Mindfulness 2018 class schedule now available
Crossposted from Healthy Incentives
The 2018 schedule for the popular Mindfulness classes is now available. King County is offering Mindfulness classes through Mindfulness Northwest. The classes support and provide relevant information to employees working to reduce stress and improve well-being.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is the simple yet powerful ability of the mind to attend more fully to the present moment’s experience. Cultivating mindfulness results in many benefits for mental and physical health, well-being, and happiness. Mindfulness works at the interface between the mind and our experience of our life.
Read more at Healthy Incentives
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Use SeeClickFix to report maintenance issues in our parks!
Crossposted from King County Parks Plog
See a construction issue, a downed tree, or graffiti in our parks? Let us know! King County Parks uses SeeClickFix to track maintenance issues in our parks and we want to hear from you. The process is very easy so just follow these three simple steps:
- See: With 200 parks, 175 miles of trails and 28,000 acres of open space we’ve got a lot to take care of. Snap a picture of a maintenance issues you see in our parks like a broken bridge or litter.
- Click: Report the issue on the SeeClickFix app or website. Simply find the location on the map and select your “issue.” You will need to download the app and create an account.
- Fix: Our crews will respond to your requests and you will be notified via SeeClickFix upon completion.
It’s that simple! See. Click. Fix.
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Metro explores new ways to provide mobility
Crossposted from Metro Matters
Pictured: King County Executive Dow Constantine and community leaders at a Jan. 30 ribbon-cutting for the Des Moines Community Shuttle.
Not everyone who needs transit lives near a bus stop. And not every area has the right mix of infrastructure and housing to support traditional bus service. So Metro is exploring several new ways to connect more people to transit and improve mobility options for customers who need them.
Metro recently launched the Des Moines Community Shuttle/Route 635, in partnership with the City of Des Moines, to connect workers commuting to Des Moines with the Angle Lake light rail station. It is one of the ways Metro is working to connect more people to transit and improve mobility.
The Des Moines Community Shuttle is one of several new mobility solutions now in service or in the works through Metro’s Community Connections program, which is built on partnerships with local communities to meet their unique transportation needs.
Read more at Metro Matters
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Social Media Spotlight: King County Assessor John Wilson Facebook
King County Assessor John Wilson was elected on November 4, 2015, and assumed office on January 1, 2016. The Assessments department strives to deliver excellent customer service, accountability, fair and equitable valuation
Follow the Assessor Wilson on Facebook today.
Click here to view all King County social media pages.
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Featured Job: Nutritionist I
Closing Date/Time: Mon. 02/26/18 11:59 PM Pacific Time
Salary: $29.78 – $37.75 Hourly
Job Type: Career Service
Location: Federal Way Public Health Center – Federal Way, Washington
Department: Department of Public Health–Community Health Services
Description: Public Health – Seattle & King County is seeking a Nutritionist I to provide First Steps (Maternity Support Services and Infant Case Management) and WIC services within the context of an office-based multidisciplinary team including Nutrition Assistants, Public Health Nurses, Registered Dietitians, Social Workers, and Community Health Workers.
Nutritionists are responsible for providing direct nutrition services, including breastfeeding support, to individuals and groups as part of a client-centered Public Health WIC and First Steps clinic. Nutritionists may also provide Medical Nutrition Therapy services to primary care clients seen at the health center.
The successful candidate will exhibit excellent customer service skills, have the ability to develop and maintain positive relationships with our clients from various cultures, and communicate effectively with English as a Second Language (ESL) clients with the assistance of an interpreter. The ideal candidate will demonstrate initiative, flexibility, compassion, and positive team skills. Applicants bilingual in English and Spanish are desired.
Contact: For more information contact Christina Sims at Christina.Sims@kingcounty.gov.
Learn more about this position, or view all available jobs.
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National magazine spotlights King County employee and journey to WTD lab
Process laboratory specialist Suzanne Potts at the King County West Point Treatment laboratory on Friday November 3, 2017, in Seattle, Washington. (PHOTO by Stephen Brashear)
Suzanne Potts, a Laboratory Specialist in the Wastewater Treatment Division at South Plant, was recently featured in a profile piece in Treatment Plant Operator magazine.
‘Studying to be a dentist didn’t light a fire of enthusiasm for Suzanne Potts, but it did ignite her love of chemistry and the laboratory. She switched to environmental science.
An associate degree in environmental science from University of Washington enabled Potts to work for an environmental analytical lab. When it closed in 1994, Potts found what she thought was a temporary job at the King County Wastewater Treatment Division South Plant in Renton, Washington. “What began as an accident — I never expected to be hired — turned out to be a great career,” she says. “I found the lab work interesting, intricate, and complex.”’
Read more at Treatment Plant Operator magazine. Image courtesy of TPO magazine.
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We need a fair tax system
Executive Constantine lays out his vision for a fair, simple, stable tax system
In a democracy, where the people are the sovereign, we collectively choose to raise the funds to collectively do things together that we can’t do alone.
And together with our neighbors we decide whether to raise the funds to educate our children or to pave our roads or to keep our communities safe.
I think we can all agree on this point. Taxes should be fair.
Now, what is fair depends on where you stand, obviously, but I would submit this: That fairness comes down to your ability to pay.
It’s not fair to expect those with limited means to pay a larger percent of the little they have to support our collective roads, and police, and transit that are essential for all of us, for a prosperous economy and a strong community.
Read more on the King County website.
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Public Health director Patty Hayes recognized in Seattle Met magazine
In Seattle Met magazine’s latest edition, Patty Hayes, Director of Public Health – Seattle and King County, was recognized as one of “30 More Women Who Run This City” alongside Melinda Gates, Ana Mari Cauce, Jenny Durkan and U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.
The article states “Before Hayes received both statewide and national awards for her work in public health, she was a nurse. She’s now taking the helm on a work group to create King County’s first safe injection sites.”
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Celebrating Black History Month in King County for 2018
King County Executive Dow Constantine has proclaimed February to be Black History Month in King County.
“Black History Month is celebrated every February in recognition of achievements by Black Americans and all people of African descent in the United States,” Executive Constantine said in his Proclamation. “I urge all County residents to join in this observance.”
You can read the Executive’s full proclamation below.
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Program building support, opportunity for Muslims and immigrants in our community
Pictured: An attendee speaking at the Bystander Training.
King County is committed to ensuring the safety and health of all its residents. This can be done in many different ways, including the recent partnership with the City of Seattle and the Seattle Foundation to provide critical services to immigrants and refugees. This partnership created funding for programs and services, titled the Resilience Fund, to help vulnerable residents whose health, safety and human rights are at risk.
The purpose of the Resilience Fund is to support community-based nonprofits who want to address unanticipated and emerging challenges that impact immigrant and refugee communities in our region. These challenges include access to information, support, legal guidance, organizing, and advocacy to minimize threats and discrimination based on immigration status.
“This fund is so critical at this time,” said Bookda Gheisar, Immigrant and Refugee Policy Analyst with Office of the Executive. “The organizations we funded are essential to members of the immigrant communities during this time of high anxiety and fear.”
Pictured: Attendees working on a group exercise.
The fund also supports training for educators and mental-health providers providing treatment to immigrants and refugees. Examples of this include providing critical legal services, preventing wage theft, launching a Know Your Rights campaign, and engaging vulnerable communities. King County has also prioritized a number of organizations who are working to organize, strategize and teach on these issues including the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Washington State (CAIR-WA).
After successfully completing the application process, CAIR-WA received funding to develop a new program. As the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organizations, the goal of the Washington State chapter is to help Muslims in King County overcome discrimination through community support. To meet this goal, CAIR-WA developed the Intervention Bystander Training Program to teach people how to safely and effectively stand up for others they see being harassed.
“We have been receiving a lot of calls from people who experience harassment and could see people around them who wanted to help, but probably didn’t know how,” said Sarah Stuteville, Media and Outreach Director for CAIR-WA. “We can’t have healthy communities if people don’t feel safe, so we have to help people feel safe.”
The first in a series, the Bystander Training Program, was held January 13, 2018. It was so widely attended by people from local non-profits, faith communities, the Muslim community and concerned citizens that it was recently featured in the Seattle Times.
Pictured: Attendees participating in a discussion during the training.
“People were eager to learn how to be an ally and supporter,” Sarah said. “There were a lot of people at the training who had been bystanders in the past.”
“This is just one way to empower community allies to support the Muslim community.”
Several different studies have found that Muslim individuals, especially children, face harassment and discrimination on a daily basis, with little to no help from bystanders. A March 2017 poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, titled the American Muslim Poll 2017, showed that 42% of adults surveyed with children in grades K-12 said their child had been bullied because of their faith. Another study, done in 2012 by the CAIR California chapter with 271 Muslim students, ages 11 to 19, showed that 50% of students were subjected to mean comments and rumors about them because of their religion.
The need for programs, like the Bystander Training Program, is essential to supporting immigrants, refugees and other vulnerable populations. With the full support of community allies, Muslims in King County can feel more safe, healthy, and able to exercise their human rights.
Pictured: Attendees practicing their newly learned bystander training skills.
“Protecting the civil rights of our Muslim American community is so important,” Sarah said. “It’s encouraging to see people interested in combatting these sentiments of discrimination and harassment.”
“It’s critical to be able to respond to that directly so everyone can experience a life of equity, dignity and opportunity.”
To learn more about CAIR-WA, or how to get involved in supporting Muslim Americans here in King County, visit www.cairseattle.org. To learn more about the Resilience Fund, view this King County press release.
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