Seattle City Council Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans & Education Committee 6/26/19

Good morning.

Today is Wednesday, June 26, 2019, and it is 9.32 a.m.

This is our regularly scheduled meeting of the Gender Equity, Safe Communities, New Americans, and Education Committee.

I'm Council Member Lorena Gonzalez, chair of this committee, and joining me at the table is my colleague, Council Member Abel Pacheco.

Thank you for being here this morning.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Seeing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

There will be three items on today's agenda.

First, we're going to hear and possibly vote on Council Bill 119547, which is an ordinance related to the Community Service Officer Program, including lifting a budget proviso.

Secondly, we will hear from the Seattle Fire Department on their Race and Social Justice Initiative Change Team presentation.

And lastly, we will hear from our friends over at the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center who will present on their really exciting program called the Launch Pad Program.

So full agenda, hoping to be able to get through it as quickly as we can.

So before we continue the agenda, we'll hold our regular public comment period as we usually do.

No one has signed up for public comment, and so we will go ahead and move along and move past public comment.

So I will go ahead and have Roxanna the clerk read in agenda item one.

And if you are here to present on the community service officers item, I'd invite you to join us at the table while that is being done.

Agenda item one, council bill 119547, an ordinance relating to a community service officer program for briefing and discussion and possible vote.

Thank you, Roxanna.

Okay, so we will go ahead and do a round of introductions, and I know we have a PowerPoint presentation, and then I'll hand it over to you all.

Greg, are you going to give us introductory remarks before that happens?

Okay, so quickly, first we'll do a set of introductions, then I'm going to hand it over to Greg for some introductory remarks before we dig into the presentation.

Greg.

Introductions.

Greg Goss, Council of Central Staff.

Thanks.

Adrian Diaz, Assistant Chief of the Collaborative Policing Bureau.

Kevin Nelson.

CSO Sargent.

Angela Sossi, SPD Finance.

Great.

Greg.

All right, Council Bill 119547 would lift a 2019 budget proviso that required the Seattle Police Department to submit to the council a report on its redeveloped Community Service Officer program.

By way of background, the CSO program operated for 33 years until it was discontinued in 2004 due to budget cuts.

That changed in 2017 when $200,000 was added to the SPD budget to allow the department to begin developing a new or revitalized CSO program.

and to fund community engagement efforts, as well as implementation of a racial equity toolkit and a program review by the Community Police Commission.

The 2018 budget included $1.8 million for program implementation, but the program was not fully implemented as SPD staff continued to perform community outreach under the new administration.

The community outreach work was still underway when council adopted the 2019 budget proviso 38-5-A-2, the green sheet that required SPD to submit the report that is before you today.

So the department is going to talk about the report and at the conclusion of the discussion, the committee will have the option to pass the council bill that would free up the funding for the program to be fully implemented.

Thank you, Greg.

Chief Danz?

Well, yes.

Thank you for the City Council's support in really championing the CSO program back into existence.

It has been a long process over the last two and a half years to come to where we're at now.

The presentation that I'll focus on will be more about what their job will actually entail, the structure of the CSO program, and some logistical items of how we're building the program out over the next year and a half.

Great.

And I just like to acknowledge that we've been joined by Councilmember Herbold So over the two and a half years We've done extensive community engagement to really kind of narrow down what this position entails when I first came on They were the CSO program was extremely helpful and really taking a load of work off of off the police officer and for the officers to go back and handle 911 calls.

That is what the program design is going to continue as we move forward.

But the job will actually be a little bit different because many of those jobs that the CSO program used to do have changed that body of work into other positions.

So now we're literally starting from a clean slate.

But from the community engagement piece, it really focused on three different things.

And in those three things are areas that actually is where the department could utilize them as well.

So we have community engagement and education as being one of the main functions of what the CSO program will do.

System navigating the various systems of social services.

and mental health services that are available out there.

So when an officer makes contact with people, how to actually create warm handoffs.

And then the third thing is juvenile, our youth services and diversion.

So those will be the three primary areas of their focus.

When it comes to community engagement, what we find is that the CSO program will not replace the engagement that officers need with the community.

It is to actually utilize them in a fashion where they create opportunities for officers to engage the community.

So they will help work on setting up projects or running programs that will allow officers to actually work and connect with community members as well.

And that is really important to distinguish because from the feedback in there, the discussion was we wanted to make sure that it doesn't replace the officer contact with the community.

They will, what we'll also focus on is short-term projects, community projects, anything from working with communities to do cleanups, to do, just to end up figuring out how we work within our immigrant refugee populations, how we can make connections out of that, and then also to facilitate a dialogue between officers and the community as well.

And of course, Chief Diaz, I know that the Seattle Police Department, under your leadership and that of Chief Best, have really spent a lot of time talking to officers, particularly patrol officers, about the need to engage in proactive community-based policing.

So we should continue to expect that that culture and that theory will continue and that practice will continue within the patrol officer rank.

In other words, this isn't gonna supplant patrol officers' responsibility to continue to also engage with community and be that steward and ambassador for the city.

Exactly.

So the department is really focused on really building relationships across all ranks and different parts of the department, not only sworn as well as civilian.

And so that is not, the CSO program is to not supplant or replace that model of work.

The whole department is really engaging, is really trying to function and engage in community policing practices as a whole.

And so what we want to identify is really creating more generalists in our department rather than having a specialist group that just focuses on that.

But the CSO can create opportunities because if you don't have a program that actually can create the opportunities, it really is difficult when you might be short-staffed or don't have the resources to be able to do that.

It gives them an avenue where an officer can just engage in a specific program for even an hour or two hours.

to build those relationships for long term.

So that's where the CSO program can really help benefit the department and utilizing that resource and making it more efficient in how we do.

And I appreciate that model and, you know, in all of the public safety surveys that have been commissioned by the city and completed by Seattle University, one of the things, the top things that comes out other than wanting more patrol officers in community is also a deep desire by people who live and work in the city to actually have personal one-on-one connection with officers.

And that means making sure that officers are out of their cars, making sure that they're walking around, making sure that they're actually talking to folks within the patrol areas that they are patrolling at the time.

So I just wanted to make really clear to folks who are watching that that this isn't somehow going to send a signal to patrol officers that they're relieved of the responsibility and the duty and the training to continue to engage in that type of positive, proactive community engagement.

Correct.

So when I go into system navigating different systems, really how we look at it, we have a variety of different positions in the department that do have a separate function.

So we have our crime prevention coordinators that really work on prevention work.

The officers are more into the first responders and handling 911 calls.

doing some proactive policing practices, prevention, intervention work.

The CSOs is really on the back end, which is more of the follow-up.

So, as we looked at how we navigate the various systems, social services, mental health services, a variety of different other functions in there as we look at our unsheltered population to even just people that just don't know how to navigate the various city systems.

This is where the CSOs are gonna be a very handy resource to create warm handoffs to a variety of different service bases.

And so, They will end up, if an officer encounters somebody that is in need of food, the CSO is going to be aware of the various food banks or the various opportunities to be able to get food within the city.

They're going to know the various services, anything from case management to even just general outreach services.

So this is where the officer on the street just doesn't have that resource book.

They can actually look down and say, oh gosh, agency has the capacity to be able to serve this individual.

And so that's where the CSO will be very, very handy in creating that warm handoff for, to levying up the officer's time and to be able to respond to 911.

And Chief, yes, my understanding is that the system navigators are going to be available department-wide, meaning that they're not going to be assigned to a particular unit or programmatic area within the police department?

Is my understanding accurate?

Yes.

So what we will do is they will actually have radios so they can actually take calls for service.

If an officer says, hey, can I get a CSO officer to respond to my location, they'll be able to be deployed out.

and respond accordingly and be able to handle whatever services that might be around.

Right now, initially, before we, and I won't, I'll get into it just right now, is that we will eventually have some geographically-based, there will be geographically-based CSOs, but right now, as we kind of build the program up, that is not the start of it because we have to do a lot of training and a lot of other different functions to kind of get them acclimated to what the job will entail.

And so, but the idea is is that we have some level of geographically based, so they have already established certain relationships within certain precincts and have already connections with the community as well.

And I seem to recall that when you came into my office and you briefed me initially about the recommendations in the slide and sort of the initial structure.

I seem to recall you saying that there will be a timekeeping function for the CSO.

So in other words, we could trace back how they're spending their time doing what?

Is that still the plan in terms of making sure that we have a clear understanding as we're reinstituting this, a clear understanding of where they're spending their time and how they're spending their time?

Correct.

So what we want to do is we're going to set up performance metrics in there to really design out what their outputs are actually entailing.

So if they're spending the majority of their time in navigating the various systems in there, then we're going to end up tailoring the training to really cover that piece.

But if it's equal between our community engagement, between navigating the systems, and even our youth diversion work, then it allows us to actually be able to track that work And then figure out how we put the resources in the training to support them as well.

Because the whole idea is to create better efficiencies within our department.

I think that's going to be a super important part of having a data-driven evaluation of how this program is going to be working.

My suspicion is that this will be a wildly popular program, and, you know, 12 12 CSO folks, with two of those being slated to be supervisors, which means that it's, you know, sort of 10 real bodies in the field.

I suspect that we will be hearing from folks in community that they want to see more folks doing this type of work.

So I think it'll be really important for the city council and the police department to get a good understanding of how this new program is performing for purposes of potential expansion in the future if our belief of tremendous success comes to fruition.

And as, you know, doing a lot of community work for a number of years, we will take as much, you know, a data-driven approach to being able to quantify the work that they're doing.

But it is also very difficult to quantify a lot of the community engagement work that lasts many, many years in there.

And as we kind of understand how this program is built out, we will have to try and figure out what that looks like.

Because a lot of programs that do outreach and engagement, it is very difficult to understand the magnitude of their work and the impacts that they have over a time period.

So we will look at the data driven to really be able to capture a lot of that.

But we'll have to figure out how we're actually capturing the other side.

Right.

So the concept of customer satisfaction, if you will, for lack of a better term, is going to be, I think, an important part of the metric and perhaps the best place to evaluate that a particular data point would be through the public safety survey.

So, you know, historically in that survey we've only, we typically do evaluate and survey folks on their perception of delivery of law enforcement services throughout the city.

And so that might be an appropriate place to gauge whether or not people are interacting with community service officers.

And when they do, what is their perception of that engagement?

So I would offer that up as a suggestion.

No, we will.

Sergeant Nelson actually is right here.

I know he's typing away because he's trying to make sure that he captures all that information in there.

But that is, those are the things that we want to make sure that we're tracking.

Awesome.

Any questions?

Council Member Pacheco?

Just building on Council Member Gonzalez's point, assuming that there is just large demand for CSOs, how will the calls be prioritized?

Most of it, like I said, will be on a follow-up function.

So if an officer comes out to a 911 response and they're following up, then there'll also be some level of proactive work just in general that is done to identify community engagement outreach functions.

So you will see that the community engagement outreach will kind of more be on the proactive work, but there'll also be a function of waiting for the system navigation will work.

So they'll just wait for the calls for service based on 911. So it's not like a responding officer where it's priority one, two, or three?

No, it won't be triaged that way.

An officer will end up determining whether they need a CSO to be able to respond out to, because they said, oh, we encountered this family.

We're just not sure of what's available, what services are out there.

CSO would probably be able to handle this a little bit better and then it frees up that officer to go out.

Great.

One of the other functions in there that actually some of the CSOs in the previous time had done and also we're looking at incorporating that is really mediating nonviolent disputes, which one of the functions is their landlord-tenant dispute that we had done before.

But a lot of that is for the officer It is a civil dispute and it is not something for an officer to respond out or take, you know, from 9-1-1 resources.

So this is where the CSO could be a valuable addition to it.

Gizmo Herbold.

I really appreciate that.

This is a function that the city had played a role in back when we had CSOs, particularly as it relates to unlawful lockouts and unlawful utility shutoffs.

and confiscation of tenant belongings, and it's been a real gap in what the city can do when these instances happen with the CSOs gone.

SDCI, on paper, have some ability to intervene, but in practice, they weren't.

So I'm really, really pleased to see that this function is going to be back on the ground.

No, we're excited as well, so.

So the next part, third component of what the function is, is youth services and diversion.

really one of the areas in there we want the CSOs.

to really build trust with the youth, but we really wanna figure out how we can utilize them to keep youth out of the criminal justice system.

So how we're engaging them, whether it is in diversion practices, whether it's peacemaking circle processes, whether it's working with the schools to prevent long-term suspensions and being able to utilize them in some functions, as well as identify youth that are in need of services and being that, creating that warm handoff with the actual service.

We have officers that work within several middle schools and that mostly focus on working with kids that are in crisis or experiencing some level of trauma.

But this is also an extension of how we can utilize and understand the various services that are throughout the city.

and creating a better handoff to that.

So.

I think this is absolutely important.

I think this is new to the CSO program in terms of the historic nature of the program.

Last week we had a great committee, special committee meeting in community where SPD folks were at.

And, you know, I think one of the things that really bubbled up from members of the Central District who were there too, engage in a productive conversation around public safety, particularly as it relates to gun violence, was this particular piece.

And really a lot of concern about how, you know, as a city, when we talk about holistic approaches, it's important for us to really address the trauma that many of the youth and their families have experienced that are leading them to the circumstances of engaging in violent acts or, you know, you know being put in a position of being victimized by those violent acts and so I think this is a really important part of this program that um is is really exciting to me and I know that we have several community-based organizations that have been good partners to um to you uh chief and to the police department as as a whole for many many years that um, I think are going to be really excited to have um a direct clear connection to individuals who will have this as part of their three-part focus in this program.

So I just wanna, I know this is a huge priority for you personally and has historically been the case.

I love to tell the story about how the first time I met you, Chief Diaz, was in South Park when I first moved to South Park in 2006. And I had a little bit of an issue with some of the kids in the neighborhood.

And you were like, oh, this is so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so.

You just knew them by name.

You knew exactly, you know, where they lived.

You knew their parents.

You knew why they were there.

And you were really helpful to me as just a newbie resident in that neighborhood and sort of really helping to navigate that.

So I think, you know, and that's exactly the type of work that I think we're going to see out of this.

prong of the CSO program and it just it's really exciting to me to see this and I think this part of the scope of the work it will will probably quite literally save some lives.

No, I completely agree.

You know, as we start to look at many of our communities that have had shots fired in it, and sometimes we just don't know the full impact for the youth that are living in those communities.

So it was really intentional that we incorporate a trauma-informed, you know, training component to ensure that the CSO officers exactly know how they're going to interact with the youth and what, you know, what to say, what to, you know, be able to deescalate situations.

be able to calm situations down and be able to also create warm handoffs to a variety of services.

Yeah.

And I get to visit a lot of schools, including grade schools and elementary schools.

And whenever we do the Q&A part of my visit, particularly in areas where I know that there is a lot of incidents of shots fired I'm alarmed by the number of times that I hear small children of the age of seven and eight years old asking me if there's anything I can do about the fireworks in their neighborhood.

And that cuts deep.

And the fear that they have about what they think are fireworks is, we have a huge responsibility to address that and to take a trauma-informed approach to really prevent that kind of environment and that sort of sense of not feeling safe.

No, I can agree with you more.

So I'm excited that CSOs will be able to have a component in there of their workload.

Council Member Herbold.

Just hearkening back to South Park, we have information here about services provided to youth and work with youth on diversion programs.

One of the things that you guys do in South Park that I think is fantastic is that you have programs for officers to engage with youth on doing fun things like athletics.

And I think integrating some of that work so that young people have positive experiences with police officers, I think is also a really important component.

I don't want to put more on the plate, but I'm just sort of reading between the lines here, that maybe that's what this one bullet is, build trust between officers and young people by developing youth programming.

Exactly.

So that is going to continue.

Like we said at the very beginning, this is not to replace the officer engagement piece.

It is really to create an extension and an addition of services to be able to run a youth program from our CPAL League, which is our Seattle Police Activities League, to run our youth employment programs in there.

But yeah, it will not replace the work that the officers are needed to create that engagement piece.

So yes, you bring up a good point.

So the CSO structure, as we talked about, is 10 community service officers.

There will be two community service officer supervisors.

It will respond actually from the community feedback.

They really, the community expressed the need that it be overseen by a sworn supervisor.

So Sergeant Nelson, who is now in addition to the Collaborative Policing Bureau, is going to be overseeing the CSO program.

I've given him two duties.

One is actually overseeing the amount of patrol unit and then the CSO program.

So his workload is abundant, but it is very rewarding, I'm sure.

The CSO program actually fits under the Community Outreach Section and then ultimately under the Collaborative Policing Bureau, which is where I oversee.

We are really focused on making sure that the CSO program doesn't necessarily reflect a sworn uniform.

So we wanted to create a distinguishable uniform and a very soft uniform, one with a polo shirt and what we also say a utility pant or a BDU pant, which is Basically a cargo pant.

It allows for being able to be more functional in the kind of work that we're going to ask them to do and engage in.

They will be clearly marked with a CSO patch.

And then we just want to make sure that the colors are distinguishable from the uniform.

This is not a sworn position.

This is a civilianized position that really is about engagement.

And so we really want to make sure that it's distinguishable uniform.

Now we come to the training.

Some of the training that we have had feedback, which is exactly in line with the job focuses, they will understand police operations, but they're really, we want them to understand the social work environment.

We expect them to be creating these warm handoffs, but we want them to engage a lot of various social services to know what what they're actually, what kind of services they're providing in there.

So, and what their capacity is because we could create, we could have 10 different agencies that they say, oh, this does this function, this has case management, but if they don't have the capacity to be able to do that, we want to, that's where the CSO can actually help be able to make phone calls and be able to identify what actual resources are available at that given time.

We are looking at working with OneCall as well to also know what services are available as well from their perspective.

So we want to have partnerships across all of our city.

Yes, Ma'am Herbold.

Thank you.

So to have a better sense of the training component, can you give us like sort of a ballpark of the length of the training and is this training that happens before you're on the job or is it training that happens while you're on the job?

So the training will actually, so some of it will be on the front end of the job.

So there's about over 200 and some hours I think that We'll have the exact number, but over 200 and some hours of training in there.

Most officers go through about...

800 and some hours of training.

So this is a smaller component to that.

But some of the training will actually be incorporated once they're on.

Some of that training will actually be throughout the year.

So we'll bring people back in for, you know, 24 hours here, eight hours here, four hours in there.

But what we want to do is we want to set up partnerships with a variety of different social services where they actually spend some time, a day or two, in those agencies so that way they really get to know the people that are in those agencies as well as what services are being provided.

I'm most interested at this point in understanding the period of time of training on the front end before work begins.

I'm just trying to get a sense of when folks will be on the streets.

Operational.

So actually, what we have is, so our process is we've now, we have over about 300 applicants, 300 plus applicants.

That's remarkable.

Yes, it is.

And we are looking at, how this will actually, once we start the hiring process, how many will actually be hired out of those 300 applicants.

We could actually hire potentially all 10, maybe including two supervisors out of that batch.

But if we don't, we might end up having another hiring time where we actually look at later in the year, opening it back up.

For the actual program, if we were to hire people within the next two months, even on a rush background, which takes about at least a couple month process, I don't see them coming in operationally until about October, November.

And then we would want to ensure that we have enough training component within that.

I would probably say about half the training needs to be conducted at the front end.

And then there will be a training that will be throughout the year.

So I would like an aggressive timeline would probably be around October, November, where they're actually hired and actually starting.

But realistically, I want to say into December, even at the very beginning of the year, where they're actually being deployed out into the field and doing some of the work in the community.

I know that we're all really eager to see the CSOs actually in community doing the work, but I do think it's really important to get the training right and get the program right before we do that.

So this is probably one of those areas where I'm less impatient.

then ordinarily it would be the case.

But I think, you know, I think the training is really important to make sure that, again, we are setting these folks up for success and their program up for success as we roll it out into community.

And I know that in the response to city council's statement of legislative intent, there's a section on page five of attachment one that talks about the various types of training that will occur for CSOs during their onboarding process.

I mean, it's everything from radio procedures to, you know, computer-aided dispatch to records management system, defensive tactics, wellness for contact with homeless individuals, elderly, vulnerable members of the community policing, first aid, traffic assistance.

I mean, the list goes on.

And it does talk about how there will be sort of a phased approach, as you've described, where there will be an opportunity for there to be pre-in-field training and then there will be components of in-field training that will be ongoing throughout the program.

I do think that because the SLY response is very general in nature, it would be helpful to us as members of the city council to perhaps get a report back from the police department and from your unit in particular on on the developed curriculum for training, both in the onboarding process and ultimately the in-field training.

Again, I think this is an important component to ensuring that this is a successful program and do see sort of the training as one of those performance metrics.

Correct.

So actually, Kevin, our Sergeant Nelson is working on the training component right now and also the development of a CSO manual to ensure that it is embedded policy within the department as well.

So we want to make sure that we're diligent about not only the training, but also what parameters this program will actually do.

So should, you know, should we leave out of this function of the job, somebody could come in and be able to take the helm and be able to run the program as well.

So we want to make sure that we're diligent about that.

Even on some of the training in there from, you know, conflict resolution, crisis intervention, cultural competency, As we look at even some of the applicants that have applied, that have extensive amount of experience in social work, we might end up finding ourselves with people that actually could teach internally from the CSOs that we hire, that actually could teach many components of this.

So we also want, as we get, as we onboard the CSOs, We want to also be able to have, be nimble and flexible to actually incorporate some of their work into the actual CSO programs.

Some of the, three really desired qualifications that we want to focus on, community engagement experience, Secondary language skills, it is so imperative that they have ability to communicate with all of the different communities that we have in the city of Seattle, as well as having experience with mental health and crisis resolution.

We want to, I mean, as we start to, as this city kind of experiences a level of mental health and crisis, the department has had double digit increases over the last several years.

and how many crisis response calls we respond to, and having a level of an extra resource to be able to serve that population is a great component to what CSOs can provide.

Great.

Council Member Herbold?

Yeah, just a question about the...

term desired qualifications.

Of these bullets, I mean, are they desired or are they actual qualifications?

I just, it would help to get a sense of how heavily you're weighting these qualifications.

So, so yeah, so I, they are desired.

We, we find that if, out of the 300 applicants, we're not sure what to, what that experience will end up being incorporated in.

If you only find that there's only 10 applicants with various language skills, that is something that we have to look at and evaluate of whether we open this up for because we're missing certain skill sets that we're looking for.

But for right now, those are desired skill sets.

The main body of the other skill sets, community engagement is something that we want as that is a qualification that is not necessarily desired.

That is a qualification that we hope everybody has experience in.

It is a unique way.

Sometimes, you know, community engagement is not for everybody, and so we want to make sure that people do have a level of community engagement experience.

I know that this job is posted, so I think it would be helpful if, in follow-up to this meeting, we could get a copy of the job posting, just so we have a clearer sense of what the you know, in the lingo, the personnel lingo of the city, what are required job qualifications versus the desired qualifications.

I think that could be helpful.

We'll make sure it gets sent today.

Thank you.

The staggered shifts, so we want to make sure that we have at least six days coverage of the CSO program.

Monday through Saturday tend to be our busiest times in there.

Sunday, not so much, but we'll evaluate what the response is.

So if Sunday becomes a day that we find that there's a bigger need for CSOs, we'll incorporate that into the work schedule.

But we will look at staggering the shifts in there so we have more evening coverage rather than just day services.

But we'll be flexible in trying to make sure that we evaluate their time and what they're actually doing throughout that day.

The vehicles will have clearly marked community service officer in there.

We've identified green leafs, are leafs that will be the initial vehicle of choice for the CSO program.

And so we're already working, Sergeant Nelson is working on the artwork with our fleets to distinguish that it is not a patrol car and that we respond.

Council Member Pacheco.

Chief Diaz, did you see our green deal letter?

Sorry?

Did you read our green deal letter?

I have not.

I was going to say, you said leaf, and I was like, ooh, I got excited.

I have not yet.

So when you say they're going to be clearly marked, are they going to be marked with the SPD, sorry, with the SPD logo at all or no?

They will have an SPD logo, but they will be community service.

You'll distinguish out community service officer rather than identifying police as the big logo that you see on most patrol cars.

This will be very clearly distinguished community service officer.

Got it.

And then identifying what is next.

So right now we are, we have vetted it out through our, the unions to ensure that there was no duplication of work or body of work issues.

Our PDQ was approved.

Our job description was completed.

We have now posted it.

We have had over 300 applicants and really the next step is to request to lift the council CSR, the CSO proviso.

So that is really what our next steps are.

We are already in the process of vetting out the applications to start to now go down the route of potentially hiring good candidates that will be able to serve as CSOs.

It's kind of remarkable to me that we haven't actually We have 300 applications.

How did that happen?

We posted the position.

I thought I heard you say you didn't post the position.

June 20th.

May 20th.

May close.

June 18th.

Okay.

So it was open for about a month.

Right now we are looking at potentially opening up and keeping it open until...

On a rolling basis.

Until the actual positions are filled.

So we wanted to, you know, right now there's being that there's a discussion at the table here.

We've had a couple articles.

We want to make sure that we're being able to accommodate people that are just hearing about it to potentially apply for the position.

So my notes say that the application period closed on the 18th, is that not true?

So this week we actually are looking at opening it back up, so yes, until, and trying to, but I want to make sure that we work with, you know, city HR to make sure that I didn't, there's no violation of any potential issues, but keeping it ongoing until, until the end of where we actually hire all the 10 CSOs that we're looking for.

Yeah.

If you all decide to reopen it and accept applications on a rolling basis, we would appreciate knowing that that's the decision that is going to be made so we can be supportive of that effort.

Council Member Herbold.

Thank you.

I just, I have a question that will, would require a bit of speculation on your parts, but do you feel like the reinstitution of this position might actually help with sworn officer recruitment in that the duties that the CSOs will be taking on will allow police officers to return to more sort of, you know, still within a community policing rubric, but more traditional law enforcement?

You know, it'll be interesting that...

Oh, actually, repeat the last...

I'm wondering if the existence of this new position and the duties that CSOs will take on and the fact that this may allow police officers to focus on more sort of traditional law enforcement functions, whether or not that might help with recruitment for patrol officers.

So I think there's really two components.

The department is really focusing on trying to make sure that all officers are engaged in community policing.

So not going to do conducting the traditional law enforcement duties, but more in the general of creating partnerships and problem solving various different things that are going on in the community.

And then just trying to figure out how the department supports those efforts.

So I think that as a whole is going to continue under Chief Bess's leadership.

But we want to make sure that the CSO program becomes an extension.

It allows the officers to Create a further engagement process My speculation is is that I can already see potential people saying look I want to get into the police department as an officer and But I'm not, I am just going to college or I'm in this function.

And we could end up seeing them apply for the CSO position early on, and then eventually looking at the actual police officer sworn position.

We find this regularly in the parking enforcement, where people will apply for parking enforcement, work in that environment.

really understand the job and say, I want to actually become a police officer.

So I think that that could potentially be a funnel of potential applicants for the sworn position.

And if it does, they will have a very good background already coming into the department that is already working with a variety of social services and engagement processes.

So that would be highly sought out for the officer rank.

But right now, I think, I really do think just seeing the number of applicants that have applied, seeing that all the agencies across the country are struggling to recruit and hire at the sworn ranks, and many of those departments are also trying to figure out how they get more community involved and engaged in their practices.

The CSO program is, it plays a big role in that component, and I think that'll help really build a lot of relationships that we just weren't able to produce with the amount of staffing that we have right now.

Yeah.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay, none.

I just wanted to thank you all for the work that you have done over the last two and a half years to get us to where we're at today.

Of course, this has been a, a top priority for many city council members since the prior mayoral administration.

We have been really eager to both, you know, reinstitute the funding available for this program, and we, you know, we did that not without controversy, because I think the prior administration had other funding priorities, but the City Council felt very strongly about this being a good policy choice in order to respond to reasonable public safety concerns that we were hearing from people in the city who live and work in the city, but also being responsive to some of the concerns that we were hearing from the executive leadership level at the Seattle Police Department really wanting to identify real tools and mechanisms available to them to free up officers to engage in more patrolling and and sort of less of the administrative follow-up, which takes valuable time away from responding to 911 calls.

And so I think this is a win-win situation.

Obviously, I would have loved to have seen it happen a lot sooner, but I'm glad that it's happening now.

And really, when I look at the various components of the program, The time that the city spent and the department spent in engaging community members around the scope and the function and the responsibilities of the Community Service Officer Program really leads me to the conclusion that this is a program that was, you know, shaped by community for community.

And I think that that's an important part of the work that needed to be done here.

Again, it's sort of one of those things where you have to be a little careful about what you ask for, and so I think that this is going to be wildly successful, and I'm really excited about seeing the future evaluations and the actual rolling out of and implementation of the Community Service Officer Program within communities.

I think folks are going to be very excited, too.

see community service officers move about their neighborhoods.

So really appreciative of all the work that you all have done.

Thank you for all of the hours and thinking behind it.

And I know that we have much more to come on this to make sure that it is a successful and well-supported program.

Thank you.

And I know we didn't talk about money, but I'm assuming we still have enough of it, considering that we're about to lift the proviso.

Yes, that's what we're excited about.

There's very few occasions where I ask you if you want more money, Chief Diaz.

All right, so I'm going to move that the committee recommend the City Council pass Council Bill 119547. All right, any further comments?

Those in favor of the committee recommending passage of the bill, vote aye.

Aye.

None opposed, no abstentions.

The motion carries, and the committee will recommend that the city council pass Council Bill 119547 with a unanimous recommendation.

So we're really excited about considering this at full council this Monday, July 1st.

Is that right?

That's July 1st, 2 p.m.

Obviously, you all don't have to be there, but You're welcome to attend if you wish.

Again, thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

I think, you know, it should not go unnoticed that there have been 300 applications to work for the Seattle Police Department in this function.

And I think that is a big testament to the commitment that the department has made.

has made to really engaging with community and meeting the public safety needs of our neighborhoods.

So kudos to you all on hitting that number, and I suspect that that number will grow if you all reopen applications and take applications on a rolling basis.

Huge number, 300 in a month is absolutely incredible and sends to me a clear signal that there are people in our community who have a real deep interest in partnering with the Seattle Police Department in this space and becoming an employee of the police department.

So really, really appreciate all that you are doing.

No, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Herbold for joining us.

Okay, we are going to move into agenda item two.

So if you are here with the Seattle Fire Department, I'm gonna ask you to start making your way up to the table, excuse me, while Roxanna reads this agenda item into the record.

Agenda item two, Seattle Fire Department's Race and Social Justice presentation for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Roxanna.

Front row.

It's like on the TV, but wait, it's on.

All right, we've got the PowerPoint presentation up.

Thank you so much all for being here with us.

So we will go ahead and start with a round of introductions, and then I'll hand it over to you folks to walk us through the RSA presentation.

So we'll start with names.

Well, good morning, and I'm Harold Scoggins, Fire Chief.

Thank you for having us this morning.

Good morning.

I'm Lieutenant Doug Johnson with Seattle Fire Department.

Good morning, Erica Locke with Human Resources, Seattle Fire.

Julie George, Human Resources, Seattle Fire.

Great.

Well, welcome.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Chief Scoggins, are you going to kick us off?

Sure.

I'll kick us off.

And I'll kick us off by thanking the team.

This is the team that does the heavy lifting with this work and keeping us on task and keep us paying attention to the things we need to pay attention to.

So I'm going to turn it over to Julie and Doug and Erica and let them walk through the presentations.

And if I need to, I'll add comments in.

Great.

Thank you so much.

The four toolkits that we accomplished this year were the Executive Leadership Academy, the Recruit School Retention for Women and People of Color, Children's Fire Safety Programs, Seattle Fire Selection Committee process.

Of the four toolkits, we are going to highlight the Executive Leadership Academy and Recruit Retention.

In the presentation, along with the importance of increasing the representation of women and people of color in the Seattle Fire Department workforce.

The third toolkit, the Children's Fire Safety Program in Seattle Schools was focused on maximizing opportunities for children to have access to fire and life safety information and messaging for communities of color and limited speaking proficient speaking populations.

The fourth toolkit was originally implemented in 2015. The RET reviewed in regards of the progress from the original implementation.

The focus was mentorship and development opportunities within employees received when having the opportunity to participate in the community, a committee, which is important for employee development.

So to dive a little bit deeper in the Executive Leadership Academy, which is, the Executive Leadership Academy is a new program in Seattle Fire that partners with the University of Washington Foster School of Business, focusing on leadership competencies.

In addition to the Seattle Fire Department, participation in the program was opened up to other fire agencies.

The RET lens was applied as the program was being created.

The focus of the RET was looking at equity and equality of the application and selection process in the program.

The first barrier being this is an executive leadership program.

The original advertisement for the application to apply was for sworn participants at the rank of captains and above.

The captains and above racial demographics for gender and race in the department is 85% white, 16% people of color, 92% male, and only 8% female.

In addition to the lack of diversity within the department, there were a few interested candidates from outside the Seattle Fire Ranks.

The result of this was to open up the application process again.

So the second barrier was a criteria change in the application process.

The application selection process was reopened for a short window, approximately a week, to recruit more participants from the lower ranks to fill the class, but the messaging was not clear, and who was eligible to apply at the lower ranks was not clear.

In some cases, participants were encouraged from the executive level of leadership to apply, but that wasn't a consistent statement across the board for all candidates at the lower ranks.

The impact and result of the selection process left some members feeling left out of the opportunity and that the selection criteria was not transparent.

Without diversity in the program, the perspective that plays out in the projects that are completed in the program, which may be implemented in the department, have one view and one level of understanding.

Learning from that impact, the next application selection process for the second executive leadership class is being reviewed currently.

That's great.

And then can you, I know that you hit a little bit on the impact.

I'm not sure if you're going to hit this in your remarks, but I'd be interested in just knowing how these barriers, potentially impacted morale within the folks who knew that they weren't part of this pool of pre-existing applicants and sort of what the fire department did specifically to address any morale concerns that they were hearing from firefighters.

It affects morale considerably.

To try to address it, we are looking at the selection process again.

There is a clear understanding of how that did affect morale.

So next time when we go to have a second application period open, I think more people at the table are going to be aware of we need to make sure that we're really careful and that we're clear and concise in our advertisement.

Yeah.

Because yes, it does.

Yeah, appreciate that.

Okay, so the second toolkit that we're going to dive a little bit deeper into is Recruit School Retention for Women and People of Color.

was focused on the graduation rates of women and people of color that successfully completed recruit school.

The data from the demographics was spanning from 2015 through 2018, showed there was a desperate impact of women being successful in graduating recruit school compared to white men and men of color in the recruit classes.

The second barrier for candidates being successful in recruit school, they need to start the physical training early.

Some, that means even starting before they take the entry level test.

Women being built differently need to be aware of the different techniques that can be used by maneuvering their bodies to effectively manipulate the equipment that's required for the drills.

The impact during the span of 2007 and 2013, only two women were hired in a six year period.

The effect of this example with the impending retirements of women in the department has an extraordinary impact on the promotional pipeline for women in the department.

On chart number six, we're On page six, we're talking about increasing women and people of color in the uniform workforce.

Chart seven has some breakdown.

I'm referring to the chart on page seven.

Seattle Fire has 7.7 female firefighters compared to the national average of 4.5.

Seattle has 22.1% people of color versus the national average of firefighters being 15.9%.

Although our numbers look good when compared to other fire departments, when compared to the city of Seattle and King County workforce, we fall behind in comparison for women and racial subgroup populations.

Yeah.

That's a really important point.

Oftentimes we like to compare ourselves to sort of the national trends, but I think In this space, it's really important for us to drill down a little bit more local to be much more reflective of our actual population and demographics in the region.

So really appreciate the transparency of the presentation, acknowledging that even though we are doing much better than folks nationally, we still have some work to do in terms of regional comparisons.

which is largely my understanding where we're actually pulling our potential applicants from is the regional perspective as opposed to national.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Increasing the number of people of color and women in Seattle Fire Ranks requires further discussion and analysis on our recruitment and selection challenges with a lens focusing on recruiting people of color and further analysis where we lose people of color in the process.

We need to focus on increasing the success rates and recruit school for women.

We need to increase the promotional pipeline with both women and people of color.

Slide eight is a breakdown of sworn members per race and gender within each rank in the department just for you that you can look at further down the road.

There are a few things that numbers don't tell.

One story in particular that stays etched in my mind is in the department's history, there's been no more than three black firefighters hired at one time.

And with retirements, we now have two female black firefighters, one being hired in 1998, and her successor being hired in 2017. That's a big gap.

It's a big gap.

And when the predecessor, she spoke to me one day and she goes, do you realize that I waited 19 years for somebody to be hired that looked like me?

Wow.

So the recruitment on slide nine, the recruitment and selection challenges, the hiring process is complex with many required steps and multiple owners, Public Safety, Civil Service, City of Seattle Human Resources, and Seattle Fire.

Once you're hired, a person still has to pass the grind of 16 weeks of recruit school to be successful.

For some folks, that means setting aside 34 months of their life waiting to see if they're going to be picked up in the last recruit class on the certified register.

And if they're not, month 35, they go and retest again.

It's a pretty long process.

Multiple owners means multiple changes in the process trying to make positive outcomes can sometimes create unintended consequences and lack of consistent data for analysis comparison by continually changing trying to make things better, then you only have one year of data analysis.

Gender and cultural perception can be a barrier in the hiring process.

Not all cultures believe that this is a viable career path.

Their perception is how a firefighter is supposed to look and continually portrayed in society, tall, muscular, white, and male.

Veterans preference points can be a barrier to women and people of color.

Most of the veterans on the certified register are white males.

In the last 20 years, we've only hired three females that transitioned from the military.

Wow, OK.

Prior to I-200, 1998, the department was at its peak with the number of women and people of color in sworn positions.

The numbers have been sharply declining.

With the passing of I-1000, we're unclear how that will impact our hiring as we're trying to increase our numbers.

The gentrification of Seattle has significantly reduced our application pool of people of color within the city.

Yeah.

In slide 10, we talk about the recruitment demographics where we have gotten the data from for this analysis.

And increasing the success in a recruit school, there's a great deal of mental and physical preparation needed to be successful in a recruit school with no time to fall behind in either the academic or physical disciplines.

You need to have a clear understanding of how you learn, stay positive and focused.

In the meantime, your body is being fatigued and trying to avoid injury.

You were learning how you and your body are adapting to working under pressure while trying to meet your time and pass the next evaluation in recruit school.

It's a lot of pressure.

So you wait a long time to get hired, you get hired, and now you have the pressure of 16 weeks is why they call it the grind during recruit school.

Promotional pipeline.

The hiring rates of women have decreased since I-200.

We now have half the number we did in the 1980s due to retirements.

Today we have 77 female sworn positions.

Of the 77 females, 20 are officers.

Of those 20 officers, 18 are eligible for retirement today.

which shortly will leave us two female officers in the lower ranks under the age of 50. If they decide to promote and continue to promote, it will take them an average of 14 years to reach the executive level.

A similar story is unfolding for people of color.

Peak hiring was in the 1980s, but the highest number employed was 250 in 1989. Since 2004, the African-Americans have declined at a higher rate than the total of people of color in the department.

Currently, just under half of the people of color in the department are at normal retirement age today.

For both women and people of color, the promotional pipeline is becoming extinct.

The average period between promotions is seven years, which means it would take a new employee hired today 21 years to reach the battalion chief level, which is considered executive level management.

For slide number 13, specific actions being taken to make changes for our future, we're looking at historical recruiting and hiring data that has been researched to try and understand the changes in the hiring demographics.

In the 1980s, Seattle had more blue-collar working positions.

The Central District was predominantly African-American.

Both those things do not exist in 2019. The department received funding for a new recruitment position that will be advertised soon.

In addition, our occupational health position has been reorganized now to include a component on tactical performance specific to firefighters.

The open application period for cadets and senior cadets is now twice a year to give people an opportunity to come in and see what the career is like.

In addition, we started a pilot project called C-PREP that gives candidates on the certified register an opportunity to meet with firefighters six times a month to become familiar with the tools utilized at recruit school.

EMT is taught once a year for up to 10 students that are paid while taking the certification.

EMT is a requirement before you are hired.

That can be a cost barrier to some people.

The cost- How much does that cost?

What's the average cost of EMT school?

I think it's around $1,700.

To put a class on of 10, it's approximately $50,000.

That's what's in our budget, about that.

Okay.

We could do more.

With more money?

Yeah, exactly.

We have been able to keep the cost of the entry-level test free of charge for Seattle, where other departments do charge.

We are currently engaging with other fire departments in King County to hold targeted outreach events targeted at women.

We are working together with strategies and resources that are shared amongst human resource staff and fire chiefs within King County, talking about recruiting.

In closing, there are many layers within the walls of Seattle Fire and in other institutions.

When you start to peel away the layers, you begin to see how privilege and opportunity influence outcomes that lead to professional development.

Peel another layer and look through a racial equity lens and see the impacts of not having privilege and opportunity.

Outcomes become barriers for women and people of color.

Systems and policies And practices that are kept in place limit the access to those who don't have the privilege.

Those who don't have the privilege are continually in the position trying to prove that the current policies and practices are barriers.

An example that comes to mind when I try to talk about this with people is that you have an intermittent computer problem.

Call IT, they remote into your computer, and it doesn't pop up.

And the response is, call me back when it happens again.

How many times do we have to keep calling?

Diversity and inclusion outcomes will not change until privilege is understood and addressed.

Understanding how privilege plays a role as a barrier in an institution in the beginning of creating change.

Each RSJ team puts in an incredible amount of work for these RETs each year.

We hope that the initiative will continue to be supported and championed by the city.

Thank you so much for those comments.

I think the work that change teams do in all of the departments is really critical and important, and I know that there's an ongoing commitment, at least from elected leaderships that I hope is seen by folks who are in the departments, that we continue to have a steadfast commitment to making sure that our racial equity toolkits and our race and social justice initiatives are being utilized in exactly this kind of way to really confront institutional racism and systems of privilege that have led to the unfortunate consequence of exclusion of otherwise qualified candidates of color and women from participating within our government structure and within our systems.

really appreciate the work that you all do every day to take on that challenge.

And I think all of us have struggled with this issue for quite some time and have seen the impact of initiatives like Initiative 200. in terms of our ability to really live our values through our hiring practices and our recruitment practices.

And hopefully we'll be seeing some opportunity for change in that space that really allows us a greater opportunity to be more reflective of the community that we're serving.

And obviously firefighters are on the front lines of so many of today's social issues within the city of Seattle.

really absolutely critically important for the fire department to look like the community that we serve here in the city of Seattle.

And so long as we have some of these barriers in existence that are hard to bring down, we'll continue to, I think, see the negative impact in terms of the people who work at the fire department.

So really appreciate all the work that you all are doing here.

Quick question on this slide.

When will the targeted recruitment position be hired?

By when?

Probably in the next couple of months.

It's a recruitment and career development position.

It's not just, it's a joint position.

Okay.

So that's designed to address both the recruitment issues, but also the pipeline, promotional issues.

Because we have a number of programs that we've been establishing.

You heard about one, the Executive Leadership Academy.

So we're trying to put that in a larger plan.

So when the new firefighter comes in in the future, they will be able to see all the steps that they need to do to rise up the ranks.

Great.

Excellent.

Anything else on sworn individuals before we shift gears into civilian?

Because I know there's a few slides on civilian.

workforce?

Actually, those are for you to peruse through.

It was part of the data that we used to put all this together.

Great.

OK.

I just have one other comment I'd like to highlight the push that our RSCI change team has given me.

We've been working hard on how to change the mindset of our leaders in the organization.

And this year, we landed on a different plan.

So we're bringing in, convening all of our managers sworn in civilian.

four times this year.

We've had two sessions so far, two three-hour sessions.

We brought in an outside consultant to help us through that, and that's been a heavy lift for us, but if we're trying to change the mindset and open up the minds to inclusion, awareness, and understanding, we all had to get together to do that.

So we have two more sessions this year, but then after that, we'll be able to go forward, I think, in a better way, because our leaders' minds will all be grounded in the same place.

That's great.

And I do want to acknowledge that there is a nod here on this slide to the continuation of the racial equity toolkit.

So it reflects that it was done in 2018, but it will be done throughout this year.

I think that's a standard in practice that I've been seeing more departments use, and I really appreciate that.

I think a lot of times it's easy for us to get into the I've checked the box mentality and like, OK, well, I did it.

Therefore it's done and I'm gonna go do this other thing when in reality we know that we're trying to do undo in some instances, a generation worth of institutionalized racism, and certainly that can't be unraveled and confronted effectively in a period of two or three months, right?

And so it takes a firm, sustainable, long-term commitment to making sure that we continue the analysis and that we acknowledge that it's iterative work, and so I really appreciate the acknowledgment of that in this space in particular.

Again, I think this is an area of interest for all of us that we have really seen unfortunate decline in the number of women and people of color particularly.

African Americans within the fire department, which is a very historical departure from days of past and, you know, have really appreciated the cooperation on trying to identify ways that the city council could support the work of the fire department in this space.

And we'll continue to welcome those opportunities here in this committee and on the full council.

Thank you.

Great.

Anything else anybody wants to add before we move on?

Well, thank you so much for the time and for the thoughtful presentation and for your remarks today.

And most importantly, thank you for continuing to prioritize the Race and Social Justice Initiative and utilizing, in a very strategic, smart way, our racial equity toolkits on issues of great shared import.

So thank you so much for all your time.

All righty, so we are gonna move to our last agenda item.

And so if you are here to present on agenda item three, which is on the Launchpad program for KSARC, I'm gonna ask you to join us at the table, and then Roxanna will, in a quick moment, read this agenda item into the record.

Agenda item three, King County Sexual Assault Resource Center Launchpad program for briefing and discussion.

Thank you, Roxanna.

We have our guests making their way up, so it'll take them just a moment.

Hi.

Come on up, folks.

Yeah, oh yeah.

Oh, thank you.

Come in for the assist here.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course.

And then we have the laptop at the very end that somebody will need to drive since we don't have a remote clicker for the laptop.

But it is loaded and ready to go.

So once you all settle in, we'll go ahead and start with introductions, first and last name, and then we can go ahead and dig into this really exciting presentation.

Great.

Oh, these are awesome.

Oh, we would love this.

Yes.

So just by way of introduction before you all introduce yourselves and KSARC to the viewing audience, I've been a longtime supporter and fan of KSARC and have the honor of serving on the advisory cabinet, honorary cabinet.

Honorary advisory cabinet.

I always get that term mixed up in my head.

And really have appreciated the opportunity to work with KSARC, first as a civil rights attorney who focused my practice on representing survivors of sexual assaults and sort of engaging very closely with KSARC on trauma-informed approaches to help my clients heal throughout the legal process.

in civil proceedings and now, of course, is a member of the advisory cabinet where I have an opportunity to dig in a little bit deeper in terms of the programmatic and policy work that KSARC does, which is incredibly impressive, and had an opportunity to learn through that role about this wonderful program, which you all are going to dig into, that really sort of takes on sexual violence prevention and awareness in a school classroom setting.

So I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for us to hear about this body of work.

I know it's happening not in Seattle, but nonetheless thought it was really important for members of the public to know that this program exists with sort of the optimism that maybe someday we could see a similar version right here in our own school district.

So thank you so much for being with us.

With that foreword there, I will go ahead and allow you all to introduce yourselves, and you can take it away with a presentation.

Sure.

Well, first, thank you so much.

And you'll want to make sure to get that microphone really close to you and make sure that green light is on in the STEM.

It should be on.

Green light is on.

Great.

There you go.

There we are.

Well, first, thank you so much for all of your incredible work with the agency.

I know Mary Ellen was regretful that she couldn't be here this morning.

off on a wonderful summer vacation, but she'll be back.

Well deserved.

Absolutely.

But thank you so much for your partnership and friendship to the agency.

I know that that means a lot to us on a lot of different levels and for having us here today.

So my name is Rachel Taylor.

I am the author on both of these resources as well as our prevention services coordinator at the agency.

I wear a variety of hats, which includes doing direct facilitation of prevention work at the classroom level.

So I work primarily with middle school students.

I also oversee another prevention specialist at the agency that does a lot of work on the high school level.

And I've also done a great deal of our Project 360 efforts that are prevention focused, both here in Seattle at Youth Care and then on the east side at Friends of Youth.

And I will let Karen.

Good morning.

I'm Karen Sharp.

I'm the Director of External Relations at King County Sexual Assault Resource Center.

Thank you so much for inviting us today and for your support.

Of course.

And I apologize that this has had to get rescheduled, I think, at least once.

I appreciate your patience and your willingness to come back.

Absolutely.

Such is the nature of the work.

So I guess I'll just start off by letting you know a little bit about where these resources came from.

And they actually came out of an effort that I was leading with a student here at a Seattle public school.

So I was working with a student actually at Roosevelt High School who was supporting a friend who had experienced a sexual assault.

Her and her friend, when they, you know, were talking about that friend's experience and my student was working to support that person, they found that they really did want to turn to their educators for help and support.

And they found that while their educators wanted to be there to help them and provide resources as much as possible, the educators felt like their skill set around this topic was lacking and they needed more information.

So through that partnership, I was able to lead the first educator training at Roosevelt High School, where we really took a look at how to create trauma-informed classrooms, how to support student survivors in an educational setting, and then also what it could look like to start engaging in some meaningful prevention efforts within the school.

After that training, we got some awesome feedback from the teachers who said, you know, we need more of it.

And if we are craving this knowledge so much, I guarantee that other educators are as well.

So after that training, we decided to jump into creating a resource in recognition that at the time I was the only prevention services person at KSARC.

So, with limited capacity, we did want to create something that would help us to get the information out there as much as possible.

So, we came up with that first one that you're looking at, that trauma-informed classroom set.

Once we produced that, we were able to start doing some trainings with middle and high school educators.

That resource is targeted toward middle and high school.

Staff, and so from there, we did receive another grant to move forward on the Launchpad piece, which is the follow-up and is written for elementary school audiences.

So that one not only has information about trauma-informed classrooms and supporting survivors, but the back section of it is a workbook to help educators and school staff take a look at how they can start doing meaningful prevention work in our communities.

So that's a little bit about where the resources came from.

My intention with the time today is to sort of walk you through why we included the information that we did, what our hope is in training educators, and then how we work to continue to support educators even after we've left the school after that training period.

Any questions before I get started?

Perfect.

I think we are ready to dive in.

Awesome.

Feel free to just jump in at any point.

If something does trigger a question or a thought, happy to Thank you.

All right.

So, you know, like I said, this effort did come from a student who identified the need within her own school.

And it also dovetailed with what we know about sexual assault in that one in four girls and one in six boys does experience this form of harm before they turn 18. So this project isn't about if or when survivors will be in our classroom.

We know that they are currently in our educational spaces.

So we are incredibly lucky to work within King County and Seattle schools.

I was just at Graham Hill Elementary last week leading a session on consent and boundaries with fifth graders, which is a phenomenal time.

Students are really engaged in this topic and we find that it is information that they do want to learn.

We also know that as the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center, our capacity is limited in our ability to be in every single school every day.

So again, the hope with this resource is to really get the information as, you know, well disseminated as possible.

With my personal dream of being that every school has a prevention services specialist at some point, so I'll just keep Wouldn't that be wonderful?

I know, right?

It would be incredible.

So one way that we approach the issue of violence prevention is by looking at the social ecology of any school or of any community.

And what I mean by that is we recognize that students don't exist in a vacuum, right?

So we may have an individual student at the core that we really want to reach and support and engage in prevention-focused conversations with, but we recognize that that one student exists within the context of their relationships.

So they have relationships with their peers, with their families or caregivers, with their teachers, and then those relationships exist within the wider community.

So be that the Seattle School District, various communities here in the city, also in the larger county, and then those communities obviously exist in the wider society.

So we want to make sure that students are receiving support for either experiences that they've already had or a focus on healthy relationships at all of these levels.

So we really work as an agency to target each of these in terms of doing individual facilitation with students, This is a training piece that really gets at the relationship and community levels.

And then we also want to work with schools on how to make that cultural shift toward one that does not accept or tolerate violence, but one that absolutely does support survivors and actively engage in violence prevention efforts.

And of course, this is addressing both the scenario in which the violence occurs outside of the school, but also scenarios in which the violence could occur on school grounds as well.

Absolutely, yes.

So we want to help educators to understand the complexities that occur when, you know, a student does assault another student, what that looks like in a school environment.

Also what, you know, the...

symptoms of trauma look like when they're showing up in our classrooms.

So we're hoping that educators will shift from, you know, what's wrong with you to what's going on with you.

So, you know, we can identify the frustrations that might come about if a student is falling asleep in first period.

But if we don't really get at the root of why that student is falling asleep in first period, we're not going to successfully navigate that student's increased success.

So we want to make sure that we are helping educators to identify what that, you know, root cause of the behavior is and how can we help that student get that need met in a more pro-social way.

And that brings me to our first major goal of these two resources, which is to assist school communities in providing the most effective support of student survivors.

So the first part of that is working to help educators to understand those sexual assault dynamics.

So again, understanding that The cultural narrative around the stranger rape isn't the dominant story.

While those assaults are absolutely terrifying and real and those survivors' experiences are valid, we do know that the bulk of our students are experiencing harm at the hands of parents, caregivers, folks that they do love, know, and trust.

And so when we help educators to understand that dynamic, we can also increase their ability to navigate that alongside their students.

So, you know, there are increased layers when somebody harms us who is somebody that we love and that we trust.

And so if educators understand that complexity, they can better support their survivor students.

We also walk educators through really the nuts and bolts of what to say if a student does disclose sexual assault directly to them.

So we use an acronym called BASER, or I like to refer to it as, you know, check in with home BASER, go to home BASER, which is just, really focused on letting the student know that you believe them.

A lot of times survivors do delay disclosures because of a fear of not being believed.

So even if somebody feels like they're expressing that belief with their body language or with other words, it can be really helpful to actually say, hey, I believe you.

And then affirming that telling you was the right thing to do.

A lot of our young people have gotten a lot of messages about how the assault should be a secret.

Maybe they've received threats or bribes to keep that a secret.

And so we want our educators to affirm that, yes, letting me know is the right thing to do, and I want to do anything that I can to support you.

So I walk them through each of those core tenets of how to best respond to a survivor in the moment.

And then also let them know that They don't have to have the right thing to say at every moment.

What really matters is that I believe you and I want to do everything that I can to support you.

And then there are agencies like KSARC to help and assist both the survivor and the educator as they move through that process further down the line.

As we do move further down the line, we know that sexual assault is a mandated report, which means that if a person under the age of 18 does disclose to us that that has occurred, we must report that to CPS or law enforcement.

So encouraging educators to make that report in the most trauma-informed way possible.

So making sure that our students know what mandated reporting means and understand that our educators cannot keep that form of harm a secret because within any school environment, it's our job as adults to to help keep you as safe as possible.

Also letting the student know what the process looks like in a developmentally appropriate way.

For especially my middle and high school students, I always offer to let them be a part of that report if they would like to.

I've had some students come sit in with me while I make a CPS phone call.

I've had other students say, Rachel, that sounds super awkward and I'm not coming.

And that's also totally fine.

But I do want them to be in the driver's seat as much as possible for their own healing, knowing that for good reason, we do have that barrier to confidentiality with young people.

We know that that agency, that being in the driver's seat is an incredibly important piece of healing for survivors, so helping them to have choice whenever possible, and really encouraging schools to make sure that communication is happening with the student before and after the report.

Did you have a question?

No?

Okay.

And again, that usually comes in the form of just letting students know what confidentiality looks like.

I know for myself, when I come into a classroom, the first thing I do is a list of group guidelines with my students.

So they get to have authorship over what we're going to do to make sure that our conversations space stays as safe and respectful as possible.

Just as part of that conversation, I let them know two things.

The first is that I am a mandated reporter and describe what that means in a developmentally appropriate way, depending on the age group I'm working with.

And then the second thing I always give them is what I call power of pass, which means that they know that they don't have to tell me anything about their experience that they're not ready to or not comfortable talking about.

And that ties really nicely into our conversation that we have around boundaries and letting them know that they have the right to an emotional boundary that feels safe to them.

They can share information with a trusted adult.

when they're ready, and that doesn't have to be me, but helping the young person identify at least one safe adult either in their living environment or school environment that they feel like they could turn to with information such as this.

We also want to develop a culture of community support where educators know that they can turn to their administrators, they can turn to agencies like KSARC with support around a specific case, or they can give folks like us at KSARC a call if they just sit through the training with us for two hours and then find, you know, that was really bringing things up for me, or I have more questions that I wasn't comfortable asking in front of my boss or my colleagues, that they can reach out to us for support.

So I think a lot of times, especially with instances of sexual assault and domestic violence, teachers feel like they need to do and say the right thing right in that moment, but just letting them know that their sort of worry around doing the right thing is valid and that also they don't have to move through it alone.

Our second goal, after we've established that information, the knowledge base around what sexual assault is, what it looks like, and how to best support survivors, we want to work to create trauma-informed spaces for all students.

So my goal in authoring these two resources was to, yes, absolutely focus on sexual assault, as we're a sexual assault agency, but I also wanted educators to be able to generalize that information to other forms of trauma.

Our students in our schools experience sexual assault at very high rates, but they also have a lot of things such as domestic violence, incarceration of a primary caregiver, substance use or abuse of primary caregivers, lots of different things that could cause a trauma response, you know, even a car accident or things like that.

So helping our students to feel safe in their school environment by creating those trauma-informed spaces is only going to increase their ability to succeed academically and socially in the school environment.

So one of the big pieces that I encourage educators and school staff to take away from this conversation is sometimes when we know that a young person or a person in our life has experienced a trauma, we may want to approach them overly softly or not feel like we can ask them to do their assignments or attend class regularly.

And so I help them to understand that actually having clear expectations and boundaries within the classroom is excellent in terms of helping that student heal.

So if a young person has experienced sexual assault specifically, they may be moving through some intense feelings of betrayal or inability to trust.

And as educators, if they know that when they walk into our classroom, there's going to be a daily agenda posted, they know exactly how we're going to treat them, they know exactly what's going to be expected of them in our classroom, that's going to help to sort of calm down some of that anxiety that they may be having about their school day.

Also, empowering students to engage in self-care.

One of the takeaways that I got from my students I was working with at Roosevelt at the beginning of this project was that they had experienced some educators not necessarily letting them know when something traumatic or possibly triggering was going to occur within class materials.

So be that a book or a movie or, you know, even if they were just doing some independent reading and something came up for them, there wasn't necessarily a structure in place that gave the students a place where they could feel like they could talk about that or receive help and support about that.

So, and since that time, I've had many students let me know, you know, I was assigned to this book in class, I was reading through it at night before bed, and one of the characters experienced an intense sexual assault, and then I had a really difficult time, you know, sleeping.

So just making sure that within our schools, we're having that conversation, letting students know that this isn't something that needs to stay silent, especially not when we are actively engaging in materials where these things are happening.

Also, giving students agency over what is helpful for them in terms of self-care.

I know that as a social services professional, self-care is going to look much different to me than it might to Karen, and that's okay.

Giving students that agency again to make their own decisions for what helps them to move through that and get support if they need it.

We also want educators to be able to recognize what potential triggers or trauma cues look like in the classroom.

So as I was staying with that student who may be sleeping in the classroom, what is possibly going on underneath that?

So what does a fight, flight, or freeze response look like in our classrooms?

So if we have a student who is zoning out, could that look like a freeze response, right, that look of just sort checking out for a moment.

Or if we have a student who all of a sudden becomes incredibly agitated and storms out of the classroom, could that be a flight response?

Or if we've got somebody who maybe slams a book on the ground, could that be a fight response?

So looking at those behaviors through a trauma-informed lens to, again, get at the root issue, and then by doing so, the root way that we can help the student to become successful.

And again, we want to have educators who are building connection with students, and this isn't just for our folks who have experienced trauma.

We know that healthy connections with safe adults are good for any and all young people, or people in general.

So helping our teachers to not only talk about, you know, this more intense stuff, but really get to know their students in a healthy way, in a way that helps the young people to know that, These are folks that care about me, are interested in my life, and therefore I could turn to them when something maybe a little more intense or difficult is occurring.

And again, that piece around leaving the door open.

So letting students know they don't have to share anything with you in that moment, but that you are always there as a support person if and when they're ready.

All right.

Another goal that we have, our sort of third overarching prevention goal, is to help educators to engage in meaningful violence prevention efforts.

So we want folks to know and to understand that these efforts are multilevel.

So just like with student support, we need to do prevention on that individual relationship.

community, and societal level.

We know that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have put out a lot of research that tells us what the risk and protective factors for perpetration of violence are.

So we know those factors that increase the likelihood someone will perpetrate sexual assault, and we know the factors that decrease that likelihood.

And so we want schools to take a look at those different levels to identify those risk and protective factors that they're able to engage with and address those things.

That helps for our prevention efforts to be grounded and logically tied to the research and evidence that is out there.

We want all prevention work to be developmentally appropriate.

So we want to be reaching students with the information in an engaging and appropriate way for them no matter what grade they're in.

Sometimes at KSARC we hear parents have some understandable concerns around talking with young children around consent.

And we know that that is because that idea of consent has largely been tied to sexual relationships.

But we know that consent is something that we use every single day.

So helping educators to create that framework that can then be more easily applied to sexual relationships when it's developmentally appropriate.

So simply asking for a hug, asking to borrow a toy or a school supply is asking for consent.

So starting to use that language and to set that expectation with young people as soon as possible is only going to be more helpful down the road.

Again, we want our work to be tied to prevention and theory and research like I was outlining with the work that comes out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We also want to make sure that we're staying abreast of the best practices, knowing what's going on in our community, and how we can best coordinate and support those efforts.

We know that But prevention work is also long-term and in-depth.

Occasionally we'll get communities who reach out to us and want us to come in and do a school assembly about sexual assault.

And we know that that is not helpful for a few reasons, one of which being we will have survivors in that audience and it's impossible to help those folks to get the support that they may need in such a large venue.

Also because when you have a one-time conversation, we know that students will leave that conversation with a very high knowledge and awareness of sexual assault.

But if we don't talk about that again for the next week, month, year, that understanding is really going to taper off.

And the next time they see me, they might think, I recognize you.

Maybe you talked to us.

But I'm not entirely sure, I don't remember.

You know, and that makes a lot of sense.

We've all got a lot of stuff going on.

So we need to make sure with real, true, and meaningful prevention work that we are having these conversations with young people on a daily basis.

So whether that's somebody like me coming in from KSARC once a week and then those conversations are backed up by educators or parents, we can really get innovative with how that looks in the community and we can do it in both formal and informal ways.

We know that, you know, I have really achieved prevention status unlocked.

I'm now consent lady at a lot of schools, which is pretty cool.

But we know that I can come in with those formal lesson plans, but if we aren't doing that work on the community level, it's going to take us a lot longer to get traction and see change.

So we may have some awesome lessons on consent and boundaries that are formal.

You know, you come to fourth period, we learned about consent.

We also want to encourage educators to engage students in more informal ways, using those class materials to have conversations.

Asking a question like, I see that you really like the Spider-Man comics.

What types of relationships do you see happening?

How do the characters treat each other in those comics?

Can you find an example of consent within that book that you're reading or that TV show you're watching?

Talk to me about that YouTuber you like.

What's going on on Instagram?

What kinds of things do we see about boundaries and consent relationships on social media?

So really engaging students in those conversations on a much more daily basis is a huge piece of prevention that we want educators to see that they can do.

And again, a piece of that, I think, is these conversations feel really intense to folks who maybe don't do this work every single day.

And so letting them know that simply by showing interest in your students and asking them about relationships, boundaries, consent, stereotypes, they are doing some really important work.

Also, a part of that is identifying what's going on in the school that already lends itself to primary prevention.

And so, by primary prevention, I do mean the prevention work we're doing before a sexual assault or other type of violence occurs.

We really want to get ahead of that violence and start talking to students before it does happen.

So identifying within a school community what that already looks like.

A lot of our schools are already doing a ton of stuff to encourage good citizenship within their student body, within their families that attend the school and things like that.

So I have an acronym on here.

A lot of schools have, especially our younger kids, have those acronyms that really outline their values.

So if we take a look at this PRIDE one, positive attitude, respecting all, improving every day, dedicated learners, encouraging others, you know, how does sexual violence get included into this?

Or what does prevention look like through this lens?

To me, a huge part of respect is respecting boundaries and asking for consent.

So if we as a school have identified that respecting all is a huge value of ours, how can we include that core tenet of sexual violence prevention in our explanation or when we're talking about those value systems?

We also know that, you know, that work by the CDC does tell us that some of our protective factors are having empathy for others, having positive relationships with healthy adults, and having academic achievement.

And I don't know of a school who's not actively working on those things.

And so helping them see that by doing that, they're already starting violence prevention, and agencies like KSARC are just there to help bolster those efforts and work with them to further those things.

Again, on that relationship level, we do want to build that educator-student connection.

Also engaging parents and caregivers.

Letting parents and caregivers know that having these conversations with their young people is incredibly important.

Talking to them about the relationships that they see, answering questions, and really showing an interest in what is going on in the lives of their young people.

The example that I always give to parents I'm working with is, I don't care about Fortnite.

I really don't.

But neither do I, by the way.

Right?

Exactly.

But my students do care about Fortnite.

So I'm going to ask them questions.

I'm going to just talk to them about that.

Because if they get the impression that I'm just shutting them down, I don't care about this video game that they like, I don't care what's going on for them.

they're probably not going to turn to me when something more intense happens because they may have taken away that feeling that I just don't really care.

I'm just sort of off doing my own thing.

So really taking some time to get to know what our students are interested in, what's going on for them, as silly as we may think that it is.

Let me have to get your tips on that, because I have three nephews and a niece that are super into it, and I've been extremely dismissive about it.

So I've already messed up.

Yeah, that's OK.

That is OK.

We all have.

And I think the other part of this is recognizing that teachers and parents and family members have so much going on, right?

So when we're just off of our day of work, we're maybe in the kitchen making dinner.

We're just trying to get through.

mealtime and to bed so that maybe we can have a second to relax.

We may be chopping something and just going, uh-huh, sure, yeah, okay.

And that is totally understandable, but how could our relationships improve and change if we said, I don't really know what that is, can you tell me what that means?

The number of times that I stopped student conversations to be like, can you explain to me what you mean by the word tea?

Because it's not what's coming to mind for me.

So just, you know, having some humility around, I'm, to my students, I'm ancient, right?

And that's okay.

They'll still engage with me.

They'll still talk to me.

But I have to have some personal humility in terms of just asking them what's going on for them and understanding that verbiage is really helpful in engaging in primary prevention efforts.

Because if I don't know what T is, then I'm going to miss an entire conversation about drama and gossip.

And that's gonna be really, a really big missed opportunity, a really big place where I could have had a meaningful conversation with those youth about what's going on for them.

We also want to make sure that everybody who's involved in the school environment is on the same page.

So understanding what it means to have a trauma-informed classroom and also understanding that the school values and reinforces healthy messages around consent and boundaries and healthy relationships.

Because what we don't want is for 80% of our school staff to be on board but then have some volunteers coming in to facilitate field trips or things like that who are maybe modeling or even saying some unhealthy things about consent and boundaries.

So just making sure that we've got everybody on board and willing to learn together as a community.

We also know that prevention in the classroom, as I was saying, those formalized lesson plans are incredibly valuable.

So, giving students some real time to sit with the material, to learn, to ask questions, and to have that happening on an ongoing basis.

So, for example, there is one middle school in Renton, Risdon Middle School, that I work with students at the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade levels.

So, there's students that I talk I taught six sessions with as they were sixth graders when they moved into seventh grade.

I taught them four sessions.

And then as they move into eighth grade, they will receive four more sessions.

So we are covering essentially the same topics, but we're doing it in different ways as they grow older and as their experience and knowledge deepens.

You know, my sixth graders look at me like I'm an alien if I want to talk about dating.

They're like, that's so gross.

I'm so uninterested.

But then by eighth grade, they're like, Yeah, what were you saying about that?

You know, they have some questions, some thoughts, and we just want to make sure that we're able to build the relationship with them and their school and their teachers over that time so they're getting as much healthy information as possible.

Again, we want that to be formal and informal conversations, we want to, teach and to learn through healthy modeling as well.

And, you know, I help educators to recognize we want to learn alongside our students.

You know, as adults, we're still learning how to be in healthy relationships.

So having that humility as well.

All right.

Some of the topics that we encourage schools to take on are listed here.

These are ones that I engage with students as well.

So we want to make sure that we're talking about boundaries and consent, healthy relationships.

at the sixth grade and younger level that often looks like healthy friendships, and then those lessons and skills are very applicable to dating or intimate relationships when that student is ready.

Talking about drama, bullying, harassment, and just joking, this was a language piece that I learned quite a few years ago where we would want to come in and talk about bullying because that's oftentimes one of the first power-based forms of harm that young people start to see or maybe engage with themselves.

But what I was finding is a lot of my students, especially at the middle and high school levels, were saying, bullying doesn't happen here.

Bullying doesn't happen here.

But I was hearing different things from administration.

So I started asking, Well, what about drama?

And then they'd be like, oh my gosh, let me tell you what, drama happens all over the place.

And then it'd be like, okay, tell me a little bit more about that.

And they would describe a scenario to me where as an adult, I was like, oh, I would have said that was bullying.

And so I'm sure that the administrators are calling that bullying.

But if we're only talking about bullying and our students are like, that's not happening here, drama is, that conversation's gonna go right over their head.

The other one that I've added in the last couple years is this idea of just joking and how just joking is often used as a way to evade accountability.

So where we should see an apology or a I'm very sorry about that or I won't do that again.

We're seeing a just joking and so what that looks like in relationships.

We want to break down stereotypes.

We know that hypermasculinity and strict adherence to traditional gender role norms are two of those risk factors that the CDC has identified will increase the likelihood someone will perpetrate.

We also know that there are large intersections between racial justice, sexual assault.

So we want to make sure that we are working to undo all stereotypes.

We also want to build empathy.

So building empathy is, again, one of those big protective factors put out by the CDC.

At the bottom of this slide, I just included one of the lessons that I do with young people are consent comics.

So I give them a lot of information about consent, and then I let them create a scenario where a character is asking for and either giving consent or not giving consent.

And this is at the sixth grade level, and none of the comics I get are ever about dating or sexual relationships.

This one is about two friends who are at a fair.

One wants to go on the roller coaster.

Another one says, uh, and envisions being really scared.

And then the friend says, that's OK.

Let's do the bumper cars instead.

And this actually portrays a very in-depth understanding of consent.

Because what I see here is I see a student recognizing that lack of consent doesn't always come out as a no.

A lot of times it's really difficult for people to say no, so it's important for our students to pick up on the nuance of what that looks like if somebody is not saying no.

And it looks a lot like, uh, or sure, or I guess.

And helping students to switch from this idea of no means no, which I always say is incredibly important, if somebody does express a no, that needs to be respected, however, Most of us have been in a situation, maybe with our friends, them wanting to see a movie that we didn't want to see, but we felt like, I don't want to hurt their feelings or let them down, so I guess I'll just go.

And what did that sound like, right?

It didn't sound like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited, can we go to the midnight showing, right?

It was kind of like, I think I'm free like 1 o'clock on Sunday, right?

So helping our students to identify the difference between those two.

And then the last thing is always just helping educators to know that KSARC is a resource.

So recognizing that just like a lot of our students are survivors of sexual assault, so are a lot of our school staff.

And they can access KSARC services at any time.

They can give our resource line a call 24-7.

They can absolutely receive services themselves or link students up to resources.

And then if they ever want to chat prevention, we're always there as well.

So that's sort of the overview of this resource and what our work looks like.

And I would love to chat through any questions or thoughts that you might have.

I think you covered all of the potential questions we could have had.

Well done.

This is tremendous work and an amazing resource.

And it's really wonderful to see that it covers elementary plus middle schools plus high schools.

and really appreciated the perspective around, you know, sort of the long-term nature of the work and sort of following people through their development is an important part of the theory of change here.

And I can see that it comes through in the program.

So huge thanks for all of the work that you all are doing and pulling together these really important resources that are available to folks online and otherwise.

And I think it goes a long way to really accomplishing the culture of consent and really pushing back on that concept that, you know, if you're subject to sexual assault, silence is the way to go.

We know that that's not the way to go and can oftentimes just sort of result in compounding trauma that preexists.

So really appreciate all the work that you all are doing in this space, and I know that You all do it in various languages, not just in English.

And that has always been something that I've admired.

Sort of the cultural linguistic competency of KSARC is something that should be recognized.

And I know that you're one of the few organizations that really sort of centers that targeted population approach and really appreciate that as well.

Customer Pacheco, did you have anything that you wanted to add?

No, just really quickly, thank you for the work you're doing.

I think that so much, one of our best or one of our greatest capacities as individuals is our ability to empathize with one another.

So thank you for leading the work and doing the work that you're doing.

Just quite frankly, I think so much of our gender roles, you're right, need to change.

And so I always try to tell young men that I've ever mentored, one of the things that took me a while to realize was that real men cry.

And that shift of thinking, because it's so much, I've been very fortunate to have an older sister who's a therapist, and so she's been tremendously helpful.

But I think just having that and being able to articulate, especially from man to man and saying, look, you know, so much of this, and with regards to consent and saying, look, You know, no means no, but also here's what I think, you know, it should be.

And so helping to guide that work so early on is so critical because it's going to change us hard and it's going to require us to have those longstanding conversations and conversations that continue for the foreseeable future.

So, unfortunately.

I couldn't agree more.

Thank you for engaging in those conversations.

That's a huge piece of the work.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your support.

And I do have resource line cards and Be Loud buttons for you to share.

Great.

Awesome.

We will take those for sure.

OK.

Well, if there's nothing else from you all, I think we've said what we were going to say.

But if that's all, then this is the last item on our agenda.

Again, really huge thanks to you all for being with us.

Looking forward to the continuing partnership and friendship in this work and beyond.

So thank you so much for being with us.

So we are adjourned.

Thank you.