A new King County initiative prevented more than 3,000 people from becoming homeless in 2017
A new initiative launched a year ago by Executive Dow Constantine has prevented more than 3,000 people in King County from becoming homelessness.
Results from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30 – the latest data available – show that 96 percent of the 1,024 client households still had a place to live, which prevented the need for additional shelter beds. It also decreased the number of children who suffer the trauma that homelessness can cause, which can affect brain development.
Read more in the official press release.
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New employee grateful for fresh start after hurricane
Legal Secretary with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office Rafael and his family
The Bellevue Reporter recently featured Rafael Muñoz-Cintrón who, with his family, left the devastation caused to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, to begin a new life in Bellevue.
Less than two months after arriving in King County, Rafael successfully applied for a Legal Secretary position with the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
“We thank God every day we were able to get on our feet so quickly,” Rafael Muñoz-Cintrón said in the article.
Read more at the Bellevue Reporter.
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Get crafty this season with Green Holidays
Get in the holiday spirit with a do-it-yourself (DIY) project this season. DIY gifting can be fun if you want to get crafty. Best of all, “Green Holidays” give a second life to items you already have at home, while reducing the environmental impact during the holiday season.
For many years now, Project Manager Tom Watson has managed King County’s EcoConsumer Public Outreach Program. One of the programs that Tom coordinates is Green Holidays.
“The program started in the late 1990’s as the “Waste Free Holidays,” working with businesses to promote giving “experience gifts” instead of stuff,” Tom said. “As Green Holidays, this program now covers all the different ways to reduce our environmental impact during all the winter holidays.”
The volume of household waste in the US generally increases about 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. “A lot of that waste is recycled and composted, especially in King County, which is great,” Tom said.
Although not everyone has a knack for thinking outside of the gift box, there are various resources at your fingertips; look through King County’s More tips: Give green or other DIY projects on social media to get you thinking creatively.
“Our Green Holidays website includes many ideas for simple crafts projects, for kids of all ages,” Tom said. “But even if you’re not interested in making your own gifts or decorations, there are countless ways we can reduce our eco-impact during the holidays.”
A few ways to get started with green holidays this season are: buy holiday food and gifts grown or made locally or regionally to help support small businesses in your community; recycle your cooking oil (never put that down the drain!); and use energy-efficient holiday lights.
“Our Green Holidays seasonal public education includes media appearances, articles and various other outreach,” Tom said. “We also answer a lot of direct questions from the public.”
Contact Tom Watson for questions, or to share your own Green Holidays ideas at 206-477-4481 or tom.watson@kingcounty.gov.
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Tech Tip: Office Delve coming to you soon
On Dec. 19, KCIT is rolling out a new Office 365 product called Office Delve.
Delve is part of Office 365 and finds the documents you need no matter where they’re stored – from SharePoint to Planner to Excel. It’s designed to be a time saver.
You no longer have to hunt through each application one at a time to find something or see if it’s been changed and by whom. It’s a great work hack or shortcut, fully supported by KCIT and accessible through your O365 waffle.
We strongly recommend checking out both the 2 minute video and the 12 minute video to fully appreciate the benefits Delve will bring to your work flow.
Microsoft Office Delve comes your way Dec. 19. Delve is a new way to access, sort and track information across all Microsoft Products from SharePoint to Excel. It also enables you to track people you interact with each day or across each product.
Experience a new way of working with Office 365. See details below.
1. What is Delve?
Delve provides a user with a personalized home page within Office 365. It includes displays of recently accessed documents, colleague profiles, and a suggested-content feed. Topics that are likely to be of interest for a given user.
The user does not need to remember where the documents are stored or what they are titled.
2. How does Delve work with SharePoint and OneDrive Security properties?
Delve does not modify existing permissions settings in the Office 365 suite. Delve does not allow access to private documents or to any documents that have not been shared with a user. Also, a user’s private activities — such as recently read documents and emails — aren’t visible to other people.
3. Features – Includes but not limited to the following:
Update your profile. Manage picture, projects and skills — to make it easier for colleagues to find or connect.- Search a colleague or document.
- Highlights people whom work on the same documents as you and similar documents that you may be interested in.
- Content cards. Documents are presented on a card which includes title, photo, user who modified the document last, where the document is stored and the total views it has received.
- User can create boards to collect related documents to be accessed at a later time, or organize documents related to a specific project, allowing access to everyone involved in that project.
4. Training – You can find free training from the following resources:
5. Getting Started
You can access Microsoft Office Delve by navigating through the Office 365 – My Apps page https://portal.office.com/myapps.
Please contact KCIT Customer Support Services for any problems/questions.
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Changes coming to Healthy Incentives
Last summer, we asked you for your input on our health and well-being program. With the support of our labor partners, we heard from more than 2,400 employees throughout the County.
Thank you for sharing your candid feedback. Getting your input is an important part of our commitment to Investing in You and essential to continuous improvement. Your ideas and suggestions will help us provide a program that works for you and meaningful resources to help you do your best work for our customers.
We’ll continue to share more survey information in the coming months, but for now, we have some exciting news to share. Please take a moment to watch this short video. I think you’ll agree that happy days are ahead in 2018!
You can see a snapshot of your feedback about Healthy Incentives here. To stay up-to-date on the status of the new program, visit the Healthy Incentives blog or contact Employee Health & Well-Being with your questions.
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Social Media Spotlight: Best Starts for Kids Facebook
Best Starts for Kids builds on the strengths of communities and families so that more babies are born healthy, more children thrive and establish a strong foundation for life, and more young people grow into thriving members of their community.
Follow the Best Starts for Kids on Facebook today!
Click here to view all King County social media pages.
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Featured Job: Family Planning Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner
Closing Date/Time: Continuous
Salary: $40.64 – $57.19 Hourly
Job Type: Career Service
Location: Kent Public Health at East Hill, Washington
Department: Department of Public Health–Community Health Services
Description: The Kent Public Health Family Planning Clinic is looking for a skilled, motivated and enthusiastic ARNP who is committed to serving men, women and teens to provide high quality sexual and reproductive health and education services. Family Planning ARNP’s work with a multi-disciplinary health care team to provide care and treatment in various clinics. The ARNP works in the ambulatory care setting integrating knowledge and data from many scientific frameworks to provide care to individuals on an independent basis. The ARNP body of work is distinguished from other nursing classifications in that the incumbent is responsible for medical management of health conditions including prescribing and dispensing medications. Additionally, the incumbent will be working in Family Planning and STD (male and female). This position requires FNP, Women’s Health or Midwife.
Contact: For more information contact Amy Curtis at Amy.Curtis@kingcounty.gov or at 206-263-8358.
Learn more about this position, or view all available jobs.
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Employee discounts to Monster Jam and Disney Live
Employees can access discounted tickets to Monster Jam at the Tacoma Dome, Jan 12 – 14 and Disney Live at the ShoWare Center in Kent, Jan. 28. Buy Monster Jam tickets here and Disney Live! tickets here.
Monster Jam – Employees can get discounted tickets to Monster Jam at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, WA, January 12-14, 2018. Click here for instructions.
Disney Live! Mickey & Minnie’s Doorway To Magic – Employees can get discounted tickets to Disney Live! at the ShoWare Center in Kent, WA, January 28, 2018. Click here for instructions.
See all available discounts on the Employee Discount webpage.
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Tech Tip: Microsoft Office update
New year, new laptops, new software! Starting January 1, 2018, every new PC setup will come with Office 2016. To get a sneak peak of the new features, check out the Microsoft training materials at the Office 365 Training Center.
Can’t wait for your next PC replacement to get the new version? KCIT will soon have a self service upgrade package available that you can use to upgrade your current PC Office version.
Employee News 