 Office Updates
New Equity Team Members!
We have been busy hiring at the Office of Equity! Since our last update we have added four new individuals, with a few more to come before the conclusion of the summer! Please join us in celebrating our newest members to office!
Onya Robertson (she/her) joined us as a Pro-Equity Consultant in May and has strong and deep community ties within the local Puget Sound area. She is currently working on her Master of Public Administration at Evergreen State College. In June, the next addition to our team was Naghmana Sherazi (she/her) as another Pro-Equity Consultant on the Equity & Belonging bench. Naghmana is a Pakistani native who has lived on four continents & now resides in the Spokane area. She has a very diverse background as an educator, scientist, and medical professional. The month of August brought us Perla Gamboa (she/her) and Wendy Holden (she/her) joining our Access & Accessibility bench. Perla is a native of Peru who joined us from the Department of Revenue and is our Language Access Program Manager. Wendy holds the position of Disability Access Program Manager and joined us from Central Washington University, where she was working with students with disabilities.
We are grateful to have each and every one of our new additions help us in creating a Washington for All. Currently we are not looking to fill any new roles, but we encourage you continue to monitor this link for jobs pertaining to Office of Equity.
Strategic Plan
The Washington State Office of Equity is pleased to send to you our 2024-2025 Strategic Plan.
Our strategic planning process was developed through a collaborative approach and guided by alignment with our vision, mission, values, and shared purpose. Additionally, we adopted a goal framework that centers antiracism, pro equity, belonging and inclusion to uphold our commitment and belief in transparency and accountability.
Our strategic priorities are:
- Community Advisory Board Partnership
- Organizational Development & Effectiveness
- Budget & Legislative Strategy
- Advancing Systems Change
The plan includes these strategic priorities for the planning period of January 2024-June 2025. Each priority is supported by SMARTIE goals (Strategic, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic, Time-bound, Inclusive, and Equitable) and key benchmarks aimed to carry out our duties as prescribed under RCW 43.06D. Thank you for reading! 😊
 Access & Accessibility
The Access & Accessibility Bench grew to be 4 people this past month! We’re excited to highlight the two new people who have joined the team. First we’re excited to introduce Perla Gamboa (she/her), our new Language Access Program Manager:
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“Perla Gamboa (she/her) comes to us from the Department of Revenue where she served as the Outreach and Community Partnerships Manager for the Working Families Tax Credit program, leading a team of multilingual outreach specialists. Prior to that, Perla worked as a Language Access Consultant for the Department of Labor & Industries. At both appointments, Perla collaborated with other state agencies and community organizations to develop standard practices and policies related to access to information and participation in services. Her work was principally focused on assisting communities that experience barriers to accessing critical information due to language, disability status, poverty, and other factors.
Advocating for language justice and immigrant rights began partially through Perla's previous experience of mentoring DACA students as an adjunct professor in Hispanic Studies at Pacific Lutheran University. She continued this work of advancing equity and opportunities for all by serving in nonprofits and now by choosing to do justice work from government spaces. Perla is excited to join the Office of Equity to continue this journey.
Originally from Peru, Perla has lived in Washington State for the past 20 years with her husband, and two children. This past June, she traveled back to Peru with her family and had the opportunity to return to one of her favorite places, Machu Picchu.”
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Next up on this team, we have Wendy Holden (she/her), who joins us as our Disability Access Program Manager. Wendy shares with us:
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“I am a perpetually curious lifelong learner and disability advocate. When not working, I enjoy spending time with my family, being creative, and traveling. I enjoy planning adventures and researching the areas I will be visiting almost as much as the trips themselves. Learning about and exploring new countries has enhanced my appreciation of other cultures and redefined how I view myself.
Prior to working for the Office of Equity, I spent 13 years at Central Washington University, ensuring students with disabilities had equitable access to all aspects of the educational process. While much of my work was focused on compliance, I also worked to develop and implement innovative ways to improve access.
My work and lived experience have prepared me to support the Office of Equity’s mission to ensure that all people have access to the opportunities, power, and resources they need to flourish and achieve their full potential. I look forward to connecting with the disability communities throughout the state and together identifying opportunities for improvement. I believe that authentic, transparent communication fosters a culture of belonging where others feel heard, understood, and valued. I commit to educating myself about current challenges and historical inequities and actively listening to others' perspectives to expand my understanding. I will seek opportunities to use my privilege to elevate the voices of others and to identify systemic ways to promote equity and inclusion.
As Desmond Tutu once said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” After many years of pulling people out of the river, metaphorically speaking, I am honored and energized by the opportunity to be a part of the Office of Equity, working proactively to identify and eliminate barriers to access for individuals with disabilities.”
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We are infinitely excited to see the Access and Accessibility bench grow and plug into more of the work of Washington State.
 Communications Bench
The Communications team is refining our intake form process for Office of Equity staff to request creative content, events, and digital accessibility reviews. We are building advanced sheets to track the production of our media, including video, PDFs, and more! As we iterate with our processes to support our staff, we improve with each round and staff feedback. We are thankful for our Office of Equity staff (especially newer staff using it for the first time) for giving our process a shot and improving it with us.
We are communicating with our contractors and vendors on evolving digital accessibility practices and regulations. We have had numerous ongoing accessibility improvements to our website since the digital accessibility evaluation and usability study of our site! If you haven’t already, you can check out our Digital Accessibility statement.
With a flurry of events, we have been developing processes for event-related messaging and logistics. We additionally had a team retreat and discussed a possible intranet site to meet the multi-dimensional needs of our dynamic office.
With so much happening in the Office, we’ve been doing everything we can to support our various teams! Thanks for being a part of witnessing us grow!
 When We Belong Season 2 Episode 2 Launch
We are elated to announce the launch of Episode 2 of Season 2 of When We Belong.
 In this episode, our speakers talk about the importance of walking the talk or backing up words with action. They highlight the humility needed to listen to communities who are already doing equity work and have been doing the work to support communities regularly. Tune into our When We Belong Playlist to learn more, or start at Season One!
 Community Advisory Board
The Community Advisory Board (CAB) Members have been in the process of reviewing the bylaws that are governing their board. The CAB Members have also been assisting in reviewing the Community Compensation Guidelines that EQUITY has been developing. The Community Advisory Board Managers, Kara and Logan, have been working with CAB to establish what the Board’s priorities are so that they can better direct their efforts to Washington State agencies and Office of Equity’s work. This month, the CAB Members were able to provide meaningful feedback to our digital equity team on best practices for community recruitment, and language and accessibility with applications.
The CAB Program Managers and Members are in the process of creating processes for feedback, recruitment, sustainability, and evaluation. CAB Program Managers are collaborating with the Office’s Shared Power team to see how we can incorporate Shared Power strategies into how the CAB functions as a whole. Kara and Logan share, “We are considering creating an open application process where folks in the State of WA can apply at any time to the CAB so that we have a consistent bank of applicants to choose from if any openings in the membership come up unexpectedly.”
For recruitment and information purposes CAB Manages also created this one-pager for folks to use to learn more about the purpose of the CAB.
 Equity & Belonging Bench
OFM DEI Empowerment Conference
The Shared Power team participated in the Office of Financial Management’s statewide DEI Empowerment Conference! The Shared Power team discussed Normalizing Shared Power as a Tool to Disrupt Policies, Practices, and Processes and had over 1100 participants during the session! The Office of Equity is working on uploading the video to our YouTube channel but in the meantime, check out some other videos at Washington State Office of Equity YouTube!
Veterans Employee Resource Group (VERG) Update
Pro-Equity Consultant Jasmine Remick (she/her) serves as the VERG Equity Liaison. She is proud of the commitment Washington State Government is making to ensure we collectively honor and serve our military community.
With the recent passing of HB 2014, WA veterans who weren’t eligible for certain federal benefits will now be eligible for state benefits. Data shows that many veterans of color, those who identify as LGBTQIA+2, those who reported sexual assault, and those who experienced mental illness have disproportionately received discharge orders under “other than honorable” conditions which prohibits them from certain state benefits. It is estimated that nearly 35,000 additional Washington veterans will have access to state benefits under this new legislation.
Our military community represents every intersectionality of the diverse workforce in Washington State Government. Be sure to register your organization in the YesVets program to show your continuous commitment in supporting our military community.
Washington State Patrol Update
Director Megan Mathews (she/her) and Pro-Equity Consultant Kalimah Ujaama (she/her) were invited to Washington State Patrol’s Strategic Advancement Forum by Amandeep Puri (she/her), Washington State Patrol’s Commander of the Office of Culture and Engagement. The Strategic Advancement Forum is where the leaders of WSP present their successes, challenges, and needs of their divisions and districts to Chief John R Batiste and executive staff. Commander Puri invited Kalimah to present along with the rest of her office and to introduce Kalimah and the Office of Equity.
Community Compensation Update
It's about that time! Senate Bill 5793, regarding Community Compensation, requires agencies to report to the Office of Equity how many stipends they have provided to class one volunteers by August 30, 2024 (See RCW 43.03.220 for more information). Agencies are required to provide the following information:
- A brief description of the groups for which stipends have been made available including:
- Number of members receiving a stipend or allowance; and
- Aggregate demographic information of members of class one groups including race, ethnicity, income, and geographic representation by county;
- The amount of stipends distributed;
- The amount of allowances distributed;
- An analysis of whether and how the availability of stipends and allowances has reduced barriers to participation and increased the diversity of group participants; and
- An analysis of whether the provision of stipends and allowances resulted in more applications and willingness to participate.”
The Office of Equity has updated the Agency: Lived Experience Workgroup Reporting Form on our website. Please make sure that you fill this form out for each of the workgroups you have conducted during Fiscal Year 2024 (July 2023 - June 30th, 2024).
If you have any questions, please reach out to the LivedExperience@equity.wa.gov or the Community Compensation Project Manager, Sabrina Njoroge (Sabrina.Njoroge@equity.wa.gov).
Coming Soon! Be on the lookout for volume two of the Community Compensation guidelines in September 2024. The guidelines have been updated based on feedback received from Washington State community members and agency staff.
 Innovation & Performance Bench
Innovation & Performance have been busy with their new and robust team. Here are some of their updates:
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Digital Equity: The Office of Equity is partnering with the State Broadband Office to support the Digital Equity Forum. As part of this work, we are launching the Digital Equity Forum Site! Over the next few weeks, we will be conducting accessibility testing. Stay tuned for more information!
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Generative Artificial Intelligence, or GenAI, is finding its way into the news (and to your software) at a rapid rate. The Governor took notice and released Executive Order 24-01 to create guidelines for state employees to ethically use AI. The Office of Equity will oversee the development plan for a framework to ensure fair, ethical, and equitable use of Gen AI. The accountability framework plan will be led by Office of Equity's Innovation and Performance team and co-created in partnership with WaTech, Department of Enterprise Services, and the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board.
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Hiring in Progress: Over the past two months we have been hard at work recruiting for our Statewide Spatial Equity Analyst and Statewide Digital Equity Analyst positions. Thank you to all our partners who supported us in the hiring! We look forward to celebrating our new EQUITY team members with you soon!
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