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2021-01-20 Youth Commission MinutesPage 1.1.1 Youth Commission Meeting Minutes, 1/20/2021 Commission Members Present: Chair Owen Lee Treasurer Sydney Pearson Secretary Brook Roberts Grace Kamila Co -Chair Jacob Sawyer Finn Paynich Brooke Rinehimer Audrey Lim Aaron Nateephaisan Commission Members Absent: Zane Marulitua Hunter DeLeon Staff Present: Casey Colley Councilmembers Present: Laura Johnson CALL TO ORDER Chair Owen Lee called the meeting to order at 6:00 pm over Zoom. Grace read the land acknowledgment statement. DISCUSSION WITH MINDY WOODS Mindy is the Human Services Program Manager for the City of Edmonds. This program offers resources for individuals in crisis or who are having trouble paying for rent, mortgages, or food. As a former homeless individual with her son, she testified before Council for the need for this position, and ultimately ended up getting the position. She started this position when the COVID pandemic began and was able to immediately utilize the federal CARES act money to distribute it to Edmonds residents. This program has helped several hundreds of residents over the eight months that it has been running for. She's dealt with many scenarios where people are going through mental health crises, becoming unhoused, or have nowhere to go to sleep, and has been able to successfully help these folks. To clarify, she is not a social worker, but she manages the overall program, and can relate to many of the folks that are experiencing such dangerous scenarios. It is also important to note that Council is in the works of approving a Social Worker position which would allow the City to help more individuals and allow Mindy to resume her normal managerial roles. She's looking at the factors of what the best options would be for implementing a Social Worker within the Human Services Department, as well as organizations to partner with to bring medical, food, and COVID preventative resources to vulnerable Edmonds residents. Page 1.1.2 Questions: Do you have any advice on reaching out to individuals who might not be able to be normally reached through phone, email, or social media? o Think about the immigrant population and reaching out to them. Most tend to live along the Highway 99 corridor, so mailing out or going to apartments and businesses in most represented languages can be helpful. Secondly, using the school district and reaching out to Student & Family Advocates who are in touch with families in need. Reaching out to the Community Health Center where the underinsured and uninsured populations go to for medical and dental care to spread information about services. The Police Department and South County Fire District also get phone calls for help that aren't emergencies but issues that can be referred to Human Services. Waterfront Center, and the Edmonds Food Bank, providing information in any packages from either organizations. Organizations who also do weekly check -in calls like Sno-Isle Libraries, Lynnwood Police Department, Verdant Health Commission/Hospital District No. 2. Is there a database maintained to keep track of residents? o For the most part, there are already existing lists of residents and organizations that service Edmonds residents. Mindy acts as a contact point for Edmonds. She hopes to transfer all of this to the Social Worker and work on the other side of things in her manager role. How are organizations found by her and how does she keep track of them? o Her past community engagement and serving on boards and commissions within cities. She's met different people and kept track of who does what in terms of resources. Her goal is to make these organizations easier to find once she takes on her manager role. Additionally, she wants to focus on creating systems to fill in the gaps where there aren't enough services for residents. How often is the resource guide updated on the Human Services page? o There is a community resource guide on the Human Services page on the City of Website. It is kept up to date, but it is hard to know when programs run out of money. Her goal is to keep it updated by every Monday or Friday. When she hears of food distribution sites (farm to family foodboxes), she will have it posted on the city's Facebook and website pages, in addition to many local Facebook groups and her personal page. She would love to collaborate with us to post this information and get this to students. What other suggestions does she have for approaching underserved POC residents? o In households where money is an issue, the internet was probably cut from the household budgets. Always thinking of who would be the most vulnerable (those with disabilities, low-income, senior citizens, etc.) and most affected by closures of services. Many folks ask about hard copies and she has printed a lot of things and mailed it off to those in certain groups. Has she ever thought of reaching out to student or adult volunteers to distribute hard copies of information? Page 1.1.3 o It has been in discussions recently, and she thinks finding "on -the -ground" volunteers is crucial to distributing information. There is a ton of collaboration that is possible between the Youth Commission and the Human Services program in terms of participating in something similar. III. YOUTH COMMISSION UPDATES Would be great to have the Social Media Committee draft the Instagram code of conduct by the next meeting and have it reviewed then. Can be done at a Social Media Committee meeting. In order to avoid conflicts with the Diversity Commission meetings, Laura has suggested that we move our meetings to the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month at the same time (6-7:30 pm). This could also offer more collaboration between the commissions. Everyone is fine with this change. It will be rewritten into the ordinance and this change will take place in March. Mayor Mike Nelson has approved the pronouns request document as a strong request for city staff, however, he cannot request that board or commission members adapt the pronouns. He would like the Youth Commission to present to the Council the request as they are the group that hold the power to request board and commission members to include their pronouns. Presentation could just be simplified from the request that we submitted to Mayor Nelson. We will be doing this presentation at the February 23rd Council meeting at 7 pm. Brooke, Jacob, Owen, and Sydney will be doing the presentation. IV. ESTABLISHING COMMITTEES WITHIN THE YOUTH COMMISSION Based on previously set Youth Commission priorities, it has been suggested by Brook Roberts that we develop committees to help the Youth Commission complete projects at a faster rate. Committees will include: Youth & Government (focusing on involving youth in local government), Mental Health (identifying resources and reaching out to groups to help spread those resources and initiatives that have potential to help youth mental health), Environmental (promoting sustainable environmental practices among youth), and Diversity & Equity (ensuring that all youth are represented in every initiative in an equitable way). All are in addition to the Social Media Committee. Each committee will have 3-4 commissioners with everyone serving on 1-2 committees. ➢ Youth & Government Committee: Brook, Aaron, Audrey, Jacob, and Hunter Mental Health Committee: Grace, Sydney, Brooke Environmental: Owen, Brooke, Jacob, and Finn Diversity & Equity: Sydney, Grace, Finn, and Aaron Committees can independently create a GroupMe chat and will be able to meet during Youth Commission work blocks. In general, committee meetings will be held outside of general Youth Commission meetings regarding what projects to take on. Each committee will have a chair (who also takes notes and guides the direction of the committee) who is a non -officer for the Commission. Page 1.1.4 Each committee should come up with an action idea to present at the next meeting with the chairs of each committee presenting it to the Youth Commission. Chair Owen Lee moved add the WAKIT statement discussion before final comments Secretary Brook Roberts seconded the motion Motion passed unanimously V. DEBRIEFING THE WAKIT STATEMENT OF SUPPORT We should find out what we want to do with the statement of support, whether we should post it on Instagram or via press release. For the press release: it is sent to Casey, sent to an editor, checked by Shannon, sent back for final edits, then sent as a press release. Instagram: only 90 followers currently, but would be away to do something with our Instagram account. VI. ADJOURNMENT Chair Owen Lee adjourned the meeting at 7:30 pm.