Discover our partners and the meaningful impact they make every day.
COO partners are among those leading the region towards a more just and person-centered economic system that supports inclusive and thriving communities. Learn more about the work, and opportunities to learn and connect on new models for equity and economic thriving.
In February 2020, the Best Starts for Kids Out-of-School Time Initiative (BSK OST) was heading into its final year of implementation. Then COVID hit, and communities across King County (and the world) were left scrambling to support each other through unimaginable challenges.
How can community-centered data and storytelling support the success of our children and families? Hear directly from The Capacity Collective and 4 Best Starts partners who discuss their data capacity-building journeys and partnerships in our Q&A conversations.
Young people, especially youth of color, bring energy, passion, and wisdom to our civic process. Today, we share a poem by Rahel Ambachew whose words ground us in the power of centering youth in our collective journey towards a more equitable and just democracy.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing and celebrating beautiful and bold artwork and stories from young Black leaders across King County with the Best Starts community. Today, we are grateful to share a poem by Nikai Mackie, who originally shared her piece with our community partner, Young-Women Empowered (Y-WE), in June 2020. We hope you intentionally sit and reckon with Nikai’s words.
To create more safe, welcoming spaces for LGBTQIA+ youth across King County, Lambert House partnered with Best Starts to establish 9 peer support groups where participants can find community and form lasting relationships. During the pandemic, Lambert House has expanded their services and currently offer 19 weekly online opportunities for LGBTQIA+ youth to connect.
Today, we've featured Unleash the Brilliance, a partner in the Trauma Informed Restorative Practices (TIRP) Village, to hear how they've supported TIRP Village scholar's parents and families during the pandemic through community-based outreach support and resources. This is the second blog in an ongoing series that shines light on the importance of mental and emotional health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope to amplify our partner's critical work and connect our community to additional emotional and mental health tools and resources through Community Well-Being, an initiative led by Best Starts.
We.APP believes that every child has a story, but not all children are empowered or can openly share their experiences with others. With Best Starts support, We.APP trains teaching guides to work alongside classroom educators in a co-teaching model, offering the only public speaking class for students across four Seattle Public Schools. For an entire school year, more than 260 scholars in grades 4th – 12th discover their unique voice and create original speeches that express their views on education, home and life.
As we enter the holiday season and move into a new year, we become more acutely aware of the impact that COVID has had on all our lives, however big or small.
This is the first blog in a three-part series that shines light on the importance of mental health during this challenging period.
Today, we chat with Meg Cary, a Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist at King County, who reconnects us to what’s important during this moment. She provides evidence-based tips to support your mental well being and resources for individuals from all walks of life.
COO is deepening our Learning Community commitments in 2021 to provide spaces for healing work and deep connection building, and the creation of more capacity building platforms and tools for strategic communications, facilitation, mediation, and supports for community collaborations. Our intent is to support leadership development, organizational and partnership infrastructure, and sustained civic capacity to actualize equity – policy after policy, issue after issue, year after year.
We offer equity-centered workshops for King County early childhood providers.
This dashboard shows the impact of Best Starts funding across its eight investment areas: Child Care, Investing Early, Sustain the Gain, Youth and Family Homelessness Prevention Initiative, Communities of Opportunity, Capital Projects, Technical Assistance and Capacity Building, and Data and Evaluation.