Working to Transform Policies, Systems, and Environments

Working to Transform Policies, Systems, and Environments Key Learnings from Best Starts for Kids Partners July 2021 Best Starts for Kids

Key learnings from Best Starts for Kids Partners By listening to what Best Starts partners have shared with us at Cardea about program implementation and backed by evaluation data, we’ve identified five key themes critical to Best Starts partners, spanning all strategies.

1. Leading with Equity

5. Working to Transform Policies, Systems, & Environments

2. Centering Culture & Language

5 Evaluation Themes 4. Building Organizational & Community Strength

3. Supporting Communities that Thrive

In this case study series, we share stories and data from Best Starts partners that highlight these five themes.

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Cardea analyzed stories and data shared by Best Starts for Kids partners Earlier this year, Best Starts for Kids asked Cardea to develop this series of case studies to document key learnings from across the Best Starts for Kids initiative. Best Starts grounds its work in community knowledge as well as science and research in an effort to continually reflect community needs and deepen the initiative’s impact. To support this effort, Best Starts partners regularly share stories about their work along with data, including information about who participates in Best Starts programming. Best Starts analyzes these data and stories each year to share learnings back with their partners, their communities, and the residents of King County through community conversations, publications, and the Best Starts for Kids data dashboard.

This case study series features data and stories that have been shared with Best Starts since the initiative launched.

Cardea also partnered with local artist, Michael B. Maine, to capture Best Starts partners in their own words. Nine partner organizations also participated in conversations this spring so we could better represent their work related to the case study themes. Although so many Best Starts partners could be highlighted in this series, these nine organizations were selected because the stories they had previously shared with Best Starts were particularly wellaligned with the themes.

Best Starts for Kids builds partnerships to amplify countywide impact Best Starts partner organizations have strong existing relationships with other providers in King County. Through capacity support and funding from Best Starts, many partners have expanded their services and their networks to enhance connectivity across King County. This amplification of partnerships impacts policies, systems, and environments to create greater health and wellbeing opportunities for babies, children, and families.

Through collaboration and greater access to resources, Best Starts partners help change policies within organizations, communities, and systems.

With support from Best Starts, partners work within communities to improve the environments in which children live and are cared for.

Best Starts for Kids provides partnership and network connection opportunities and platforms for organizations to better coordinate between systems.

Best Starts for Kids

For more information about Best Starts for Kids please visit the 2020 Annual Report and Implementation Plan.

About Best Starts for Kids

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Best5Starts for Kids

What we found

Best Starts for Kids partners expanded their organizational capacity to participate in partnership and relationship building that enabled them to transform policies, systems, and environments in King County.

Best Starts for Kids funded programs, network opportunities, and partnerships transform policies, systems, and environments for equitable and supportive change throughout King County Best Starts for Kids

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Cardea found that Best Starts for Kids partners made positive changes to the policies, systems, and environments impacting the health and development of young children, youth, and families in King County Best Starts partners shared information about their transformational work through narrative reports and performance measures. Partners do this work using approaches such as community and organizational partnerships, connectivity, and capacity building. A wide variety of partners identified ways in which their work impacts structural policies, systems, and environments in ways that better support young children, youth, and adolescents grow into healthy, thriving adults.

This section includes an overview of findings from Best Starts partners’ work throughout King County.

Documenting and measuring policy, system, and environment outcomes is difficult because the work is complex and occurs over a long period of time. These preliminary findings are limited to the narrative report and measurement data available and may not yet fully represent the long-term impact of the extensive effort to bring about systemic change to support children, youth, and families.

What we found

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Best Starts partners described how they make progress and what contributes to, creating stronger, more supportive policies, systems, and environments for families The themes outlined below were often described as occurring at the organizational or program level directly impacting how children, youth, and families interact with services supported through Best Starts. Partners occasionally described changes that indirectly impact families such as staffing policies or partnerships for knowledge sharing. These indirect impacts contribute to a stronger system of services and supports available to families throughout King County.

Policies

Systems

Environments

Making changes

Building capacity

Increasing connectivity

Adding new policies

Creating new partnerships

Developing inclusivity

Reviewing for equity and social justice

Greater service coordination

Improving built environments

What we found

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Best Starts for Kids partners connected with each other to build movements that support healthy, thriving, and equitable communities Best Starts for Kids

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Best Starts Communities of Opportunity (COO) is advancing racial equity by investing in community to influence equitable policy, systems and environmental changes Communities of Opportunity (COO) is a growing movement of partners who believe every community can be a healthy, thriving community and that equity and racial justice are both necessary and achievable.

COO is a key pillar of Best Starts as children, youth, and families can thrive when their communities are healthy and when our policies and systems support community priorities. COO is setting a course for positive change throughout the region by addressing racial equity, tapping into existing community expertise and leadership, and strengthening community capacity to take on local challenges and bringing new resources into communities.

What we found

Communities leading the way Replanting Roots Rebuilding Community (RRRC), a Central District COO partnership, successfully worked to have the City of Seattle transfer Fire Station 6 and Central Area Senior Center to community control.

Bringing community priorities to the forefront As a member of King County's Open Space Equity Cabinet, White Center COO partner White Center Community Development Association provides recommendations and advice on how to best engage communities and ensure equity in access to green and open spaces for underserved communities.

Kent Community Development Collaborative made recommendations to the Governor’s budget on investments to support families and students who typically experience digital/technology access barriers to resources.

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Best Starts Communities of Opportunity (COO) is advancing racial equity by investing in community to influence equitable policy, systems and environmental changes

Fighting displacement Rainier Valley, White Center, and RRRC COO partnerships are working to develop affordable housing at Othello Square, White Center Community HUB and Central District, respectively.

Increasing economic opportunities SeaTac/Tukwila Community Coalition partner, FIN, developed new relationships with PCC Community Markets and Cherry Picked, food delivery service, and pushed for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's Food & Beverage Kiosk Program, which will reduce barriers for small, local food and beverage businesses to operate at the airport.

What we found

Supporting the health of underserved communities Comunidad Latina de Vashon is collaborating with Sea Mar Community Health Centers to improve healthcare access for Latinos on Vashon Island, Transgender Economic Empowerment Coalition partner, UTOPIA, worked with their leadership cohort to develop a campaign on the Occupational Health and Safety of Sex Workers, including a Sex Worker Toolkit for release in 2021.

Snoqualmie Valley partnership Supportive Community For All is developing a community resource platform to support human services referral/navigation in the Valley.

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Best Starts partners create healthy and safe environments where children, youth, and families have access to healthy food and physical activity, are supported in avoiding substance use, and have safe and secure homes Best Starts for Kids

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Best Starts partners empower youth and families to transform systems, environment, and policies to decrease and prevent the continued inequities impacting their communities Healthy and Safe Environments Focus Areas Creating safe & health-promoting environments Increased awareness among youth on gun violence and prevention and established an engagement between youth & Kent City Police Department.

Reducing exposure to unhealthy products/dangerous substances

Developed norms campaign and saw a drop in “30 day use rate of Marijuana” in the Snoqualmie Valley High School.

Increasing access to healthy & affordable foods Implemented food policies impacting 17,000 children and youth in afterschool programs.

Increasing opportunities for physical activity

Provided evidence-based physical education in 44 schools across 2 school districts.

To see more data about the healthy and safe environments strategy, check out the data dashboard What we found

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15Starts for Kids Best

Stories of Impact

Organizations transform policies, systems, and environments through existing and new partnerships, expanded and new program services, new tools for community coordination, and making changes or formalizing processes to policies.

Stories from Best Starts for Kids Partners: ▪

Urban Native Education Alliance

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Encompass

Best Starts partners work to build strong and inclusive communities through equitable policies, systems, and environments Best Starts for Kids partners, Urban Native Education Alliance and Encompass, share specific examples of the larger impact of their community work on transforming policies, systems, and environments that we heard from so many Best Starts for Kids partner organizations.

Urban Native Education Alliance calls attention to ways in which services supporting youth and their development creates youth-lead transformations.

Encompass highlights examples of work with early childhood education, care, and developmental supports through both direct services and robust partnerships with other community partners in the Snoqualmie valley.

Best Starts for Kids

Stories of impact

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The Urban Native Education Alliance supports young people in building equitable policies, systems, and environments for the Indigenous community Urban Native Education Alliance (UNEA) is a grassroots, student-centered, community-based, and native-led organization with a mission of engaging all generations to serve and empower Native youth through education, culture, and tradition. UNEA builds on the strength of strong native community and tribal values to elevate native youth as future leaders and builds policies, systems, and environments to support the native community. Within the community, UNEA sees a need to connect youth to their cultural community through mentorship and skill building based in cultural and tribal identity.

Urban Native Education Alliance

The Clear Sky program of UNEA collectively engages in activities and promotes education achievement. Clear Sky strives to enhance tribal identities, personal and community growth and wellness in addition to advocating for justice, equality, and visibility in the Seattle community.

Stories of impact

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Advocacy efforts by the Clear Sky Youth Leadership Council create inclusive and equitable policies and environments through partnerships with local schools As part of Clear Sky leadership development, the Youth Leadership Council brought to the Seattle Public School Board multiple testimonials for a resolution supporting a day to honor Billy Frank Jr. within Seattle Public Schools. Youth on the Leadership Council created a petition, a template letter of support, and researched the life and accomplishments of Billy Frank Jr. to draft the resolution recognizing and honoring the life of Billy Frank Jr.

To build strong advocacy, the Youth Leadership Council worked to garner critical support from the Seattle Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), Seattle Urban Native Non-Profit Collaborative (group of 12 Native led nonprofits), Seattle Indian Health Board, and several more influential groups.

Urban Native Education Alliance

As a result of all the work done by the Youth Leadership Council, the Seattle School Board unanimously approved the board resolution and designated March 9th to celebrate Billy Frank Jr. across the school district.

Stories of impact

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The campaign for Billy Frank Jr. Day has been an amazing experience. Billy Frank Jr.’s activism has definitely influenced me on how much I can use my voice out in the world. Working on this campaign with my fellow interns was completely worth it, from doing Seattle Public School Board testimonies, making petitions, and gathering community members to support us. We each had a role to play, but everyone’s job was super important and it all came together with a great outcome.

Kayla Harstad

Clear Sky Intern Clear Sky Newsletter, March 2021

Stories of impact

Advocacy efforts by the Clear Sky Youth Leadership Council create inclusive and equitable policies and environments through partnerships with local schools The Youth Leadership Council has also been working with a Seattle high school to retire their school moniker. The effort has grown into a partnership with the high school to distribute a schoolwide survey to build support to make real change to the school moniker.

The Youth Leadership Council served as consultants to the school. In this role, the Youth Leadership Council effectively expressed that "race-based

names, logos, and mascots dehumanize, stigmatize and stereotype Native people, regardless of intention, and that the moniker be retired."

The leadership and advocacy example set by the Clear Sky Youth Leadership Council has, in turn, inspired other school districts and native parents to challenge their schools’ mascots or monikers creating more inclusive and equitable learning environments for all.

Stories of impact

Urban Native Education Alliance

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Clear Sky youth were paired with tribal Elders to foster supportive relationships and strengthen connection with their native communities during the pandemic crisis With Best Starts for Kids funding, UNEA expanded the Clear Sky program and incorporated the initiative, the Elders Care Project, a multigenerational, culturally intact, relationship-building project. The goal of this COVID-19 relief effort was to create a supportive environment for both youth and Elders.

Youth were paired with Elders for weekly wellness checks, and to build relationships, deliver gifts, and provide traditional medicines and foods. For youth, this initiative bridges generational gaps to affirm native traditional values of honoring and caretaking for Elders, and Elders reciprocate by sharing cultural practices and knowledge with youth.

Urban Native Education Alliance

The initiative is very popular and provides opportunities to build relationships with Elders that ordinally youth may not have had. Youth grow a stronger sense of connection with their native community and tribal values which youth carry forward to better understand and engage with their communities.

Stories of impact

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We would not have been able to do the Elders Care Project without Best Starts for Kids. Our Elders love it. We’re making waves. There have been Elder programs, but not multi-generational…our kids have grown a strong sense of connection to their community, their role in the community, and a stronger sense of who they are as indigenous people.

Sarah Sense Wilson​ (Oglala) Urban Native Education Alliance​ Chair Sustaining the Gain

Stories of impact

UNEA and Clear Sky youth create changes to foster positive cultural identity and improve community environments Clear Sky youth and UNEA partnered with the Seattle Public Library to gather oral histories with Coast Salish Elders and Indigenous leaders about sacred sites.

Through this work, Clear Sky youth created and produced the short documentary “Saving Licton Springs.” Licton Springs is now the first designated city landmark for a Native site or cultural place in Seattle.

Urban Native Education Alliance

Clear Sky youth leaders went on to work with their North Seattle College (NSC) partner to present the workshop, “Building Authentic Community Partnerships”, at the Washington and Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference. The workshop featured the “Saving Licton Springs” project and youth shared the lasting impact the project has on their learning experiences. This was followed by a detailed discussion on the process of creating a strong relationship between NSC and UNEA which brings benefits to both NSC and UNEA. The partnership is grounded in supportive experiences in a higher education environment for Clear Sky youth and culturally relevant events, presentations, and celebrations for the NSC community.

Stories of impact

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Our Leadership Council has been instrumental in influencing policy and real systemic changes throughout our Seattle community. Our youth leadership is a recognized force of collective drive to make change for social justice initiatives and actions impacting quality of life for our community and Seattle as a whole.

Sarah Sense Wilson​ (Oglala) Urban Native Education Alliance​ Chair Sustaining the Gain

Stories of impact

Encompass was founded by a partnership of parents who transformed their local support system, resulting in better care for children with special needs

Best Start for Kids

Encompass began as a small group of parents whose children had needs that were not being met in their local schools. This group of parents came together and started their own school to better serve children with special needs in Snoqualmie Valley. Fifty-five years later, Encompass works with children and their families from birth through age 8, centering relationships, trust, and meaningful connections. Encompass works as a cohesive team and takes pride in their long history and positive reputation with community partners to provide comprehensive resources, services, and engagement opportunities in proximity to families who live throughout Snoqualmie Valley and greater Eastside of King County.

In partnership with Best Starts for Kids, Encompass has added new community partnership programming to enrich preschool environments, foster greater connectivity of resources, and create more effective support networks of support for children and families.

Stories of impact

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Encompass continues to build a unified system and a connected community across east King County to support the needs of children and families A large portion of the Encompass service area is rural, presenting significant accessibility challenges. Encompass understands that residents spread over a large geographic area value connectivity as a strength of the community, and that gaps in available services in east King County create accessibility challenges for providers, children, and families.

Encompass creates opportunities to bring services and workforce development into the community by expanding and adding to the existing network of programs. This work builds a more robust and connected local system that is easier for providers and families to navigate in east King County. With Best Starts for Kids funding, Encompass has established the Child Care Health Consultation (CCHC) program to empower child care providers in making changes that nurture the healthy development and school readiness of all children in their care.

Stories of impact

Best Start for Kids

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The Child Care Health Consultation team supported providers making changes within childcare centers to benefit children in childcare Through relationship-based partnerships, the Encompass CCHC team has collaborated with childcare providers to take new steps to build policies that are supportive of all children in childcare. Examples of supportive policies implemented by childcare providers include:

Best Start for Kids

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Protocols for regular developmental screening intervals, referral, and follow-up

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Behavior management

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COVID-19 pandemic safety protocols based on constantly changing guidance and recommendations to maximize the safety of children and staff in childcare settings

Stories of impact

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As Encompass works to expand the system, there are new opportunities to increase connectivity of resources and service coordination across King County

New and expanded services have allowed Encompass to formalize processes between programs leading to more integrated coordination of referrals and services. Collaboration between programs such as early support for infants and toddlers (ESIT)/Birth-to-Three Services, preschools, and Child Care Health Consultation means not only will a child be supported by a therapist and educator, but the teacher will also be supported by a health consultant to the benefit of an entire classroom of children.

Best Start for Kids

Stories of impact

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Because of the convenings with other [Best Starts for Kids] childcare health consultation grantees, we’ve been able to facilitate referrals between programs.

So there might be other [Best Starts] programs that [can better meet] the need…of the provider, child, or the family…[and] we’ve been able to refer to a different childcare consultation program, do a [coordinated] hand-off to know what has been done [by Encompass], what the concerns are, and [let the new consultant] take it from there.

Caitlin Young, BSN, RN Encompass Investing Early

Stories of impact

The Child Care Health Consultation team helped childcare providers create trauma-informed learning environments

The Encompass Child Care Health Consultation (CCHC) team is working with childcare providers to create trauma-informed learning environments where all children will feel safe and secure. One childcare provider for example, worked with Encompass following a group training to learn more about developmental milestones and ways to create a supportive classroom. The provider also learned ways to talk with families about supportive home environments to create continuity for a child both at home and in childcare environments.

Best Start for Kids

Stories of impact

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We know if kids do not feel safe and secure, they will not be in their best state for learning. As part of our trauma-informed training, we talk about the physical environment… we can make small changes [or additions] in an environment…that can make it a supportive, inviting, and safe [environment] for all…[childcare providers] were all in for the changes...to take a pause and think about how to make small changes to support all children, is pretty awesome.

Kim Kanzler M.A CCC-SLP, IMH-E Encompass Investing Early

Stories of impact

In their own words…

Encompass

Stories of impact

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Thank you

Contributors: Urban Native Education Alliance

Encompass

Sarah Sense Wilson (Oglala)

Rochelle Clayton Strunk

Urban Native Education Alliance Chair

Program Director

Diana Golovkin Family Resource Coordinator Supervisor

Kim Kanzler M.A CCC-SLP, IMH-E Speech Language Pathologist, Infant Mental Health Specialist

Caitlin Young, BSN, RN

Child Care Consultation Nurse

Cardea is a national, women of color-led organization, based in Seattle. We envision a world in which optimal health and wellbeing, equity, and justice are realities for all communities. For 50 years, we have been committed to addressing complex program, policy, and systems issues by cocreating solutions that center community strengths and wisdom.

Authors & Contributors MJ Coppock Avanthi Jayasuriya Kelsey Liu Olivia Lutz

Elizabeth Menstell Wendy Nakatsukasa-Ono Erica Wei Wu Amanda Winters

Michael B. Maine uses photography, video, and audio to work with people to find, develop, and share their stories. Rather than Michael telling their story, he provides a platform for a person to tell their own. With this process, he hopes to create pieces that are authentic, unique, and beautiful.

Best Starts for Kids partners make changes to policies, systems, and environments that support young children, youth, and families grow and succeed in King County

This work is made possible by Best Starts for Kids. Best Starts for Kids strengthens families and communities so that babies are born healthy, children thrive and establish a strong foundation for life, and young people grow into happy, healthy adults. Learn more at kingcounty.gov/BestStarts.

Best Starts for Kids