Announcing 2023 Achievement Award Winners

Palm Beach County Youth Services Department, in partnership with United Way of Palm Beach County’s Mentor Center and Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, launched the Enhanced Mentoring Engagement program in 2021. It is known to the community as the Level Up program. Level Up offers mentoring opportunities for teens ages 11 to 19 years old who are directly involved with or at risk of entering the juvenile justice or dependency systems. The goal of the program is to match the teens with a long-term, positive role model, make referrals to community-based services, and provide opportunities to continue education or career exploration. Three hubs have been planted across Palm Beach County to serve teens in the northern, central, and southern areas of the county. These hubs have supported 273 youth directly involved with or at-risk of entering the juvenile justice and/or dependency systems and provided supports to reduce recidivism, gain better access to community resources, further their education or career, and enhance social and emotional well-being. Research shows that students who participate in mentor relationships miss fewer school days, are less likely to participate in negative behaviors and more likely to graduate on time.

The Landlord Engagement Unit (LEU) connects individuals/families exiting homelessness and seeking affordable housing units with landlords seeking tenants. Our mission is: • Increase affordable housing accessibility through relationships with housing/homeless service providers • Create/manage a comprehensive database of affordable, available homes • Coordinate tenant relocation efforts when properties displace low-income residents through community partnerships • Generate program/system-level performance insights through data analysis and best practice research. The LEU’s team of eight staff with 80+ years of combined property and case management expertise partnered with Wake County’s Information Services department to develop the Lease2Home app. This custom-built app was developed in-house using Microsoft’s low-code Power Platform for rapid application development. Lease2Home enables real-time client-to-unit matching based on client housing needs, wants, barriers, unit features, and landlord requirements. Lease2Home is reinforced with robust, analytical Power BI reporting and has saved upwards of $200,000 since we did not have to purchase an outside solution. Lease2Home generates critical insights into program performance and areas for improvement. The following are targets for its first three years of operation: • Add 300 affordable units to the database • Add 50 new landlords to the program • Generate 50 signed leases from Housing leads

Dakota County, in conjunction with the Minnesota Bison Conservation Herd, has reintroduced the plains bison to the prairie in Spring Lake Park Reserve in an effort to restore one of the prime drivers of this ecosystem: grazing. The bison’s physical and behavioral traits had profound impacts on the prairie. A keystone animal, bison impact their world by focusing their grazing on grasses, giving flowers the ability to compete, and diversifying the plant species and the physical structure of the prairie. During the planning phase of the project, the Natural Resource staff compiled pre-treatment data on plants, bumblebees, breeding birds, small mammals and moths and butterflies. Surveys will continue for years in the effort to ascertain the impact that the bison have on the prairie that they are living in.

The Risk Evaluation and Consulting Division (REC) of the Travis County Auditor’s Office is tasked with auditing the internal controls and financial records of each department in the County. The audits performed include statutory, risk-based internal controls, and information systems audits. The County’s operating environment and services are becoming increasingly sophisticated as more regulations are introduced without the necessary funding sources to facilitate compliance efforts. As innovative auditing techniques are being developed, internal audit groups can improve their effectiveness by increasing their audit coverage. This can be achieved by implementing continuous auditing and monitoring techniques to detect exceptions in real-time and allow auditors to review entire populations, rather than sampling. REC is required to audit property tax refunds issued by the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office throughout the year. On average, the volume of these property tax refunds has been increasing by 25% annually since 2018. The review process for these refunds requires significant resources, and the increasing volume of refunds has stretched REC’s resources. To meet this challenge, advanced analytics and automation processes were implemented to reduce the number of auditing hours required for this audit by as much as 91%.

Family Resource Centers (FRCs) of Scott County are one-stop shops helping families connect with needed services and supports to reduce family stress. The FRCs are leveraging partnerships with public, private, non-profit, and faith organizations to come together to help children and their families thrive. Programming is built upon the Strengthening Families 5 Protective Factors framework and is designed to be responsive to the unique needs of individuals and communities. There are three FRC sites across Scott County: One FRC is co-located within the Savage, MN library, another FRC is co-located in the Jordan Area Food Shelf, and the third FRC is an independent site in Shakopee, MN. Services provided range from parenting education, peer recovery, support groups including restorative circles for our East African and Latinx communities and a father's group, mental health supports, etc. This work represents the best in partnerships between government, non-profit providers and faith communities. Currently, there are over two dozen partners coming together to provide FRC services. At the core, FRCs are developed with, by and for community members. The FRCs of Scott County are governed by a Parent Advisory Council (PAC), which is comprised of Scott County parents that have a variety of lived expertise. The PAC provides the foundation to ensure that overtime FRCs continue to meet the unique and changing needs of families and communities, while also providing leadership opportunities for individuals with lived expertise.

The Salt Lake County Library has two branches located in Salt Lake County Jail facilities, with a staff of 6.25 FTE serving the roughly 2,000 daily residents of the Jail. The library houses a collection of 45,000 items, offers customized book checkouts to each individual, provides reference, and offers monthly self-directed programming. The library participates in the Jail’s Life Skills program, offering six hours of classes to help incarcerated individuals become familiar with resources that can help them be more successful post-incarceration. In the class, library staff ensure participants have a library card that is cleared of fines or fees and understand resources that are available at branches. They are encouraged to share information about the library with family members to further increase their familiarity with the library’s resources, but also to increase the individual’s likelihood of success after Jail. The library shares case studies of others who have had success after being released, and teach neurographic art as a coping and reflecting skill. Library staff also connect with new Jail officers to teach them about the library, why the library is a key partner at the Jail, and why the library benefits them in addition to those incarcerated.

The Saratoga County Department of Employment and Training launched the EMT Career Pathway for Youth Pilot Program in June 2022. Born out of the need for current and future first responders, the program is designed to be the first step in a lifelong dedication to public service and greater medical careers for participants. The County created a community-based collaboration to provide students the structure and supports needed for success, partnering with the Town of Clifton Park, Clifton Park-Halfmoon EMS, Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC), and Shenendehowa High School (Shen). Students from Shen in Clifton Park enrolled at Hudson Valley Community College and began their training at the HVCC TEC-SMART campus in Malta. The program encompassed 140 hours of instruction and practical lab time in addition to 10 patient ride-alongs with Clifton Park-Halfmoon EMS. At completion, they earned seven college credits. The successful program saw a 100% graduation rate and was recognized by the New York State School Board Association as a Champions of Change. Today there are six new EMTs in Saratoga County. Saratoga County is expanding this program to 18 students in 2023.

In rural, forested Nevada County, 92% of the nearly 100,000 residents live in high to very high fire hazard severity zones. Fire prevention experts, local government leaders, and the public at large agree that one of the most significant threats to human life is the need to safely evacuate during a wildfire. The major barrier to safe evacuations stems from the abundance of flammable vegetation on private lands and along private roadways. Private properties have historically been a missing piece to this wildfire preparation and evacuation puzzle. The “Firewise Communities Microgrant Program” was designed to address reducing the fuel load to improve evacuation safety. Funded with a $100,000 grant from a local community foundation, the County established the Firewise Communities Microgrant Program, which made 26 grants of $3,600 each to recognized Firewise Communities. Eligible projects to reduce wildfire risk included increasing defensible space around homes, removing hazardous vegetation from private lands, and clearing evacuation routes on private roadways. This program is the first of its kind for Firewise Communities. Nevada County has the most recognized Firewise Communities for any county in the nation. This program was able to leverage these communities’ volunteerism for maximum impact. This ultimately created a more wildfire resilient landscape that will save lives and property.