Health Safety Education and Services - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Hello. Good morning and welcome to the Health and Safety Committee meeting for Wednesday, May 20. My name is Darryl Watson. I'm honored to serve as the chair of the Health and Safety Committee as well as the City Council member representing all of defined District 9. We have two briefings from our friends from Denver Human Services, their 2026 work plan, and then also a briefing from OSCI and OCA. Lots of acronyms, and they'll explain what those are today, this morning. But before we jump into the presentations and briefings, why don't we have introductions from council members in the room? We'll start on our right.

Hi, everybody. Sedona Gonzalez Gutierrez. I'm one of the council members at large.

Good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

And we have council members online. I'll let you all popcorn in and introduce yourselves.

Thank

you.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver District 2.

Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver, District 1.

Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Amanda Parity. Oh, go ahead, Parity. Sorry.

We were doing so well. Sarah Parity, your other council member at large. Good morning. Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Well, welcome all. We have a fun agenda this morning. So, Denver Human Services, take it away for your annual work plan presentation.

Thank you. And I think if I look here, I think here is where the council members online can hear me so or see me. So good to see all of you. Thank you for being here. Denver, it's funny. We actually do like to bring the fun into the workplace as much as possible. We'll actually share a little bit about that during our presentation. I am Anne Marie Braga. I'm the executive director for Denver Human Services, and I brought my two esteemed colleagues with me. And if y'all would just introduce yourselves.

Good morning. Consuela Hernandez, culture and well-being officer.

And I'm Mimi Sherman, the chief program officer. Still getting used to it.

We did a little restructure and changed our titles up a little bit. And then the only other person that just to remind you all that reports directly to me is our chief administrative officer who does our finances and operations is Clint Woodruff. Y'all have had a chance to meet with him. He couldn't be here today. He's out right now. But so today, what we have on our agenda is we're gonna just talk to you a little bit about our goals. I had the pleasure of being able to meet with all of you about our strategic road map and brought you all a physical copy, and I did that last year. That was a three year plan. So today, I'm just gonna kinda go over our three goals again and what we're doing to achieve those goals this year, which is it serves as our work plan for the next several years. Because this stuff takes time, y'all.

It takes But we do measure it all, and we'll go through that. We also thought we added a slide a couple slides at the end because we thought you might also be interested in the impacts of HR one that that's happening. That does impact our work, so we thought that would be important to share. And then we also added a legislative update slide since the session just ended. We just thought it might be good to share some of those things because those also impact our work plan and how we how we do our work. Alright. So that was the sorry. I I started talking before doing the slide there. Okay. So just to remember why we do our work.

Right? We did update our mission recently, and, really, we're here to serve Denver residents by connecting them to basic needs, protective services, and community supports to improve their well-being. And we added this because of finances in you know, at this at the city, at the state level, national level, is that we really need to be good fiscal stewards of this money, and we need to continue to strengthen our partnerships and explore creative ways to ensure that people are supported as our resources dwindle. So while we always have been community oriented and have community partnerships with folks right now, it's even even more important as our everyone's resources are dwelling. How are we coordinating together, making sure we're not double doing work, we're really supporting each other?

Okay. So first goal. So there are three goals. The first one is amplifying our reach and influence of our programs and partnerships. So that's a very broad goal because we want it to be able to carry us for a few years. Last year, our goal was around My Friend Ben, if y'all recall. We are still doing that work. I'm not gonna give a big update except that it's getting out there. One of the exciting things is we put it in all city agency like lobbies. So anyone who has a lobby has been promoting My Friend Ben so people can know what they're eligible for.

So we're still doing that work. We're still measuring it. But every year, we choose a different target. So this year, our target is decreasing our payment error rates to benefits by to to 6%. So this means, you know, people come and apply for services. Sometimes errors in and sometimes the errors aren't necessarily ours. It could be on the client's side of things. They just gave us the wrong piece of paper. It could be something that was reported incorrectly through the state, and the system can make an error, and then we make errors too. Right?

When you're typing fat fingers, those kinds of things count as errors. And so as we'll talk about and as you already know, I think we've talked enough about this, but h with h r one or the one big beautiful bill at the federal level, if we are over six percent as a state, we will get hefty fines. So the state is really focused on this. Of course, they always say at the the state goes the way Denver goes. Right? So they're always leaning on us to make sure that we are performing well. And last year, you might recall that we were focused a lot on our timeliness with COVID, with the migrant response. Our timeliness numbers had gone down. You'll be glad to know for the last I think it's been seven or eight months since June. No.

Like, even longer than that, almost a year, we've been timely. We've hit it's supposed to be ninety five percent, and we have been at ninety five percent almost every month. One was 94.3. One was 90 it was four point something. Very, very close. So I it was it's been very impressive. Our team has done amazing work to get us back up to timeliness. So now we're timely. We're getting benefits out in the right time, but we need to cut down on our errors. I am proud to report that our errors in December were six point o six.

They have been in the 12% some months. The way that calculate that data is there's a very small sample size, and the state just picks some random things and puts it all together. So we just we don't feel like and neither does the state. They would they're working on this. We need to get a better handle on how what our payment error rate is.

So the state's doing that, but we as Denver are also doing that. We have a team that's been working on that to make sure that we can look at any given day. We can look at a graph and say, how many errors do we make over this week and why? Because when you see the the trends of why they're made, you can actually get people to change their ways and learn about, you know, what whatever errors they made to learn from their mistakes, basically. So we're very excited about that.

People are, I think, enthused to there's there's a big thing in the end. You know, not having a big fine is is a motivator for this for sure. But also, of course, to get benefits right for people are important. So that's our big target. But what has been true this the entire for last year, for this year, these are our three big strategies under this goal is expanding access to our services, measuring customer well-being outcomes, and helping make Denver a premier city to raise a family.

That aligns with the mayor's goal. So I wanted to make sure I shared the big target there. But also with regards to expanding access to our services, I just want to share a little bit about some of the things we're doing, and then my colleagues here can kind of fill in and, you know, get excited about the things they're really excited about in this work. So first, we're utilizing our outreach care coordinate sorry, case coordinators, which are our resource navigation specialists. That's really been important to make sure our eligible but not enrolled.

I know we've talked about that at council as well to the EBNE population that if you're eligible for something and you and you wanna be part of it, you can be. So we've really been focused on historically underserved communities. And the big things there are we're trying to meet people where they are, reduce the wrong door experience, right, that we want them to know how to get whatever services they need and just make sure we're giving them faster, more effective support. The OCCs are in schools now in community hubs of Swansea Elementary, Johnson Elementary in Brentwood, Place Place Bridge Academy, and also at the Denver Public Library central branch. So we have folks who are sitting there waiting.

Folks come in just asking, hey. We're with Denver Human Services Committee Hall. So we're really trying to get out there in the community. We also are developing a marketing campaign to target our support with Montbello, Westwood, Gloville, Swansea, Elyria, and then also Hampton as well to make sure we're building trust, encouraging people to seek supports and such. And I think I'm gonna pause there before I go to well-being just to make sure, Consuelo, if there's anything you wanna add to that. I think you did

a great job, Ann Marie. The only thing I would say too is that we're also collecting data directly from our customers to understand what their experience is like, looking at their well-being and and ease of access and that kind of

thing. Awesome. Yeah. We're excited about that. There's a theme with that you'll see. Another another goal related to that. The other piece here I just wanna say, so that the expanding access to services is where where I was focusing there. Measuring customer well-being. I've also said this a few times to you all over the past few years, which I can't believe it's almost been three years that I've been in this role. It has flown by. But we've talked about measuring customer outcomes, not just the processes. So as government, we're really good at saying, here's how many applications we got. Right? But not are those people better off than than we found them. Right?

How are we supporting them? And so, by the end of this year, every one of our customer facing programs will have, a way to measure an outcome. Sometimes it's about hope. We know hope scientifically is actually a huge indicator of people's well-being later on. So there's all kinds of different creative things we're doing. And just because we don't have a ton of time, but if y'all have questions, then we can answer more questions about that. But it's really exciting to be really focusing on outcomes of well-being versus just the government typical government things. Because I think you all know our agency really does our eligibility and those kinds of things. It's just the federal government tells the state to do the state tells us, we're, like, kinda stuck to do certain things. We like to get out of that a little bit.

We'll do those things for sure, but how do we also measure some of the things we see important like hope and well-being and things? So and then helping make Denver a premier city in America to raise a family. We are partnering with our friends from OCA and the rest of the the agency heads to make sure that we are helping with the childcare work and all of those things. So we're a partner in a lot of that, but we wanted to make sure that it showed up in our strategic roadmap. So it does. I think that's it for that goal. Does anyone have any questions on that goal yet, or do we wait till the end? We'll save that. Okay. Perfect.

Alright. Then I will keep going. So the second goal here, which we really are excited about because this team has been through a lot. I know that you all have seen it and heard from many folks and just I know everyone in the city has been, but I would I would argue human services coming into this just just with COVID, the migrant response, having to cut 17,000,000 I'm sorry, 17% of our budget, almost $30,000,000 last year with furloughs and layoffs. That was a lot. Right? So uplifting our team is really important to us and keeping the morale high because we know when people are happy at work and feel like they're making a difference, and feel supported, they're gonna do better. They're gonna they're gonna make less errors. They're gonna get the timeliness in it, like, of those things. Right?

So there's three things I wanna make sure that you see. One is this in our target, and I just wanna I'm gonna brag on us a little because, honestly, putting forth after having gone through all of that last year, putting forth a goal that is increasing trust of agency leadership is very vulnerable because that's hard. Like, trust in leadership of organizations of our size, 1,200 plus employees, it's never really good. Like, I we've looked at the data, and that's part of Consuelo's job is to really look what how do people trust those leaders. Of a smaller organization, it's a little easier.

You know everybody. Right? But when it's 1,200 people with lots of people doing different things, it's very, very challenging to get a high score there. But we said, no. We're up for that challenge. Let's see where we are. Let's find out, and let's see how we can improve and find out, you know, what are those things employees need to see differently to build that trust. So we did do a a survey, and our trust was 53% of people trust senior level leaders. That includes us at the executive management, but also the next layer down. To be honest, after last year, I was like, over half people trust us still with all of those things.

We actually felt pretty good about that. But, of course, we want it to be much higher than that. So we're shooting for a 3% increase for this year, and there were three big themes that came out of that. And, honestly, I'm sharing this partly too because I think all of us, with all of our leaders and all the state agencies and anyone who's watching right now, we're not super unique in the things that came out, and I just think it's interesting. So one of them is visibility.

They want to see leaders in an authentic way. So some of us are good about doing walkabout management, popping in and saying hi to folks. Other folks feel less comfortable with that, but are happy to join events that people are having and have conversations. So we're trying to make sure all of our leaders, matter where you fall on that ex introvert to extrovert scale, that you that you find a way to make yourself visible in an authentic way. So that was a big theme. The second one was communication. So, again, this is something I I I don't think we're ever gonna get perfect, and we try so hard, but we put the different plans in place to make sure that things that happen the higher levels filter all the way through. Things that honestly happen at the lower levels filter up as well. Right? It's really just hard with so many layers.

So we are really focused on improving communication across our agency. And then lastly, people really wanted to feel supported in their wellness. So I will just own twice a day now. I'm gonna say it out loud to everybody in Denver because I'm bad at this. I am bad, as you can tell and you all know me, at taking breaks, at taking a breath, at at slowing down in the middle of the day.

So twice a day, I am it sounds funny, but breathing and stretching a little bit. And it's just for a few minutes, but I have it in my calendar. And so I'm trying to start modeling, and all of us are doing various things depending on what we need that wellness to look like. And so we're trying as leaders to help model that for everyone. We also have a wellness policy, which I'm gonna pass over to you to share about, and you guys can share more about that.

But it's a long time coming. Mimi, when I first got here, was telling me how we needed a wellness policy. It's kinda hard with the work we do because, you know, when you're trying to meet certain quotas, you know, get certain numbers up, people don't feel like they can step away. We're trying to make it it's okay to step away. Even if we went to 94.1% out of the you know, instead of 95, we want people to be whole humans at the work that we do. So I don't know. I wanna pause for a second and ask you all wanna share about the wellness and your experiences with that. Sure.

Before we go there, just a quick note is that you all have a handout on our leadership trust survey if you wanted to look more at that later. We actually have a whole hub page built out about it as well. And for folks online, you will you'll get a handout in your inbox. What are they called? Like Yes. Yellow box.

Yellow box.

So just a note on that. And what one thing that was interesting is comparing the that data to our twenty twenty four employee engagement survey data, which the entire city did, we did see a decrease in leadership trust, which makes sense after everything that happened last summer. And so as Amory said, we're hoping to at least get get it back up a little bit. One of the efforts to do that is implementing an an agency wide employee wellness policy, which I'm hearing, like Amory said, is close to ten years in the making. And it's one thing to create the policy, but it's another thing to actually implement it.

And so that's what we will be embarking on over the summer is actually implementing it and seeing, you know, what does this actually look like? So, basically the wellness policy will allow every employee to use up to four hours per month toward their own wellness, whether that's joining one of our agency wide wellness programs. Like we still have pet therapy and art therapy and all these different things but it could be taking a nature walk specifically with a senior leader to try to increase some of those informal connections that we learned are missing through our leadership trust survey. So it's designed to be very versatile because wellness looks different for everyone. It could be stepping out for fifteen minutes to call a loved one, for example.

But we really have tried to get creative in what even wellness looks like. Know, it could be we're having laughter therapy sessions. Know, it's it's looking really we have a sound therapy session, so something for everyone. I love the dog therapy.

I'll just tell dog in. They're like Mimi had one around her. She actually just happened to get a puppy, and so she brought it into work one day. And the people's faces just lit up. Like, that was so simple. Yeah. So, anyway, so with wellness, I know I'm looking at time. I just wanna make sure I keep going. And then the other three things is we have that leadership initiative. I also spoke with y'all about that last time. That's this is our second year. But just really quick to remind you, there's about twenty four training hours. All of our leaders, not just our senior leaders. We did start with our senior leaders because we think it's important to walk the talk and do it first. But all anyone who supervises another human in our agency is going to get these, training hours about leadership.

You know, it's having difficult conversations and prioritizing all those kinds of things. And then they're also getting eight ninety minute coaching sessions as well. So we're excited about that. That's continuing. Castor revitalization, I know we've talked about this several times. It is starting in the summer. We're gonna be I don't know. We're not we're not breaking ground. We're building it in. We're moving people, but it's kind of like our breaking ground of if you remember, our our 1st And 2nd Floors needed to be ADA compliant.

There was a lot of ADA issues. We're fixing all of those and then also just making our public facing areas better, which includes, like, a conference area. A lot of folks have asked us, can we use your office? Like, some of y'all I think councilman Torres has asked for that before in, like, space. And it our our conference rooms are on the 2nd Floor. So you have to have someone walk up with you with the badge, and it's a whole thing. So we're creating a space where people can come into our building and utilize it, and all of you are welcome to use that as well. Y'all know we're on 12th And Federal, though. We're not close to this building, but anytime. Okay.

And then lastly, the third goal. This is Devon and Lazarus. This was really sweet. He said, she's like an angel sent from heaven. So we've really been in trying to employ innovative approaches to really maximize the results for our customers. We have the target, and this target we developed with the with the impacts of HR one in mind. So we're making sure that customers we're increasing the percentage of customers who feel they are easily connected to services that they need. Like, they right? We should know this data. We should be always striving to achieve this.

Now I know the word easily. Okay. What does that mean to different people? We're but we're we're just asking it that way. And this is a way for us to really develop proactive ways to support, you know, residents and families who who have lost their federal funding support. We wanna make sure we don't lose them, and we help them in other ways. So folks who maybe aren't eligible for SNAP in the same way or haven't met it, how do we connect them with the food banks? There's a whole initiative on that. So our three strategies to, reach this goal are strengthening collaboration integration, not only within our department, so we're really breaking down the silos of the different program areas, but also with our other agency head partners. Right?

All of our other agency partners. You all, right, as a city, how do we all work together on these things? The second one, I know Consuelo could talk about this for four hours with you because she loves it so much. And we all do, but you've done a lot of work on this, is centering the customer voice and experiences. So this is under her team. We're using two approaches to really gather feedback. One is that customer survey I spoke about. But do you want to just talk about voice of the customer? Sure. Sure.

Every division actually has a plan this year to incorporate the voice of the customer in a meaningful way in in programs and policies, decision making, essentially. And so we've already started surveying our customers agency wide to understand what what actually is the experience like. It's it's early days, I will say, so it's it's very preliminary days. I'm not gonna get into what it what we're learning quite yet, but even just that and learning more about, like, okay. Well, how are each of our divisions actually getting like like, trying to hear directly from customers has been an interesting process.

And so I'll stop there because I That's too much. Oh, one thing I will say, though, is your other handout is directly related to customer experience. So I'm sorry, Ann Marie, if I'm taking your

No. You're great. Do it.

But one idea with gathering customer feedback is also so that we have success stories to uplift and highlight, and then those will be incorporated into the marketing campaign that we mentioned and social media and that kind of thing as another way of building trust and showing, like, okay. We really are in this together.

Yeah. No. That's beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for printing those for them. And then lastly, the third strategy here is prioritizing the use of data, which is just like it's it's making such a difference. I mean, obviously, DHS has always looked at data, but the way we're looking at it now together, we do these things called data dialogues where we bring the program folks and sometimes some of their teams and then our executive management to sit down together and talk about, so how are things really going and creating a safe and vulnerable space for people to say, they're not going the way we want in this area. We don't know why. Like, we want people to feel like it's okay to say that. They don't have to just try to make everything look, oh, yeah.

You know? Oh, let's make sure the the executives don't hear this part. Like, let's hide it in the we want this open space. And so we've real I feel like we've done a really good job, and people are sharing the things, and we're trying to provide the support that we can to help in those ways. So it's been really a great partnership with our teams. Okay. Yeah. We don't have the data yet for that survey that I mentioned. We've had about 800 people fill it out, so I was excited to see that, but we just don't have it. Once we have all of that information, I'm happy to share out with you kind of where we are with that and, you know, what our goals are.

Alright. So now we're up to HR one and its impacts. So I know a few of you serve on some of are on, like, the food access work group and have heard this before, but so I just wanna share briefly that what's already in effect are the SNAP work requirements. The actual term is community engagement activities. That was the word I was looking for this morning on the phone.

Community engagement activities is the actual term in at the federal government, which I actually I was grateful that that remained, and it didn't change to work activities. So it does include volunteering, education, some of those things. And we don't actually have the exact guidance of what is included in that yet. We're going to we're supposed to be receiving it, I don't know, any day now, but I feel like I've been saying that for the last two months to really delineate what what can be included in that. But just from past SNAP work requirements, we've had we've had work requirements for SNAP.

They've just increased for a certain pop population, and that is eighteen to sixty four year olds who are able to work not living with a child under the age of 14. So those folks are having to add more time to do these community engagement activities. So that's already in effect. And that we've heard we haven't seen this huge increase in needing SNAP or in huge but we heard today on a call this morning that there are some folks that are starting to struggle a little bit with that. So we're trying to create connections, we're working with the food pantries and Food Bank of the Rockies, Mile High United Way, like lots of different folks to try to figure out how to help folks fill that gap.

Perla and her team has been doing an amazing job too trying to put together a, like, a volunteer portal. Like, I need five hours this week. Where can you go and volunteer so you meet your goals and those kinds of things? So we're working on that. Of course, workforce is there, Adeep's team as well. So what's up next is this Medicaid the Medicaid side of work requirements or community engagement activities goes into effect. That's in January. And so that still feels to some people like it's far away, but we're like, we don't feel it. We feel like it's right now. We need to make sure people know and understand what's happening. So I'll let Mimi share a little bit about the she's been leading the Medicaid work group to address this. Do you want to

share that?

Yeah, sure. So we have many community partners that are engaged with us, including Denver Health, Colorado Access, which is our Medicaid provider and also the normal city agencies that are involved in the Food Access. They're all the same folks, but they're trying to fill the same bucket of work. What we've been talking about is making sure that, number one, we're going to have some meetings with host providers to make sure that they understand what's coming so that the people they work with understand what will be required of them. We do also want to make it really clear that not everybody will need to meet this work requirement.

There are places where they can be exempt from it. There's a certain criteria that has to be met, and Colorado Access has given us a lot of really good preliminary information that many people will meet the exemption requirements. We're hoping that the the expansion population in a whole as a whole will not be affected by this. Just a portion of those folks will. So we're working on trying to figure out the state is gonna start sending out letters to folks, I believe, in June to let them know they may be impacted by certain things, including the citizenship issues that are coming up, so those and the work requirements.

And so then we wanna get the list of people also at Denver so that we know who they're sending letters to so that perhaps we can send a more detailed letter outlining things that they could outreach to, like, to HRCP for volunteer opportunities, DITO for workforce opportunities, things like that. So we're just trying to be to get our resources aligned so that we can share with folks different resources that could be available to them here in Denver.

Thanks, Mimi. And then one last thing, and I don't I you might have said this, but the regions. We're looking regionally too. So I meet with all the other metro directors from all the regions on a weekly basis. We just, for the first time a couple weeks ago, had all of the partners Mimi just talked about from their end. We all got on a call and was like, you know, people it doesn't matter where people are. The the state the county lines don't matter. Right? They just need what they need when they need it. And so how do we make sure that we're partnering together and we're supporting each other? So we're looking at it state level, city and county level, and then, you know, across the region as well. Okay. Last slide, and then, I wanna make sure you guys have plenty of time for questions. I just wanna make sure you saw some of the legislative updates. The biggest one is this.

I did not remember the name of the bill because the bill came like this, and it and it was passed like that. But there was a lot of work behind it. The county administration of public assistance programs. The biggest thing to know about this bill is this is the biggest change human services has seen in I wanna be, like, a century. I don't know how we even been around that long. Right? Like, it's a long, long time, like, ever maybe. What it does is it's not, like, regionalization as you might think of it, that there's a per there's a, like, one person in charge of all these counties. Instead, it's called county cohorts. They had first proposed districts where one county would have control over another county potentially.

I knew that was not gonna fly with CCI, so we didn't put a ton of energy into that. And that is what occurred is that, nope. They said we don't wanna see that. I I will say, I don't know how much of y'all are aware, but CCI, the county commissioners inc, and then the state and then the counties with the governor's office really, really did partner. I I heard people say things like that that we as counties never felt more listened to, than than that.

Like, we it really felt like a partnership. So this bill that was put forth why it passed so quickly and easily was because it was really put together by state and counties together and cities. And so, really, the big thing to know, it's gonna create some county cohorts. We don't know what that looks like yet. And then these things called shared services that I had sent out some emails to you about when I was like, looks like they wanna do these shared services, like, for example, a call center. So having one call center for the whole state versus Denver having its own call center. Right? That was a thing at one point. Now they're saying, we want to do those amongst these cohorts. And then also, they've talked to they wanna make sure that we have a cross county system for document management, for data, for all of those things, and just the system works.

The other thing that's in there is a neutral third party to actually figure out all the things I just told you, what is that actually gonna look like, and how are we gonna do it? So the only thing they're centralizing across the whole state is fraud. So some of our fraud prevention folks are a little nervous. What does that mean for me? We won't know what that means for them for a little while.

It won't happen for a couple of years because, of course, the time you know, how quick government changes and moves, it's so gonna take some time. I am gonna put my name forth to be on the implementation committee for this so Denver can have, you know, someone from Denver there and and looking at our interests and everything and just working across the state. So just wanted you to all hear that. And just in the because of time, I'm like, are there any maybe just with these legislative updates is if there's anything on here that you're really interested in hearing a lot about, please ask maybe during the question and answer. The only other one that I feel like you might want to know is just that we used to be able to reimburse kin in child welfare when they weren't certified.

That has been taken away. But they can get paid if they get certified. So there's a lot of pulling back money. Of course, you all know the state of the state budget. So there's just been a lot of cutting cutting, shaving here and there, but we're happy to answer specific questions if you have them. Okay. Sorry. I went a little over. I get excited.

Thank you so much. Is that

That's it. Yes. Sorry. Sorry. Yes. So questions. Yes.

Oh, perfect. I'm sorry. Yeah. Thank you, director. Thank you, Consuelo.

Thank you, Mimi, for all the good work that you've done. Thank you for providing us the details on your work plan as far as your goals and the implementation. And my former life, I was engaged in associate experience, that's what we called it, in the spaces that I worked at. And so the good work that you're doing, Consuela, on employee experience and ensuring that employee voice is part of the solutions is extremely important, especially for the work that you do that that not only taxes the the thought process and the expertise, but also the hearts of the folks who provide support to community members because it's it's not an easy road. So thank you so much for seeking their their thoughts, their their their feelings, and then also your focus on personal health and ensuring that you're taking time, I think is essential.

So thank you all so much. We have a queue that's begun, and so I'll turn it to council member Flynn for the first question, and then council member Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Thank you, mister chair Anne Marie. When I hear work requirements or community engagement, whatever it is now, my first thought on HR1 and the new SNAP rules always goes to the possibility in your far corners of eligibility, folks who are unable or through some reason or another disability or whatever it is, are unable to fulfill or or even to to engage with in volunteer work. What do the rules say about such cases, if anything?

Yeah, that's Yeah, a great a question. Thank you so much for that, Councilman Flynn. Mimi spoke about it before. She used the term exemptions. There are many people who are exempt from those. So I think I don't know exactly the person you're describing, but as you're describing it, it sounds like they would probably be eligible for an exemption, which means it would just be business as usual for them. Do you want to add anything, Mimi, to that?

And I would say the exemptions haven't changed. It's just the ex the people who are expected to work has changed in age wise a little bit, but those exemptions are still the same. So if someone was exempt previously, they would still be exempt.

Okay. That's that's good news. Great. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. All. That's all,

mister chair.

Yes. Thank you, mister chair, and thank you

all for for the presentation. I so I know you had mentioned, like, the furloughs and layoffs and everything. How I guess, how many were there any social caseworker staff that were laid off in those?

I don't

think there were any. No. We didn't. Okay. It was mostly, like, the shared service or supportive services areas. Eligibility technicians were not like, the people doing the actual work, it was more folks who were supporting in some way

or another. Like, can you be more

Yeah. So, like, like, someone who's working on learning and development or process improvement activities that that that I I just wanna say, very important. And we but when you're having to, like, shave money, you have to look at folks who are not directly working with our clients. So that's what we try to avoid. Yes. A little

bit more.

Yeah. Please do.

Please. Another place that we were looking at is what kind of for example, how many core services are we providing trying to put some guardrails around that to say what is needed for how long, and once there's progress made or progress isn't being made, then we need to stop offering and and offer other solutions. So it's really just those partnerships with the courts and things to make sure we're providing what we can but not continually providing because it feels good to keep providing.

That that was really challenging, and you know because you you work there, but the prevention services. Yeah. We that's what we wanna be doing. Right? That's one reason I got into human services was how do I bring prevention into it, and and I was excited about that. That those are some of the services that we're having to, like, lean on not stop supporting people in those services, but leaning on our partners to do that because we are unable to. We have to be doing the things we're required to do.

Who are like, when you say partners, like, are you talking about, like, community based organizations?

Yes. I mean I mean, there's a variety of them. But, yeah, even other agencies, like, we're looking at workforce, and Mimi and Tony have been working a lot on what do you do? What do we do? Like, are we is there a way to do this more efficiently so we're saving money? And yeah. So it's it's all of the above.

Well, I just I'll just say, like, on that front, I know just having navigated navigating with community based organizations and system, right, and the funds that you get for things like core services, it's I think everybody's filming the hit right now. Right? Whether it's the public benefits, you know, Medicaid, SNAP, all of those things. Right? CCAP, the the child assistance program child care assistance program. All of those things are being impacted, and then our community based organizations and nonprofits are feeling it as well. Mhmm. Right? Because maybe they're not able to apply for the grants that they were able to apply to before, or they're not getting assistance from even the systems. Right?

That would provide sometimes grants that would come from maybe human services, maybe office of children's affairs, or maybe a state grant program because the funds are are not there because it might not being passed down from from the feds. And so there's just a lot of or people are scared.

Mhmm.

Right? People are scared to do certain types of work that are for vulnerable populations. Right? Whether it's our immigrant communities, people on these benefits, things like that. And so I just I wanna be very careful that we're not putting so much on those organizations as well that are are also struggling. Right? They're struggling to like, we've seen we're about to hear from our friends with the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, and and and we know that there has been funds cut to, like, violence interruption. Yep. And how are we then, you know, dealing with that? And then then what are we seeing the effects of that?

Right? And because there those organizations that were providing that service aren't being funded at the same level. And so I just wanna I know that you you can't solve everything, and I know there's, like, limitations. But I wanna make sure, like, you know, if we're partnering and we're doing that work, like, how are we balancing that so we're not overburdening these organizations that we do rely upon and rely rely on their partnership. And I know it's a it's a balancing act.

Yeah. Well, thank you for acknowledging that. We had to cut so all metro I shouldn't say every metro county. Most of the big metro counties that that we work with have had to cut the TANF support dollars. They stopped contracts last July. We told our partners it's about $9,000,000 in contracts. We had to tell all of our partners like Jewish Family Services and Seaweed that we are gonna have to cut your your contract in a year. We gave them a year, like, lead time because we didn't wanna just do that. So we kinda took that hit and figured out a way to do that because we do believe in that partnership. So we've met with all of them one on one, and the hardest thing about it is, you know, one of them said to me the first time I met them online, what are we gonna do?

Because they said all those things. And I was like, yeah. That's what keeps me up at night too. It's not like we have this purse strings that we're just not giving out. We we're stretched thin. They're stretched thin. I'm just like, you know, vote. Like, go out. Change policy. Like, that's what we have to do as a as a for vote for the things you care about and you wanna see change because that's kinda where we are. But we are doing our best to maintain all of those relationships and then also connect them to people we might know in the philanthropy world that maybe they didn't know before. And some of my philanthropy partners, you know, they have been great about, yeah, we weren't focused on food, but now guess what? It's it's part of our conversation. And so I think everybody is trying really hard to figure it out. So I I really appreciate you bringing it up, and we do feel it too on behalf of them and everything.

And we're doing the best we can to be good partners in that.

My one only other question, and then have a brief comment is around the ADA piece. So the last time I was out there when was, like, women's history? I don't know. Something.

I went out there. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember. And peep you couldn't go in on the lower entrance. Yes. And I saw people struggling to, like

For that ramp that's actually ADA approved. I know. It's terrible ramp. Right?

Because we know that hill is just like Yes. You wanna get a workout, leave some incline there. Yeah. Is that lower level back open? Because I had went in that tried to go in there, and they were like, oh, you have

to go up here to

get in. And I was like, okay. So then I go up there, and they're like, well, you have to go back downstairs. And I was like Yeah.

It's an employee entrance that they probably thought you were a client, so they were sending you up there.

Well, I showed them my badge, but yeah. Oh.

It's okay. Okay. I'll take that into account and have a conversation. Sorry. For clients and Yeah.

And people receiving services. Sure. It's kind of problematic

Yeah.

Because trying to hike up and I know there's about to be more construction with the Westside clinic

There is. And all of that stuff. We're gonna be, like, surrounded in construction for a little while. Yeah. It's gonna be hard.

Has there been any consideration as to, like, four people getting in?

So at this point, they are gonna go on the 2nd Floor. However, when we start construction, we are going to make the Main Floor the employee entrance with all services. So that 1st Floor entrance. So we will be reversing all that when we can get into construction.

So then people can enter on the 1st Ward? Okay. Good. Okay.

That's good. That's partly why we're we're making some of these changes. Okay. It's hard.

I thought I'd ask that since you mentioned the facility stuff. Yeah.

Thank

you. The last thing I'll just say is, you know, we just spent last Thursday as a body talking about our goals for the budget. And I know that, historically, we know that human services does not receive a lot of funds from city budget. Right? You come from federal money, from state money, and that

From federal fund. But we get it through the tax. So But but but you don't get it is important. We're grateful

for that. Important. And and the reason that I'm saying that is that as we're hearing everyone in very difficult positions and knowing the position we're in at the federal and the state level and what are those funds gonna look like going forward that they may not be at the same level and knowing the types of services that is provided at human services, it's a multitude of things. It's not just child protection.

Right.

It's not just public benefits. Like, there are so many things that are provided at human services. It's it's huge. I just wanna, like, put it out there for our the administration to make sure that, you know, if there is if we're talking about how we're proper making proper investments in our communities and for people of Denver and those that are most vulnerable, then we really need to make sure that we're not forgetting human services and what what is provided and that there may need to be a difference in how we look at how dollars are allocated in our budget this year or for next year. Because, you know, if those services drop off, then we're just going to have more issues down the road Yeah.

And even more immediate. Mhmm. And so I know you all know that, and I'm not expecting you to, like, say anything else, but I just wanted to, like, lay that out there. Just how incredibly important Thank you. It is to make sure that we are as the good councilman here always says, it's a moral document, our budget. Yeah. Right? And it speaks to our values. Thank you. So I just wanted to make mention of that. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez. Let me look around the virtual room to see if any of our council members that are virtually on or have any questions for our amazing DHS team. Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation. To the council members that aren't here in your mailboxes, there'll be the handouts from Consuelo and team. We appreciate your due diligence and all the work that you're doing to make sure you're serving all the communities across Denver. And with that, we'll transition to briefing from OSCI and OCA. We'll give a few minutes for that transition, but it's great seeing you all.

Thank you so much. We appreciate you for your time. We know it's very, very valuable.

So as we are transitioning, thank you so much doctor Sanders and director Ridgeway for coming forward. We will begin the presentations. Awesome. Bounce it up.

How are you?

I'm fine, sir.

So whenever your teams are ready, the floor is yours. I will turn it over to you for introductions and your presentation for your briefing.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, councilman. Thank you, council, and and all the folks who are logged on for this meeting. I am doctor Ben Sanders. I serve as the city's chief equity officer, and in that capacity as the executive director of the mayor's office of social equity and innovation.

Excited to be joined here today by my colleague Jess Ridgeway, who's the executive director of the office of children affairs. We were asked today to share a little bit about how OSCI and OCA are working together to strengthen our youth and community safety efforts across Denver, and so we're here to do that today. We've also brought some experts who do some of the the more sort of fine tuned closer to the groundwork in each of our agencies to answer some more specific questions, but we're super excited to be here. So to start, I will start with this first slide, which really captures the core idea of our partnership, which we'll talk about here in some detail as we work into the content. On the left, you'll find the mission of OSCI, the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, which is to build a more equitable and inclusive city by dismantling systemic barriers and creating targeted solutions, especially in those places where folks have experienced the greatest inequities.

On the right, we have our the mission from the Office of Children Affairs, which is to ensure that every child and young person in Denver from birth through age 24 has the support and opportunities that they need to thrive. We really think that the intersection of these two missions is was kinda simple, but it's also profound, and it gets at really the core of why we work together. It's our belief that when young people thrive, communities become safer and more vibrant, period. Have young people thriving who are connected to good opportunities. You're gonna have safer, more vibrant communities.

That connection is central to how we think about community safety, where safety is not just about responding to crises after harm occurs, but it's more importantly about creating conditions that make harm less likely in the first place. So this means strong relationships, trusted adults, stable supports, and meaningful opportunities for young people to succeed. Together, our agencies are invested in strategies that address the root causes of violence and disconnection, so we work to ensure that youth, particularly in those communities that have faced historic inequities, have access to the tools and support they need to grow, lead, and contribute to their neighborhoods. As we work towards this year's budget cycle, which I'm sure is square in all of our minds, I would emphasize that this work really is foundational to everything else that the city does. These investments are not, I would argue, ancillary to public safety or to community safety, but they are instead among the most effective ways that we have to build safer neighborhoods over the long term.

We know again that when we invest in our youth, we're investing in prevention, we're investing in equity, and we're ultimately investing in a stronger Denver for all of us. Next slide, please. I'm gonna say a little bit about how we collaborate before I pass it to Jess. The purpose of this slide is really to summarize our shared theory of change that really drives the work that we do together. At its core, our partnership is grounded in the belief that the complex challenges facing young people, which take unique shape in Denver, but but really do mirror a lot a lot of the challenges faced by other cities across the country, that these complex challenges that cannot be solved by one agency alone.

None of us as a singular agency or entity can do this, and that creating safer neighborhoods and helping young people thrive is really a shared is really shared work that requires authentic community partnership and strong alignment across all city agencies, and we'll talk a little bit about that here in a little bit. So on the left hand column here, we're describing what we commit to doing. We partner intentionally with communities to understand lived experiences, priorities, and barriers. We then align our policies, our programs, and our resources across agencies with our aim being to center equity. We always wanna focus on those who have been most marginalized in both how we design and how we implement, and then we wanna create feedback loops so that community voices are continuing to shape our decisions moving forward.

When we work this way, we find that the middle column shows what becomes possible. We co design solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms. We coordinate implementation so that our efforts reinforce one another instead of duplicating work, which is critical right now given resource realities, and we build shared accountability across partners and expand access and opportunities for residents. The results, which we'll talk about in some of some program examples here in a little bit, and shown here in the final column is what ultimately matters most. Communities experience greater stability, belonging, and healing.

Residents affected by inequity see meaningful change, including stronger trust with government, and citywide efforts move in the same directions. And we advance toward a Denver where identity no longer predicts outcomes, which is one of the core goals of OSCI. In short, this slide reveals our conviction that collaboration is not an administrative exercise. We're not simply working together because we have financial challenges, though, obviously, our collaboration is reflective of that. But it's also a mechanism collaboration is through which we translate equity principles into real measurable improvements in the lives of young people, families, and neighborhoods across Denver. I'm gonna pass it to my colleague Jess Ridgeway now. We'll talk a little bit about how we do that in specific ways.

Thanks, doctor Ben. Yeah. Thanks so much for having us today. This has been something we've been looking forward to. And as we start to look at drilling down a little bit in terms of what the program side of our services look like, what you can see here is that by through our collaboration and by working together, we have the ability to create this seamless continuum of services from cradle to career for kids and youth across Denver.

So if you look at the primary focuses of each of these age groups, you can see there are different tiers of supports. The kids, youth, families all use and depend on through the city. And so as we're thinking about our collaboration, what you see in the programs that we provide is a layered approach to what that looks like. And we can start with our oldest age group here where there's likely the most overlap, but we'll talk about other age groups here as well, where OCA gets the opportunity to really think about the broad services and supports that we're thinking about for kids across the city of Denver. We also focus on who the communities, the youth that are from underrepresented communities who oftentimes are looking for additional opportunities potentially because those are not present in their neighborhoods right now.

And so we focus a lot of our time and energy there. OSCI is a great partner to us because then they're able to provide another layer, another tier of service for youth that need another additional layer. So maybe they're looking for intervention. I'm gonna use the example of runaway programming to be able to support youth and families at that level. And so we're able to work together to make sure that we're covering all of our bases here.

We'll talk a little bit about some of the other age groups in a minute, but if we can go to the next slide. What I will say is the commonality with our impact and the way that we think about our impact is also the same. There are daily services that happen. So things that happen on a day to day basis, kids go to after school programming, kids have a mentor that they go see, kids have mental health services that they that they seek out and participate in on a daily basis. And there's upstream work that Doctor.

Ben already alluded to as part of his opening comments that has to happen in order to create the change in the upstream impacts that will then reduce the amount of downstream services that kids and youth and communities are looking for, deserve, need at this point in time. And so we're doing that together in lots of different ways. We have three programs or examples that we wanna be able to zoom in to, like, really illustrate what the collaboration looks like. But even within those three areas of collaboration, again, there is the daily implementation of this, and we'll talk about the mayor's youth commission in just a second, which is a great example because last night, doctor Ben was at the mayor's youth commission, and they had their culminating event where they gave presentations to the mayor. And so there there is that daily work, but then there's the systems change work that's happening on top of that to really make sure that we're pursuing the opportunity to make the commission as reflective of our city as it should be.

So if we can go to the next slide, we'll zoom in on a couple examples. I'll walk you through the first two, and then Doctor. Ben will close this out with the last one. But to go a little bit deeper with the Mayor's Youth Commission here, OSCI, OCA, and a host of other agencies have been involved in an equity mapping process. We all really see the value in the Mayor's Youth Commission.

I think I look around the table and I see a lot of folks in this room that really value and seek to incorporate youth voice into more that we do, and we know that the Mayor's Youth Commission is one of those avenues through which we can do that. We have identified there to be an opportunity to be able to make that commission more representative of our city in terms of district membership, in terms of lived experience. And so the two agencies have partnered together to really go through a process to understand and to create a plan for how we do that. And so I'm actually really pleased. We're in the middle, nearly to the end of selecting next year's commission through the interview process.

We had, I don't wanna misspeak, rep, but I think three times as many applicants this year as we did last year. And that is over a year of work together really thinking about how do we boost the participation in areas where we wanna be able to make sure that we have youth voice represented in really strong ways. So that's one example of what that collaboration looks like. And, again, you can see the long term impact that we're really thinking about is that that voice shapes city programs and policies for years to come that outlive any of our stay at this table but into adulthood for the youth that are participating. The second one I'll go into a little bit of detail to talk about is the youth violence prevention middle school pilot that launched this year.

This has been an area of focus, and we have our youth violence prevention administrator, Preston Adams, who is over here and certainly can answer additional questions. But when Preston came on board, we really started thinking about across the two agencies, how can we make the youth violence prevention programming as impactful as it possibly can be? And that was really drove Preston to go in and spend a lot of time with community thinking talking about, like, where are the things that are working? Where are the gaps? What should we be addressing? And

that

is where the middle school pilot really came from, was feedback direct from parents, from individuals who were in our system involved, saying middle school was this really pivotal point in my life that if there had been more support, that could have sent me in a different direction. And so the two agencies have partnered together really in lockstep on this in terms of designing program, selecting schools, selecting community partners, pairing those two entities together to really have strong partnerships. And then right now, kind of in that progress monitoring phase, but really excited about the design of this program and also, as we were just talking about, the upstream and downstream impacts of the work that we do to be able to really see how resources going in midstream, how that really impacts the work that we continue to do downstream. So with that, I'll pass it over to doctor Ben to share one more example of collaboration.

Yeah. Thank you, Jess. The last example we wanted to share this morning was our community safety grants program, which we've been working on primarily with councilwoman Torres, but also more recently in some subcommittee work with councilwoman Gutierrez. And the vision here is really to show how OSCI and OCA can work together, really take advantage of our long term our long time relationships and networks and divine investments that are really about strengthening our ability to bolster, especially the parts of our ecosystems that need to be strengthened. Right?

I mean, I think we should be really proud of some of the progress we've made in the city, but we also know we have work to do so. This particular opportunity was created through a $3,000,000 city council budget amendment that ran last year. It was really really around sort of repurposing funds from the youth activities program fund, which is more commonly known as the Bronco Fund. And from the outset, we saw that this was not simply about building a grant program, but a real opportunity to build an intentional and responsive connection between community and and Denver City government. And so together, we've been working closely with community based organizations, with city council, as I mentioned, also with you serving partners and other stakeholders to really shape the right funding strategy.

I I know you all have probably been sitting here all morning with our colleagues from DHS as well talking about some of the challenges we're all facing around funding. Councilwoman, I heard you alluding to some of the challenges, almost sort of, you know, for foreshadowing some of the things that we would wanna talk with you about. But one of the clearest messages has been that we need really strong one on one relationships for young people with trusted adults. Preston and and and others who are here can speak to this, but over and over and over again, when we sit with young people in this age, we know we have things to learn about social media and and how to sort of sort of engage and interact well there. But over and over again, we hear an outstanding need for young people to have trusted one to one relationships with with adults.

And so this is really one of the sort of driving visions and approaches that we're taking with the funds that make up the Possibilities Community Safety Grant program. As a result of these grants, we're prioritizing human centered supports that address the social determinants of safety and well-being. That includes workforce development, wraparound services, mentorship, mental health support, and opportunities that can foster safety, belonging, and hope. This is really about our shared belief that, again, that when young people are connected to the right opportunities, we address so many of the other systemic issues that we work to address as city government. So, again, the purpose here was just to sort of provide an overview of how OSCI and OCF worked together over the past year and to talk about about three of the kind of really specific programmatic pieces that we've been collaborating on together where we're making really exciting progress.

And with that, we'll be happy to take any questions.

That is excellent. Thank you so much. And director Ridgeway, you and your staff, just your work that you lean into, I want to thank you for the collaborations with each of our offices for city council. I can speak for myself the amount of time that you and your staff spend in dialogue with our team to ensure we're aware of the great work you're all the folks within OCA are providing to community members. I just want to applaud you and thank you for that work.

And Doctor. Sanders and your team, all the many, many discussions that we have on these important programs. So, that collaboration between both of you is strengthening our communities, but it's also a is a demonstration of, you know, how this city can lean in to some of the gaps created outside of the city from the federal government, even from the state, how you lean in thoughtfully with the resources that we have and have massive impact. So I will start with that. We have a queue that has started first with council member Cashman and then council member Gonzales Gutierrez, and then we'll provide the opportunity to folks who are online to ask questions as well.

Thank you, committee chair. Thanks for a very encouraging, great presentation. Appreciate that. Over the past, I'll say about decade, there there's been an increasing discussion in Denver and around the country that public safety involves more than badging gun, and that we need to address the root causes of crime. We need to create communities that don't need to resort to crime to get their needs met.

There is nowhere that I've been able to find, and I believe nowhere, in city documents that there's a definition of public safety. K? Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez and I, about now three, four years ago, brought our recommendation for a definition of public safety to then director Soldate. And it it just kind of sat and and collected dust. I had a conversation yesterday with director Gardner, and believe he's quite receptive to discussing the concept.

And and doctor Sanders, when the first words out of your mouth today just about were when young people thrive, we have safer, more vibrant communities. Mhmm. I I mean, I don't know what what more you need to say. We all recognize it. We don't fund it.

We don't. We keep talking about it. We don't fund it. And, you know, I'm at the point where either we find additional money to add to our income stream, be that from some sort of tax or not, or we need to re reshift our budget. I I have one more budget that I get to vote on as I'm at the end of my third term, and I'm a hard no if if the budget that's presented to us does not meaningfully recognize exactly what y'all have been talking about today.

And as they say, you know, don't tell me your values. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you your values. And, unfortunately, our budget does not tell a great story of what our values as a city are. And I couldn't thank you more for this presentation today because it just really makes a statement of of where we need to increase emphasis. I love the collaboration. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, council member Cashman, council member Gonzalez Gutierrez, and then council president Proteyn.

Thank you, mister chair. I have a couple questions on some of the slides that were put up. If we can go back to the slide deck, the how we collaborate slide

Yeah.

And the the pieces around partnering intentionally with communities, the codesign. I just I guess, in the most recent, I I I guess, is this a goal of around the partnering intentionally with communities? Because I think there's there's been some lapse in that, and I'm not trying to say, like, you intentionally did that, that the the agency intentionally did that. I do think it's a resource issue partially, right, and being able to have the resources necessary to do some of that work because doing being out in community and doing that engagement isn't it it takes a lot of people power and resources. But just wanting to know if that if that is, like, a goal to, like, actually do that because I thinking of things like, you know, GAIN, for instance

Mhmm.

That I think was a misstep, right, in that trying to intentionally partner with community. Going forward, I guess, is this is that, like, the goal to do more

of that? Yeah. I mean, I'll go first, Jess, and I'll let you speak for the for the work of OCA. But I think I would describe this as both a functional and present commitment in the work that we do at OSCI in terms of the work that we do with community. I could let other folks speak to some of the specific ways in which we do that.

So it is an existing commitment, but it's also, and I think you're right here, a commitment that we're all always looking for ways to strengthen. I think that in all of the ways that we partner, whether we talk about the youth violence prevention pilot or we talk about the ways that we're engaging with community around the community safety grants program that we've we've discussed this morning, There's always more we can do to strengthen community trust, to strengthen transparency from our side to community of what we're doing, and to make sure that what we're building is reflective of what community needs. So, I would say for us, it's both an active commitment and something we're try an area in which we're trying to get stronger.

I I mean, I think that that's a really nice way to say that, Ben, because, again, I would say that I think our current work reflects that engagement with community and being responsive. As an example, our the RFP that we were able to put out this year, because of some of the Broncos Fund dollars that were allocated to us, was actually structured in a way that highlighted three of the areas that community members had called out with greatest need. Some school programs that were shuttering doors and Title I schools and that wouldn't have after school programs. So we really emphasized that area, the beginning and the end of summer where families really struggled with care and engagement items. There's those weeks where it's like, kid teachers are getting out of school, there's no programs.

So really thinking about how we use that time and then extending the day for programs. I think we try to live that value, and the value of continuous improvement is in everything that we do, so would always welcome feedback and places that we can grow in that.

Thank you so much. On the slide that's labeled Cradle to Career, and I think this is probably specific to Office of Children's Affairs, I think. Director Ridgway, you presented on this. I have a couple of questions around, like, under ages six to 13, where it talks about positive youth development. Can you tell me who is doing that? Because that is an evidence based practice. How are we implementing that and

who is doing it? Much of the work that supports our six through 13 year olds is all through partnership with community organizations. And so, as I just alluded to the RFP that was out in community, that is where the vast majority of our budget goes annually is to contracts with community partners that engage in all sorts of different programming. So I'll take Girls Inc. As an example because you have your pink on today, and that

is girls in Girls Inc.

Do you? I just love Girls Inc. But that's a I I didn't know that, but that's a great example of a community partner that's doing really powerful work in community. Youth are choosing where they want to, you know, where they want to engage, and some of the powerful things that come out of those experiences just couldn't be replicated if we didn't have those strong partners in

the community. Thank you for that. Is there, like, a comprehensive list that can be provided of all of the partners Absolutely. Receiving, like, through RFPs that are receiving funds and supports? Yep.

I can tell you that we have 63 contracts this year, and then I'm happy to provide you

That would

be great.

List of organizations.

And would it say what they're providing? Do you have that linking to all of these different kinds of supports? I think of even restorative practices. That's also another kind of based in evidence type of practice, trauma informed. Those are things that are very specific that I'd be curious of what organizations are providing that kind of work.

I'll work with my team and see what we can get for you and

hopefully I appreciate that. On the youth violence prevention middle school pilot and it's okay if you guys don't have the answers to these questions. I'm happy to, like, get receive a follow-up. One, I would love for that to come back and receive an update on these measures of success and, you know, what the data is telling us and what what the outcomes are. I think that would be really exciting. I would be curious also to know, like, how are you deciding how schools are being selected? What is the criteria? What is being determined? And then also on

the

measure of success, I find it interesting that you have improved on time school attendance. I'm curious how that was arrived at knowing that truancy is such a huge issue. And there's a huge lack of resources for kids and families that are going through truancy court, and DPS is usually way behind on their truancy filings, like, usually sometimes almost a year behind. And when in my previous work, when we would see these families come before us and we'd hold these staffings and we'd ask them what are the the barriers you're facing, oftentimes it had to do with health care, including mental health. It had to do with housing instability, transportation needs as to why kids were not getting to school.

And then what we seen was that truancy was a precursor to then entering the juvenile justice system. Right? And so I'm always very interested in kind of, like, seeing that and and not just about arriving on time to school, but are you coming to school at all? Right? And especially in the middle school ages.

I would also be curious about starting with fourth and fifth graders, and the reason being is because in the state of Colorado, you can be charged and prosecuted at the age of 10. That is a fourth grader and fifth grader, those elementary school kids. And so if we're really trying to get at, like, addressing that and also looking at the inequities of our kids of color that are winding up in those systems, I think starting, you know, at that age might be a good you know, after you guys get this off the ground and see how it how it works, if it's possible to expand it to to those younger ages because, you know, that could be, you know, kids getting in a schoolyard fight Yes. On the playground and now a kid's getting charges. Is there a way to to use restorative practices?

Is there a way to use other ways to instead of that kid going through the carceral system? Right? Because that's an opportunity for growth for that young person and for harm to be repaired without that kid having to be charged, possibly arrested, or detained and all of those things that can happen to that child. So, anyway, we can talk about that another time. And then the last thing I just wanted to mention was I know that councilman Cashman has, you know, worked and has mentioned this a lot is the child friendly cities initiative.

And I know that that is a goal under office of children's affairs. And I'm curious, like, how then that connection happens with OSEI and with the office of neighborhood safety as well. And the reason being is because I've been I've since then, I've been doing a lot of research, and I keep pulling up, you know, what are the what is behind the child friendly cities initiative. And it's not just it says the word child, but, technically, everyone under the age of 18 legally is a child. Right? And but it does actually call out specifically when you look at, like, goals and results. It it says realizing the rights of every child, including adolescents.

Mhmm.

Especially the most excluded is one of the goals, right, that they list here. And I find it interesting because, like, part of the results that they have here that I think is really telling and when we talk about budget, I think is really important is local development policy strategies, plans, and budgets that are child responsive. And I think it's unfortunate this is not on any of you. I I just wanna be very clear. I think you all are working with the very small budgets and the gutting that has happened to your agencies to the best that you can.

So I want you all to know, like, I I see you, and I know you're working really hard to do the best that you can with the little that you have. But what I guess what I'm saying is, like, to the more broader, like, if we are aiming to be a child friendly city, then we have to put our money where our mouth is. Right? And it top specifically calls out policies, strategies, plans, and budgets because we know we can't do these things for free. And so I just wanna put out there again just as councilman Cashman did.

It's just really advocating to make sure that you all are receiving the resources necessary to do this very important work because it is at the root of so many issues. So thank you so much for the work that you do, and I want to continue to be a partner in that work. I'm happy to always share my background knowledge in anything if it's at all helpful ever. I'm always more than happy to partner and share. So thank you so much.

Thank you

very much.

Mister chair.

Thank you, council member. Council president Peratton Romero Campbell, then council member Parady, and council president Sandoval.

Thank you, mister chair. And and, again, thank you both for the presentation. I think it's always exciting to hear about the work that's happening with young people and how there are, you know, some coordinated efforts to be able to move youth voice forward. Are you working, or have you seen gaps across the city? I think it's very sometimes nuanced of, you know, what are the supports that are needed by from our young people, and do you have specific efforts that are that are looking at that across the city?

You wanna go first or first?

That okay? I can I can I can jump in? Thanks so much for the for the question. I mean, I think that is always something that is that we're thinking about is where are there gaps, and are there ways that we can that we can address those in ways that support community and and respond to the need that's being shared. I think that the YVP pilot is a really good proof point of having those conversations with community and then developing a program in a pilot state to be able to to measure success and see if that addresses those gaps.

But, again, I think that's part of our practice and similar to the dollars that went out this year and thinking about where are those gaps that we can help support to make the lives of of kids and families easier across the city. And so I'll pass it over to doctor Ben for additional. No.

I think that's really great. I would just echo, councilwoman, much of what what Jess just said in in that, you know, the the the thing about gaps is that they're gaps. Right? I mean, by definition, you don't see them in the sort of normal operation of things, which is why and I really appreciated councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez's question on this point. Collaboration with community doesn't just mean holding meetings where we record what they say.

Right? I mean, a lot of that is we have folks who are who are are are really well trained and well prepared to do the type of listening and to ask the type of questions that ask not just what do you think about what we're doing, but what are we missing in what we're doing, which is some of how we got to some of the insights we have around a point I was touching on earlier this morning around the importance of mentors, one to one adult mentors for young people. I mean, this is something that we've heard over and over again in listening to the folks with whom we work. Right? Not just sort of things that we've studied or seen, though we do see it also in literature. It's corroborated by what we hear from the folks we work with on a day to day, week to week, month to month basis. But I I really appreciate the question.

Yeah. No. And I think that there's a really key piece of what I heard in the presentation and also with what you just said is the city can't do this alone, and we really need to be working with our community partners to be able to have that network and web of support. Definitely, it also what I'm hearing is with an asset based lens as well. So thinking about, like, not only where those supports are needed for young people, but how we are also lifting up and thinking about our young people as assets within our communities, right, with a voice for their participation and their engagement.

I don't I don't think there's an answer to this, my next question right now, and maybe we could talk about it more offline. But I do have a wondering of how much collaboration you have with other agencies to be able to elevate youth voice in the different decisions that are being made in, you know, whether it be I think, you know, CPD through the people's budget does it in a really great way of lifting up and engaging youth voice in that process. But I'm wondering with, like, Denver Parks and Rec, with DOTI, with Arts and Venues, with you know, name a name a city agency, how much collaboration you've had with those agencies to be able to really find ways for young people to have a voice in those processes. Yeah.

I would love to have that conversation at greater length because I think it's so important. And I think just to share a couple of the great things that are in process right now, there are youth members that are being added to all of the commissions across the city to be able to incorporate youth voice in those spaces. We have interns that agencies across the board are taking on. Volks are engaging in, like, coaching and mentoring programs to be able to establish those relationships with young people. The people's budget, again, as I was alluding to, we have three times as many applicants for the mayor's youth commission this year.

Last year, we were able to connect all of those youth that did not become youth commissioners with other opportunities to be able to advise, civically engage. So we just anticipate that to continue to grow and are are really excited about it and would welcome all of your ideas, and certainly partnership and being able to provide some of those civic opportunities.

Thank you. Look forward to the partnership.

Thank you for your questions. Absolutely a longer conversation, but I don't wanna miss the opportunity to highlight that there are really two divisions in OSCI. One is the office of neighborhood safety. The other is our equity strategies initiatives division. That is sort of the original arm, of OSCI, and that that division works with every agency in the city in developing racial equity action plans that shape the programs, policies, and hopefully budget decisions of those agencies.

And one of the things we've been super excited about, and we've got deputy director Brian Peruse who leads this team here today, is, we've been really intentional over the past year in making sure that our REEPs, our racial equity action plans, are developed in ways that do much of what you're you're you're touching on, which is to say, how do we help agencies advance the work that they're doing to advance citywide goals? Right? We have a really nice Perchin mission that charges us with working with every agency that reports up to the mayor. And so, we try to maintain our commitments to equity, but also make sure that when we have child friendly goals, we're helping agencies, especially in ways that our program where our programming aligns, advance that work in ways that make really good sense, make really good budget sense sense is are are equitable and also help us be aligned in our efforts. Because if we have, you know, duplicative efforts across the city, as you know, we're not making good use of resources.

So much longer does much longer conversation to get into some of the weeds of that, but but we're at it and working to get stronger at it.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you.

If I may, I would like to add a little bit on that, sir. If that's okay. So through the office of neighborhood safety, we also have a safe city youth leadership team that is used by other agencies. DDPHE has used in the past. They've done some work with OCA. And so some of those are system involved youth who have been placed on a different path through our hype programming, which is helping youth pursue excellence. And so every year for the past thirty years, they have planned specifically a whole youth summit that just took place last month, and that is really elevating their voice. They also participate in different civic events where they are able to elevate their voice. We partner with folks across the street at the state too to have some very good experiences for them. So there's a couple different avenues that we're utilizing.

We also partner with Parks and Rec on movies in the park to have our youth that we support through the urban farm and who get a different certification in food use and different skills. We have a food truck that we take out to those Movies in the Park, and they're able to show their skills firsthand and talk a little bit about their transformation and share their perspective through their voice. So there are some things that we have in place, but certainly more room to build upon those.

Great. Thank you.

Great question, and you see all the excitement around it. So thank you so much for elevating that good collaboration. Councilmember Parity and then council president Sandoval.

Hi there. I first of all, can everyone hear me? I've been having volume issues. Yes. Hear you. Great. Good. Thank you. I wanted to ask to go back to the youth violence funding, because you've described to us qualitatively some of what's being done with this middle school program. But my memory of last budget cycle is that council ran an amendment that restored restored a lot of OCA funding, but we did not restore the youth violence funding mostly for community grants, which had been cut from about $1,000,000 to about half $1,000,000.

And we partly didn't do that because we instead funded this new community safety program that is sort of in the works. But so I'm what I wanna know is which organizations have received the remaining grant funds exactly, how many applicants have we gotten for those grant funds, and if we could get a sense like, if we could see we we may have had this information in last year's budget cycle about, who received that money the prior year, if we probably did have that. But then I would just wanna see who has received any form of youth safety funding as a community organization than in this past year. And then also, you know, how many if there was any kind of application process for that, like how many applicants we got that were looking for funding and and who was no longer funded. So that may not be an on the spot kind of question, but that would be really helpful to me because I I know we're all so concerned with with what's been happening.

There was a a forum that I know councilmember Watson was at and expressed concern about youth violence funding pretty recently in the neighborhood or near the neighborhood where he and I both live. And it's just become, as we all know, a pressing issue this summer as it sometimes does. It always is. But

Thank you very much. We'll be happy to get for you. That's great.

Okay. Does anyone know that off the top or otherwise, it's fine to follow-up? I just was curious if you have a sense of it right now.

I don't know that we have I mean, for the specific youth violence prevention, I don't know that it doesn't look like we have that that information off the top of our heads in the room, councilwoman, so but we'll be happy to get it to you. That is the folks who are funded, just so that I'm understanding the question, who got funding through the community grant or or through the youth violence prevention funding program and then a list of all other funds as well?

Funding for youth violence prevention that went out to community this year, who got it, what the amounts were

Understood.

And who applied and wasn't funded. And then I think we had that last year for the comparison, but if it's at your fingertips so we don't have to go back and look, it would be good to see how that looks the previous year too.

Understood. That that we actually do have in the room, and we'll be happy to I'll I'll invite Preston Adams who is running our youth violence prevention program give a breakdown yeah. Of You can you can work from there of sort of of who we funded through the youth violence prevention pilot this year.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that so much.

Can you all hear me? Okay. Cool. Thank you, councilwoman. So this year, oh, sorry about that.

Preston Adams, Youth Violence Prevention Program Administrator. So this year, youth violence prevention funding went to four organizations, SOAR, which is Seeing Our Adolescents Rise, the other one was Royal Mentoring Group, Colorado Lifted, and then Servicios de la Raza. And each of those organizations received $90,000 and I believe we had 18 or 19 applicants for youth violence prevention funds. So we awarded four, but I don't have previous years. So we would have to get that to you at a later date.

Thank you so much.

No problem.

And I just want to follow-up on that because, actually, I was a little I'm glad I asked because I was a little surprised by that list. I think in prior years, what I remember is organizations that at least are a little more familiar to me. So I know that, like, Make a Chess Move, Struggle of Love, a lot of those just long standing youth violence prevention organizations used to get that funding. The only one of this list that I that I personally recognize, and this is not an area of my expertise whatsoever, unlike some of my colleagues, is Servicio's. So maybe a follow-up meeting about that would be helpful. Thank you. Sure.

No problem.

Any additional questions, council member of Parity? Parity?

No. Sorry, mister chair. That's it for me.

Thank you so much. Alright.

I'm looking around the room, see if there's anyone else in the queue. We have just two minutes. So I I will close it by just simply once again saying thank you for the collaboration. The work you do that is is extremely important. I know I see y'all everywhere in community listening to community members and elevating youth voices and voices of community members that you serve. So thank you all once again. And with that, we have three items on consent, and none of those have been pulled off. So the meeting is adjourned. Thanks, everyone. Very much.