Announcing Community-Designed Home-Based Programs and Practices Awards
Crossposted from the Best Starts for Kids Blog
We’re thrilled to announce ten awardees for the prenatal-to-5 Community-Designed Home-Based Programs & Practices funding opportunity. With a total investment of $5,825,000 million over 2.5 years, these awards to community-based organizations will expand the availability of home-based services that draw upon local community knowledge and practice to develop approaches that are designed for and valued by specific communities, and/or addressing populations not well-served by other programs.
Congratulation to our new partners:
- United Indians of All Tribes
- East African Community Services
- Atlantic Street Center
- Centro Rendu @St. Vincent DePaul
- Iraqi Community Center
- Open Arms Perinatal Services
- El Centro de la Raza
- Somali Health Board
- Coalition for Refugees from Burma
- Open Doors for Multicultural Families
Best Starts has made significant investments in evidence-based and evidence informed home-based programs and we are now so excited to invest in community-based expertise—such as experience, knowledge, and local client data—that embraces the concept that “practitioners in the field, families, communities, and diverse cultures serve a vital role” in identifying optimum programs and practices. This is the first significant public investment in community-designed programming for home visiting in King County.
For a full list of awardees and their projects, go to the Best Starts for Kids awards database and filter by the Home-Based Services: Community-Designed strategy. (information will be available soon if not available already)
During the program development phase, Best Starts is supporting awarded partners by providing capacity building through the Capacity Building RFP that was also recently awarded. Stay tuned to the blog to soon meet those awarded community partners!
“This funding will address barriers faced by our focus community; immigrants and refugees from Burma, Iraq, Somalia, Latinx countries, and other new arrival communities living in South King County, by connecting parents to a trusted leader from their own communities in the form of a home visitor. All discussions and early learning/kindergarten readiness information are delivered in the native language of the parent, in a culturally relevant way. Learning toy delivery and interaction modeling will encourage parents to increase the quality and quantity of interactions with their child, which will in turn influence that child’s future success in school,” said Mona T. Han, Executive Director of Coalition for Refugees from Burma. Their Leadership, Education, and Access Program (LEAP) serves low-income, limited English-speaking people of color and based on the theory that refugees and immigrants rely on a community-based system of knowledge acquisition.
LEAP families and their community leaders (home visitors) served by the Coalition of Refugees from Burma in the past year.
As one of the Coalition for Refugees from Burma home visitors shared, “Our presence in the homes of the families is really special, especially the demonstration of playing with the children and providing examples to parents. The parents are so thankful to us for sharing creative ideas on how to play with their children. Having the same home language and cultural reference points are unique features of CRB’s LEAP program, and parents seem really interested to build their children’s skills while building their cultural identities.”
Equity Embedded in Program and Practice
The foundational principle behind the community-designed home-based services investment is that equity must be embedded in all programs and practices. Best Starts awarded organizations that are reflective of and embedded in the communities they serve, and recognize and address the disparities and disproportionality that exist in our communities.
For example, the Somali Health Board will use their awarded funding to develop and implement their home-based services program, Somali Centering Motherhood Program. Their project incorporates elements of the evidence-based models called CenteringPregnancy® and CenteringParenting® that the Centering Healthcare Institute developed in the 1990s. The Somali Health Board will adapt the model to include culturally relevant practices for the Somali community and relationship-based home visits. All services will be provided in Somali by Somalis.
“The Somali Health Board is excited to receive this award to implement Somali Centering Motherhood project which facilitates prenatal and postnatal care groups for expectant mothers- A new approach to care and an attempt to innovatively address significant maternal and child health disparities in our Somali-American population in King County. The Somali Health Board will leverage its strengths as a Somali-led organization to develop a culturally- and linguistically-responsive program that meets the needs of our community and our ultimate goal is to develop a robust set of best practices for this type of work to be duplicated in other immigrant communities,” said Ahmed Ali, Executive Director of the Somali Health Board.
East African Community Services (EACS) and Culturally Appropriate and Responsive Education Center (CARE Center) will partner to establish a pilot Somali Home Visit & Literacy Program called Sheeko, Sheeko, Sheeko Xariira (meaning “story story, what’s the story” in Somali). Serving 30 Somali families who are experiencing poverty, the pilot program is named after the oral storytelling activity of Sheeko Sheeko, which is a cultural activity that connects very well to dialogic reading. In Sheeko Sheeko, the mother starts the exchange with her child by saying, “sheeko sheeko” (story story). The child responds, “sheeko xariir” (what’s the story?). The mother and child go back and forth and build a story made up of Somali rhymes. The pilot program will build upon this existing cultural tradition to encourage mothers and family members to increase their child’s language exposure through singing lullabies and sharing stories. The pilot program includes weekly home visits from practitioners and establishes network of families. By hiring staff that are culturally and linguistically matched to families, the pilot program fills a critical need in the Somali community for culturally competent home-visits and support for parents and families of young children.
Amir “Noir” Soulkin from East African Community Services said, “Youth exposed to reading and literacy at the earliest moments of life, have a significant advantage over less-prepared youth. This funding allows EACS to intervene far earlier in the brain development of our youth. Thus, Sheeko, Sheeko is a culturally sound tool in our ongoing evolutionary journey towards stronger individuals and stronger families.”
Other projects include:
- Centro Rendu of St. Vincent de Paul and Catholic Community Services Pregnancy and Parenting Support (PrePS) will engage with low-income Latinx families to design and implement a home visitation program that meets their unique needs. Centro Rendu is fully embedded in the South King County Hispanic/Latinx community, with an all-Latinx staff and an ongoing process for incorporating community feedback into program design. Centro Rendu is trusted as a “go-to” resource for the community. Jackie Lloyd-Evans, from The Society of St. Vincent de Paul shared, “Best Starts funding will enable The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Catholic Community Services to unite the strengths of each agency on the ground, face to face in a more effective response to the growing needs of Latinx families across South King County.”
- The Iraqi Community Center of Washington (IRCCW) is a community-based organization primarily serving the Iraqi and Arabic speaking refugee communities within South King County. IRCCW will provide culturally and linguistically competent, one-on-one home visiting services to low-income, Iraqi refugee families. Home visits will provide support and education to new and expecting mothers and families. Services will include case management, direct needs assessment, parent early-learning education, resource connection, community development and creating a larger support network of other parents. There will be an additional focus for parents with young children with disabilities.
- The United Indians of All Tribes will support the development and provision of culturally-based birth doula services for the AI/AN/NH/PI community in King County, called Daybreak Star Doulas. These free-of-cost birth doula services will be available to individuals who identify (themselves or their child) as AI/AN/NH/PI. Services will include provision of pre-birth information and birth coaching; birth, breastfeeding, and infant attachment observation and coaching; and therapeutic supports to reduce the risk of postpartum depression.
The Community-Designed Programs and Practices for Home-Based Services investment is part of the larger Best Starts Home-Based Services funding strategy. Best Starts for Kids understands that families need a range of different home visiting services to best meet their needs and leverage community resources and expertise, with many different types of evidence to show what works—from randomized control trials to community-defined and practice-based evidence. We are proud to support building a system that meets the needs of all families in King County.
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Biosolids and digesters and sludge, oh my! Summer interns tour South Plant
Crossposted from Clean Water Stories
By Isabelle Trujillo, WTD intern
What do brisk walking, new facts, and interesting sites all have in common? They are all part of the South Treatment Plant tour! As a summer intern at WTD, many options are given to us to get to know the different facilities in the regional system. One of them being a tour of the South Treatment Plant located in Renton. Expanding over 80 acres and covered in patches of trees, the South Plant facility gave similar first impressions to some of the interns.
Process Analyst Jim Pitts leads the tour.
“It was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be. And I also thought that the grounds were very nice and well taken care of,” states Alex Cole, a project management intern. “It didn’t look like how a waste water treatment facility would look in my mind – or maybe my pre-WTD mind.”
Jyoti Bodas, an industrial waste intern, had the same thoughts.
“It was a lot bigger than I thought it was. They have a standard set of processes but they’re spanned out over quite a large area and different buildings and such.”
At these tours, you’re given an educational, up close, and personal view of the treatment process done at these facilities. The other interns and I, led by tour guides Jim Pitts and Katelyn Hunt, were taken step by step through the process and given a view of what goes on above and below the treatment plant.
When asked what her favorite thing was that she saw on the tour, Jyoti responded with the Bio-digesters. In high school, she had worked on a small scale project revolving anaerobic digestion and thought it was interesting to see it on a larger scale.
“To see a large one, spanning a room… was kind of cool. Just to see how it would be built on an industrial level.”
As someone who was not very knowledgeable about the wastewater treatment process at these plants prior to becoming a WTD intern, there was a vast expanse of information to learn and ground to cover. Our tour guides were helpful and informative and led the tour in a way that kept all of the interns engaged and eager to soak in more information.
Not only does this facility treat wastewater, but located on site is 1.5 acres of land dedicated to the CitySoil Farm. Once an unused part of the treatment plant’s grounds, it has been transformed into an urban agriculture that is dedicated to environmental education and sustainable farming. While we didn’t get to tour the CitySoil Farm on this trip, another opportunity has been given to the interns to learn more about CitySoil through a separate tour later on in the summer.
Being able to go on a tour like this allowed me to see all that the South Treatment does to treat the wastewater before King County returns it to the environment.
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Aw shucks! It’s pretty risky to eat raw and under-cooked oysters
Crossposted from Public Health Insider
By Lindsay Bosslet
As waters warm up, shellfish beds become breeding grounds for bacteria, including Vibrio parahaemolyticus or “Vibrio,” one of the most common causes of illness related to raw oyster consumption.
And this year, we’re setting records. Why are so many people getting sick?
We sat down with Vance Kawakami, our communicable disease epidemiologist, to better understand the risk of eating raw and under-cooked oysters.
Vance, is there any safe way to eat raw oysters? Will Tabasco sauce or vodka kill the bacteria? Please say yes.
No, there is no safe way to eat raw oysters, and no amount of alcohol, hot sauce or other condiment will kill the bacteria. The only way to avoid getting a Vibrio infection is to make sure the oysters are thoroughly cooked to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds.
I only eat oysters at King County’s finest restaurants. They’re probably safer than other oysters, right?
Wrong. Even the fanciest restaurants can’t eliminate Vibrio from their shellfish suppliers’ shellfish beds, and they probably won’t know if their latest batch is extra risky until it’s too late. Of course, restaurants still have a role in reducing risk by keeping raw shellfish at the proper temperature, preventing cross-contamination, and reporting illness when it happens.
Okay, maybe I’ll just start harvesting them myself. Then I can pay close attention to the beds and only harvest disease-free oysters.
Oysters that contain Vibrio don’t look, smell, or even taste different from oysters without Vibrio. With the exception of closed beach signage, you will have no way of knowing if oysters are free of bacteria. If you want to harvest your own oysters I suggest:
- Checking for beach closures and advisories or call 1-800-562-5632 before you plan to harvest
- Harvesting as soon as possible after the tide goes out
- Don’t harvest oysters that have been exposed to direct sunlight for more than two hours
- Refrigerating or icing oysters immediately after harvesting (keep at less than 41 degrees Fahrenheit)
I eat raw oysters all the time, and I haven’t gotten sick. Maybe I’m immune? Sorry! Anyone eating raw or under-cooked shellfish should consider themselves at risk for infections from Vibrio. Certain health conditions put people at greater risk of illness. People with weakened immune systems and chronic liver disease are at greater risk of becoming ill, but even otherwise healthy persons who take antacids might also be at greater risk of getting sick and should avoid raw and under-cooked oysters.
What’s up with that? Why are we hearing about so many people becoming sick with Vibrio after eating raw and under-cooked oysters this year?
We don’t know for sure. Vibrio growth is favored by warmer water temperatures. Salinity, water depth, and post-harvest handling may also influence Vibrio levels. Studies are underway that we hope will help us better understand Vibrio and prevent illness. In addition, it is likely that greater public awareness of Vibrio associated with raw and under-cooked shellfish and recent increases in the use of more sensitive diagnostic tests to diagnose Vibrio are contributing to the increase in reports. What we do know is that eating raw and under-cooked oysters is risky business anytime of the year.
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Featured Job: Transit Administrative Support Specialist III – FMLA Support (four TLT or SDA positions)
Closing: 08/13/18 11:59 PM (GMT -8:00)
Salary: $26.04 – $31.48 Hourly
Location: King Street Center, Seattle, WA
Job Type: Special Duty Assignment or Term Limited Temporary
Department: Transportation – Transit Division
Job Number: 2018EM08420
Metro Transit is seeking four talented administrative specialists to join our Operations team on a temporary, six-month-pilot basis to support the processing of FMLA/KCFML and Workers Comp FMLA. These fully benefited positions may be filled either as Term-Limited Temporary or by providing a Special Duty Assignment to an existing King County career service employee who has completed their initial King County probation. The positions will report to the Superintendent of Planning and Technical Support in the Operations Section and be located in King Street Center. Accurate attention to detail and maintenance of a high level of confidentiality are critical in these positions.
Contact: For more information, contact HR Analyst Elisha Mackey at 206-477-0193 or Elisha.Mackey@KingCounty.gov.
Learn more about this position or all available jobs.
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Social Media Spotlight: @CareersKC content on Twitter transitioning to @kcemployees
If you’ve been following Careers @ King County on Twitter, @CareersKC, you will soon be able to view all of our content – including employee news and career opportunities – at our existing @kcemployees handle.
We will be decommissioning @CareersKC soon, but including select career opportunities with the great lineup of content we already share via @kcemployees.
Join the conversation and enjoy our content – follow King County Employees on Twitter @kcemployees today!
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Water you waiting for? Learn these five tips for staying safe in the water
Crossposted from Public Health Insider
By Ashley Bullock
If the past few weeks are any indicator, it’s going to be a hot summer here in King County. The National Weather Service is predicting higher than normal summer temperatures in the Pacific Northwest and we expect to see record numbers of people flocking to the water for relief from the heat.
Unfortunately, with the increase in beach and river goers, we are also likely to see an increase in drownings, both fatal and non-fatal. So how can you make sure your day at the beach is just that? Review these safety tips from our Violence and Injury Prevention Manager, Tony Gomez.
1. Swim at a lifeguarded beach.
While we all like to think that we would recognize the warning signs if someone we loved was struggling in the water, for small children and adults who are not strong swimmers, drowning can happen quickly and without drawing notice. Lifeguards are trained to recognize if a swimmer is at risk or in distress so they can react quickly and save their life. That’s why a lifeguarded beach is one of the safest swimming destinations, and we’re lucky to have more than 30 in the King County area.
2. Take advantage of free or reduced-price swim lessons in your area.
Many of the lifeguarded beaches in King County offer free or reduced price swim lessons, both during the day and in the evening. And if you can’t make it to any of the life guarded beaches, you can also ask your local pool or aquatic center if they offer scholarships or reduced-price lessons throughout the summer. Insider tip: Pools are often less crowded in the summer than the beaches, so they are a great way to beat the heat and the crowds!
3. Always wear a life jacket when boating, paddling, rafting, and inner tubing.
A U.S. Coast Guard approved life jacket is essential if you are on a small craft or open water. In recent years, several drownings may have been prevented if the victim had worn a life jacket. Don’t own a life jacket? Good news, you can borrow life jackets for free at Washington state life jacket loaner program locations all over King County.
4. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol when in or near water.
We are seeing an alarming increase in the number of drownings related to drug and alcohol use – a 20% increase from 2016 to 2017. If it’s not safe to do it while driving, it’s not safe to do it while swimming, boating, or near the water.
5. Be extra cautious on the river.
Rivers are very dangerous places to swim because of their cold, rushing waters, and unexpected obstructions and waterfalls. Because it is easy to get tossed around in the water and hit a hard object, swimmers are at risk of becoming temporarily numbed or paralyzed and losing the ability to swim well in already unpredictable waters. Your best bet is to avoid swimming in rivers altogether. If water recreation in a river is the only option, it’s important to wear a U.S. Coast Guard approved life jacket.
Originally posted on 7/27/18.
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Employee Discount: 2018/2019 Seattle Symphony Season (ends today!)
Ending today, Aug. 3, employees can buy seats to the 2018/2019 Seattle Symphony Season before ticket sales open to the General Public. When you decide on the concert(s) enter Promo Code: CONDUCTOR19 for a 15 percent discount on most Seattle Symphony concerts and National Geographic LIVE presentations.
Order online: Corporate and concierge customers, enter the 2018/2019 Promo Code: CONDUCTOR19 at seattlesymphony.org prior to selecting seats.
Order by phone: 206-215-4747 or 1-866-833-4747, toll-free
Order in person: Visit the ticket office at the corner of Third Avenue and Union Street between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and between 1 and 6 p.m. on Saturdays.
See all available discounts on the Employee Discount webpage.
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CHOMP! is less than a month away!
Crossposted from King County Parks Plog
Enjoy a full day of activities at CHOMP!, King County’s celebration of local farming, food, and sustainability, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18 in the Willowmoor Farm area of King County’s Marymoor Park.
Join King County Parks as we celebrate all that is fresh, delicious, local and sustainable. In its fourth year, this free, all-day event will feature cooking demonstrations by Beecher’s Foundation Sound Food School, hands-on workshops, kids’ activities, a farmers market, local vendors and makers, live music, and so much more.
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Pet of the Week: Penelope
Crossposted from Tails from RASKC
Penelope is a 1 ½ year-old, brown torbie, shorthair female cat (#A550272). Her adoption color is RED, meaning she is a spirited cat with a fun-loving personality. Penelope is an affectionate lovebug who likes getting attention on her own terms. This sweet girl has a big personality! She can get a little overstimulated with petting, so keep an eye out for signs she may need a break. Penelope can be a little shy and would do best in a calm, quiet home. She may also do best as the only kitty in her new home—she wants your love all for herself! The staff and volunteers at RASKC will be happy to answer any questions when you come to visit her. Penelope is litter box trained, spayed, current on vaccinations, and microchipped. She has been diagnosed with an inflammatory condition that is currently being managed. Her $30 adoption fee also includes a certificate for a free veterinary exam and an opt-in 30 days of free pet insurance through Trupanion.
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It’s time to vote!
NO POSTAGE REQUIRED
In-person registration for the Aug. 7 election has closed, accessible voting centers are open, ballots have been sent out, and it’s time to cast them!
If you haven’t received your ballot, call elections at 206-296-VOTE so they can get a ballot to you.
Ballots have prepaid postage for mailing, or can be brought to a drop box by 8 p.m. on election day. Read Election Connection’s new post to learn about new drop box locations.
If you follow @kcelections on Twitter, you already know it is legal to take a selfie with your ballot.
Happy voting! #kcvotes
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