DATE: February 14, 2018

TO: Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, Finance and Neighborhood Committee

FROM: Kathy Nyland, Department of Neighborhoods, Author Danielle Friedman, DON

RE: Progress Report on Res. 31718 (Development of City Departments' Community Involvement Plans)

Background:

Resolution 31718 was passed on November 28, 2016 with the aim of increasing equity, public support, and better outcomes as a result of increased intentionality around public engagement and community outreach. As Seattle's population continues to grow and change, the City needs to continually revisit and expand its public engagement efforts in order to ensure a broad range of demographic groups are represented in City decision-making processes and that barriers discouraging people from participating are eliminated.

Through Resolution 31718, the Department of Neighborhoods (DON) was directed to lead City Departments in the development of well-designed, responsive, and culturally-relevant Community Involvement Plans (CIP). The goals of these plans are to effectively and efficiently manage the use of all resources, including community members' time and foster a sense of community for all people to express ideas and opinions about their neighborhoods, communities, and their government.

Prior to the issuance of Executive Order 2016-06, the City of Seattle's community engagement system had not been significantly updated for more than 20 years. While steps had been taken to improve inclusive community engagement across the City, the need persists for more equitable and accessible community engagement processes within City departments. Requiring departments to develop Community Involvement Plans that prioritize equitable engagement is intended to help address this need.

The following report documents the progress of all the internal City Departments on this requirement, including some of the common threads and challenges and proposals for future work.

Department of Neighborhood's efforts:

After the resolution was passed, DON reached out to all departments to alert them of the new requirements. A memo and a timeline were created to convey the intent and expectations of the department.

DON staff met one-on-one with a number of different departments to answer questions and provide guidance. In response to the ideas that were surfaced, DON staff developed a one-pager and a template that Departments can use as a guide to develop their plans. DON also created a SharePoint site that all City employees can access that includes resources and all currently completed Community Involvement Plans from other departments for reference.

Many departments were eager to hear what other departments and programs were doing. Therefore, DON set up an informational meeting in October 2017 to bring colleagues together to share ideas, challenges, and resources. Staff from over 20 different departments were represented. There was a panel that consisted of Valerie Garrett-Turner, Seattle Public Library; Joaquin Uy, Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs; and representatives from DON. The panelists recounted their department's process for developing their Community Involvement Plans and shared ideas about some methods for outreach and engagement that have worked. It was a successful meeting and many attendees requested to have another meeting or perhaps an ongoing quarterly gathering of staff members who work in this area.

A big part of making Community Involvement Plans successful is to make sure that City departments are sharing information, are aware of other departments' efforts, and collaborating. Throughout the past year, DON has prioritized working on fostering cross-department collaboration. Since spring of 2016, DON has worked on collecting information about projects and planning efforts by creating an intake process. The intakes have helped DON identify opportunities to leverage and collaborate. Through the intakes, DON has been able to more holistically understand a project or planning effort so that we can consult on a department's proposed strategies as well as connect to other existing outreach efforts. Over 200 intakes have since taken place.

The Department of Neighborhoods also runs and maintains the Community Liaison program that helps other City departments provide equitable outreach and engagement to underserved communities in a culturally competent and respectful manner. Our Community Liaisons are independent contractors who serve as resources and liaisons to community members, provide quality translations and interpretations, and advise the City on how best to engage with communities. In 2017, there have been 73 projects on the roster with 18 departments involving 67 liaisons.

DON has also created a calendar with holidays, events, and meetings citywide to vet potential dates and identify collaboration opportunities to help departments as they plan their outreach and engagement activities. In addition, DON has created neighborhood snapshots to help guide outreach by providing demographic information, languages spoken, previous plans & reports, current outreach, neighborhood groups, and what we are hearing from the neighborhoods.

These efforts have allowed DON to successfully cultivate connections between departments and eliminate duplicity and inefficiency.

Progress on the Development of Community Involvement Plans:

As noted, DON has been working with departments to develop their community Involvement plans in many capacities. To date, there are 27 departments that have completed a final version of their Community Involvement Plans. Currently, there is 1 department that is in the process of developing their plan. A few departments have opted out because they are internal- facing or a different type of entity or including in another departments plan. See the attached chart for information about specific departments.

Completed plans 27

Plans in progress 1

Departments that have opted out 11

Total Departments 39

Challenges departments have faced:

Nearly all of the departments have completed their plans or are anticipating having their plans completed in the near future. Some challenges have emerged which may have stalled or prevented the department from developing their plans. Below are some of the common challenges that DON has heard from various departments.

Opted out. Some departments are internal-facing and don't feel like there is much opportunity for them to interact with the public (ex. Budget Office, Auditor's office, and Retirement Office). Others felt that they are separate entities that that would have a hard time complying with the request (ex. Seattle Municipal Court). There were a few departments that are part of a larger department and therefore did not create their own plans. (ex. Special events office is under Office of Film and Music).

Many different programs throughout department. If a department has many different programs, that serve different populations, it may be hard to develop a high-level comprehensive plan. In this instance, it takes a significantly longer time to get all the programs to generate and conform to a larger outreach and engagement plan.

Not enough resources. A few departments have reported that they have limited resources to dedicate to the process and to the implementation of new outreach and engagement strategies.

Common themes:

In their Community Involvement Plans, there have been some common themes which can be identified as best practices:

Listen to the community and build in two-way communication methods.

Translate materials into multiple languages to enhance accessibility.

Collect and use data to help guide priorities.

Intentionally target traditionally underserved and underrepresented communities.

Commit to a long -term plan of building relationships.

Hire people who represent who you would like to serve and connect with.

Next Steps:

Continue to provide guidance, feedback and resources on the development of Community Involvement Plans. DON plans on continuing to offer resources and support to departments that are completing, revising or updating their community involvement plans.

Explore how Community Involvement Plans overlap with RSJI and Language Access initiatives. Recognizing that there are multiple initiatives that are in process, that may have similar goals and overlapping priorities, DON will coordinate with other departments to make sure that the efforts are in sync and not created in silos.

Develop an internal City guide for outreach and engagement. In 2018, DON plans on using the information provided by the departments to find common themes, best practices, and challenges in order to create a report that will guide departments in their outreach and engagement practices.

Continue cross-collaboration throughout departments. Due to the interest expressed during this process, DON will commence an interdepartmental team of City staff working on outreach and engagement strategies in their departments to share information and resources. The intent of this group would be to strengthen internal communication and to learn from one another.

Collaborate with the Community Involvement Commission to develop recommendations. The Community Involvement Commission was established and began meeting in August 2017. As a brand-new commission, their mission is to advise Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and other City departments on coordinated, citywide outreach and engagement activities. DON looks forward on collaborating with this group of diverse community representatives to get feedback and improve outreach and engagement efforts.