Alicia Martinez, from the Department of Community and Human Services/Developmental Disabilities and Early Childhood Supports Division, has been honored as the winner of the Best-Run Government Leadership Excellence Award for an Individual Contributor.

Executive Constantine launched the Best-Run Government Awards – formerly known as the Performance Excellence Awards – in 2018. Best-Run Government is our commitment to continuously improve the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of how King County operates.

The awards recognize individuals and project teams in the Executive branch for their exceptional contributions in innovation, leadership, and continuous improvement at King County. The Leadership Excellence Award for an Individual Contributor honors someone who is not a manager of staff but has demonstrated leadership qualities.

Alicia was selected because of her creation of visionary and accessible opportunities to build Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health knowledge and skills for hundreds of providers and caregivers who work with young children and their families across King County. She did this by creating tailored and transformational learning opportunities using foundational principles and approaches that center racial justice.

Alicia’s approaches have included: 

• ​Reducing barriers by making learning opportunities available in peoples’ first languages, creating weekend times more accessible to childcare providers, and offsetting some of the organizational costs of staff participation. 
• ​Intentionally pairing community facilitators with varied backgrounds and cultures to build our local capacity of leaders across many topics.
• ​Rooting Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health theory in community-based and cultural approaches to childrearing while providing space for practical application discussions for everyday life.​ 

For example, Alicia led a unique collaboration to create the Centering Relationships and Social Justice in Early Childhood certificate program. This one-of-a-kind program was developed to reduce barriers to access to high quality Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health education. Nearly 100 participants are enrolled in the first cohort currently underway. 

Alicia has also grown and diversified one of the largest early childhood Reflective Consultation programs in the country, reaching hundreds of providers with over 60 monthly groups. Reflective Consultation gives early childhood program staff a chance to improve the ways they hold and support the families and children they serve.

“Alicia has helped us all to always ‘see the babies’ in their families, relationships, and communities,” said Wen Harris, Early Childhood Team Co-Lead. “When early childhood providers can hold and support families in strengths-based, culturally rooted ways, children’s social-emotional development and resilience can be well supported. All the reflective consultation and learning opportunities that Alicia has designed hold these core values in mind, while also honoring the unique needs of culturally diverse families and communities.”

Through her work, Alicia has impacted the lives of many early childhood providers from a wide variety of backgrounds in King County, which in turn has had a significant positive impact on the families we serve.

Congratulations Alicia, for modeling our values and making King County a welcoming community where every person can thrive.