Our office stays committed to our duties, as laid out in the RCW 43.06D. In action, this looks like advancing our partnership with state agencies. We focus on building relationships and convening partners, which demonstrates our values across state government. By collaborating, we are working to understand how government activities are improving outcomes.   

Thank you for reading our Strategic Plan! 

Community Advisory Board Project Updates 

This summer, the Community Advisory Board (CAB) has partnered with the Innovation & Performance bench to provide feedback and input on the Statewide Impact Areas. We have collaborated as specific groups within the CAB to provide feedback.  Each group has leveraged their own experiences and expertise to provide feedback on community priorities, metrics, and concerns that are widespread across Washington.  

We shared best practices for recruitment, bylaws, and more to assist the Community Reinvestment Project to establish their Local Advisory Teams. 

We collaborated on the Community Engagement Toolkit Listening sessions. In this session we co-facilitated a meeting with leaders throughout Washington state government to get their feedback and questions on the Toolkit. 

Community Advisory Board Member Updates 

The Office of Equity Community Advisory Board (CAB) is made up of twelve Washington residents and is facilitated and managed by two Office of Equity staff members.

This summer, we were able to expand our board by 1 position. This brought the total number of board members from 11 to 12. We have 4 new members on our bench, which has added new perspectives and energy to our board. In the process, we learned a lot about what it looks like to engage in equitable recruiting processes that are rooted in compassion and understanding. This showed us the importance of truly understanding the culture of our board.  

Learn a little more about our Community Advisory Board: 

• We are proud of our CAB Member Alaura Miller (she/they) for her graduation in June! They will be moving to a graduate program this fall to study Psychology and earn a master's degree.
• Drayton Jackson (they/them) was recently hired as the Executive Director of Communities of Concern. They will be overseeing a community coalition of organizations that provide capital funding to community. This looks like developing a $64 million affordable housing project.
• Yaslin Torres-Pena (she/her) was selected to be part of the Tri-Cities Diversity and Inclusion council board of directors.
• Jensie Rosenow (she/her) presented a workshop titled “Refuel and Thrive: Beating Burnout and Secondary Trauma” at the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals Conference.  

The CAB is always uplifting and continuing to find ways for our board to share their perspectives and voices. We are excited about potential upcoming retreats to build relationships with one another. We look forward to building partnerships and coalitions with other boards in state government. We have been implementing new involved methods of engagement in budgeting and policy within our office.  

What’s Next  

Our team has exciting community-focused work coming up as we continue to promote equity initiatives across state government. We’ll set metrics for agency performance reports before their submission dates. This is still developing, but we’re hopeful for new ideas and renewed commitment as we move forward in 2025.  

As part of the Office of Equity’s collaboration with the Department of Commerce, we have recently launched the Community Reinvestment Project (CRP) Dashboard—a first-of-its-kind tool that shows how $200 million in state funding was reinvested into communities most harmed by the War on Drugs. This dashboard provides real-time data on funding, services, and outcomes—bringing transparency, accountability, and visibility to one of the most significant equity investments in Washington’s history.

Stay tuned as we work on launching these other important projects:  

• Technical Support and Consultation for Executive Order 24-05 
• Impact Leader Series Part II: Assessing Organizational Impact + Agency Impact Plans
• Innovation Labs + Community Impact Plans
• Improved consultation and customer service  

We can't wait for everyone to see our efforts! Creating these dashboards is just one part of our mission; it's also about connecting with people and discussing the data to make a real difference. Our team is looking forward to seeing how well our products help people learn and gather feedback to improve them.

This summer, the Tribal Relations Bench has been hard at work. We have been helping plan Director Megan Matthew’s next visits with six tribal nations across Washington. These visits are already shaping new relationships and show our commitment to a Washington for All. 

We also welcomed a new team member. As our agency transitioned back aspects of the State’s digital equity efforts due to the lack of continuing resources, Tribal Liaison for Digital Equity, Casey Wynecoop (he/him), stepped into our more general Tribal Relations Liaison role. Their leadership is helping us connect with more communities, including those outside of reservation boundaries. Our team wrapped up our digital equity analysis and shared it with the Department of Commerce.

We are now rolling out the newest version of our tribal consultation manual. It includes new tips on informal tribal consultations. We may also add sample memorandums of understanding and data sharing agreements for others across the state to use in their planning. 

As an important part of our work, our small but mighty Tribal Relations Bench has stayed focused on building trust. We are proud of how our team supports each other, keeps learning, and keeps listening. In the months ahead, we are excited to grow our partnerships, keep the tribal tours going, and share tools that reflect the voices of tribal and Indigenous communities across the state. 

Language and communication access for all is key to the work we do. When people can’t express themselves in English, they face a barrier that stops them from fully participating in society. Communicating in a respectful and meaningful way in the language people prefer, helps everyone.   

Ever wonder about the different options to connect with communities that speak languages other than English? Here are some examples: 

• Translation of written information is effective especially if documents use plain language that is clear and easy to translate. Summaries and one-pagers are preferred for all reading levels. Translations should be tailored for the correct meaning and cultural nuance of the readers.  

• Providing oral interpretation during meetings and presentations can be a great tool also. For either simultaneous or consecutive interpretation, there are certified and qualified interpreters in most of the languages we serve in Washington. 

• Many of our community partners have had great success providing information through short videos too. In-language videos or videos with subtitles are great ways to communicate messages to a larger audience. 

• Community engagement is key! People and advocates that navigate government systems in their languages have lived experience and know what they need.  They can lead the work ahead of us to make Washington a state where we all thrive.  

At the Office of Equity, our team works hard to provide information in plain language and to break language barriers. Want to be part of the conversation? Send us an email at Access@equity.wa.gov