Every day of the year, Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) staff provide critical support to justice-involved youth. Last year, DCYF unofficially named July as JR Appreciation Month to celebrate and honor the important work of these public servants. This year, Gov. Jay Inslee officially proclaimed July as Juvenile Rehabilitation Staff & Community Partner Appreciation Month.

In any given year, there are more than 700 young people in Washington’s JR system of care who rely on a dedicated network of facility staff, counselors, educators, community partners, career advisors, psychologists, mentors, and volunteers to open their hearts and provide individualized care, support, and guidance to them in a time of personal crisis. From providing tailored treatment plans for each young person to creating meaningful employment pathways, mentorship to therapeutic programming, JR staff require immense compassion, patience, and resilience in caring for Washington’s most vulnerable youth. Their work contributes to a healthier Washington and helps ensure youth in greatest need are supported for successful reentry to their community, equipped with the resources, connections, and tools needed to transition to adulthood.

Thank you, JR team, for your unwavering commitment and dedication to Washington’s young people. Please enjoy this special video as a show of our appreciation for all that you do! 

Earlier this year, Echo Glen Children’s Center launched a creative writing program for the young people living there, and the work of several youth has recently been recognized and published!

Through a partnership with the Pongo Poetry Project, Echo Glen students have the opportunity to participate in four weeks of poetry writing and creative expression, earning credit in English Language Arts. South Seattle Emerald recently featured three youth-written pieces, which you can read on their website. This special monthly column will continue to feature the creative writing of Echo Glen youth. Readers are invited “to bear witness to the pain, resilience, and creative capacity of youth whose voices and perspectives are too often relegated to the periphery.”

Providing the young people in DCYF’s care with an opportunity to write about their lived experiences is therapeutic. It strengthens writing skills while helping youth claim their stories, fostering personal growth.

“Our students have tremendous gifts and stories to be told,” said Felice Upton, Assistant Secretary of Juvenile Rehabilitation. “The ability to provide opportunities to access arts education and heal and grow through the arts is essential to our work.”

Visit the South Seattle Emerald website to read the written works of these youth.

DCYF’s Recruitment and Retention Team is stepping into the world of social media! After months of hard work, we are excited to announce a DCYF-approved Facebook page for recruiting foster parents across Washington State. You can find the page on Facebook by searching Future Foster Parents of Washington.

The foster parent recruitment team will use this page to grow our reach and messaging to attract quality, diverse, amazing caregivers statewide. The team will be posting regularly, responding to messages and comments timely, and using targeted advertisements to reach specific audiences. 

We are excited to launch this page and help increase interest and potential applicants to support children and youth experiencing foster care.  

Please help support us and visit our Facebook page, like it, and share it with family and friends!

Please join the Peer Support team in welcoming Billie Reed-Lyyski as our newest Peer Support and Wellness Program Specialist. Billie started on June 1 and will provide peer support services for DCYF staff in the western part of Washington. 

Although new to the Peer Support Team as her full-time job, Billie has been a Peer Support volunteer since 2017. During the last five years, she has had the opportunity to travel and meet with staff in her capacity as volunteer for the Peer Support program.

Billie has worked for the state of Washington for 23 years. She worked in DSHS’s Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration (JRA) for four years before moving to Children’s Administration in 2004. She has worked in CPS as an investigator, court worker, and has held a specialized caseload to include high profile, child fatalities, and felony assault cases. She was out stationed and participated with the Multidisciplinary Team of Pierce County. Over the last 12 years, Billie has supervised CPS investigations, FAR, FVS, CHET and home studies.

Billie has had extensive experience dealing with extreme traumas, not only through secondary trauma but also through first-hand experience in the field. She has handled cases that involved national media attention, high profile litigious situations, and has supported her staff with an amazing amount of empathy through it all. These experiences have given Billie a strong foundation to offer the support and compassion to our staff as they experience this incredibly difficult work, life’s challenges and seeking a healthy work-life balance, which staff face every day.

If you are interested in accessing peer support:

• Request a confidential one-hour Peer Support session by emailing peersupport@dcyf.wa.gov.
• Peer Support Drop-In sessions are held on the second Thursday of every month at 1 p.m. The next virtual drop-in will be held on Thursday, July 14. Register here.

Stacia Bailey, DCYF Forms Manager, recently received some recognition for helping one of the early learning programs work with the SmartSheet application.

If you have ever needed help with a form, then you know Stacia Bailey is DCYF’s expert on forms. However, she is also quite handy with SmartSheet.

The Child Care Grants team, part of the Early Learning Division, needed to figure out how to create a grant application to disburse numerous different grant-funding options to the early learning and child care providers that desperately needed the funding.

“Stacia Bailey set up customized grant application forms using the SmartSheet platform. She went above and beyond to help us meet a legislative deadline with a short turnaround. Stacia worked tirelessly on this project, with very little advanced notice and throughout this process, she was always kind and responsive. We are so thankful for Stacia’s time and expertise in SmartSheet!” said Kelsey Boyce, Child Care Grants Manager, who submitted this note of appreciation.