-The 2023 Mayor's Public Policy Fellows.
And congratulations to all of you
for successfully completing your time here.
Hopefully, this experience has given you a glimpse
of what a life in public service might be like for you,
and that you will join some of the rest of us
in serving the public this way.
The City of Seattle is always looking for good employees.
So, keep this in mind.
It's my honor here this morning to introduce my boss,
the mayor of Seattle, Bruce Harrell,
who will come up here as soon as he's done chatting
with Ben and say a few remarks. And then we'll get right
into your presentations. Mayor Harrell.
-Thanks, Deputy Mayor.
Oh, thank you. Is there an applause --
is there an applause sign or something I missed?
That was kind of you.
Get my notes here. I'm only going to speak briefly
because I'll say some closing remarks
after these awesome presentations. Right?
I'm going to claim it into existence.
Really honored to stand before you as the mayor,
but more as someone that just believes in --
significantly believes in change.
And in a time where I think
particularly the younger generation I see
so many contradictions in our society,
many more than I saw when I was younger.
I mean, we always -- you know, as a young person,
I was young once believe it or not,
that we saw the same kind of contradiction.
I lived as -- when I was coming out of high school
and then college, an impeachment of a president,
a very controversial war, the Vietnam War.
I lived through the assassinations
of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King.
So, we certainly saw incredible public events
that changed the course of our lives and our value system.
But what you see now I think continues to be incredible
inconsistencies of incredible wealth, incredible poverty,
health challenges, disparities.
And, so, what I've been told by many of the people
you're working around is that we truly have warriors
for and change agents as our fellows.
So, I want to say that it's really been a pleasure
to having you participate in this innovative work.
The nine of you I hope had unique experiences
that will continue --
help you to continue on in your journey.
And, as I said, I'll say some closing words,
but I have to say that, you know,
this commitment to public service,
it has to come from within.
You could do other things in life.
You know, yesterday I had to do one of the unfortunate things
of speaking at someone's funeral.
It was a friend of mine's mother.
And when I go to events like that,
it really tells me I'm this short timer on Earth.
Really, how you spend your energy,
the difference between people I think often are --
is in their energy and in their creativity.
And we have a finite span for that.
So, public service is something I cherish
and for you all to really think about a possibility
of spinning your talent in public service.
For that, I am blessed to have you part --
to be part of our administration.
And I hope that you learn something.
So, I look forward to hearing the presentations.
And I'll turn it over to Sandra Wong,
who I think will talk about the presentations
and how we'll go about it. So, thank you very, very much.
Okay.
-Good morning.
So, my job today is kind of set the groundwork
for how the presentations will be given today for you.
We have seven fellows in person today
ready to give their six minute-ish presentation to you.
We have two of the fellows who already have gone back to school
or are on school projects who have pre-recorded
their presentations that we will play
at the end of our seven in-person presentations here.
Along with the Powerpoints
that they will be giving today for you,
they have also supplemented that with briefing papers.
And if you would like to receive those briefing papers
after this event, we could email it to you.
And there's a sign-up sheet in the middle of the table
where you could put your name and your email address
where I will share that with you -- the link later.
I want to stress that since it is six minutes-ish
for each fellow's presentation, time is tight.
And, so, I ask that you hold off on your questions
until after they are done. After they're done,
we could take one to two questions at that point,
and then we'll be queuing up the next presentation after that.
And if you have any further questions beyond that,
you are welcome to email me
and I will get it to the right person
to get that answered for you.
Before we get started with the presentation,
so I want to do a quick check-out minute here
to say it has been my honor and pleasure to work
with all nine of the fellows for this year.
They have been inspirational for me
as they have taken on their projects.
And I know you'll be amazed with the work
that they did with us within the last 12 weeks.
They represent, in my eyes, the best of the best
and hope for the future for One Seattle
and all of us in our communities.
And, with that, let me introduce our first lovely fellow,
Marisol Beas from the City Budget Office. Marisol.
[ Applause ]
-Hi, everyone, and welcome. My presentation today is on
"Partnering for Success: A Step Towards Innovation."
And I'm going to start with a summary,
go into timeline delivery, research process
and then end with findings and recommendations.
So, to start, I think it's important
that we define partnerships,
which are those that are mutually beneficial,
they are not transactional, but truly collaborative.
And they could look like City and private partnerships,
City and CBO partnerships
and other types of City partnerships.
And they help scale the City's innovation.
Now, we know that the City of Seattle
provides many of its needs and resources to our residents
through cross-sector partnerships.
However, our residents are missing the full benefit
of these resources and services
because of the existing inefficient
and unclear processes for departments
to enter into these partnerships.
This is a missed opportunity as partnerships
help us drive equity, help us bring new perspectives
and can be cost effective for the City.
To better understand how departments navigate
the processes of entering into partnerships,
we sought to identify pain points,
preferences and attitudes, and behaviors.
Further, as part of my fellowship project,
I will be contributing to the Innovation
and Performance Teams Practitioner Handbook,
which will be available in December,
and will be aimed at scaling City innovation.
My focus specifically on this handbook
will be to provide departments with resources
to better prepare them to enter into partnerships
through effective case studies, through example scope of works,
data agreements and other resources and tools.
Now, although this is a resource to support departments
entering into the partnership process,
I think it is important that we understand
the larger issue in the City.
So, how did we explore an efficient partnership process?
We did this through the design thinking process.
We started by identifying the problem,
developing our research question,
conducting a mixed methods approach,
synthesizing and analyzing our data,
and then using the surfaced themes and findings
to guide our practitioner handbook
and also our recommendations.
Our research has reaffirmed our existing
understanding of how the City handles partnership processes,
but it is now supported by documented
input from 10 different departments,
25 different staff members
and also other folks from the community.
What we heard and are hearing
are that there are capacity and time constraints
for departments entering into partnerships.
There needs to be more awareness around creating
mutually beneficial partnerships.
And that means having true community-led
and community-driven engagement
so that we could drive our projects toward equity.
And that there needs to be more awareness around data
sharing so that our partners can access data
and benefit from our data collection.
Some of the barriers expressed included
lack of funding and inefficient administrative approval
processes, duplication of similar projects
and lack of best practices for partnership types.
An experience from a participant at City Light
says the following,
"I am trying to execute a partnership right now
and it's very unclear where to go.
I'm getting different answers about what to do
and it makes it very challenging and time intensive
to execute a partnership,
and you wonder is it even worth it."
This is an opportunity where we can better equip departments
by centralizing and documenting best practices,
setting standards for contract processes,
project and budget approvals.
We already have this expertise in-house
and we can leverage this knowledge
to create a truly collaborative and equitable partnership.
Another quote I want to share here
is from Michael Brown who works at Civic Commons
and frequently partners with the City.
And it says, "Leadership should be diffused
and should be collaborative.
The success of any of those endeavors is going to require
authentic true partnership and collaboration."
What we can do right now
is focus on creating streamlined processes.
That means that when a department wants to enter into,
for example, a research partnership,
they know where to look for partners,
they know how to develop strong and equitable partnership goals,
they know what necessary documentation is needed,
and they have a clear roadmap of the necessary approval
and budget processes to enter into a partnership
so that we spend less time figuring out
how to work with partners
and more time to better support our residents.
A future recommendation for the City is to hire
and develop a partnership specialist.
This partnership specialist can play a role
of helping develop and maintain City partnerships,
helping ensure that there are no redundancies
in research projects and data collection,
help identify city-wide needs
and ensure that we are unified and coordinated in the way
that we leverage partnerships so that we can be a One Seattle.
My final recommendation comes from an example
from the State of California,
which is an innovation incubator fund
that has dedicated funds for departments
with the opportunity to try new and innovative solutions
to help improve the quality of life for residents,
a fund that is guided by priorities,
that supports departmental capacity
and encourages cross-sector collaboration.
Finally, it is time to better equip our departments with tools
and resources they need to be able
to better support our residents and partner for success.
Thank you.
Does anyone have any questions?
-I'm going to ask, Sandra --
I don't want to dominate the questions here, so.
Outstanding work.
And maybe this would be good for your fellow fellows,
because I'll ask probably this, too, to others.
Outstanding work, outstanding recommendations.
Well done. One of the challenges we have, I think, you know,
particularly in the CBO group you would know this,
is that the budget deficits that we have.
Right? We have increased spending.
And when we look at some of these systems issues,
our first inclination is always to add a person,
add a person, add a person, add a specialist.
And where I'm trying to get -- how I'm trying to get the City
to think is as we use technology for certain issues,
we have people here,
human beings that can be retrained to be something else.
So, when you say in one of your recommendations
to add a partnership specialist,
which, by the way, seems to make all the sense in the world,
develop a competency, a skillset in that position,
did you think about taking --
looking at some of the areas where perhaps we are not going
to have a need for in the next couple of years
and converting that human being to these partnership specialists
as opposed to just taking someone off the street
and them becoming partnership specialists?
Because that's where we're going to have to start to head
and start trying to retool people for new positions
as we add on positions.
-=Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Right? If folks are already in working at the City
and they've been through these processes
and maybe have had successful partnerships.
Or maybe even someone who is more centralized
in the mayor's office,
they can, you know, be trained to support departments
and build capacity -- -Right.
-And have that unified vision
versus hiring somebody new.
-Yeah.
And I'll give you a good example.
And, please, I don't want this rumor to start
because this is not a rumor. But as we look at the --
like I'll use myself as an example.
So, I get a water bill and I get a power bill.
And I don't think they --
I think they come in one email, but they're at different cycles.
And I think, years from now, someone may talk about one bill
and there could be people working in those areas
that could be retooled. And, so,
I think the hard work for us are going to be like at areas
where there's duplications and we can simplify,
and then we look at that,
but I don't want to lay anyone off so we could retool them, so.
But I think that the need for, again,
a specialist is great stuff.
But that's the harder work, it's not just to add on,
but think, in our existing system, who we can retool.
And no one likes -- it seems like people
do not like to talk about that
because they're hearing "layoffs,"
and that's heresy in this world.
-Cool. Thank you. Any other questions?
Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much.
-Thank you.
Next up, we have our fellow from Seattle City Light,
Surabhi Subedi. Surabhi.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you, Sandra.
So, this summer, I've been working with
Seattle City Lights Grid Modernization Team
to help modernize a climate- resilient distribution grid
by exploring climate impacts on the grid.
We all know that climate change is happening.
We've all experienced it. We've seen its impact manifest
in our communities in various ways.
So, recognizing that -- the gravity of this crisis,
City Light is taking proactive steps
to strengthen its electrical grid through grid modernization,
which is essentially upgrading and implementing technologies
and equipment to achieve a more reliable,
robust and equitable electrical grid.
As climate change is one of the major drivers
of grid modernization,
ensuring a strategic response to climate impacts on grid
will ensure meeting of current and future customer
demands with built-in equity and resilience.
Let's dive into some of the climate threats
faced by Seattle residents and City
Light customers who are directly or indirectly impacted
by extreme heat/temperature rise,
flooding, both coastal and urban, wildfire/smoke
and landslides.
Currently, extreme heat and rising temperature
pose the most imminent threat to City
Light service territory with the likelihood of events
like 2021 heat dome increasing, as noted in Seattle's Climate
Vulnerability Assessment. Thus, for this presentation,
I'm going to focus on extreme heat temperature rise.
Seattle summer temperatures have been increasing.
We have all experienced it. The graphs here show
Seattle temperatures for the last 50 years.
And, in the last 10 years, we can see sharp increase
in both maximum and minimum temperatures.
So, how is this impacting our grid?
To find some answers, I analyzed outage data
to explore whether temperature increase and high heat events
had any correlation with outages.
The following pie charts show summer
and winter outages by categories.
I define summer as May to September
and winter as October to April. Here, in blue,
we see a larger share of outages during summer months
were related to equipment failures.
As equipment failure related outages
were higher during the summer months,
I took a look at two weeks of 2021 heat dome,
highlighted in yellow,
alongside the five preceding years and 2022,
and found that frequency of equipment failure
related outages in 2021 were significantly higher.
It is important to note that City Light assets and equipment
can handle temperatures up to 135
to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Thus, increasing temperature and high heat events
like such do not have a direct impact on equipment,
as they are intended to remain robust
even when exposed to high heat, which is amazing.
However, to pinpoint the high frequency
in outages during the heat wave, I explored the system load data.
In this graph, we can see the system load data
for the two weeks surrounding the heat dome in 2021.
We can see the comparison to the same two weeks in 2016,
and this graph also includes the normal,
which is the average system load during that timeframe
for the last 24 years.
The system load undergoes a cycle
and requires a cool down period to alleviate stress
to transformers and other equipment.
If you look at the yellow line right around June 28th,
you can see that there is the highest peak,
and we can also see the load didn't go down.
So, there wasn't much of a cool down period.
This may have affected the transformers
and other equipment, which potentially led
to equipment failure related outages.
These high heat events not only stress the systems,
but they also impact our communities.
During an extreme temperature event,
such as the 2021 heat dome, already vulnerable communities
are disproportionately impacted.
The map on the left shows the temperature difference
between afternoon and evening on a high heat July day.
The map on the right shows the social vulnerability index.
And when you look at some of the red areas on the left,
you can see that some of the areas didn't cool down at night.
And that directly correlates
with the socially vulnerable populations in Seattle
in the right map.
With these nuanced climate and equity challenges,
now more than ever it is critical for City Light
to continue prioritizing these communities
and addressing these issues to grid modernization
among other strategies.
Some of my main findings
are that the outage data is very complex
and is maintained in different systems within City Light.
This makes it challenging to assess
and draw robust conclusions on climate correlations
with outages without a deeper dive
and extensive data analysis across different divisions.
I also found that extreme temperatures may induce outages
more indirectly primarily by increasing the electrical load
than through direct temperature effects.
Prolonged tight load can stress the grid system
potentially resulting in equipment failures
when transformers and other components are unable to cycle.
My main recommendation for City Light would be that,
alongside all the amazing work they've been doing,
they should expand their climate change analysis
and equity considerations,
specifically in their grid modernization
planning and implementation.
To achieve this, City Light should focus
on extensive data acquisition and analysis.
And this looks like breaking down silos among divisions
and collaborating to better collect data,
report and maintain the quality of outage data,
which also includes robust weather data reporting.
In addition, Seattle City
Light should invest in a pilot project
to install local weather stations to obtain more granular
and spatially distributed weather data,
especially because of the existing microclimates.
Furthermore, to better understand
the impact of temperature on the grid, Seattle City
Light should perform in-depth analysis of asset data
to identify potential relationship
between temperature variation
and expected lifespan of equipment.
Within this, to better gauge the underground ambient temperature,
sensors should be installed.
Building a resilient power infrastructure
would be incomplete without advancing equity.
Equity should be central to all the future grid modernization
planning and implementation
because when vulnerable communities
are out of power on hot summer days,
their exposure to higher temperature
could lead to differential heat related issues.
As sustained high temperature
become more frequent and temperature
don't get to cool down,
system reliability becomes critical in these areas.
Capital improvement projects, such as community microgrids,
schemes and remote switching projects should be prioritized
in socially burdened and vulnerable areas
to ensure reliable and equitable power supply
during extreme weather events. Thank you.
And I would also like to thank Rhonda and Kinchu
for their constant support throughout this fellowship.
It was amazing working with them. Thanks.
-Surabhi, I have a question, if I may.
Maybe this is going to be the cross --
I used to cross-examine people for a living.
Again, outstanding, simply outstanding.
I'm going to ask you a very tough question though.
You want a tough question or an easy question?
You're supposed to say tough question,
that's the -- that was --
not the first question. Should I -- give me --
-You can ask me a tough question.
-Mayor, give me the tough question.
That's the spirit right there. -Yes.
-So, I find --
I found myself agreeing with all of your analysis
and your recommendations. So, a great work product.
There's a part of me that wants to know
did you make a conclusion prematurely
and then gave a presentation in support of it.
So, what I mean by that is there are a lot of factors
that will go into system unreliability --
-Yeah. -Tree growth,
older facilities and a delayed capital plan,
delayed investments in an older structure. Right?
There are many other factors. How does --
how do you know climate change was the primary factor?
Was that your argument that climate change
is such a critical factor in system and reliability?
Or can it be other factors and climate change
is just one of many?
I can see where that fit into what all --
there are many causes for system unreliability.
Right? One of them, for example,
is in when we looked at where we buried cable,
where we buried wires, that you see a huge disparity
in some of the more affluent areas have underground cable
and we know that all of that stuff is aging out
and that technology and the products
then were inferior to where they are now.
We know that causes system unreliability.
So, how do you know that climate changes
is on the top of those causes?
I told you it was a tough question.
So, you asked for the tough one.
-Yes, yes. Let me think about this.
So, climate -- so, that's why I said "one of the major."
But with change in climate, like, you know,
temperature is rising, and when you look --
[ Indistinct talking ]
No. I --
[ Laughs ]
Uh-huh.
Yeah. I definitely just focused on climate change.
So, I am not aware about the other system
unreliability causes. But, because climate is changing
and it's causing the equipment --
it's not directly causing the equipment to fail,
but, in our finding --
so, that was our major question was like we don't want
to come to a conclusion before we see anything.
So, in the beginning, when I was doing the thing, I was like,
"Oh, maybe the high heat is causing equipment to fail."
And then we talked to Standards and they were like,
"Oh, our ambient temperature rating is super high,
so it's not that."
But then we did see, during the high heat event --
Sorry, during the heat dome, there was 53 instances
of outages versus all the other years.
And to rule out aging infrastructure, I also did 2022,
and you can see 2022 was just 14 of them in the same period.
It's -- the data is definitely nuanced
and there's so much more to it.
But this is just a high-level analysis and finding.
And, definitely, other things will be kind of like --
I'm present -- I'm doing a detailed report
and I will definitely acknowledge
that this is not the only cause
and this is one of the drivers of grid modernization
and one of the drivers that the system could be unreliable.
Yes.
-If I could build on the Mayor's theory
and ask the question,
"Could these effects be interrelated?"
Rather than necessarily being able to disaggregate
unique individual effects,
these things could be compounding on each other.
What if our legacy, and this is true for my assets,
too, right, our historical lack of full investment
in maintaining our infrastructure
creates even more vulnerability in a world of climate change.
-Yeah. -And, so, actually,
these things are compounding each other. Just a thought.
-Yes. Yeah. Thank you.
-I have a question.
-Yes.
-This is an easy one.
On your recommendations, you talked about data sharing.
And, so, I'm just curious, like data
sharing within the City or with other entities?
Just curious who that would be with and what are --
what have been the barriers for that data collection
and the maintenance of data?
-For this, I was thinking about
within divisions within like City Light,
because, right now, it's like every division
has their own system of storing data, looking at data.
And it looks like this could be expanded
and shared within the City Light Department.
But, you know. And, also,
acknowledging that some of these data is confidential
because this is -- we're dealing with outage data
which has customer information and stuff.
So, I was mostly talking about within the department.
-Thank you.
-Okay, next up we have our fellow
from Human Service Department, Katrina May.
-All Right. Thank you, Sandra.
My name is Katrina and this summer
I joined the Crime Survivor Services, or CSS,
which is a division of the Human Services Department.
And I was asked to provide recommendations
that address vicarious trauma and burnout among crime victim
advocates within the CSS Unit.
I recommend refining the City's approach to the victim
advocate workforce through trauma-informed practices,
which includes employee training,
increasing unit capacity, facilitating unit empowerment
and forming a working group for cooperative
and sustainable changes across the criminal justice system.
To understand the advocate's role
and derive these recommendations,
I began with a literature and document review for --
to really gain that foundational understanding.
And then I conducted non-participant observation,
shadowing and interviews to identify key themes
within advocacy work.
System-based advocates face several challenges
in conducting their work, which includes
the intersectionality of core issues,
a lack of resources and support systems,
and the necessity of building partnerships,
garnering community support and navigating bureaucracy.
These barriers exist on top of emotionally demanding work
with clients who are experiencing trauma.
It's not surprising that a 2023 study found symptoms
of vicarious trauma in 81 percent of rape victim
advocates who are understanded to have vicarious trauma
because of the various PTSD symptoms
that are present within them.
One advocate specifically described
coming back from vacation
and they said that they were still just treading.
With burnout, unless there are systemic changes in how you work
or what is burning you out, it is whatever helps.
It would be nice to float sometimes.
It gets tiring treading water.
Within CSS, many advocates noted in their interviews
that organizational structures and interpersonal factors
were the largest sources of workplace stressors,
which I organized into the socioecological model.
Experts on trauma in the workplace
say that the most effective interventions address
risk and protective factors at each level of this model.
Advocates carry immense dedication to their work
on an individual level, but face several barriers
to conducting survivor-centered services.
They described experiences with access to personal power
in accessing client information,
conflict and workforce expectations
because they are housed under both
the Human Services Department
and SPD, Seattle Police Department,
and most advocates witness clients being re-victimized
by the criminal justice system itself.
Their role is highly misunderstood.
One advocate described how she has challenges, quote,
"having to prove that the job is real, that I am trustworthy.
I have to fight to get basic information
I should have from the get-go."
Multiple advocates also describe how senior City administrators
actually unintentionally overstepped into their role
and affected client satisfaction.
Through these results, I have several recommendations
that address some of the areas of opportunity
within each of these realms.
The first is to develop and conduct
training on vicarious trauma, PTSD
and trauma-informed care for City employees
in high-stress, very public-facing roles.
This includes training supervisors and managers
on recognizing and responding to vicarious trauma
and burnout in their divisions.
Increasing emotional intelligence and awareness
of these issues
can help employees advocate for themselves
and help managers recognize early signs
of burnout in their employees.
As a uniquely co-located division,
I also recommend permitting the CSS Unit
to define their position scope,
flex schedules and workplace locations
according to trauma-informed best practices.
Justice system partners may need to adjust their communications
for cases accordingly,
but creating these boundaries that define
and defend reasonable expectations of employees
in this type of classification really addresses multiple
risk factors of vicarious trauma and provides agency to the unit
in a rapidly changing political field.
On an organizational level,
I recommend supporting staffing and community resources
for the unit in proportion to increasing crime rates.
This will help limit advocate caseloads,
reduce work hours and decrease
the proportion of staff to supervisors
for more comprehensive employee support and mentoring.
This approach may have the greatest impact
on client satisfaction for residents,
as the unit can more effectively respond to survivors
they serve and work towards really preventing
re-victimization within the system.
And my final recommendation is to facilitate cooperation
between all of the different agencies involved
by forming a multi-disciplinary trauma-informed work group
or committee that's composed of law enforcement,
legal and community service agencies
involved in the criminal justice system.
And the key goals of this group
would be to introduce and clarify their roles
in providing survivor-centered services,
troubleshooting any emerging communication barriers
between advocates
and their agencies that they work with,
and incorporating trauma-informed
initiatives across the system for both staff members
and the residents.
I'd like to thank the Mayor's Office
for taking on this project
and listening to these results, as well as the CSS Unit itself.
Through my work with the advocates,
I learned how important it is
to lead your work with empathy and compassion.
I really personally identified with something an advocate
said towards one of the ends of our interviews.
Advocates continue to get asked why they continue on
in a job that's so intense.
But she said, "I feel fulfillment every day.
I'm doing the work and trying.
And I believe we can create lasting change
when we listen and learn and keep on trying."
So, thank you. Are there any questions?
[ Applause ]
[ Indistinct talking ]
[ Laughter ]
Just in case. -Katrina,
can you go back to the slide on the recommendations, please?
Thank you, Katrina. Again, I -- wow, good stuff.
In these four -- I think the comments you made
about the statements about the person,
why he or she did it,
about the fulfillment they received,
when I look at the victims' advocates
that I know that they have --
they do have victories, they do have --
-Yes.
-Moments of triumph.
And that seems to be their inspiration.
And I continue to say, in public service,
you have to -- you have to have fun,
you have to find joy, you have to find passion in doing it.
And you're going to take a lot of losses,
but those victories, they're sweet.
And I think that that helps out with the burnout
and the other issues, so.
And, so, how do you create those victories?
How do you celebrate them?
How do you have a party and a celebrate --
because, you know, you never finish, it's always a continuum.
Right? So, in those boxes, where is the party?
It's sort of like, it's where you get together
and you have those weekly celebrations to keep it.
-Yeah.
-Was that the part -- is that -- is --
did I miss that part in one of your recommendations?
-No. I am so glad you asked that,
because I did give
those recommendations directly to the unit.
And that was an important part of the work itself
is identifying those strengths that the unit has
and where they are,
you know, celebrating and where they can celebrate more.
Throughout the time that I spent with the advocates,
especially during the shadow portion,
I think we spent maybe like a total of an hour
playing with the dogs
that are in the different units at SPD headquarters.
And that was just like a moment of respite
for a lot of the advocates.
And there are examples like units
who go out to happy hour together
or they just chat with each other
throughout the day about pop culture or go to lunch together.
And I think those are the only opportunities
that they can really get, which are,
you know, in the workplace, in that in-office environment,
to be able to celebrate together.
But because their workloads are so high
and they're doing so much casework on the day-to-day,
it's really hard to incorporate that into schedules
and find that and make that our priority because it is,
you know, a public service role and being in public service,
these advocates are so survivor-centered
and focused on what the survivor needs in the moment,
there are so many emergency situations that come up.
And, so, to be able to incorporate celebration
on a regular basis is really hard to be able to do
because of that immense work.
But I did see a lot of that throughout my time with CSS,
the amount of humor that they use,
the amount of support that they gave each other and saying,
you know, "Oh, you did a really good job on that case"
or "that was a really good idea, thank you for that resource."
So, that's what I saw and how I think that they have
a lot of strengths in reducing burnout.
Thank you. Any other questions?
-Thanks. I was just curious in,
looking at this work, I imagine this is a challenge
that is pretty widespread among other cities.
I'm thinking of maybe the training question specifically.
But -- -Yeah.
-Were you able to do -- when you looked at like
where are the good examples of places
that are doing this well, that have found a way
to really support people in these sorts of roles?
-Yeah, that's a great question.
And there was one report that I found from the NYPD
that talked about the trauma-informed interventions
that they are doing. And it was just a long report,
I think there were like dozens of different interventions
that they've tried and that they've been doing
for different people in their systems.
And I think that there are a lot of training opportunities
outside of victim advocacy work as well
because vicarious trauma doesn't happen
only within the criminal justice system,
it's also impacting teachers and other public-serving roles,
doctors and physicians.
It's across the whole City system.
And I think we saw that a lot with burnout
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And, so, there are a number of other organizations,
like SAMHSA, that are doing some great work around training.
SAMHSA is the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration.
And they have created a whole framework
for trauma-informed care
and vicarious trauma that a lot of people
are using now to build out their organizations.
Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you all.
-Thanks, Katrina.
Great work. Let me introduce our next fellow from, again,
Human Services Department, Jade Yan. Jade.
-Thank you, Sandra, for the introduction.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Jade.
I use they/them pronouns.
And, this summer, I worked with the Human Services Department
with a focus on the behavioral health crisis response.
And, before I started, I wanted to provide a content warning
as I will be speaking to both substance
use disorders and mental health,
which includes overdose and suicidal ideation.
So, the Human Services Department
identified an opportunity for the City
to develop a more cohesive strategy
to determine both its funding priorities
and the role it plays in the behavioral health field,
including crisis response.
Without a more clearly defined strategy,
the City's response to an expanding
need for behavioral health services has been fragmented.
It was previously seen as the responsibility of the State
to care for the mentally ill.
But due to de-institutionalization,
people were moved out of inpatient psychiatric facilities
with no appropriate community-based alternatives.
The responsibility then fell to communities
to make up the difference, but with no clear guidance
or even funding provided.
Cities hold the role of emergency/crisis response
as cities are responsible for public safety departments,
including fire and police.
We see today's impact of de-institutionalization
resulting in our first responders
handling behavioral health crises,
and the City being asked by its residents
to invest in and provide behavioral health services
that used to be provided by the State.
And, today, Medicaid is the single largest funder
of behavioral health services in the country.
Eighty percent of people in Washington State
with behavioral health disorders
served by community-based providers
rely solely on Medicaid. There is a gap, though,
between behavioral health needs and services rendered.
For Medicaid beneficiaries in King County,
it was found that 25,762 people
had a substance use disorder treatment need
and only 36 percent of people received treatment.
And, similarly, 78,434 had a mental health treatment need
and only 54 percent of people received treatment.
Mild behavioral health conditions
that go unaddressed can result in crises
and more acute levels of care down the line.
Here, we have rates of emergency department visits
in King County related to suicidal ideation
broken down by age on the left and race on the right.
We can see significantly higher rates amongst our youth,
especially those 10 to 19 years of age,
represented by the blue bar in the left-hand graph.
We, also, see significantly higher rates
amongst American Indian/Alaska Native populations
represented by the green bar on the right-hand graph.
I, also, know you all are acutely aware
of the fentanyl and opioid crisis.
I want to call out these age-adjusted rates
of overdose deaths in King County
broken down by race/ethnicity and region highlighting
how Seattle is being disproportionately impacted
by the opioid epidemic,
as well as American Indian/Alaska Native,
Black and Hispanic populations.
So, the goal is that the City of Seattle
develops an iterative plan regarding behavioral health,
which includes establishing
its priority populations and services
and methods of interdepartmental external partner coordination
in order to better leverage our resources
and serve our communities.
An iterative plan means it's adapted over time
acknowledging the fact that the behavioral health field
is rapidly changing every day. So, how do we get there?
For one, it's crucial for the City
to continue to cultivate its partnership with the County.
King County's Department of Community and Human Services
holds a great deal of weight in the behavioral health field.
So, DCHS manages the Integrated Care Network for Medicaid,
as well as state-funded and federally funded programs,
like the 988 Crisis Line, designated crisis responders,
as well as a huge network of services
funded through county levies,
like the Mental Illness and Drug Dependency tax.
Our communities in Seattle are directly impacted
by decisions made at the county level.
The City must leverage its influence
and increase its presence and voice
in those conversations in order
to ensure our residents behavioral health
needs are proportionately met. When developing strategy,
include input from all City departments and divisions
that are involved in behavioral health.
Part of that collaboration requires ongoing awareness
of and communication
with other internal City initiatives and groups
like the Unified Care Team,
Reach Out Initiative and Fentanyl Systems Work Group.
By increasing awareness of each other's work at the city level,
we can then provide more effective services.
And while we all benefit from increased access
to behavioral health services,
the City only has so many resources
and, therefore, needs a plan
that prioritizes what types of services it funds
and which populations it aims to reduce disparities for.
I recommend that the City prioritize youth of color
and queer youth,
unhoused people and people of color,
especially American Indian/Alaska Native,
Black and Hispanic/Latinx people
and people currently involved in the criminal justice system.
I recommend that the City continues to fund
our first responder services
to adopt their care models to better care for
and serve those experiencing behavioral health crises,
like through the Health One and Crisis Response Team programs.
Invest in preventative upstream services,
such as focusing on supporting our youth
or increasing comprehensive and affordable coverage
for behavioral health care by promoting Medicaid enrollment
or reducing stigma by investing in educational campaigns.
Fund agencies that employ evidence-informed practices
and models, such as trauma-informed care,
harm reduction services and Housing First.
Fund culturally specific services,
which is to say, services by and for marginalized populations.
All in all, the City must create a more cohesive strategic plan
with all City departments involved in behavioral health
that is reviewed and re-evaluated on a yearly basis.
Increase the City's capacity to sit in conversations
with the county with established target populations
and service priorities in mind
to ensure that our community's particular needs are met.
Thank you so much.
-I love this body of work that you addressed.
And it's -- as mayor, it's --
this area that you've chosen to dig into
is the most astounding for me
because it's one of my biggest challenges.
Can you go back to the first recommendation
where you talked about --
I think the word was "collaborative"
with the County, number one --
there you go, cultivate our partnership.
So, I'm going to be more drastic than that.
I can't control or heavily influence the RHA
or the King County Department of Community
and Human Services or the HealthierHere.
I'm not a continuum of care organization.
I don't get the money directly. I fund.
And I'm more of an indirect leader, indirect influencer.
Did you consider us becoming a continuum of care
or getting out of the partnership with the County?
Because I have a sense of urgency on people who are sick.
I couldn't -- I agree strongly
with your other recommendations about groups
we need to look at, sub demographics
of who's hurting the most. Right?
That's why I said I love this body of work.
I have not been convinced that the model we've had
for the last five, 10, 15, 30 years works.
-Right.
-I don't know how to cultivate our partnership with the County
as well as I want to.
I can't control it. I am -- I have indirect control.
And I think when you -- on the other --
during your summary, you use that word again,
like "improve our relationships with."
These are my friends over across the street.
And, you know, Dow Constantine and the council members,
I talk to them all the time.
But we have -- the structure, Jade,
the model, such that, you know, I think -- what do we --
I can't remember how many people we have sit on --
sitting on the Board of Health.
But we're more indirect influencers.
So -- -Sure.
-Could one of your recommendations
be we get out of these partnerships
and become a direct --
I mean, I know it sort of sounds disruptive,
but we get out of this partnership
and we go into the direct care
or we fund directly the groups we want to see done, number one.
Number two, I've got two questions for you,
that in some of my work
I tap into the faith-based communities as well.
And it's not so much -- when I say faith-based,
I'm not talking about religion or God,
I'm talking about a lot of people
just lost faith in themselves,
they lost their confidence in life.
You look at a third or fourth grader,
they come out, you know, happy and they don't --
they love each other.
And you look at people there, they've just lost their purpose.
And even though we can get them clean
and sober and a little better -- on a better path,
there has to be some kind of faith-based element to it.
So, right now, I'm looking at an organization to invest in.
And I'm not talking about hitting someone over the head
with the Bible, I'm just talking about someone --
-Sure.
-Who says, "You know, I used to be you
and this is how I garner my faith."
And I never hear that in the health conversations
about the internal mental faith piece of a person's journey.
And I think -- quite frankly,
I think that's a new conversation that we --
this country needs to have right now.
We are dying. And people say, "Faith?
Well, what are you -- you know, you're a Bible thumper?"
They're just missing the point.
I don't care if they're atheists,
they can still have a faith in themselves
at least that they have a purpose on Earth.
So, can you -- I gave you sort of
two convoluted crazy-ass mayoral questions, Jade,
so you could deal with it the best you could.
Outstanding presentation.
-Well, I think it's actually perfect
that you asked those questions given just the convoluted
and complex nature of behavioral health. Right?
It's not straightforward because, if it was,
we would have a very straightforward path forward.
-You say maybe get out of our partnerships
Consider that. The partnerships are working.
-I think in a lot
of my assessment during the summer,
what was really driven home for me
in what I read about was what I spoke to,
is that Medicaid is the single largest funder
of behavioral health services in this country.
And a lot of that then is broken down
into who kind of holds that power.
And a lot of it, a lot of it is held at DCHS with King County.
But that's not to say, you know, that that's how things have been
and has to stay that way forever.
I really appreciate that you want to take that as --
you're saying, "I see certain things," --
like these more faith-based organizations or services
that you are passionate about and you want to support
and take a more assertive stance and just fund those.
The City of Seattle does that quite a bit
through a variety of departments,
through HSD, through Deal,
we do fund community-based organizations,
we do get to say we see that these organizations
are providing these services that our communities
are wanting and needing. And that's great.
I, also, think it's important to not necessarily
throw away our relationships with those at the County
because they do hold just so much of that power
about how can we better leverage
and ensure that our communities in Seattle
are proportionately taken care of.
-Thank you.
-Any other questions?
-I just want to add a couple of resources.
I think community-based clinics
are also doing a great amount of work in bridging the gap,
especially with culturally appropriate services.
-Correct.
-I, also, want to lift up immigrant and refugee community
is also the highly impacted as they are the population
that don't even have insurance.
So, you know, access to health care
is super important in that space, too.
-Yeah. Absolutely.
-But thank you for your presentation.
-Yes. Thank you. -Thank you.
-Okay.
-Great. Thank you, Jade.
And, with this, let's take a quick 10-minute break.
Let me do a special call out to our Project Planning Team
members in the room.
Great work pulling this all together.
And our lovely Oprah who's doing our mic work today,
Leah Bui. Yay.
And our A/V person here with Stephanie Thornton.
Thank you so much.
So, let me introduce our next fellow,
Elena Arakaki from Seattle Parks and Recreation. Elena.
[ Applause ]
-Thank you, Sandra.
Ohh, let's start here. Hi, everyone. I'm Elena.
I'm the Mayor's Fellow with Seattle Parks
and Rec this summer.
And I'm here to talk about the new Swim Seattle
Initiative and present some recommendations for the future.
Swim Seattle was launched in April of this year
as a pilot program to increase access
to swim lessons by providing kids with free swimming lessons.
The first cohort of kids went through lessons
this summer and 195 participants
were registered for free lessons.
The opportunity to participate was offered to families
who were already receiving scholarships for swim lessons.
And they were allowed to register two weeks
ahead of the general population.
Swim lessons fill up very quickly,
so this priority registration
was an important way to increase access.
I want to talk about why swim lessons are so important.
This data draws on my previous work with Public Health,
Seattle King County's Violence and Injury Prevention Team.
Recent trends have showed us that preventable drowning deaths
are on the rise. Over the past five years,
we've seen 135 unintentional deaths
with an increase since 2019 in King County.
Recent heat waves since 2020
have contributed to this increase.
More people are looking for refuge in the cool water
and heat will continue to be an issue
as climate change intensifies.
In fact, over half of these drownings
have happened in open water, which is why water competence
is especially important here in the Puget Sound region.
Studies have shown that swimming lessons
are a protective factor against drowning. So, Swim
Seattle hopes to reverse these trends long term.
There are also racial disparities in drowning rates.
Black and American Indian/Alaska Native
residents are overrepresented in drowning deaths.
These disparities exist for a variety
of reasons from historic racism
in pools to intergenerational water trauma
to barriers like the cost of swim lessons.
Swim Seattle hopes to close these racial gaps
by eliminating the cost for families of color.
This summer, we had 195 participants.
And most of the cohort that we have data
for have been children of color. We have some data gaps for race
that we're looking to fill with a new survey.
In terms of age, it's mostly younger kids
participating in beginning swim lessons,
then participation dropped off in teenage years.
I'll be coming back to this point in my recommendations.
When I first came on,
I was tasked with identifying success
measures for the program,
which also meant pinpointing goals
that everyone could agree on.
I needed to know what we were trying
to accomplish with Swim Seattle
and how we would know if we were successful.
My deliverables for the summer
will be a logic model to show connections
between activities and goals,
and a final learnings and recommendations report
that I'll present to the department.
This is the skeleton of the logic model that I developed.
This shows the flow of inputs
needed to make the program successful,
what activities and outputs would be carried out,
and what outcomes it would all work towards.
Zooming in to the blue Outcomes box here,
after meeting with staff and partners,
our team agreed on three goals to work towards.
First, increasing access to swim lessons as a short-term goal
for BIPOC communities,
families with low incomes and areas
with low swim participation rates.
I identified these populations
because of the racial swim disparities we saw before.
The financial burden of swim lessons on family --
on low-income families
and wanting to bring in new participants
who haven't taken lessons before.
Second, increasing water competence
as a medium-term goal. This part is important
because we can reduce barriers to lessons,
but it won't matter if people aren't showing up
or if they're not improving.
So, this measures skill progression and attendance.
And, third, reducing drowning deaths and racial disparities
as our long-term goal.
It was helpful to first identify these outcomes
and then work backwards to think
about what activities would get us here.
With these outcomes in mind,
my first recommendation is to host water safety workshops
to improve water competence for Swim Seattle participants.
Water competence is a combination of swim skills
plus knowledge plus attitudes.
The free lessons would cover the swim skills part,
and these workshops would address knowledge and attitudes.
These workshops will talk about things
like the importance of pool supervision for kids,
how to fit a life jacket,
how to respond to common drowning situations
and share community partner resources.
Studies have shown that parents significantly overestimate
their child's swim ability. And most child drownings happen
when parents are not supervising.
So, these workshops would emphasize parents' role
in water safety.
My second recommendation is about teens.
As we saw on the graph earlier,
the summer cohort participation dropped off at age 14,
but teens are the second highest age group at risk
for drowning after toddlers.
This recommendation brings teens to the pool
for a late-night, teen-only programming
and offers job pathways for them
to become lifeguards and swim instructors.
There's a severe aquatic staffing shortage right now.
So, this would create more job opportunities
for youth within the system.
And my third recommendation is overarching
and will drive the success of all other activities,
which is building community with partner organizations.
We already have a great coalition of partners
working on some in Seattle listed here.
And I recommend deepening them and expanding them
to include more community-based organizations
that would help build trust with communities
and bring new participants into the program.
Again, here are my priority recommendations
that will further the short-, medium-
and long-term goals of Swim Seattle
while building water safety skills,
knowledge, partnerships and employment.
I believe that Swim Seattle is a promising initiative
and these recommendations will improve the program
to push for equitable access to lessons,
increase water competence
and drowning prevention for Seattle residents.
Thank you. Do we have any questions?
-I have a question, Elena.
Outstanding. This is very near and dear to me because it was --
the idea of Swim Seattle sort of -- it wasn't my idea,
I'm just going to take credit for it, by the way.
But this is near and dear.
I think if I asked how many people have either directly
and directly know someone who's drowned or, you know,
a family that was impacted, a lot of hands would go up.
I'll tell you a quick little story, if I may,
that when I was running for mayor,
I met a young woman with two children and the boy was just,
oh, he was such a beautiful young man.
He was about 14 or so.
And he was excited to meet me and we talked and the mother
knew me a little bit from when I was in a council.
And it was just an exciting day.
It was at a Safeway during the summer.
This young man died two weeks later, drowned in Green Lake,
didn't know how to swim. And it broke my heart
and I talked to the mother several times.
And I didn't understand why there was this racial disparity.
And your numbers speak for themselves.
And, so, my --
and, so, when I say it's near and dear to me,
thank you for doing this work for this body of work.
I hope when you continue your education and move
on that you could see this thing sort of really turn into,
you know, saving so many lives.
I guess the question I would have
is do you see this also as --
you know, we're always trying to bring communities together.
And take the API community example,
there's so much diversity within the API community.
And, so, do you think -- it's always sort of cool.
Do you think there are also opportunities here
to do cross-cultural teachings and friendships?
How might that play into this journey in learning how to swim?
Do you think that that could be a byproduct of it?
Or should we be intentional?
If you're sticking in these people
of different cultural backgrounds
or religions all in the water, do you think in addition
to swimming there's some opportunities?
Or it's just learn how to swim and go back home?
And tell me about -- -Yeah, yeah.
-Maybe a vision you may have.
-That's a great point.
I think this is a really good opportunity
to bring some of those cultural experiences together
and partnership building.
And I think that builds on my third recommendation
of bringing more partners together
and working to do outreach to specific cultural communities
and meeting the needs of the people that you're working with,
which will vary depending on which community
you're working with.
But I think this is a really great way
of bringing people together, engaging them in the pool,
out of the pool for learning and workshops,
whatever would help them feel most comfortable
getting to the pool and getting to learn to swim.
And I know there are many barriers
to even just feeling comfortable getting in the pool.
And, so, I think learning from community partners
would be a really good first step to doing that.
-Yeah.
And a follow-up, sorry to dominate,
but I told you it was near and dear to me
so that's what happens, is in our park system,
that in grade school and more middle school than high school,
the great basketball players and soccer players
and football players and baseball players,
they sort of know who they are
by the time they get to high school.
There's stars and there's people that,
"Nah, it's not for me. I suck."
But I don't golf, but everyone sort of sucks at golf.
They don't know how to do it. Right? So, they miss.
And I thought about how do we create mentors,
volunteers out here.
They could teach a lot of the children
that just aren't the big jocks in high school.
And swimming is much like that.
And I thought about our -- we have -- how many golf ranges,
we have four -- four golf ranges and those --
and I don't golf, like I said, obviously.
But I looked at those assets that --
like Jefferson Golf Course,
how do I use that through a mentoring opportunity.
So, you get someone that likes to golf
and then talk to some inner-city kid at Rainier Beach
and say, "Hey, I'm going to teach you."
You didn't make varsity, you have to also be a D1 athlete
to make Rainier Beach's basketball team, by the way.
You talked to the some of these and I thought swimming
could be the same thing, particularly in the --
if they don't know how to swim and you get kids from all over
and you get volunteers here, not just paid -- our staff,
but volunteers come and say, "I'll spend some time.
I'm a pretty proficient swimmer."
So, we can now have the mentoring piece
as an element of the swim.
So, I'm looking at the Swim Seattle
being more just swimming in and of itself --
-Right.
-That's a big need, but the mentoring opportunities.
And I want you to think about that
as you continue to follow this work.
-Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point
and that's actually one of my recommendations
not included here, but in my final report
that is exploring opportunities for partnership
with the Seattle Mentors Program that will be launching soon.
And I think that could be a really
good opportunity for collaboration.
-Ah, excellent.
See, you're -- like most people,
you're one step in front of me. Thank you.
-Thank you. I'm glad I got to ask a question.
This one guy keeps hogging the mic. Just kidding there.
[ Indistinct talking ]
-So, I work on the Innovation and Performance Team
for Affordable Seattle.
One of the things that my team is really interested in
is like the barriers that exist for people
to access a lot of the great programs
that we already have that are already well-funded
and already well-established.
So, in your recommendations -- or, sorry, in your presentation,
you show a short-term goal, a three-month goal of
like increasing access to this -- the swim lessons.
Can you say more about any of the identified barriers
that you looked at that prevent that exact -- access right now?
-Yes.
So, Swim Seattle is mostly addressing the barrier of cost,
which I read an article from the Seattle Times from last year
that said cost can be a big barrier for families,
even with their scholarship system in place,
but many families aren't aware of that
or haven't been set up with that.
So, breaking down cost.
And then I think just there are a lot of cultural barriers
to feeling welcome in pools. And that's where the workshops
and the more community piece gets at,
that if you bring people in a setting
that they're more familiar with,
with inviting your entire family,
inviting your community to come and learn
about swim safety and opportunities at the pool
and learn about scholarship opportunities,
I think that could help break down some of those barriers
that might be harder to reach otherwise.
-Thank you. Great presentation.
-Thank you.
-Thanks, Elena, great work.
Next up is our fellow from Office of Housing,
Alison Campion. Alison.
-Great, thanks, Sandra.
Oh, wow, thanks so much.
So, yeah, I was in the Office of Housing this summer.
And the guiding question for my project was,
"How can the Office of Housing,
or OH, better leverage its data?"
So, the Office has to use data in a number of ways.
They have annual reports where they need to explain
how they made investments over the past year
and who's benefited, the need to respond
to questions from City Council and the Mayor's Office.
So, they might be asked how many zero
to 30 percent annual median income houses --
one-bedroom units are in downtown.
And they need to answer quickly and accurately.
And then they're always planning for the future.
So, they need to think about where and how they're investing
next and what metrics are guiding those investments
to ensure they align with the values
and the goals of the City.
Now, the current problem is that the data system
to address all of these use cases
is slow and labor-intensive and inefficient.
So, we're leaving a lot of information on the table
and using a lot of staff time to try to address each of these.
So, this summer, I came in
and tried to look at the data workflow
to see how does the data workflow currently work
and where are their challenges
and how can we find some solutions.
So, just to orient you very broadly, on the left,
we have data collection and storage.
So, information is coming in,
everything from bank statements of developers
to income reports from tenants living in regulated units,
that gets stored in databases in the Office.
And then staff members are asked questions
and so they need to do analysis.
So, they query the databases, extract information,
build tables and reports in Excel to report out the data.
So, when I asked folks in the Office
what are the challenges in this workflow, point out the issues,
two major ones I want to highlight.
The first is that there's just a lot more data.
So, these systems were built 20 years ago
and the amount of information needing to be recorded
has really grown. So, the portfolio has grown,
the budget of the Office has grown.
And that means there's more reporting.
So, there's more dollars to track,
there's more policies to monitor for regulation.
The other problem dates back to the IT centralization
effort from several years back.
So, what happened prior to kind of centralization
of the IT system was that there was someone
that sat in the office who managed the databases,
and when someone needed to build a report,
they went to that staff member and said,
"Hey, can you update how we're exporting this data
from the database? Can you add this field?
Can you add this report?" And they export it.
And that kind of was how the process worked.
But as you shifted that role into IT,
you lost that data professional in the office
and there weren't additional systems
put in place to kind of help staff
in the office pick up that data analysis slack.
So, the result is that there's just more pressure
on staff in the office to do more data analysis.
And that leads to individuals coming up with solutions,
which really means there's a proliferation of
Excel spreadsheets that are tracking programs,
doing data cleaning, performing analysis.
And that's all because there aren't really tools
and systems in place to assist those staff members.
So, this is pretty inefficient, it's labor intensive,
it's siloed and a lot of this analysis isn't replicable.
So, this summer, what we looked to do
was to create kind of a modern
data analysis workflow in the Office
where we could centralize our data analysis projects,
automate some of our data cleaning and processing
and analyze the data with Power BI.
So, this process is helpful
because when you update your data,
add new data, you can refresh your workflow
and you don't lose all of the work in the middle.
And then everyone's also aware of the processes
of how the data was cleaned, how it was analyzed,
and when we go back to do next year's annual report,
we don't have to start from scratch.
So, in order to make this effective
or help folks in the Office adopt
these new tools, it involves teaching.
So, I spent the summer creating some example projects
and video tutorials and a technical guide for the Office
to explain how to use these systems.
And we also revamped a data working group within the Office
to encourage collaboration and peer support
so that people could focus on solving problems together.
So, one example of a dashboard I created using this workflow
is just an overview of the portfolio of the Office
of Housing's city-funded projects.
So, this just has a map of all the projects
and some basic informations,
like unit sizes and regulatory agreements on those projects.
So, this dashboard addresses that kind of third data
use case of strategic planning.
So, this information should be available for decision makers.
And, up until now, the data was rather scattered.
And, so, kind of using our workflow
to produce a dashboard
to help improve the decision-making process.
So,, overall, in the long run,
I think what's important here for a lot of offices,
so the Office of Housing is a medium-sized office,
and I think a lot of small-
and medium-sized offices might struggle with this,
is to adopt a lot of shared principles of data analysis.
Because, often, we don't even know
when things are not being done the best they can be done.
So, it involves management and everyone in the Office
knowing that things can be better.
And that involves having a vision of what that looks like.
And that is coupled with kind of institutionalizing
the upskilling of staff.
So, luckily, this recommendation is not to hire anyone new,
but to take folks that don't have "analyst" in their title,
but say, "You're already doing a lot of data analysis,"
and give them support and training and a process
by which to level up what they're doing
so they're not spending all of their time
doing repetitive tasks.
And the goal here is to relieve the staff time spent
on those data cleaning and repetitive tasks
so that they can be spending their time
on more advanced metrics and analysis
and doing what they're are already really good at.
So, yeah, we want to encourage folks in offices
to kind of take on more of the analysis
and not relegate data to an IT problem.
But that involves kind of giving structure and support
for folks to be upskilled. Yeah. So, I just want to say
thank you to Sandra and the Mayor's Fellows,
and also the Office of Housing. I really enjoyed my time there,
had a great experience with everyone.
And I'm looking forward to the housing levy
being passed in the fall. So, thank you.
-I've been admonished
by the IP group not to ask questions.
Since this is in their sweet spot of data,
I'm going to defer
and see what brilliant questions they have first.
[ Laughter ]
-First, I want to -- oh, thanks.
I'm Steve. First, I love this.
And I want to thank you for your presentation.
And I also want to acknowledge
that you have also been helping us immensely
with the One Seattle data strategy.
And this is completely in alignment
with what we're trying to do.
So, my question is on these recommendations
and things like this, how do you think about scaling
that not just at Office of Housing, but across the city.
Because it seems like a pretty universal problem
that we're trying to solve.
-Yeah, as Steve mentioned, there's the --
I've been working with him directly
on talking about how do we build capacity.
So, a lot of my work was really kind of overlapping
with what's already going on.
So, I think a lot of the recommendations
that will come out of the City Data Alliance
Working Group will match these.
But I think, you know, a lot of this
is about just matching people with tools that already exist.
So, we've already invested in all of these tools
and we've already invested in people,
and there's just a mismatch.
And, so, you know, often, people, when they say,
"I need to do, you know, better data analysis,"
they just don't know where to go or what to look at
and there's too many options.
So, just kind of curating the trainings that already exist
in saying, you know, "What skills do you have?
And what skills should you look for next."
So, giving people more guidance.
So, I think maybe having a centralized portal
where people can access trainings
and that kind of guidance across the City
would be really helpful, especially, again,
for departments that don't have IT directly in their office,
they don't have those resources.
So, we can definitely centralize that.
-All right. Thank you.
-Thank you, Alison, great work.
Next up, we have Janie Stuart from Seattle Human Resources.
Janie.
-Thank you, Sandra.
The role of my fellowship with the City this summer
has been to evaluate
the formalized mentor programs for City employees.
So, the Workforce Development Team
that I've had the privilege to work with this summer
strives toward the vision of an equitable inclusive
One Seattle for all City employees.
However, one of the factors the Development Team
has been addressing is that workforce equity
among City employees is difficult to achieve
because there's often less accessibility
to career growth opportunities for lower-wage earners
and historically underrepresented groups.
For example, currently, while people of color
make up nearly 45 percent of the City workforce,
they represent nearly 60 percent of bottom-wage earners
and only 35 percent of top-wage earners.
So, my fellowship has been to research
one of the proven career pathways
that can help lower-wage earners advance
into new positions in the workplace.
And that's mentorship.
So, as I talk about mentorship, I'm going to ask you a question.
Think back over your life.
Can you identify one or two people that were instrumental
in getting you to where you are today?
Who has walked alongside you?
While those people might not have been mentors,
the role that they played in your lives
is really the value of a mentor relationship.
And I would imagine most of us can think of someone
who was instrumental for us.
There's lots of definitions of mentorship,
but a simple one I like,
excuse me, developmental partnership,
which you just saw.
A simple one, developmental partnership.
That's really what we're talking about with mentorship.
And there has been 50 years of robust empirical research
about mentorship and the benefits
that it brings to the workplace.
And in the midst of all of that research,
there's been three fundamental kind of foundational benefits.
The first is psychosocial functions.
And this is really about improving trust,
enhanced professional and personal development,
it's really about relationship building skills.
The next is better job satisfaction
and higher rates of retention for both mentors and mentees,
which leads to cost savings because there's less turnover.
And then, finally, there is a strong predictor
of career advancement and compensation for mentees.
Mentees tend to make higher salaries
and are promoted more frequently
than their non-mentored counterparts.
Also, mentorship increases diversity in management as well.
I could go on and on about all the benefits
of mentorship in the workplace.
As you can see, mentees, mentors, organizations
all benefit as subsequent studies have shown.
So, how's the City of Seattle doing?
Well, as you can see on the list,
the City has quite a few departmental programs,
not all of them mere classic mentorship,
there's also job shadowing and skills and knowledge transfer.
Flash mentorships are one-time meetings.
And there's also informal mentorships,
like through racial/ethnic affinity groups as well.
Over the weeks I've been here,
I've had several conversations with people
about their experience of mentorship as a city employee.
And they've been really exciting,
inspiring stories of empowering relationships.
However, not all these programs are active.
Some are in the process of restarting.
Also, since ongoing cohort mentor programs
are within departments,
that means not every City employee
has equitable access to mentorship.
Currently, only 10 of 40 departments have programs,
making it difficult for mentorship
to align with the City's race and social justice initiative
and to build equitable access to career development.
Steps have been taken to try to increase the positive men --
positive movement for workforce equity through mentorships.
Last year, a stakeholder group of people
from 10 different departments came together with the goal
of creating a unified network of mentorship.
They wanted to align mentorship across departments,
enhance collaboration and really move toward workforce
equity in these ways.
One of the initial steps that came out of that
was using the Chronus software program
as a way to, hopefully, increase access
to mentorship for more employees and to align City-wide.
In March, the Flash Mentorship Program was introduced,
so all employees would have some access to mentorship.
These are one-time meetings
that are done across departmentally in order
to provide career advice and information.
And then, this fall, some of the existing cohorts
are going to move their mentor program
onto the Chronus software platform
in order to align City-wide
while they continue as a department.
There's many reasons to be optimistic
about the movement of mentorship and the benefits
that it provides to the workplace
in the way they're at work in the City.
And I have a few recommendations.
The first, leadership support.
One of the most significant factors
in successful formal mentorship programs
is the involvement of senior leadership.
This can take a lot of different forms.
It can be executives volunteering to be mentors,
it can be them championing the mentorship program
in their department and with their supervisors,
and it can mean that mentorship is incorporated
into every level of the organization
from initial onboarding to promotion,
because leadership advocacy can transform a culture.
Next is a City-wide mentoring framework.
So, developing a mentorship policy
to align departments across the City
is really going to help increase collaboration
and uphold the values of the One Seattle Initiative.
And, finally, resources.
Robust financial and personnel support are vital
for the longevity of any mentorship program.
It's important that HR has the resources it needs to function
as a central hub for lots of reasons,
but I'm going to highlight two.
The first is administrative support from HR
will allow the mentorship program
to focus on the broader strategy
of workforce equity and career development
that you can get from having mentorship City-wide.
And the second is data.
We need data to determine the program's effectiveness,
the participant satisfaction
and iterative process for improvement.
The current circumstances all of the data
is independent in different departmental programs.
So, there's no central database for tracking benchmark data.
And each department would really benefit
from program support administratively as well
so that you could also align City-wide and customize
to what the department needs.
Finally, I believe establishing mentorship for City employees
will provide the foundation for mentorship
to continue to grow in the community
and throughout the city as well. By providing leadership support
and more opportunities for mentorship,
by aligning City wide
and by collaborating across departments,
there's a real opportunity for the City of Seattle
to be on the forefront of mentorship and public service.
Thank you. Any questions?
-I'd like to reclaim my position
as questioner number one, please.
Janie, this -- I'm so excited about your body of work.
The quick question I'll have
is this City-wide mentoring framework,
did you come up with any ideas on what --
which one of the departments, how that may look like,
may take the lead on something like that.
I'm thinking Parks, to be honest with you.
I mean, I'm going to show you where I'm sort of heading.
But did you come up with some independent ideas on that
or just the framework itself?
-Yeah. So, the City-wide framework,
I think the goal is to have a policy
that could be used within departments,
but be very adaptable to the department, right,
because the departments are so different from one another.
So, part of what my role is as a fellow has been
to kind of craft a policy alongside Sandra that will be --
that could be utilized across departments,
but could also be adopted and specific to each department.
And I do think Parks, because it does have the --
it's going to have the City-wide mentorship program
that Romel will be launching,
there is a real opportunity for collaboration
on what that might look like and how they might work together.
So, I don't know if that answers your question.
But, yes, Parks, you're right, that's the correct answer.
-I'm looking over to IP.
I don't care about IP today, because I'm moving forward
with another quick question. The -- you have 10 mentors,
10 mentees let's say, for example.
One of the things that always concerns me
is I need to know how to be a mentor.
Am I doing -- am I saying the same things
as AP being a mentor,
should there be a common curriculum, if you will, and --
or do you let everyone mentor to a different style?
What's your thoughts on how one mentors?
-Yeah.
I think there's a little bit of a "both and."
It is important to provide some basic training
on what does it look like to be a mentor,
what are the skills
that you might want to develop to be a mentor,
because I do think some people expect a mentor
is going to come in and provide a bunch of advice or that
"I'm going to instill a bunch of knowledge and skills onto you."
But I think the definition has really evolved to be
"I'm going to do a lot of listening
and I'm going to be the presence you need
as you come to the conclusions and answers yourselves."
So, I do think it's important that people
recognize what does my role look like
in being a mentor to another person.
But I will say that there are
so many different ways that can look,
there's so many different personalities
that can be fantastic mentors,
there's no one particular you have to be.
So, I would say, yes, we do need some training
and, yes, we want to have all sorts of personalities
actively involved in what mentorship looks like.
And I believe and I know that Workforce Development
believes that reverse mentoring
is such a big part of the process,
so much of what a mentor gains,
not only from the experience of developing leadership skills,
but also what can I learn from this mentee
that I'm walking alongside through the process as well.
-Thanks, Janie. I'm sorry, for the sake of time,
I'm going to try to scoot us out here as quickly as we can.
And our next two presentations from our fellows
are recorded online.
So, first up, we have Justin Englund
from Seattle Department of Transportation.
-Hello, everyone. My name is Justin Englund.
I am a master of public administration student
at the University of Southern California.
And I've had the pleasure of returning to Seattle
for the summer to work as the Mayor's Public Policy
Fellow on green fleets at the Seattle Department
of Transportation.
I'm super excited to share some of my findings with you today.
So, let's get into it.
When I heard that I was going to be the green fleets' fellow at
SDOT, I thought I was going to spend the entire summer
talking about electric vehicles.
And while I did spend a good chunk of time on
EVs, I soon discovered that there was a more impactful,
quicker, cheaper and easier investment
that we could make to truly advance fleet sustainability
at the City.
The City needs to switch from biodiesel to renewable diesel.
Although switching from one type of diesel
to another might not necessarily be as enticing
as a shiny new electric vehicle,
it is the most sensible and immediate decision
that the City should make around fleet sustainability.
Biodiesel is made through a process
that converts animal flat --
animal fats and plant oils into fuel.
Seattle's colder climate necessitates
a blend of biodiesel
that includes a fossil fuel-based diesel.
While biodiesel is a more sustainable fuel
compared to traditional fossil fuels, renewable diesels provide
an even more sustainable and resilient alternative.
Renewable diesels are made
through any of a variety of methods
that create a fuel chemically identical to diesel,
allowing it to serve
as a drop-in alternative to traditional fuels.
The City's contracted supplier, which is based in Washington,
manufactures a blend of 10 percent biodiesel
and 90 percent renewable diesel sourced from animal fats
and grain byproduct.
So, what specifically makes renewable diesels
a compelling option for the City?
Our renewable diesel emits 17.7 percent
fewer greenhouse gases per gallon than biodiesel.
The City uses approximately one million gallons of gasoline
and biodiesel each per year.
So, using this figure, we can estimate
that transitioning from biodiesel to renewables
would reduce City-wide diesel-generated emissions
by over 1,700 metric tons per year.
The transition to renewable diesel would be simple as well.
It's chemically identical to diesel
so the City wouldn't need specialized equipment
to facilitate the change.
And we've used renewable diesel before.
Between October 2019 and April 2020,
SDOT used over 60,000 gallons of it.
And we only stopped using renewable diesel
because it was a cost-saving measure when the pandemic hit.
We, also, have an active contract for renewable diesel
that we just aren't currently using.
So, pursuing this option requires
minimal staff intervention.
And FAS is prepared to implement it if greenlighted.
Renewable diesel costs on average 30 to 50 cents
more per gallon than biodiesel. And, as I mentioned,
we use approximately one million gallons of gasoline
and biodiesel each per year.
Therefore, this transition would require
a City-wide investment of an additional $500,000 annually.
But, given that our expenses on unleaded gasoline
are projected to be practically nothing by 2030,
this funding could be maintained and repurposed
for renewable diesels
or other fleet sustainability projects.
Compared to fleet electrification,
renewable diesels are a more cost-effective approach.
I've included a chart here that compares investment
in renewables to SDOT's most impactful EV Pilot Program.
Street sweepers are the Department
of Transportation's second dirtiest vehicle,
emitting 220 tons of greenhouse gases per year.
A City-wide transition to renewable diesel
would result in an emissions' reduction of 1,741 tons.
Over a 10-year period,
sweeper electrification would cost $8 million
compared to the $5 million needed for renewable diesel.
So, on a per dollar basis,
investing in renewable diesel is over 12 times as impactful
as some of our most promising EV pilots.
So, with that being said, the next steps are simple.
There's broad support for renewable diesel
throughout the City.
And it's the quickest and easiest decision
we can make to truly advance fleet sustainability
and make progress on the climate goals we all agree are urgent.
The City needs to identify funding options
for renewable diesel, which includes developing a plan
to repurpose the money that FAS customer departments
are currently spending on unleaded gasoline.
From there, it's a matter of working with FAS
to facilitate a smooth transition
back to renewable diesel,
which they're already prepared to do.
So, that concludes my presentation.
I'm available to answer questions
or discuss my findings. Thank you so much for your time.
-If you have any questions,
feel free to email them to me and I'll get that to Justin.
Okay? Next up, we have our fellow
from the Office of Sustainability
and Environment, Neha Chinwalla.
-Hi. My name is Neha Chinwalla.
And, this past summer, I was the Mayor's Fellow
for the Office of Sustainability
and Environment supporting their communications work.
And I'm also a master of urban planning student
at the University of Washington. And I use she/her pronouns.
Today, I'm going to walk you through some of the work
that I did this summer.
So, for background, as climate change
continues to become more and more urgent
for the City to address,
the City's climate work is growing and expanding.
OSE has many program areas which all need communication support.
And, this past summer, there were also
several new climate and sustainability
initiatives that were either launching or underway.
But OSE only has one full-time communication staff member
who handles everything from social media
to design to media engagement.
And, so, it was really important as the fellow to step in
and help where I could. The objective of this fellowship
was to support communications' campaigns
for OSE's climate initiatives,
while also developing expertise in environmental policy areas
through a communications lens.
As you can see here, through the communications work,
I was able to dive into various subject matter areas
from buildings to transportation
to food access and urban forestry.
The first big body of work that I did this summer
was content creation and policy support.
So, on my second day of work,
I had the opportunity to attend a press conference
to launch the Building Emissions Performance Standard,
which is the new building policy that OSE helped launch.
And I also got to work with partner organizations
in the labor and affordable housing space to draft an op-ed
that we are hoping to place in the future.
I, also, got to attend the Downtown Activation Plan launch.
And, after the event, I wrote a blog on OSE
Greenspace and wrote social media
content to highlight the climate and environmental components
of the City's Downtown Activation Plan.
I, also, helped draft some messaging
around extreme heat and climate response,
as well as quotes on behalf of the mayor.
The second body of work that I helped with
was strategic communications.
So, every day, there's a communication strategy meeting
where the OSE leadership is convened to talk about
what is happening on a given day across a certain subject matter.
And, as the fellow, I was put to help manage these meetings
by setting the agenda,
making sure the right people were in the room,
following up on action items and decisions,
and overall trying to make these meetings
more effective by sending look-aheads
and making sure people were prepared for each meeting.
The director has said that this is one of
the most helpful meetings she attends,
so it was really important to make sure
that this time was spent very effectively.
I, also, helped coordinate with our consultant,
Pyramid Communications,
who was brought on to update content for several initiatives,
including the One Seattle Climate Justice agenda,
where we're creating a two-pager and graphics,
as well as other projects such as Green New Deal support,
the Building Emissions Performance Standard support
and a messaging framework for OSE broadly to use.
And you can see on the right there some sticky notes
from a messaging workshop we had with Pyramid Communications
and the OSE Team.
And, lastly, OSE doesn't have a graphic designer.
And this is an area where they need more support.
So, I was able to step in through multiple subject areas
and across different platforms to help create design.
The first thing I worked on was environmental justice
and food grant opportunities.
And these graphics were used across social media,
our newsletter and sent to partners
to help get the word out.
And, more recently, I helped with the materials
for the Heavy Duty Truck Electrification Incentive Pilot.
So, this included a two-pager,
a program guide and an interest form,
all three which were translated into three different languages
and then put back into these designs.
And, lastly, I supported the food team
by helping highlight the investments
made from the sweetened beverage tax in 2022
by designing their annual report.
And my key takeaways from this fellowship
is that communications is critical for City government
to directly engage in conversations
with community members.
The City is sometimes offering direct services,
such as safe places to shelter during extreme heat
or those environmental justice grants that I mentioned,
and if we're not reaching people,
then they won't know about these resources.
And it's really important to use communications
as a tool to help connect with people
and help them get the help that they need.
It's, also, important to have accessible communications
to help get that word out.
And, mostly, I learned that all project
work touches communications,
and it's important to work across departments
because that's what strengthens everyone's impact
and helps us help the residents of Seattle.
And, finally, for my recommendations,
I, first of all, think that communications teams
and investments should be expanded,
especially at OSE where capacity is a constraint,
but our work is continuing to grow.
It's, also, important in the interim to help train people
who are not in traditional communications roles
to see themselves as comms people
to approach their work with communications in mind.
And, lastly, to consider accessibility and equity
in all City communications,
to empower people to feel comfortable as communicators
and also to make sure messaging resonates with community.
Thank you to the mayor, the fellowship organizers
and everyone for listening
and for the opportunity to be a fellow this past summer.
I truly enjoyed working for the City
and will carry this with me through my last year
of grad school and into my career. Thank you.
-You have nothing more important
than to be here right now. I'm a busy person, too,
but this is the most important part of my day.
I mean that.
I think I experienced something that inspired me.
You know, I don't -- I was going to say I don't BS a lot.
I do BS a lot sometimes.
Sometimes I really speak from the heart.
I'm inspired. Thank you. I want to thank the fellows
for their thoughtful recommendations.
I'm going to use -- I'm going to mention a few names
just because when I thought about --
let me look at my notes.
Katrina, when I thought about you sharing with us the --
I'll call it the burnout, the vicarious trauma --
where is Katrina? Thank you.
I thought about that and that body of work,
then I thought about that in all assets, my job, for example.
That's what I thought about the -- what inspires me.
I'm inspired now. I'm inspired when I see people
that realize that this journey we are on
there's often just the -- the victory line moves.
It's very evasive, sometimes out of our grasp.
And I asked the fellows to say --
to believe that -- I once heard a quote,
I'll probably slaughter it a little bit.
But it says something like nothing worth
really achieving will be achieved within our lifetime.
And, so, you're saved by hope. And that hope
is that you truly make a difference fighting racism,
fighting genderism, fighting sexism,
fighting for climate change.
We may not win within our lifetime,
but we're saved by hope that we will make an impact.
That's the inspiration for me.
So, I want to thank all of you for putting in the work.
I learned a term from --
I think it was Janie. It might have been Alison.
It might have been Elena.
Reverse mentoring, who said that?
Okay.
That I never thought about that that as we continue to learn.
When I -- you asked a question about
who do you think of as a mentors,
and I think about the -- many of the mentors,
many of whom did not look like me, weren't even my gender,
but mentors that I continued to be mentored.
Some of the greatest minds,
the greatest thinkers continue to have mentors.
And you continue to be a mentee. It's a two-way street.
And, so, I love your concept there that we continue to learn.
I want to thank the planning team,
the planning team this year.
Just raise your hand if you're part of the director --
his planning team. Is there anyone here?
Yeah, thank you.
I was -- is Director Spotts still here?
He might have left early.
Let's talk badly about him since he left early.
No, let's not do that.
Greg shared with me that he started under Mayor
Villaraigosa down in L.A. as a Mayoral Fellow.
And now he's a department head
at one of our most important departments,
Seattle Department of Transportation.
So, I hope, again, that you all learned something as fellows.
I am proud when it says "Mayor's Fellows."
That's why I asked so many questions
because I'm prideful of the quality that we saw.
You've heard a lot of cliches about how it takes a village
to raise a child and all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
All these cliches, sometimes they're cliches
because they're so true that we're in this together.
You know, there's nothing fair about politics.
There's nothing fair about public service.
You take your hits. And, again,
I hope amongst your own group you found some fellowship,
some camaraderie, some love, some kindness within.
Because, for me, that's what keeps me going.
And, so, I think this -- Sandra, this -- where's Sandra?
I can't see where she -- oh, I think this program
was a success no matter how you describe it,
no matter how you describe it. So, I close by saying
that you've inspired us as public servants,
the new lifeblood coming into this.
So, I hope that many of you turn down the world of big bucks
and realize the joy of public service,
and you seek refuge and strength in those around you.
We have so much work to do in this country.
I had lunch -- oh, my days turned into, was it this week?
I had lunch with a cabinet member, Marcia Fudge,
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
And I asked her -- she will openly talk about her age.
So, I'm not saying any secrets. She's 70.
And I said, "Well, what continues to inspire you?"
And this is a woman that was in Congress,
was a mayor, was in Congress,
was chair of the Congressional Black Caucus,
who was a -- had a lot of -- She reports to Biden now.
And she talked about meeting folks like you
that are coming with new ideas,
that are living with the contradictions we see,
that continue to have that energy,
that fervor, that commitment. So, thank you.
You've blessed us with your work and we'll be better for it.
So, thank you. It's been a huge success.
IP, you're on my hit list.
No. What I really like -- no, I'm serious now.
I'm playing. Come on, I'm playing.
What I really like is that one of my favorite departments,
the humor that you brought, because I laugh a lot.
Because do you really want to hear about all the pain
I've had in my life?
I don't want you to hear about that.
I want you to hear about the joy.
I love it when people razz me a little bit.
People want to know why I joke a lot.
Because that's sustainable for me.
Humor, love, commitment, it has to be to do this kind of work.
So, if I bless you with one thought
that is take things very, very seriously,
but not too seriously,
because this work we're going to do,
that finish line is evasive.
I love humor. I serve my religion.
And if I ever offend anyone, it's not --
I never try to offend anyone. I've been hurt in my own life
too much to ever hurt anyone with words.
So, I love it. I love what I saw today.
You've made me happy. I love it what I see.
So, today, you just made my day.
And I'm going to ride it all the way to Labor Day.
So, thank you very much. One Seattle.
[ Applause ]