you-power, trauma-informed fitness for kids all across King County. I'm the newest employee for You Power, I do not know the fullest extent of our partnership with BSK. But I know they've been a huge support for us especially in COVID times. So, I don't know if I will be able to speak as explicitly about, you know, the pros and cons of BSK. But I'm here to learn and, you know, CLAB RAPT a little bit. >> Brad: Thank you. I'll just add real quick that I don't work in the depths of BSK so, this is new learning for me and hearing programs like UPower is super amazing. So, thank you. Is Kat. >> Kat Reuter, an affordable housing nonprofit and have services at 18 properties across the state. We've applied for BSK grants but never received them. I'm definitely aware of BSK. Thank you. >> Cindy: Just the captioner. >> Captioner: I'm just here to caption. I'm not participating. >>> >> Brad: Okay. Ana?Ana Short?If you're trying to Ana?If you're trying to talk, you might be on mute, Ana?Ana, one last chance to introduce yourself?All right. Okay. Well, we'll keep moving on. So -- so, the first question is, what do you think has gone well with BSK?What did you like?So, breaking it down into multiple categories here. Administrative process like RPs and contracting. Impact on children and families. What you think has gone well with BSK?What have you liked?>> Kat: I'm the only one here. I think their sessions have been clear. They've done a good job of trying to get the word out to smaller grassroots organizations and communities of color. And I feel they've done a really strong job in terms of outreach. So, I feel like as a veteran grant writer like their process has been clear and pretty straightforward, which I definitely appreciate. >> Lydia: We developed a tool kit based on some of the guidelines that BSK has. M something is that helped the development of their tool kit. I believe it was in partnership with BSK. And I think that partnership -- not sure how much it streamlined it, but aided our tool kit process. >> Brad: That's great. I wanted to make sure I heard what you said clearly. RFP has been clear getting the word out. The process has been clear about what's been asked and impacted communities. Including the communities of color. >> Kat: Organizations that maybe don't have like a staff person who's writing grants who don't have that. So, we're like we're a big organization, so we have a fundraising department but we know many small orgs can be two people and they don't have dedicated staff or any staff. So it seems like they have provided technical assistance to a lot of the smaller orgs which is great to have that resource available to folks who don't have the knowledge or never written grants before, or like whatever. >> Brad: Brian, anything you want to add to the conversation. >> Brian: Through the processes, I think the thing I appreciated was the DSH and public health brought together different people, not only within the org as it, but outside of government to be -- (indiscernible) the review process, right?And I -- I think we can make that even better and more robust. But I thought it was a great start. >> Representative agencies. Great. What about -- what has gone well as far as impact on children and families?Ed >> Lydia: Again, from my limited knowledge, the BSK has been a great connector of all of these different organizations and, you know, like the UW, like big and small. That I think has helped definitely UPower expand our reach in COVID times. So they've done a good job of facilitating things like this that create long-term partnerships and expand the reach that we have. >> Brad: UPower, would you call them a smaller organization or -->> Lydia: Yes, smaller. Five people, we're four years old. >> Brad: Sure, great, thank you. Kat, do you have thoughts about -->> Kat: Just what I heard, some of the grants have made a big difference for much smaller grassroots organizations who maybe haven't had a ton of DPRANTs before and don't have a history of grants. It seems like a smaller grant can make a big difference for a small organization. The funds have gone through BiPOC organizations, which is great, that haven't had a chance to compete for grant funding out there in the youth development space. So I think that's awesome. >> Brad: Great, great. I want to check in again. Just want to see if you're there. And can talk and feel free to try to chat if you're having trouble with the microphone, Ana?Okay. What about -- what about -- from your perspective, is there anything as far as impact on children and families that you've noticed. F it's strong and pertinent. We'll get into this. One of the things I worry about is sort of the -- the spread rather than depth. Part of that just has to co-with resources. As alluded to, this initiative can and should be bigger. So, I think we can point to specific strategies that have been effective. And I think there's learning from things that didn't work very well. >> Brad: So, would it be safe to say something that's gone well with BSK as far as the work with families is sort of the wide spread touch that it's had. >> Brian: Some strategies have been effective. And the pressure has been too light in some areas. That are harder to grasp, so perhaps not surprising. >> Brad: Sure, sure. Great, anything else?Anybody else that touches on families what's gone well and what folks have liked about BSK?>> Lydia: One thing I just messaged my team, just asking if they had any notes. And our founder and -- said that BSK has been giving great suggestions and like guidance to our organization and project managers as we've been developing things throughout the years. That we realry appreciated. >> Brad: This is great to hear -- the pride that goes into the work is great to hear. So, next question that we need to tackle is what didn't go so well. Or were there challenges with BSK?And I think, Brian, you were sort of alluding to some of the challenges of (choppy audio) wasn't able to be achieved because of the limited funding?>> Brian: To me, the broader issue of context is I think that's -- we're -- we're not going to ultimately ( program ourselves out of the inequities that exist. And I would love if BSK were able to figure out how to do more policy systems and policy change. I think that's what's going to root out sort of racist and oppressive things that are keeping our kids from being healthy, safe, and thriving. That's a big ask. And, I do think that there are things that BSK has done in that direction. And it's challenged with a lot of programatic work. I would love to give resources to folks who do proprogramatic work and help us do policy assistance and environment change. You know, small things, just transform our whole culture, right?>> Brad: I wanted to make sure that I captured it. Not able to be achieve in limited funding. I will say except in certain areas. And how do do more policy systems in environment change that will root out systems of oppression on a balanced policy work with -- (indiscernible) does that capture it okay?Kat, some things that -- some things that we're working with an agency that we're funded. Any thoughts that you have?Challenges or changes that you recommend?>> Kat: I guess we always ask for a feedback. The feedback is a little generic. And I feel like just to be clear like if they really want to fund grassroots orgs of color, say that. I'm happy to support other organizations that need funding probably more than we do in some cases just to be clear what the funding priorities or who they want to fund, it would be helpful if it was more clear. >> Brad: We're going to be closed here in 25 seconds. Anything else?Lydia, anything else?I want to make sure that we get -- >> Sheila: Some groups came back. >> Sheila: You can choose to come back. You can get yanked out or you can choose. How many groups are there, Charlene? >> Charlene: There's five groups. >> Sheila: Welcome back. Looks like we have all of our groups back, I'm thinking. So, let's do a report out. I'm going to assume that the note taker in your group is going to be the report out unless you arranged otherwise. So, it's okay with me if someone else does, but if not, note takers, you all will be stepping up to that plate. So, let's go through the groups. Who can be first in reporting out what your group talked about?Michelle, I'm looking at you, were you a note taker?Sorry. >> Michelle: Here's a joke, for all of you who don't know. Sheila has been my boss for a long time. She is no longer my boss. But she is still my boss. As you just witnessed. I will go -- I don't think I got the memo that we were going to share out. Because I surely would have appointed one of my group members to do this. But that's okay. So, sorry, Rene, you didn't get to finish your comment before we were so rudely booted out. What do you think went well with BSK, or all of the questions?>> Sheila: Both, what went well, what didn't?One of the group members stated what went well, the county prescribed a commitment to CBOs and delivered in funding those programs the multiyear grant was of great benefit. And for some organizations, allowed them to leverage other funding and serve more people. It's historic that we're talking about promotion as an investment versus always focusing on intervention. And just the way the community was engage in the process, people felt included. It feels like we're doing that now. So, some of the things that didn't go so well and were challenges, one of our group members shared that the larger organizations didn't get funded and hopefully BSK2.0 will provide an opportunity for some of those organizations to be funded. The RFPs seemed pretty prescriptive and hyperdefined. The way that was described was that sometimes for the smaller organization, it was a barrier to try to figure out where their organization fit to what felt like a prescription to apply for that funding. And I think a really big good piece of feedback is this needs to be profiled for this next renewal. And so one of the group members was worried that it's not being profiled to the level that it needs to be in the media and to the larger media or in county media. So there's a concern that not everybody that needs to know about it in order to make a decision to vote to approve it is actually getting that information. Any group -- anything that seems out of sync?I think I captured it with my group. >> Sheila: Nothing anyone in that group wants to add?>> Michelle: Anything that anybody wants to add?>> Sheila: I see a big thumbs up. Michelle, thank you for going first. >> Michelle: You're welcome, Sheila. >> Sheila: I see Brad, were you a note taker?Let's have you come on up. >> Brad: It's so good to connect to amazing faces due to COVID that we don't get a chance to. So I'm glad to be able to be here today. We got a little cut short on the challenge this time. That's my fault that I wasn't managing the time well. But were some challenges really arounded with the available funds being spread too thin and that is there a bigger items that there can be more depth sort of invested in to -- and really there was a conversation about if we invest in programs can we move the population health needle as was talked about before. And folks would like to see more investments and policy systems and environment change that rooted out systemic areas of oppression. That's all I got. >> Sheila: Thank you. Anyone in that group want to add anything more?All right. So, I'm going to ask for the next note takers. I can make some assumptions about who they might be. Okay?>> Mara: Yeah, I was a note taker for a group. The group that I had worked -- that I worked with, didn't -- they hasn't applied for grants, any of them. And there were a couple that were interested in learning more about BSK. But we did talk about how the applications and RFPs and everything were detailed and thorough and helpful. And the blog is very, very good. Felt like that was a positive thing as far as administration. Reaching people with opportunities to apply. We did talk about the strategy of the multiyear funding, helping with trust and relationships being effective as opposed with the terp grants that were smaller. It was only a year, smaller to keep the flow going. Talk about that. Impact -- oh, and the impact on children and families. We talked a little bit about mentoring aspects. That was really appreciative and effective. Early learning innovations, creative strategies of outreach and avoiding systems of perpetuating harm. We talked about that topic. Looking to the communities and keeping that focused. Talked about that. But, people were interested in talking about the balance of government and private funds. I didn't know about the PISTA (phonetic) grant?>> Sheila: Pasta?>> That's what I mean. I learned about things. >> Sheila: We speak in acronyms way too much. So -- all right. The us that group have anything to add?Thank you. It's really good feedback we're getting here. Anyone in that group have anything to add?Okay. See a thumbs up. How about Hanna?>> Hanna: Some of the things that went well is that before BSK, there really wasn't a lot of investment in upstream services. And since BSK, there's been a lot of investment in Q-based organizations that can provide those services. BSK has really shifted the way organizations are funded, like who's funded and who has access to -- these resources. BSK provides capacity building support. And organizations have had positive experience with the capacity building providers. Early learning and helps to support families of all stages of their children's ages. There is -- within the cohorts have been funded, there's been community that's built, relationships and shared learning. And from those BSK does a good job of making visible and clear efforts in supporting the communities of color. And then the RFP process was smooth and there's additional support to organizations such as the TA supports, which is the technical assistance. And we really didn't get enough time to go over the challenges portion, but some of the stuff that was shared was that there is a larger investment in early learning. So, we -- there's an interest of maybe shifting some additional funds to children. That are older. And then there are organizations that have applied for multiple -- multiple grants and received those multiple grants, but there is a way that BSK can streamline reporting processes. So, that way some of the information is not duplicated and the guarantees. And, if there could be an additional support around school and school community partnerships. >> Sheila: Wonderful, thank you. Anyone in that group want to add?I want to call out a comment in the chat. We were additional investments. And, yes, we agree that that will be important to hold in the next cycle. Particularly given the reality that we're in right now with pandemic impacted. Economy. Whitney, can you report out for your group?>> Whitney: Yes, so my group had a lot of similar things as has been said. The importance of multiyear funding to get programs successfully off of the ground and working in partnership with others. The flexibility and the sense of partnership with BSK staff in dealing with the impacts of COVID-19. And in the technical assistance and capacity building available for applications, work plan development, etc.And my group also didn't have time to get to the negatives, so of things to improve. So I encourage any of my group participants if they have anything to share to chime in now. >> Sheila: You know what I'm going to say for the next question. For people who didn't get an opportunity to talk about the challenges, they may actually wrap into the next question about what adjustments or changes. So, if -- you can say, this is what challenge did, this is what I recommend for a change if it impacts it or not. So, that I think would be great for the second round. Do I have a fifth note taker?Was there a fifth group?Did I miss a group?All right, good. This is really, really good feedback. I just really appreciate folks being here. So, we're going to get to the second breakout session now. Again, 15 minutes to co-it. And the question there is what modifications adjustments or changes should we be thinking about as we plan for BSK2.0, so, some of the things that people said were challenges, those were things that I could see concrete, so let's go ahead and call them out again, modifications, adjustments, or changes. As we plan for BSK2.0, and if you feel like you want to have that discussion about what might have been challenges, also, you can do that during this time. So, Charlene, whisk us away. >> Brad: Awesome. We have a new friends in the room?Hi, Janis. >> Janis: Hi, brad. >> Brad: Nice to meet you VIRT CHAL. And we -- virtually. We're joined by Lydia. Lydia works for UPower. Right?>> Lydia: Yes. >> Janis: Yeah, I don't know if you remember, a month or so ago. >> Lydia: That was great. >> Brad: You want to introduce yourself real quick, Janis?>> Janis: My pronouns are she/her, I was the CEO at tree house and left in March and in the consulting practice now. >> Brad: Great, so great, what a great organization. Just to introduce myself, Brad Finegood with public health. I was with the human services department. I worked in the behavioral health field around substitute prevention treatment. Lydia, you want to introduce yourself. >> Lydia: Yeah, I'm Lydia, I use she/hers and I'm the project coordinator for UPower. We do trauma-informed fitness for underserved youth in King County. >> Brad: And Cindy is with us and she's doing captioning. So, thank you, Cindy. And if you want to chime in at any point, feel free to share your voice. So, question number one in this question today is what modifications or adjustments, if any, would you recommend for the -- for the rest of the first levy. And just so you know, Janis, I'm projecting my screen because I want to make sure I'm adequately taking notes on what folks are saying. So, modifications or adjustments. You want to start us off?Anybody?Go for it. Lydia, please?>> Lydia: I was going to say to Janice, I'm new to UPower, so I don't know that much about our partnership with BSK, other than I've been messaging with my teammates throughout this and one thing they mentioned for an adjustment would be that BSK has pretty strict when you apply for a grant, it's strict for what you can use that grant money for, or the ones you can apply for are strict on what you can use the money for. And sometimes that has been difficult for like -- for like I guess as an example, what you might do to COVID may not match what the grant has been for. Find wriggle room and respect BSK with the processes with grants. >> Brad: Difficult to work with at times and especially during COVID?Modifications, adjustments, Janice, anything that comes to mind for you?>> Janis: I'm going to use the phrase, performance-based contracting, that's not working the way it should in general in the world. And really fund outcomes rather than processes. >> Janis: Much more flexibility. We want organizations to evaluate their practice and make adjustments leading toward better services. Not adhere to the grant, necessarily. But the outcomes create greater flexibility, and I think -- and I think better practice. >> Brad: And innovation, all of that type of stuff, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What about any other modifications or adjustments of -- for the first levy around impacts and children and families?The direct impacts? Of people being served?>> Janis: I comment in the last group that there has not been a very -- the -- the reporting about what -- what the impacts are are not very visible. And so that's -- that's a concern I have. I only got to looking through today 5 through 24. Only one of them is measurable impact for program. Otherwise, it was a reporting was about numbers completed, numbers engaged. And something else, they were process indicators. I -- this sounds easy. But I think it's probably not. There might be population level indicators, by the time BSK is at 10 years, you ought to be impacting this initiative. They are not necessarily in the county's control. I mean, there would be things like is school completion and things like that. Probably -- yeah. >> Brad: Population should be visible and measured. >> Janis: By ten years. So, it does take time for these kinds of investments to make what we want. >> Brad: The next will be what modifications should we think about the BSK2.0. So, part of our ten-yeare value should be whether or not the needle moved on population level metric, something like that?>> Janis: Yeah. >> Brad: Sounds good. What else?In the next BSK round, our modifications or adjustments that we should be thinking about as we're -- as we're putting together BSK2.0. >> Janis: That's where the outcome-based contact should go. >> Brad: Sure, sure. I'll put it in there too. It will get double the visibility that way. >> Janis: Okay. >> Brad: And more flexibility and contracting. More flexibility and program. To drive -- to -- to outcomes. You know, in my work, one of the things I think about often is that myself as a program administrator bureaucrat, doesn't always know the -- I should know the right answer, and it's really about people doing the service and if the people served by -- by the services are the ones that should be like patient-centered design or collaborative design model, stuff like that, should be the ones sort of driving what the model looks like. Maybe I'll just add that in. No, I'm just joking. Lydia, anything that you think about for the next round of BSK?>> Lydia: I can't, just because I don't think I know enough about how we've interacted with BSK. And also, the inner workers of BSK. I think something that's been on my mind a lot, maybe both of you can answer this is does BSK offer like trainings to participants not necessarily on how to fill out the grants, but trainings on how do the collaborative design where communicating best with those we serve type of thing?>> There's been a lot of assistance in the process that people say is helpful. Even as direct as filling out the application. And certainly helping agencies design evaluation protocols that make sense. >> Yeah, just like as a young -- sometimes new to this field, like, those trainings, I think, would be something that I'm interested in taking part of. So, that's part of BSK, but continuing that would be really helpful, I think. >> That's great. That's great -- that's something that, you know, should continue. And should expand on, you know, for people to -- we're all in this place of constant moving and learning and system design and constant learning from people. And our system is constantly evolving so being able to have those trainings and knowing how to do the work in the system is super valuable, great. Anything else?If this is -- if this is your swan song of last opportunity to have input, which I know it's not going to be, what would be anything that you want taken into consideration for BSK2.0. >> I said this in the last group, I'll say it again. I think the communication plan needs to provide more information, highlights, whatever, to voters, on a more regular basis than on renewal. I think there should be throughout the grant period. >> Brad: That's something always on the content, the impact before?>> Janis: Yes. >> TLES. >> A reason that one is read. People see them around. They say I need one, I want one. But we like people to feel the same kind of affection for supporting kids and families in our community. >> Brad: So, Lydia, anything that you see within the families that you serve that you work with?Or that your program works with, that you see are unmet needs that we can take into account as BSK2.0 sort of goes forward. >> Lydia: That's difficult because like I think right now there's so much unmet need, or like people -- like there are small organizations everywhere trying to fill those needs. I think -- oh, it's so hard to pin down. >> Brad: You're in the expert in the room. >> Lydia: We serve specific function of kids aren't being active right now have. They're not playing, whether it's social play or literally physically moving. And, so, I think that one thing we're relying on is a lot of community partners to get the equipment that we're offering to those kids. But, I think a lot of our community partners are engaging with families. We've done a couple of popups. For kids to come often, they need a parent. Just because kids can't always be wandering around parks by themselves. And so I think the connecting with the work we do and the work that BSK does to parents, I guess, would be just so that, you know, we can be really aggressive, I guess, we're going to oh reach the children in the parents. Usually if it's not COVID times, we'd be going to the schools and other programs that kids are already integrated in. Because of Coronavirus, we're trying to reach them at home. There's more barriers to that. I think what we thought about recently, very little time, kids knowing what their rights and what they have access to, so they don't have parent figures or if they don't have things like how they can help themselves, I guess. So, I'm sure there are organizations that there are -- >> Sheila: Everyone coming back. >> Marcy: Yeah, I think so. >> Meghan: Not sure what happened. Thanh, did you get kicked out?>> Thanh: I clicked it quickly because I saw something. And -->> Meghan: I wanted to make sure that you weren't orphaned somewhere. >> Marcy: They're all coming back very soon. You know, you see something and you just click it. And I was like, oh, no. I just left. >> Marcy: I'm right there with you. >> Sheila: Are you missing a group or is everyone back?Were you all pulled out of your meetings?Okay, so then we just lost some to attrition. So, we entered into our final few minutes. I would love to have a report out. And if I could hear two things that came up in your group, and let's not repeat them. Your group came up with some things, tell me new things, two new things. Anyone want to volunteer?Note takers come on?>> Michelle: I'm going to do it. I'm not going to let you tell me to do it. >> Sheila: I was tempted. >> Michelle: My group decided they wanted me to do it anyway. So, one of our -- one of our group members, Kevin, coined something called BSK1.5. Raise up programs in rural and unincorporated areas and get children to articulate to the elected officials about supporting renewal of BSK. I think that's a brilliant idea. So we're calling that BSK1.5. We had one, how COVID changed service delivery and what's the recovery if we're ever out of it. And then we got to say one more, the BSK needs to allocate more funding to the 5 to 24 investments. We need to serve well the BIPOC youth given the current revolution we're living in. I had to say that. That came from Rene. >> Sheila: All right, thank you, thank you. Okay, next note taker. >> Brad: Or is somebody else going?>> Sheila: Okay. >> Brad: Okay, so I see most of the feedback we got was really about 1.0 and 2.0 combined. They are things to think about as we move forward and making sure the evaluation plan and metrics were not just process metrics, but they were really output metrics, and that by the time we get to the ten-year evaluation plan, we should see how population level metrics have been able to move. Some other -- another thing is about the -- continuing to provide training and technical assistance through best starts for kids on new and impactful ways to engage populations that people serve around program design on that training and technical assistance and around providing a little bit more flexibility within the RFPs and WB the contrast to do work that agency -- agencies are good at and are less prescription. >> Sheila: Wonderful, thank you. >> Hana: Two things from our group was one is BSK can play the role of building partnerships. One idea that emerged from this is hiring and investing more in these people who pay the role of coordinating all partnerships in the school, similar to the community navigator where the individual can identify what are the needs and how can those needs be met and ensure that CBOs in the schools are coordinating and not working in silos. The other is to create more opportunities to build in BSK2.0 for youth to really lead this work and be more involved. Ed >> Sheila: Wonderful. Whitney?>> Whitney: Two things from my group related to evaluation, just some consistency on platforms and the data being requested and also for folks who have multiple streams of funding if there could be some coordination in what's being asked. And then continue to sort of cast a wide net in terms of reaching community-based organizations, but maybe especially for the early development, family engagement, anding youth development funding source pieces. Think about deeper investments with schools. And deeper investments with families now, especially as parents and guardians are currently sort of co-teachers with their children. >> Mara: We talked about investment for partnership, so emphasize collaboration for partnerships for the multiyear funding. And we did talk about there was kind of a request for more funding for the 5 to 24 age group. And maybe even with all that's gone on in the last year, more focus -- focus on mental healther, with our kids. And then there was a question about more info on plan of action transitions to adulthood and stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, so, just like more plans of actions that are coming up. >> Sheila: Wonderful. Okay. Well, thank you all so much for your -- your input. This is actually been really, really helpful. And provides us with some -- some good work to dig in on. Both for the work that we're doing around putting this levy ordnance together. What we're participating is we'll be transmitting to the council a levy ordnance proposal requesting to be put on the ballot in August of 2021, the levy is up for renewal in December of 2021. So, we're requesting to go on the August ballot. We'll put that to council in January. They will have a few months to contemplate that to debate and figure out where they stand on it and what they support. But they need to pass a levy ordinance by May of 2021 in order for us to go on the August ballot. What we're assuming is that when they pass an ordinance in May, they will direct us to write an implementation plan for if the levy passes, and a winddown plan if the levy doesn't pass. So, that will be our work next summer. So, we have this information informs us for the levy ordinance. But a lot of it informs the implementation plan and what will it look like closer to the ground level work of what when he ear doing. So, I'm just really appreciative that we have that depth of information here. Looking towards the future in renewal, we transmitted a BSK assessment report that the council asked us to write this summer that has been transmitted to the council. It really was some of the review that of sort of how we've done and where have been our challenges and our successes. It also highlights some of the recommendations that we might have at a 10,000-foot level moving forward. So, I wanted to share with you what went into that assessment report. Part of the role that Marcy and I have as policy leads is to work with our team in BSK and work with community and put forward policy advice to our political leaders. It is their final decision on how big BSK is and what goes into BSK. But our job to give as much good information and our own recommendations as we can. So we have a couple of things. Looking at where we are right now with -- with what we would want to see anyway, we have some recommendations, but given the fact that we're in a pandemic, we're in a revolution, we need to take this moment and say, this is a new moment that we're in. What do we want to move forward with?So, we recommend that we actually consider expanding the levy to include funding around the places that our children are taking care of when they're not with us. So, we're looking an at deeper investment in outer school time that we can actually focus 5 to 12, deepening the investment there. We're looking at investing in school-based health centers in the county, because school-based health centers are really becoming a place that's more than just physical health, it's behavioral health, socioemotional learning and a place where even family can come together. And we're looking at a major investment in our child care. We recognize that when when he did our first community outreach projects, the one thing that we heard consistently at every meeting that we did not do investor for kids is to support access to child care. It just wasn't a part of what we could do with the last levy. Now, we know we had a system that was -- that was hurting before COVID and it's really taken a huge hit and it will be the issue for our families in the coming years. So, we are looking at asking for a larger investment in child care using -- there's a child care task force that came together over the last year and they came up with recommendation in a report they transmitted to the council. That's public record. But using recommendations in that report, what are some of the things that they can pull out and have them be a part of BSK. So, additional investment for BSK in the places that our children are cared for when they are not with their families and their caretakers. And that would be child care, it would be out of school time, it will be school-based health centers. So, that's -- that's what we are recommending and putting forward. Anything can happen. I will tell you that. The political process is a beautiful deep process to watch. We'll work with the council as we go along. How might we fit that though a vision. We don't have a number yet. That's where we're floating for our recommendation. >> Meghan: There's one question in the chat box. She wants clarification -- talking birth-to-5 child care and school age child care access. >> Sheila: Yes, so we're talking about child care access being birth-to-12, and then out of school time being 5 to 12 with an emphasis 5 to 12, but could deepen the investments right now, which also were 5 to 18, but ended up being mostly in the upper ages. Any other questions about where we're headed or anything here?Again, I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank WIDEK for your partnership, your past partnership, your ongoing partnership. We appreciate your help in sponsoring this event. It's great to see some familiar faces on this call too. I know that we are all working out of our homes or far more isolated than we have been. So it's really nice to see people here today and to hear from you. We are jumping in with both feet with this process. So any time you have an idea or a thought or something that you want us to consider, please, e-mail us, call us, we can set up a Zoom call. We want to have that kind of open communication as we move towards our proposal to our -- to our council members. So, have a good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. ................
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