CLOSING CONVERSATION

Please report to the group how the feedback informed your group:

Safeway: we added more specific dates; added more steps; assigned responsibility for the steps, and we did some immediate and near-long return. [We'll have to see if people will accept the responsibility to make this happen]. We did get some buy-in.

Agreements: We put next steps together from now to the end of October. It includes completing the MOU and presenting it to deputies and partners. We recommend starting with a smaller group of partners [the ones currently participating] and gradually adding more as we have time to educate them. Have an interim staff person from Annie Casey foundation until we can get a full-time person on board.

Mapping: We answered the questions that were raised. We added another neighborhood to our map of Boulevard Park. We were encouraged to publish these maps. We discussed what groups could build the map — Boulevard Park Community Council, North Highline Community Council, Highline S.D. King County department of Community Services could edit and publish the map. DSHS could also help.

Process Flow: We developed a set of standards criteria so that any agency could provide the optimal level of service.

Community Leadership and Feedback. We received good suggestions to revise the wording on the report card. Others suggested that our timeline was too ambitious, but we decided to stay with our original plan. What is the whole governance system? Then we will know how to proceed with community engagement. We strongly advocate that residential community membership be part of the governing body. We want to begin leadership training very promptly. We would like to start our outreach program — it is beyond the White Center neighborhood. People will come to the Safeway site from beyond White Center. A detailed timeline was developed to prepare community representation, through February 2004.

What message do you want to tell to the partners and deputies?

—Get to work!

—Remember we are all in this together.

—Use what we gave them.

—There are a lot of really interested people working on this. We need the next level of commitment from them- financial and staff resources if we are going to move forward.

—We'll get moving with you.

—There is a lot of alignment and more clarity as a result.

—Too bad more of them weren't here. We missed you!

—Because it came out of the community — this is what the community wants. It represents a lot of the community groups and agencies. The support and motivation are here. It has gone beyond the community to agencies and institutions. There is more alignment.

—We need a formal buy-in from the Partners. Now that we have more clarity about where we want to move, we need an absolute commitment and how they will relate to moving it forward.

Are you happy with the work you have done? You have a model for Safeway, a model for the process, a model for community participation in governance, a map of services from the community, a training plan, and a memorandum of agreement.

We've made a lot of progress but we still have a lot of work ahead. The reality of the resources that we can bring to bear hasn't set it in yet. How do we deliver it? I feel the need to say that so no one thinks it is easy going.

The hard work is yet to come. These ideas are in good shape to take to the next step. This is a great jumping off place. Just to stay consistent with where the buy-in comes from — be a co-supporter. It is feeling a little lonely right now.

We want it to be exquisitely successful. It cannot be only AECF funding. How do we make that next commitment? Other departments need to come to and make concrete next steps.

We [DSHS] have made huge commitments of staff time. That is not insignificant. We will continue to do that, and see what these recommendations mean in terms of redirecting existing resources.

Regarding how today was organized, people chose the groups they felt comfortable in. The hard questions were still not addressed. We still avoided conflict and conflicting models. We said “we have to figure out a governance structure,” or “we have to figure out where the money is coming from.” There was not enough representation.

Are there other hard issues that we didn't face?

Funding — where will the money come from. Further work on how to make this really efficient.

Some key partners were not here sufficiently to provide their perspective. We have to work at those who weren't involved. How can we bring them up to speed and see if this will work for them?

One of my concerns is that we talked a lot about how we are passionate about communities leading the process as equal partners. I felt like this didn't necessarily come across in the other groups. Who will take this information and what will they do with it. Will this really filter into the governance system?

There is a meeting tomorrow morning with the sponsor team. Everyone is invited. At least a small group will work on how to move this forward. The sponsor team is still my point of contact about what happens.

The main concern is the community engagement. A suggestion from Jim Fong: “Name who you want to be the bearer of that torch in this process.”

I think we need to hear from the sponsor team.

Theresa Fujiwara: The sponsor team consisted of Anthony Anderson, Bob Watrus, Gail Hayes, Wendy Watanabe, Theresa Fujiwara, and Jim Fong.

The Deputies group has been part of the process to identify the outcomes that we wanted to achieve. Ken Miller was part of the decision-making process leading up to this session.

We will report to the Deputies, who will send it up to the Partners. We need to work to prepare this material for the next Deputies meeting, perhaps getting together with a subgroup of the Deputies before the 18^th.

Final Comments

We worked on exercises, but we put our own spin on all of this. I am not comfortable that these thoughts are “in stone” as the next thing. It almost feels like we should put this to the test of more discussion.

Michael — these are not “just activities.” They are iterations. This is the current best iteration.

Recommendation: for now, you are the right group. Add these concerns and steps to your task list. Name someone who will be in charge.

Some of the processes will take longer than the March/April opening of Safeway. How can we accelerate certain things? Is the structure of the Partners such that we have to wait to the next quarterly meeting? The Partners may need a little bit of a model to accelerate their work. AECF wants to know that the Partners commit, as a guide to their continued investment.

SILI: “MONEY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.” Community people can't come to these meetings because we don't really care about institutions. I am here because I have children and I have to be accountable. You [the consultants] are not really leaving — you have helped us get to the next steps. I care about everything that has happened in the last two days and it is critical to the success that will follow. We know what we have to do. Don't forget that there are families out there who are under the gun because of our systems.

Spanish Translator: I don't know how the United States works — but in Mexico if you know someone, you get things done. You don't get things done if you don't know people. We need to really use the natural helpers. If you support the natural helpers more, guide them to the correct place, there would be fewer problems about how to identify the language, the needs, etc. They would already have a concierge in the form of a natural helper.

It will be really hard to accommodate all of the languages. Could you use the Red Cross language bank? The small cultures, the small languages, will be hard to accommodate.

Jim Fong — you've done more quality work than I've seen some service integration groups do in five years. You have intention —“ it's amazing what you can do with focused intent.”

Michael: Thank you to the sponsor team for trusting us to do this work. You have done a remarkable feat to get this far without a single responsible agency.

END