Greetings YDEKC Members & Friends –

The leaves aren’t the only thing changing this Fall! At YDEKC, we have also had changes on our staff team and Advisory Board! We are thrilled to welcome Willie Seals III, of ACE Academy; Laurie Black, of Boys and Girls Clubs of King County; and Angela Griffin of Treehouse to our Advisory Board. We also had to say goodbye to Jennifer Tanaka, of OneWorld Now! who chaired our Advisory Board for the past 2 years – thank you Jennifer! We also are pleased to be welcoming Stephanie M. as our new Administrative and Database Assistant! Watch our social media to learn more about these exceptional leaders! Our board and staff came together last Friday to begin to vision for our next 3-5 years, think about the blocks to our vision, and begin to shape some strategic directions. Stay tuned this fall for opportunities to weigh in on what you think should be included in our next strategic plan.

We are also getting ready for a new site to launch that we are really excited about! While we have been proud to host www.youthprogramdirectory.org for the past four years, we are even more excited about the site coming later this fall in partnership with School’s Out Washington that will merge the youth program directory functionality with a much more powerful back end. Stay tuned for an official announcement this fall!

 Whole Child, Whole Day | Advocacy | Field Building, Funding, and Training Opportunities 

In service and gratitude,
Jessica
Executive Director, Youth Development Executives of King County
ydekc.org | jwerner@ydekc.org | 206.336.6912

Preparing for School-Community Partnerships
With programs relaunching in the fall, we wanted to share a few tools from from YDEKC’s School Community Partnership Toolkit. Check out Anne Arias’s blog post about Strategies that Work, and here are some tips and worksheets to support your partnership development process.

• Guiding Questions for Building a Partnership Ready Organization: Questions designed to help organizational leadership teams reflect on their readiness to partner with schools. These questions can be helpful before entering into new partnerships, or when rethinking or evaluating existing partnerships.
• Identifying Common Outcomes: This worksheet is designed to help community partners think about the ways that their work relates to the goals of the K-12 schools they work with.
• Activity: Creating an Elevator Pitch: An elevator pitch is a short description of a program or organization designed for a general audience. Use this activity to create and refine an elevator pitch for your program.
• Tip Sheet: Preparing for an Initial Partner Meeting: This tip sheet compiles tips and questions for both a school site and a partner organization to consider for their initial meeting.

DEEL’s School Community Partnership Summit: Thursday, October 17, from 8:00am-3:00pm at Magnuson Park Hangar. Designed for K-12 public school leaders responsible for funding and partnership decisions, and community partners who provide services and programming to K-12 youth, the expected outcomes for this event include: cultivate new and strengthen existing connections between school leaders and community partners and increase knowledge of City/County funding and resources to support youth-serving organizations and school-community partnerships. (Register here)

Reporting Back on YDEKC’s Whole Child, Whole Day: A Social & Emotional Learning Symposium on August 9th
From a standing ovation in response to Rashad Norris’ keynote speech, to an average participant rating of 4.6 out of 5 for “The Symposium was a good use of my time,” the event was an overwhelming success for over 300 participants, 42 presenters, and dozens of volunteers connecting to build inclusive learning environments that support the whole child across the whole day. Check out our reflection blogpost to read an overview of the event and access presenter materials, or follow us on Facebook for photos and presenter features. The full program is also available on our website for you to check out with nearly 2 dozen excellent workshops led primarily by local practitioners and system leaders.

Join our Social Media campaign!
What does supporting the whole child look like, sound like, feel like? This is the question we are answering through the Whole Child, Whole Day Social Media Campaign. Check out this blog post and find out more about this campaign and how you can support it! #WholeChildWholeDay, #SELKC, #YouthDevelopment, #HowLearningHappens, #ExpandedLearningWA

Reminder! Nonprofits CAN advocate! Online training October 16 and 23
If you’re looking for a training or refresher, check out Wa Nonprofits Building a Movement trainings
Learn more and register here.

Come testify at the City of Seattle FINAL Public Hearing on the 2020 Budget
Seattle City Hall | October 22nd, 2019 @ 5:30pm
Bring members of your staff who care about wage equity for human services workers and can give examples of how workers are underpaid and the results for your agency and outcomes. Council will usually give you 5 minutes if you testify as a group (usually a group requires 3 people). Say that you support SHSC’s Budget Recommendations including a Comparable Worth Analysis of human services wages.

Advocacy Hot Topics: Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account
Our next member webinar call will be October 23rd from 1-2 pm. Hear from Sheila Capestany, Division Director for Children, Youth and Families, King County. Register here.

There are two statewide ballot measures that we hope you will sign on to!

No on Initiative 976
YDEKC opposes Initiative 976 which would repeal critical transportation funding to Sound Transit and local municipalities. In our region, thousands of youth and parents rely on public transportation to get to school, work, and after-school programs. Initiative 976 would eliminate new and pending public transit projects and exacerbate transportation inequity. The measure would also threaten the new Puget Sound Taxpayer Accountability Account (PSTAA) funds for education supports from early learning through postsecondary in our region.

Yes on Referendum 88 (Initiative 1000)
YDEKC supports Referendum 88 (which would approve Initiative 1000), to support education and employment equity by allowing race, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, religion, ethnicity, and citizenship status to be a factor when considering a person for public education or employment opportunities.

Bridge Conference 2019: Looking Back, Facing Forward
October 28 – 29, 2019
At this premier conference in the Pacific Northwest, come engage and explore with other expanded learning professionals at the Hyatt Regency Lake Washington at Seattle’s Southport in Renton. Now in its 17th year, School’s Out Washington’s Bridge Conference brings together nationally renowned speakers, expanded learning professionals, school leaders, funders, researchers, policymakers, trainers/coaches and more.

YDEKC’s Fall Racial Equity in the Youth Development Field Series: Supporting refugee and immigrant youth and communities
We hosted our first session of our fall RE Series on September 26. ICYMI check out Hikma Sherka’s Blogpost about the event and to find dozens of resources that can help keep you informed about the lay of the land related to supporting our refugee and immigrant youth during these tumultuous times. Save the dates! Our fall RE series will focus on supporting refugee and immigrant young people and communities. All sessions will be held in Kent and are open to YDEKC members, and planned by the YDEKC racial equity committee. Registration is available here.

• Session 2, October 24th, 10-12:30 – Organizational Policy and Practice: What can your organization do to better support the refugee and immigrant young people and families you serve, your staff, and your community. This session will focus on organizational policy and protocols to create more inclusive and supportive environments.
• Session 3, November 21st, 10-12:30 – Collaboration and Partnership: How can we strengthen collaboration between youth serving organizations that explicitly focus on refugee and immigrant youth, and those that include refugee and immigrant youth in broader programming.

Project Lead, due November 15
United Way of King County is looking for highly qualified people of color for the 2020 session of Project LEAD (Leadership, Effectiveness and Diversity), and we’d like you to consider applying. Project LEAD is a month-long, intensive leadership program that recruits, trains and empowers people of color to take the first step toward leadership on nonprofit boards of directors. In the past 28 years, the 1,000+ graduates of Project LEAD have been instrumental in ensuring our community’s nonprofit boards are representative of the communities they serve. There’s still plenty of work to be done to ensure all voices have an equal seat at the table, though. You can be a part of that change. To learn more about Project LEAD and apply, go here: uwkc.org/ProjectLEAD. If you have any questions, please email projectlead@uwkc.org. Thank you for considering being a part of Project LEAD!

The YDEKC Team
Jessica, Mona, Sarah, René, Anne, Hikma, and Stephanie