Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Come to college.

So we have a brilliant.

We're not going to work on directly.

Okay.

Because of the cost of land.

Yes.

Good morning and welcome to the October 22nd Health and Safety Committee meeting.

My name is Darrell Watson.

I'm honored to serve as the chair of this committee and also as the city council member representing all of the fine district nine.

We have one briefing today from the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Before we roll into that presentation, why don't we have introductions around the table and then we'll go to folks that are virtual?

So we start on our right.

Thank you.

Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, district five.

Oh, I guess that's just me.

Um, good morning, everyone.

Sedana Gonzalez Gutierrez, uh, one of the at-large members.

We do have uh Council President Pro Tem on virtual.

Uh if you can hear us, uh, you should be promoted.

Great.

Good um good morning, everyone.

Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us.

Uh we have the privilege of a briefing from the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Um, we'll turn it over to Dr.

Sanders and his team and my echo.

You know, we just wait for a second, see if it's good.

Oh, it's good.

So, Dr.

Sanders and Steam, do you mind introducing yourself and the leaders at the table, and we'll turn the presentation over to you.

Wonderful.

We'll start with uh introducing the folks at the table and then we'll find our way into the presentation.

My name is Ben Sanders.

It's my pleasure to serve as the executive director of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Hello, Deileen Mix.

I am one of the deputy executive directors for the Office of Social Equity Innovation and pleased to be here with you today.

Good morning.

I am Dr.

Nicole Monroe and serve as a director within the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Within the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

So thank you all so much for uh allowing us the opportunity to be here this morning.

Uh, I want to begin by thanking this committee, uh thanking you uh that the chair of this committee, Councilman Watson, for the opportunity to share some of the work we've been doing for the past 15-16 months around the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Um, as you all may know, uh, our mission at OSEI is to cultivate an equitable and inclusive Denver by dismantling systemic barriers and creating targeted solutions for historically marginalized uh uh populations.

When I took this role a couple of years ago, um I brought some things with me that are really important to framing what you'll hear about the work we're doing today.

Um, I brought with me the lived experiences of being a child of a single mother who, along with community members, navigated local systems in the midst of poverty and racism, all in the hopes of creating opportunities for her babies.

I brought value shaped by a lifetime spent in black churches, courageous enough to believe that everyone belongs.

And I brought a perspective shaped by more than a decade spent researching, teaching, and striving to live within the methods, moments, and miracles that marginalized communities have used to transform repressive systems for generations.

These experiences drive my commitment to creating with the folks that are here today an OSEI that's innovative, that's transformative, and that runs an ecosystem of collaboration between the city of Denver and the experiences, realities, and wisdom of Denver's most underserved communities.

By the way, we'll use language like at risk today in very intentional ways.

We recognize that language like this has been used to reinforce certain pathological pathologizing perspectives, and we want to use at risk today to denote the very real possibility that without the type of effective intervention, prevention, and diversion programs that we'll talk about today.

Many of the folks that we work with actually do face the risk of living uh lives that are tragically uh short-circuited by systems that we're still working to improve.

Let's jump into the next slide.

I want to find our way into some of the content today, and we're really thrilled to share today that um uh it was it was in May of last year, as you are recalled that the mayor decided to shift programs from the Department of Safety to OSEI to make possible the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

OSEI now has two distinct divisions.

We have the Office of Neighborhood Safety, and we have our equity strategy and innovations uh division represented by our deputy Director Brian Farooz, who is here.

Inside of these two divisions, uh, we knew we had some work to do, and we spent the first four to six months listening to community.

When we first came to you all, we told you this would be the first thing we did.

We spent the first four to six months just listening to community and really working to make sure that our high-level operational development was reflective of things we heard from the folks that were trying to serve.

We also began the process of simultaneously refining Office of Neighborhood Safety Programming, that is bringing it from the Department of Safety into a single entity known as the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

I'll say a little bit more about that in a bit.

But as we did that, we were also inviting the wonderful staff that are here today into the culture and values of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

That is to say, we were inviting these programs into the city's commitment to expanding racial and social equity, and we're super excited about the ways that some of the ways that we've done that today.

We undertook all of this while actively contributing to the city's violence reduction efforts, establishing the foundation for modernized centralized data system for all of the programs in the Office of Neighborhood Safety that we'll talk about today, and while establishing really critical cross-functional relationship between the two divisions that I just described.

And so next, we're really excited to develop a clear strategic plan for OSEI, one that aligns the work we do with city agencies and our support for community-based organizations.

This means continuing to strengthen collaboration across our divisions and building unified equity strategies that align agency equity work with needs identified by community.

Before I hand this over to the staff that runs the really critical programming of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, I want to say one thing, and this is really important for the narrative of this office that we're creating.

We did not receive at OSEI an Office of Neighborhood Safety.

We were not given an office of neighborhood safety.

We were really excited to receive a set of programs, and we were then tasked with creating from that set of programs an Office of Neighborhood Safety.

I'm really proud of what we've done today.

You're gonna hear about how we've created collaboration within the programs while also creating that same collaboration within OSEI more broadly.

You're gonna hear about how we've developed a data system that did not exist this time last year that has created the real opportunity for us to assess what these programs are doing over time.

How are they being responsive to what we're actually hearing in community?

How are we creating real meaningful change?

And how is this change aligned with the priorities that are flowing out of the mayor's office?

We'll be super excited to talk about a lot of that today.

But I don't want anybody to leave the room thinking that what we're presenting today existed 15, 16 months ago.

It didn't.

We've got a continuum of services that you'll see here that's designed to be incredibly responsive to right where folks are, to be responsive based on need and not just based on what the city uh wants to do or has the capacity to do that we know that capacity challenges are a real challenge right now.

So, with all of that said, I want to pass it over to Daleen Mix, who is the uh executive deputy director for the Office of Neighborhood Safety and allow her to kind of pull us into some of the thickness around the programming we've developed over the past year to change.

Thank you, Dr.

Sanders.

And it's again it's a pleasure to be here with you today, Council members.

Um I'll be presenting ONS's operational focus.

Um, housed within Denver's equity office, ONS centers social justice data and community voice to build trust, target resources where harm is greatest, and expand opportunity, not disparities.

We prioritize those most impacted by systemic inequities and provide solutions that are culturally responsive and community informed.

This ensures our strategies reflect lived experience and our position to build trust.

The programming that to transition to OSCI from DOS was housed in different safety divisions and operated independently.

Today, ONS functions as a focused, coordinated system that moves Denver to a clear prevention to intervention continuum.

Through focus coordination, we're also aligning efforts across sectors and systems to maximize impact.

This reduces duplication and ensures that resources are used efficiently.

Each component of the Office of Neighborhood Safety plays a distinct role, but operates as one system.

Identifying needs, preventing deeper system contact, interrupting harm, and connecting just if involved youth to support systems.

Our approach addresses both root causes and immediate needs through safety planning.

And we coordinate strategies and services to meet people where they are.

This dual focus strengthens long-term outcomes and short-term relief.

We are also maximizing impact through a unified safety model that breaks cycles of violence, strengthens families and communities, expands opportunity, and invests in safer neighborhoods.

These approaches define how we move from vision to action, ensuring our work is equitable, coordinated, responsive, and impactful.

To give you a little bit more meat of what we're talking about here, I'll now turn it over to Dr.

Nicole Monroe who will present on ONS's continuum of services.

And forgive me for not advancing the slide when I was speaking.

This is the slide you missed.

So continue of services.

If you're familiar, a lot of this terminology will come from fields such as like human services, public health systems.

And so with this, it provides a visual to help illustrate what that continue of care looks like.

Really focusing on intervention or a tiered intervention system, continue of services.

You can take a look, and it's appropriately even shows like with the colors where you have anywhere from the lowest need and risk all the way to the highest risk and need.

It really begins in the far left in the green, serving the entire population.

And then as you start to go more to the right, the target intervention begins to decrease as we're working with the individuals.

So as you get from the broader population on the left, as it goes to the right, then it starts to be more of that higher risk need and criminogenic factors that are presented as well.

And so with that, we want to be careful in how individuals that are coming in or that we're even being put in the care for individuals in our community, that we're applying those appropriate services.

And even with the services, even being responsible for even our language that we're using.

So that's something I'm really excited about moving into the future, as Dr.

Ben had noted on briefly, but even looking at how we address risk and need when we're working with individuals coming through our doors to where they are our youth and our families and our communities that are seeking help and assistance.

And as we are working with them, and that is with them and alongside them, and you're gonna hear more about those services as the people who are really leading our work come up to the table.

But with this, it also helps in as we're working with our data-driven strategies and how we're informing the work, then we're also able to see or discover like any sort of data uh analysis of identified gaps, and that can show us as you'll actually see in the YVP work that would be presented here in a second, um, through Mr.

President Adams, to where it shows any services that we might even be missing when we're looking at that continuum of care.

And you'll also see towards the bottom services, which you'll actually have presented here in a moment.

It gives you an idea and a general sense of based on that risk and need, then some of those appropriate services we should have in place to give you an idea of what that looks like.

Um, so that much more to add to that if we're ready to shift over to start hearing really the heart of the work that's driven through ONS.

And if you're more comfortable, since you have a laptop, why don't you come and sit at the table back to Dr.

Sanders?

Cool.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm so very grateful to be with you all today.

My name is Preston Adams, and I am the youth violence prevention program administrator.

I've had the privilege of walking alongside deeply gang involved and system impacted youth and families for nearly 20 years.

Well, my career has spanned across many roles.

I've been able to accompany some of our most vulnerable community members, folks far on the margins, and it has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

This work is deeply personal to me.

I've lost countless young people to the streets and to prison.

It's through that lens and with these lived experiences that I approach youth violence prevention.

YVP began nearly a decade ago as the city was collectively heartbroken for the young people we were losing due to violence.

That grief has evolved into a sustained movement, and that same passion and vision continue to guide us today.

I also want to recognize YVP stands on the shoulders of you all and so many other advocates who came before us.

Youth violence prevention is shaped by two interconnected areas, the initiative and the programming.

The initiative carries long-term strategies that focus on working collaboratively across city agencies and with community providers, leaders, youth and families to center community voice, advocate for restorative and equitable systems, reduce rivalry, and drive lasting violence prevention.

In 2026 and beyond, we seek to embed ourselves across citywide violence prevention efforts, creating subcommittees and work groups with both city and community partners to advance systemic change together.

With the YVP programming, it is intended to complement the initiative by elevating, empowering and investing directly in community-based organizations and providers.

Thanks to strong advocacy over the years, YVP has provided millions of dollars in grant funding to community-based organizations and providers, and that commitment continues.

As of last Friday, we released our 2026 request for proposals totaling $400,000 in new funding to fill one of the biggest gaps identified by both city and community partners.

In addition, we will invest another 100,000 directly into community initiatives next year.

Our analysis of Denver's youth violence prevention ecosystem made it clear that this funding must be intentional and impactful.

Through lived experiences, community feedback and data analysis, we identified a critical gap in our systems of services.

Too often our most vulnerable youth and families don't receive support until they are system involved or impacted, and by then it is often too late.

Throughout my career, I've sat beside youth and families in court, many facing decades in prison.

I've heard public defenders say over and over again, my client got the resources they needed once they were system involved, but it was too late.

They needed this support when they were younger and not already impacted by the system.

This grant responds directly to that reality.

It seeks to provide our youth, specifically our middle school aged youth who need the most support, but are not system involved with what we call transformational relationships.

Transformational relationships means placing the right youth workers and providers in authentic, long-term and trusting relationships with the most vulnerable youth and families, especially in our most vulnerable communities.

It's about deep mentorship, relational trust, safety and belonging, while also connecting young people to wraparound services, mental health support, and meaningful out of school opportunities, doing all we can to prevent system involvement and violence.

More than anything, we want YVP to be values driven.

Because our youth and families not only need us to do better, but they deserve the best.

Over the past four months, nearly 75 community members, including incarcerated individuals, those deeply impacted by violence and systems, and many young people help shape the values that will guide all of our work.

Those values which you see on the slide are being healing-centered, equity-driven, grounded in love, relentlessly consistent, youth and community-led, whole person focused and data-driven.

YVP at its core is community facing.

We are committed to remaining deeply embedded in the community, funding local partners, uplifting and empowering lived experience, and collaboratively driving systemic change that centers restoration, healing, and equity.

We want to build a Denver where every young person, especially the most vulnerable, feel seen, supported, loved, and valued, and knows they have every opportunity to create and flourish.

Thank you so much for your time today, and I'm gonna hand it over to my colleague Kevin.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Kevin, why don't you come up and sit at the table as well?

Thank you very much.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Kevin Muango.

I am the program manager overseeing municipal uh driven out diversion and the alternative citation uh program.

Um I'll start with uh municipal juvenile diversion, which is a program that has been a part of the city and county of Denver for a very long period of time.

I mean, I'm thinking about uh 20 or 25 years, uh, has already been very, very successful on how it operated.

And then when I uh joined the office uh uh around this time last year, so this is uh approximately one year now with the Office of Neighborhood Safety, I uh uh did ask myself, I mean, in conjunction with uh our director, Dr.

Band and Delina and Nicole and my colleagues, how can we elevate this program to adopt sort of uh to be more proactive and engaging with uh the community?

And uh we came, we came up with two vital uh key points that we thought would be crucial in helping our clients succeed in diversion.

Uh the first one being really the importance of data.

What role does data play when it comes to uh service delivery and uh operation uh development?

Uh data sort of has given us uh a full picture of a client's journey, not just within diversion, but also outside of diversion.

What's going on in school, what's going on at home, what's going on in their neighbor or respective neighborhood.

We've been able to sort of look at these numbers and see these are some of the gaps that we're needing to fill, and how do we go about dispatching resources to address those gaps?

And one of the answers that we came up with is building community.

And for municipal diversion, building community really means everything starting at home, creating a program that uh have parents play uh an engaging role where you know we're not just working with the youth alone, but we're asking the question: how can we help the entire unit, really centering that young person with their family and being intentional at collaborating with senior organizations and community-based organizations to identify those key resources that are missing and even be creative in spaces where we're lacking resources to collaborate and say these are some of the resources that are needed in those communities, in those families, and how do we work walk, you know, hand in hand in delivering those services.

And uh the second program that I oversee is the alternative to citation uh program.

For a long time, uh the ATC alternative citation program was housed on the DPS, where only uh a tiny, tiny population of uh young people in the City and County of Denver had access to alternative citation.

Uh over the last couple of months, we've been able to work with our partners in DPD and our OCA and DPS to sort of expand that program to make it, you know, available accessible city-wide, where any young person who's been cited, uh he's also given the opportunity to engage with the alternative citation program uh by uh through this program, they're avoiding appearing in court.

And we've seen tremendous success uh with uh the alternative uh citation program as well, because we are engaging with clients uh much earlier before they show up in court, and uh we are starting uh starting to deliver those services at a crucial time.

One of the learning lessons that we've learned uh throughout this entire process is the fact that we've reduced the time young people spend both in municipal diversion and the ATC.

Previously, clients went on and spent uh approximately six months within the program.

We've been able to reduce that program by retirement within the program to approximately three months.

That's the average time, and that is one uh due to a higher level of engagement with parents, where parents are not just signing on a diversion plan, but are also playing an active role, sort of uh uh an extension of diversion when diversion officers are not present or the community is not present.

And then um, and uh secondly, where you know, a lot of uh our uh officers out in the streets are offering the ATC program.

So that you know, a lot of clients are not having to show up downtown and uh having to go through court through the whole uh court process and you know having to you know formally accept that version uh within uh the courthouse uh to be with uh Lindsay Flanagan.

Thank you.

I'll pass it over to my colleague that's not yet with uh Ronnie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning.

I'm Beth McNally.

My pronouns are she, her.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

I oversee the runaway outreach notification and intervention project as well as the Denver Anti-Trafficking Alliance multidisciplinary team.

First focusing on the Rani project.

All the research shows youth who run away or missing from care are higher risk of becoming system involved or victimized, such as trafficking or exploitation.

And that is the purpose of the Rani project, is we're trying to prevent that victimization or becoming system involved.

And we're changing how we how the traditional response to youth who are missing from care, and really getting to the why.

Youth are either running to something or from something, and oftentimes it's a combination of both.

And so, right, the traditional way of responding to this of law enforcement, responding out when the youth is recovered and simply bringing them home, doesn't get to that why.

And that is what our program is about is um identifying what are the needs for both the youth and the family.

When the youth is missing, uh the outreach or intake and outreach will attempt to directly contact the youth to provide safety planning and harm reduction.

Uh, a notification is crucial when the youth is missing, so notifying any systems or professionals that are engaging with both the youth and the family, as well as notifying the schools to ensure that everyone's aware that this youth is missing, and we're trying to get contact with them to ensure their safety.

It's also crucial for the success of our program, is partnering with community community organizations to meet the youth, meet the needs of both the youth and the family.

The expansion that we've done this year that I'm really excited about is expanding and taking voluntary cases so that we don't necessarily have the youth is missing from care, there's an active runaway report.

So we've expanded taking voluntary cases from uh STAR as a direct referral source, uh Department of Human Services when they're closing out, but identify that the family and youth are still in need of services, as well as community referrals.

We have strengthened and solidified our partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and on every case that we work with a family, we break down what the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children can offer and get them connected if that is something they're wanting.

We've also solidified our partnership with Urban Peak and Third Way.

Now I'll transition to the Denver Anti-Trafficking Alliance multidisciplinary team that we refer to as Data MDT.

So the research here shows that child welfare and juvenile justice systems can unintentionally increase vulnerability for sex trafficking.

Additionally, runaway youth, LGBTQ youth, and youth of color are disproportionately impacted by sex and labor trafficking.

Research also shows that immediate screening and identifying trafficking concerns paired with building strong rapport and trust is key to successfully supporting these youth.

And that is exactly what we're doing within the Data MDT.

So we have youth outreach specialists within the Office of Neighborhood Safety that are uh assigned youth that are staffed within the data MDT.

We staff youth through 24 years of age that are either high risk or confirmed victims of human trafficking.

The youth outreach specialists are partnering with community organizations to walk alongside our youth to help support the needs and services that they have identified for themselves with the goal of getting them out of the cycle of violence.

A success story I really want to highlight, and I think the theme that we've talked about thus far, and I know my other colleagues are going to continue to talk about is collaboration is key.

It's never going to be one individual or one organization to support these youth.

It has to be a collaborative effort.

We had a client who was originally started as a Rani youth, and then transitioned to being a data MDT youth because we learned that they were being trafficked.

The youth was uh a chronic runner.

We had multiple runs in the system, not a supportive home environment.

And due to the trauma, there was substance use concerns, and it starts with that building trust.

The youth outreach specialist has been working with this youth for over a year, and during that time, when the youth was missing, they were utilizing their safety plan and reaching out to the outreach specialist.

They had previously from run from all of their other treatment facilities and through collaboration with partnership and organizations that were working with the youth alongside the outreach specialist.

They were able to support this youth in going into treatment.

Roughly two weeks ago, the DHS department human services case worker and the outreach specialist collaborated in transporting this youth to Colorado Springs, where they had agreed to treatment.

So we're excited to see him succeed there.

What I'm excited about in 2026 is continuing to find ways of collaboration to support the needs and the youth to support the needs of our youth and their families and ensuring that no youth is slipping through the cracks.

Thank you.

I think I'm transitioning to Teresa.

Good morning.

Teresa Kimmett Riley, I'm a program manager with ONS, and I oversee two different programs, which is helping youth pursue excellence and also the Safe City Youth Leadership Team.

So I'll go ahead and start off with the HYPE program.

So I'm excited to share what the HYPE program helping youth pursue excellence is all about, why we do the work and why it continues to inspire us every single day.

HIPE provides structured support for youth ages 14 to 18, especially those involved in the juvenile justice system.

While we need while need help, oh sorry, excuse me, while need help re-engaging in school or exploring a career path.

We work with referring agencies and officers to build a customized plan of support, helping youth succeed through education, employment, and life skills.

Our program offers real world opportunities, a vocational track, which is a 10-week paid experience where youth earn 1881 an hour while gaining job readiness, financial literacy, leadership skills, and hands-on work experience at the urban farm.

A food truck program, where youth learn community service, culinary prep, and teamwork, earning their safe serve certification while serving community and our community partners and their local events.

Community service opportunities, summer employment, educational reengagement, and our victim impact group, which helps youth understand the real effects of crime and build empathy towards victims.

We do this because every young person deserves a second chance and the pathway to success.

So many of our youth need guidance, opportunity, and someone to believe in them.

By connecting them to positive experiences, job skills, and mentors, we help them move from feeling stuck to feeling empowered, ready to pursue excellence in their own lives.

Our why is about transformation, helping see youth what is possible, what there's when they're supported and valued.

We're excited about, we're excited because we see real change happen every day.

Young people finding confidence, earning their first paycheck, discovering new passions, and giving back to their community.

Our partnerships with the Urban Farm, Denver's Office of Financial Empower and Protection, Community College of Denver, and 25 other community partners make it possible for youth to dream bigger and actually achieve those dreams.

HYPE is more than a program, it's a pathway to purpose.

This is why we do what we do to help youth pursue excellence and build brighter futures and divert them from the juvenile justice system.

The Safe City Youth Leadership Team has been around a long time, started in 1994.

And this actively shapes we have youth between the ages of 14 to 24 to actively shape shape safer communities.

Since its founding, the program has provided youth from diverse social economic and academic backgrounds, a platform to share ideas on anti-crime and anti-violence strategies and influence policies of the local and national levels.

The Safe City Youth Leadership Team members are paid year-round youth workers who engage in youth violence prevention, community service, volunteer projects, leadership development, and planning and coordinating the annual Safe City Youth Summit for over 400 youth.

The Safe City Youth Leadership Team and SU's youth Perspective is central to identifying community challenges and resources to address them.

Advising ONS on programs, priorities, and strategies to reduce youth and crime violence.

Fostering civic engagement, leadership, and self-esteem among young people.

Through projects, peer mentoring, and advocacy, the Safe City Youth Leadership Team members actively improve their own lives and their communities.

The Safe City Youth Leadership Team members are passionate about giving back.

Since 2006, the team has participated in over 600 community projects, including holiday drives, trucker trake events, and volunteer initiatives.

The Safe City Youth Leadership Team hosts their 29th youth summit last year and moving in 2026.

We're old this year, I should say.

2026 will be their 30th.

So I think that really stands a test of time how long the youth leadership team has been doing this.

They host interactive sessions for youth to discuss community challenges.

And at the summit, we also award college scholarships.

So we have youth encouraging other youth to pursue higher education.

Earning ongoing recognition from the community members for their impact is ongoing with our partners that we support in the community.

Safe City Youth Leadership Team isn't just a program.

It's a movement where young people learn, lead, and inspire positive change while building safer, stronger communities in their neighborhoods and schools.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll do a quick time check.

We're gonna provide between 10 to 15 more minutes.

So I know Dr.

Sanders and your team, it looks like you're down to two last slides.

That's right.

And as Stefan makes his way up, um, just want to underscore the value of hearing.

These are not just people who run programs, these are the individuals that community members recognize when they find themselves in times of need, right?

What we're seeing here are not just folks who lead programs, but who are really critical relationship holders for the city and county of Denver and the services we provide.

So thank you for your patience.

Two more.

Stefan Cummings from the Office of Community from Community Violence Solutions team, and then our uh data director of data and evaluation.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to uh speak to you.

Um, my name is Stefan Cummings.

I'm the program manager of intervention services with the Office of Neighborhood Safety within the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Uh I have the privilege of being the program manager of community violence solutions.

Um what that is comprised of is really two different sides of the same coin.

As we uh started out, we were an intervention program, an outreach program that was really designed and targeted to interact with both adults and juveniles, uh young and old across the city that really uh had a what I call critical risk level.

Now, what I mean by critical risk, and I don't mean to categorize or disparage anybody, is saying that without proper intervention, there might be a serious risk of a loss of life, permanent injury, or long-term incarceration, right?

These are individuals with very high acuity rates in terms of their behavioral, in terms of their psychological, psychosocial, mental health needs.

Um, they oftentimes have a lot of substance misuse issues that are kind of correlates to that as well.

Um, and what we do is we provide long-term structured support to individuals uh that have this high acuity level.

And what I mean by long-term is usually about 12 months, uh, oftentimes more, depending on the needs of the individual.

Our interventionists really get to know the person that they're working with and embed themselves as a trusted adult in their lives that they can really count on and rely on for whatever support and help that they need.

Our interventionists provide professional case management service, service navigation, conflict resolution, violence interruption, and mentoring all combine into one package to really deliver whatever that young person or old person might need in order to really push the uh push their lives in a forward direction, right?

Uh we don't pride ourselves on complacency, we pride ourselves on progression, right?

Um, part of the ways that we do this progression is uh I also coordinate two multidisciplinary team meetings, um, one for adults and one for juveniles, uh, for youth, I should say.

Um, and really, what those multidisciplinary team meetings are are groups of community providers, professional uh providers, uh, that all come together once a month in the two various meetings to provide structure and resources and opportunities for the individuals that we're staffing cases for in those multidisciplinary teams.

So it is something that is led and driven by the individuals that we are partnered with and we are working with within the community.

Another thing that we focus on is not only just what professional services and needs they have, but what social services do they need and have.

What community needs do they have?

Because we deal with a lot of individuals that have conflicts that are ongoing in the community.

We really work from a community violence perspective to reduce the risk of retaliation, to reduce the risk of shootings that might naturally occur due to high aggression or living in a not so great neighborhood.

Those things are natural percussions or repercussions that happen as a result of environmental circumstances at times.

So we really work with multiple groups, multiple sides of multiple conflicts to really reduce that risk to the individuals that we're working with in the community.

I can easily say that just rattling off the top of my head in the last couple of months, we've prevented, at least anecdotally, we've prevented at least four shootings from happening just from the work that we're doing with the individuals that we know have guns that have attempted homicide charges that have those high acuity factors, right?

So we do this working with them long term.

And with the assistance of Zach and the data team, we've really been able to enhance the service rendition of our programming by being able to get away from pen and paper in terms of documentation and really streamlining it into a digital database where we can really meet the needs of our clients much faster because we don't have to shovel through a whole bunch of papers, we don't have to write assessments.

These things can be digitized and we can really look at key indicators and key markers for service and then deliver those services to those individuals as they arise and as they come up.

Part of the way that we do our overarching programming is all through community collaboration and partnership, right?

This will tie directly into the second portion of our program, but we partner with groups that provide secondary prevention services.

We partner with groups that provide violence interruption services.

We partner with groups that provide gender-specific intervention services.

And we come together as community partners at least once a month in what we call the outreach collaborative.

And then that outreach collaborative, it's a number of different community partners, a number of community violence intervention partners, therapeutic groups and agencies that come together to really talk about what's affecting and afflicting our communities and come up with strategies as a group to try and overcome some of those things as they as they arise, right?

With that said, I'll transition into the second portion of our program, which is the community mobilization.

And the community mobilization encompasses violence interruption, safe haven, safe storage, and uh gun surrender events to really reduce the amount of weapons that people have access to and to get some of these guns off the streets.

If you have a gun, we want to encourage you, give you information, give you gun locks, give you gun safes, give you tools and information that you might need to securely store those weapons as well, right?

In doing that, we also really directly affect what's going on out there in the communities because again, as I said, kids have less access to weapons.

Part of what we also do is in our violence interruption capacity, we receive heads-up notifications for things that might be going on in the community.

And our violence interruption team that are individuals that are hired via different agencies throughout Denver, community-based agencies, I should say, all dispatch at different hours day and night to respond to instances of violent crime, right?

Most more specifically gun violence.

They might be out there at 2:30 in the morning, they might be out there at seven o'clock in the morning.

They might get out there at five o'clock in the afternoon.

And really what they're doing is trying to uh take in the needs of the community that they're surrounded by to say, hey, what is needed here in order to prevent retaliation, in order to provide structured support to the individuals that are harmed by this, and how can we best deliver those services to these individuals?

That feeds into what we do in terms of our safe haven network, because the same information that we get from the violence interruption team usually goes into indicating when we do safe haven activations.

Now, safe haven activations, which some of you guys have participated in, are really meant to mobilize the community afflicted by gun violence, bring people out of their homes back into community, interacting with one another, interacting with professionals, whether it's faith-based, whether it's therapeutic, whether it's drug and alcohol substance misuse or general intervention to provide additional support for whatever they might need, and uh really bringing everything back together.

So, kind of in a nutshell, those are the two uh sections of our CVS programming.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it.

We have CYDC.

We have CYDC next.

Oh, is it next slide?

Sorry.

Oh, let's just let's let's just go data.

Let's go data.

Sorry, great.

Yeah, we just we have about five minutes, and obviously, with questions, you can always integrate updates from members of your team to answer those questions.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, members of council.

Thank you for having me.

My name is Zach McDade.

I am our director of data and evaluation for the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Um, when I first became a data leader in the city, I quickly learned that my primary task was actually to build the infrastructure and the environment necessary to do data work, and unfortunately, actually doing analysis and evaluation kind of becomes a secondary goal.

When I started working with my colleagues behind me 15 months ago, uh it was really obvious quite quickly that to the extent that they had data systems at all, these systems were highly disjointed from each other, they didn't work in coordination, and they were tedious manual repetitive systems.

As recently as early this year, we had case workers going out in the field every day and doing their work on hard copy with pen and paper.

Uh, and then they had to take an entire day a month to hand tabulate their KPIs from that hard copy.

Uh, so that's obviously problematic.

But uh, in addition to that, there's no way that we're gonna generate data-driven insights from that kind of data system from that kind of data work.

There's just not.

And so, as we approach the end of 2025, we're really pleased that all of our program areas have modern digital data systems that have dramatically uh improved the quality of our our understanding and save time.

Uh, on Stefan's program alone, his data system has saved uh the equivalent of more than half of an FTE every single month of time.

So, in this time of budget crisis and layoffs, that's a de facto increase of 10% of his staff on his team alone.

Uh, equally important, those those new digital data systems drive programmatic insight.

Uh, Kevin mentioned a pretty significant programmatic change he made on his team recently.

That was as a result of one minor insight on a dashboard that he got a few months ago, but that that minor insight led to a dramatic pivot in the way that he does his work that's uh increase or decrease the amount of time that it takes to develop a relationship between diversion officer and the youth that that person serves.

It's dramatically increased the ability to build trust and a bonded relationship between those two folks, and it's resulted in a significant increase in parental involvement in the process, and that's just as a result of sort of one discussion that Kevin and I had based on his data, and we have many, many more to come.

Um so that's where we are here at the end of 2025.

But that infrastructure work from my perspective for ONS is far from over.

Uh, I'm really looking forward to what I have next.

In my view across the city, to the extent that we're good at measuring themes, we're really only good at measuring our outputs, which is to say the things that we do and we make.

We're really not good at all at measuring our outcomes, truly showing with data with hard empirical fact the way that our clients, the people we serve are better off, they're happier, healthier, stronger, wealthier.

And so we actually just embarked on a process just this week where we are going to really rigorously identify all of the key outcomes for every single program area where we're mapping it onto the social determinants of health model.

And then as I continue to develop these data systems for every program area, we're going to merge them into one cohesive, fully modern data system that automates all data collection, all storage, integration, and analysis.

But more than that, it builds out columns for every program area's data table that are our true outcome columns and will require every time we enter a new record of a client interaction or a client outcome successful closure, we will record across multiple data points those outcome success stories for for every program area, and we'll be able to tell really for the first time ever that true data-driven outcome-based story about the work that we do with the people that we that we serve and is so critical that we serve so well.

So that's what I'm looking forward to.

I'm really excited to bring that to the team and to bring that to all of you when we're ready.

And I think the the future is bright.

Thank you so much.

Dr.

Sanders, any closing words to wrap this up.

Then we're jumping to our queue.

Yeah, thank you all for your patience.

Uh the reason I wanted to get all of these programs out is because I wanted to one paint a picture of the continuum of services that live within the Office of Neighborhood Safety, right?

The stories behind these programs need to be told individually, but they also need to be told in a way that shows how we're working really hard to create a centralized uh service hub and office that serves residents who need it most.

So I wanted, we wanted you all to hear from uh the individuals who do the work.

Uh, we've got one pro program manager that just for the sake of time uh we're bypassing, but I'm sure we can talk about some of our CYDC work as our conversation goes.

But I want to make sure there's lots of time for public comment and open conversation on these programs and about why we're so excited about this office and how we're gonna be able to serve Denver residents through it.

Well, Dr.

Sanders and team, I have to say I'm extremely impressed with the work that you do and the lives that you impact based on the intentionality of your work, and also that you're focused on making sure we're doing outcomes and not just simply outputs.

And I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for the comprehensive presentations from everyone sitting over there on the amount of work put together to pull that information.

And with that, we'll jump join to the queue.

Let's just check first to see if uh council president Pro Tem Romero Campbell is available to um and able to answer any questions.

I know that you're a virtual.

I want to give you that opportunity before we come into the rule.

Um I don't have any questions right now.

I'll jump in the queue.

Just thank you for the presentation and for the work that um all of the folks that have been presenting um have shared today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for them.

And I would like to welcome to the uh meeting, uh, Councilmember Parity.

And with that, the queue begins with Councilmember Sawyer and Councilmember Gonzalez Katearis, and then Council Member Flint.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, you guys.

Um, so grateful for all of the work that you do, and um, you know, being able to comprehensively look at all of these different programs is really really helpful for us because I will say I statements.

I still don't know what you do in OSEI.

I still don't understand what the restructuring looked like.

Um, and so this is very, very helpful.

Um, I really appreciate that.

At the last time you all were here was May of 2024.

I'm looking at the presentation now for anyone who would like to look it up on Legistar, it's 24-0646.

Um, slide two is an org chart of OSEI.

Um, it looks nothing like what you just showed us, right?

And I know at that time, if you go through this live presentation, you were working with Pete to sort of make a determination about what this looks like, but we haven't heard anything about it since May of 2024.

So we're now in October of 2025, and what you have just presented to us is absolutely nothing like what is on slide two of what you presented to us in May of 2024.

Um, so I I guess I need a little bit of clarity and understanding.

Um, so we have the Office of Community Violence Solutions.

Um, next is the Aid Center, that's gone.

Okay.

Uh safety youth programs, including Denver Juvenile Service Center.

That was under Pat.

Pat's gone.

So who who's doing that now?

Or is that still under that?

And these are the that's the programs that we just looked at.

Yes, it's it's part of our consolidation.

Okay, great.

And then we have star 911, that position is gone.

Okay.

Um, and then we have um, like a whole right-hand side that is strategic operations, innovation, strategy, learning, training, um, all of that kind of stuff.

It does that still exist.

It does still exist.

It still exists within OSEI.

Correct.

We're just focusing on the neighborhood safety side.

So today is about the Office of Neighborhood Safety focus.

So the original, well, I want to let you go.

No, no, no.

Please keep going.

So as some of you know, the original date for this meeting was in November.

We were super excited to get into this meeting earlier because we know how important your budget conversations are.

And we really wanted to make sure that we were providing a picture of the programming that lives in OSCI as you all enter those conversations.

One of the things we got in front of, as you all know, 2025 has been quite the eventful year for the city.

We've gone through budget challenges, we've gone through staff reductions.

And so part of the reason what you see is significantly different than what we presented last year is because our office is significantly different.

We lost uh a significant number of percentage of our staff through budget reductions.

And so we, like all of the other agencies across the city had to ask what are the core services that we provide in the Office of Neighborhood Safety, and how do we partner with other agencies to make sure that some of the programs that came into our house through that original transition, so things like the aid center, uh, that one single component of the STAR program, that they live in the right places, right?

And so one of the things that happened is we decided and discovered really through some deep data digging around the aid center that there were better ways that we could serve some of the populations being served there.

We also discovered uh as we took a really deep look at the STAR program that it made more sense for the city to address some of the bifurcation that was in the program.

And so we're really happy to work with our partners at DDPHE to create a more vertically integrated version of the STAR program that they now own completely, uh, but that we'll be partnering uh with through operations like the ones that um that Beth described when she talked about the data Rani program, right?

And so some of this was about creating the right through lines, and then of course the budget pressures created the the real need for us to do that, not just internally at OSEI, but also with other agencies across the city so that we made sure we're providing streamlined services and a significantly shrunk uh resource universe.

Yeah, so thank you for that.

That is super helpful.

I wish you would have started this entire presentation with that.

Sure.

Um, because I think, like I said, the last time we saw you guys, it was May of 2024, and there was, and this, what you just presented to us is absolutely nothing like what you presented to us in May of 2024.

So very helpful.

Um, I would I guess love to at some point learn more about the right-hand side of this slide too, right?

The kind of organizational piece of it, because I still don't understand what they do.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think I'd actually like to touch on some of that right now.

Yeah, great.

One, I think um there's a couple of things I'd say about sort of things looking different.

Things do look different, and that has a lot to do with the fact that we took this opportunity to look at all of our programming and ask what can we pull together, right?

We're still in the midst right now of taking a picture of our youth violence prevention programming, our heart programming, our safe city youth leadership team programming and asking where can we create more efficiencies?

How do we make sure that all of our resources are working in the best ways?

The right side of the R org chart that you're asking about is the original structure of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Great.

The equity work that began at the city started with agency-facing work that's led by our um executive deputy director of ESI, Brian Farooz.

That team works with every agency that reports to the mayor on an annual basis to create racial equity action plans that are composed of strategies that will drive that agency's work for calendar year or two years, depending on sort of how those strategies are structured.

What this gives us the ability to do is, for example, if we know that Doddy's gonna be working through our place network investigations program next year to do a bunch of work with street lights, we want to make sure that their racial equity action plan includes strategies that are committed to addressing those specific things.

So we have the real opportunity to align city resources and planning through the ESI side of things with agency sort of budgets policies and programs.

That was the original plan structure of ESI.

What we got through the Office of Neighborhood Safety last year was a community facing arm of this office, which now allows us to combine the agency-facing programming budgets, budget policy work that we do with all the agencies that report to the mayor with the community-facing arm of our Office of neighborhood safety.

So now when we're doing work with agencies, it is directly influenced by what we're hearing from community uh all the time through our through our ONS programs, and the work that we're doing with agencies is on the flip side directly influenced by the work that we're hearing from community through the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

So I so appreciate what you just said.

Thank you for that.

Absolutely.

That is so much more clear than uh than what we were, you know, sort of left to not understand previously.

So thank you for that explanation.

I really appreciate it.

Um so then, in terms of the contracts that you hold, because they're also on this list, right?

Um I need, I think, understand more about who is managing those contracts then, because um, you know, ONS is essentially from what you've presented to us at this point, entirely youth services facing.

Um, so I'm I'm curious.

Maybe from the Office of Children's Affairs, see Justice in the room, like how's the how does that work?

Post-restructuring, right?

Like, is the Office of Children's Affairs managing those contracts?

Is the Office of Social Equity and Innovation managing those contracts?

Like, because remember, from our perspective, I'm asking these questions because budget.

Absolutely.

Right, and understanding the new restructuring post-layoffs that we were essentially given no information about from the mayor's office.

So I apologize that I'm asking what feels like rudimentary questions.

Council was not provided any of this information from the mayor's office.

So, part of the reason we wanted to be here.

Yeah, I so appreciate that.

So I'm like maybe Jess, if you can explain how uh the Office of Children's Affairs is dovetailing in here.

And then thank you for introducing yourself as well, Dr.

Centers.

Please continue.

Just really on the on the contract part, uh, I want to make sure that our contract administrator Alyssa has an opportunity.

For sure.

Yeah, that would be great.

Thank you.

Sorry to put you on the spot.

I just like I'm really trying to understand here.

That's why I wanted to what is happening here.

That's why we're here.

I'm Jess Ridgway.

I'm the executive director of the Office of Children's Affairs, uh, and feel so fortunate to be able to work with many of the people sitting here in this room.

Um, there's a lot of close collaboration that happens.

Um, in terms of the contracts, again, I'm not looking at the same slide that you are, councilwoman.

So I don't know specifically what um contracts you're alluding to, but if they are services or supports that are provided through the um staff that you're seeing here that are part of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, those are managed through their department.

Um, and obviously, Office of Children's Affairs will manage um our out-of-school time contracts, uh, our early childhood contracts, those those pieces.

But a lot of the intervention programs that you just heard about are directly managed out of ONS.

Okay, that's really great to know.

Thank you for, I think, sort of clarifying that for me.

Um, can I do one more question?

Of course, that's perfect.

Okay.

Um I gotta get his permission.

Um, so uh then in terms of um things like that we had talked about originally that were sort of in ONS, um, things like working with PI, things like working with CPD, um uh neighborhood inspection services on some of those things um that all kind of dovetail into what we fondly refer to as the Doom Loop.

Um, how is where does that continue to live within OSCI?

Because I would think that even though that's not youth focused, that is the job of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, but I haven't seen anything about that at all.

So it feels like I think there's a gap here, but maybe I'm just wrong.

So please tell which has happened before.

Um, so like can you just explain how though that work is it within the Office of Neighborhood Safety and inspections?

No, no, how you dovetail with them, right?

Because that all has to do with neighborhood safety.

And and the prior council did a um like a two-year assessment program.

There was an entire write-up done by a professor at DU where there was a plan for what the office of neighborhood safety was going to be.

The mayor, this new mayor and administration came in, threw all of that work out and created an office of neighborhood safety under OSEI um that, and then you guys took off and running.

Um the purpose of the original Office of Neighborhood Safety as contemplated by community and as contemplated by council and is contemplated by former administration, which is all written in that document, um, included the actual community safety issues that result from a number of different things, but that create this Doom loop where we have siloed agencies all taking a look at one thing and never actually managing the holistically the problem, right?

The original ONS was supposed to be the agency that holistically managed the problem.

You're not, from what I can tell.

Is that correct?

So you're you're not doing that.

I think I would say, and I would be happy to circle back with you and provide some briefings maybe outside of this context.

I would say it sounds like you have a very different understanding of what our agency is.

I think the entire city and county of Denver did before like this mayor's office announced the creation of Office of Neighborhood Safety.

So I think that's I mean, I think I'd be happy to discuss that.

I think the Office of Neighborhood Safety that we've tried to forge, we looked at all of the documents, including the one that, as you know, that you're referring to, right?

Um, and we took a picture of what we had the capacity to do.

I think when we were here last May, we said, hey, we know we're not gonna be able to do everything.

We didn't inherit everything in the transition of programs from the Department of Safety, but we did inherit enough programs to focus on violence to focus on.

I mean, some of the work that you're talking about, we're connected through two through the place network investigations work, right?

And we'll find our way there because of the gun violence component of PI.

So we'll plug in with CPD there because we have a team that that focuses specifically on gun gang and group violence.

Yeah, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna I need to hurry through this, so I'm gonna just stop you there and say I really appreciate that, and I'm very, very supportive of the work that you guys are doing at NFP and I as well.

PNI is like eight sites across the city.

That's right.

We're talking about the entire city and county of Denver, where we have, for example, over 200 properties on a vacant and derelict properties list that are on that list specifically because of the crime that occurs at those vacant properties.

That's neighborhood safety.

Yeah, I agree.

Right.

So that I think is kind of the pushback.

Like, this is a I appreciate all that you guys do, and I appreciate the the work that you have done to get organized in this.

I am very concerned that there is uh an 100% youth focus and an entire city's worth of problems that were not managed in the development of the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

So I'll stop there.

Thank you, Councilwoman Sawyer.

And and I'll say um uh director, if there's the opportunity for the hierarchy, kind of just the listing of where the departments are at.

I think prior to the November presentation that'll be great.

I believe that your office uh came and spoke to uh some level of this committee back in March and March 12th as well.

And so we'll maybe pull that and pull that information so city council members have that update.

Not sure how specific that presentation was, but that that came through.

But I appreciate Councilmember Sawyer, your direct questions and look forward to you providing uh one-on-one briefings with folks on those and come back in November with some more of the specifics from those questions.

Uh Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez and then Council Member Flynn.

Thank you so much, uh, Mr.

Chair, and I just want to thank all the work of all the staff in the work that you've been doing for many many years.

Some of you I've I think I've worked with for almost over 15 years now in this space.

And so I have a deep appreciation for um the work that you do.

Um, I guess with that said, I just I'm not seeing necessarily anything new from the previous presentation.

And I know that, and and we've talked about this before, um, even with the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, that it was essentially taking programs that existed in one agency and moving them to another.

And and so everything that was presented has already been in existence.

So I just want to put make that very clear to my colleagues to understand that these programs have already existed.

Maybe they've been slightly modified, maybe there's been some changes that have been improvements, like you know, going from six months down to three months with the diversion program, which I see is a positive change.

Um, but these all have existed.

And and to the point that I am deeply appreciative that it is all for youth programs, because that's where my heart is, of course, but I do understand that there's a broader kind of um uh issue to be addressed, which is neighborhood safety, right?

Um, so I'm very appreciative that these programs are still in existence.

Um, I have a couple of like specific questions.

One is about the alternatives to citations program, and I'm not sure who would be able to answer that.

That's Kevin.

Yes.

Um, specifically, Kevin, why don't you come up to the table?

Specifically, um, can you just briefly go over how a youth accesses that program?

I had some um members of the community who previously attempted to access that program and they were told they could not unless the victim agreed to it or the alleged victim agreed to it.

And um, even if it was a youth's like first alleged offense and and all of those kinds of things, um, just curious what the current state is now and how somebody accesses alternatives to citations, absolutely, councilwoman.

I think uh initially though, as I uh stated previously, the alternative citation program was who selected schools, I believe four of them throughout the City and County of Denver, and then we met with our partners through DPD and DPS and expanded many CDY, yes.

Uh a victim has to uh agree, I believe that is uh tied to the victim rights uh act to the state.

Uh nonetheless, we're still working closely with our uh city attorneys uh in our our courtroom to be to sort of make uh expedite diversion uh accessible, which is another form of the alternative citation uh program, where we're reaching out to uh community members or youth who have been who have received the citation and uh sort of trying to mediate with uh the victim as well and making alternative citation program uh accessible to them.

Okay, thank you so much for that.

Thank you very much.

Um, so my other question is on the hype program, and so I don't know if that would be Teresa or any of the folks at the table.

Um, so my understanding from the budget book on page 304, and we actually talked about this, I think at some point in time, and councilman Cashman had like asked for hype to be brought back.

Um, it says that the hype pro eliminate the hype program in associated field positions, including two diversion and criminal justice officers, a program manager and a program administrator, which would decrease by 436,600.

Then it says uh the other part is the professional services budget for hype program, which is another 145,000.

How are we presenting about hype when it is essentially according to this?

We're we're being told that it's going away.

And I've heard from folks from um Urban Farm, you know, folks have been already let go because they know that the funding's not gonna be there.

Um so I'm curious as to why this was being presented as a program that is in existence when according to the budget, it's getting being eliminated.

You want to start?

Yeah, so again, we had to move up this presentation by a month, and so there is some socializing that's related to budget reductions that we haven't been able to have with staff yet.

So, current state, this is what we look like.

And it's a little misleading in how it was presented in the budget booking, and that's a lesson learned for us.

We're not eliminating the hype program.

Um, what we are putting up for a budget reduction is the partnership with the urban farm.

Um, so that's a portion of what we do.

But as Teresa had mentioned earlier, there's 25 different community partners that we work with in order to facilitate the hype program.

Um so the urban parv is just one of those providers.

It's a significant piece of it because it's our vocational track, but we're also looking at other, as we're focusing on core service delivery, we're looking at where could we leverage um services that other agencies provide.

And in Dito, they do have a direct vocational path that we're looking for.

Okay, so the budget book then needs to be updated because this is the most recent budget book that went out and it says these positions are no longer for 2026.

That's a huge positions themselves.

We had to go through the CSA process, and so by that ranking, um, certainly individuals, all the ones that were laid off were not from the hype program.

Um so it gives us the opportunity to wait, but you're talking.

Sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you for just a second, but you're talking about the partnership with urban farm, whereas this is talking about actual employees that are being that were eliminated per in the budget.

I'm confused how, like that's not what it says in the budget book.

So that's actually not accurate then.

So daily, let's have the daily uh clarify and then put in writing kind of what that structural difference is, but please go for it.

I think again, I think that we could have probably worded it differently and done a better job of how it was presented in the budget books.

That is a lesson learned that we're gonna have to take away from this.

Um apologize for that confusion, uh, but it really is because that tough piece of it, that's what we have funding for.

The rest we're doing through uh partnerships through creative means.

Um, so the funding piece is really it's directed to the urban farm, and then some of the staffing that supports that programming at the urban farm.

But through the CSA process, it didn't quite pan out that way.

Um and now we understand that we have the opportunity to not really eliminate the entire hype program, but to reimaginate it and just focus on that one track that has the funding associated with it.

Okay.

Um my next question is on sorry, I'm gonna keep going if it's okay.

Sorry, Dr.

Sanders.

Um Stefan, if you could talk real quick about the MDT that you were talking about, the multidisciplinary team.

You know, traditionally multidisciplinary teams back in the back, way back days used to be a bunch of professionals, and in this case, it sounds like community partner community agencies coming together to talk about um a family or talk about a case without them, right?

And so I'm curious: are these MDTs inclusive of the people that are directly impacted that you're talking about?

And I guess what are what are the types of things that they're discussing in these MDTs?

Yeah.

So with our MDTs, the way that they're structured, the family or the participants not involved in the MDT directly, they are uh involved uh secondarily because what we're creating in there is what we call a coordinated case plan.

That coordinated case plan is something that the interventionist is working with that young person or that adult on saying, hey, what are your goals?

What are some things that we need to address?

What are some barriers that you have?

What do we need to overcome?

They then take that information and bring that information to the MDT on the behalf of the client, where we do have those community providers and partners there saying, okay, this young man said he needs some grief and loss uh therapeutic interventions.

So uh, out of the people that we have here in the room, is there anybody with any space or some ability to provide brief and loss therapeutic interventions for this individual?

You know what I'm gonna say, right?

With that.

Sounds like an arch staffing.

It does.

But without the family there.

With without the family there, and through again, a coordinated case plan uh model, because again, we are the ones that are working directly with that individual and providing the services directly.

Um, and what's different with an arch staffing is that they might be the center point for what those services might look like.

Um, but then all that work goes outwards, right?

Our work does go outwards, but the person driving the work is the one that's directly in that MDT meeting that's directly working and assigned to that individual that we're providing the support and services for.

We'll follow up on that, um, because I can go all day on that stuff.

Um, and then my last piece is on the data, real quick.

Um, so I still am not sure what, and I would love to get maybe a specific briefing on what the data outcomes, what the metrics, what is it that we're trying to measure?

Um, all of the information that was presented is amazing.

However, it's what are those, what is happening on the ground and how is this actually having an impact?

That's always the question, right?

When it comes to these kinds this kind of work, and so then my question is on top of that, it's great that you're coordinating, collaborating within ONS.

My question then is how are you coordinating outside of ONS with all the other um system uh partners across the city?

Because you have you still have like the school district, you have human services, you have all these other different systems that we could be better coordinating, and this is actually something Pat Hedrick and I dreamt of years ago of how do we better share our data without sharing information of youth and families, but to be able to you know look at whether or not what we're doing is actually effective, and at what points in the system are creating perhaps more barriers or um creating further system involvement and things like that.

So I'm just curious if there's any effort in that space.

100%.

I couldn't agree with you any more strongly.

How important everything that you just said is my immediate barrier is that we would have no way to do anything like what you described if we have data on hard copy and file drawers or in poorly organized spreadsheets on C drives.

So right now I'm doing the sort of the marathon run to get us from mid-20th century to to late 21st century data systems.

That's my task over the next 12 months or so.

But we are in the beginning stages of having exactly those types of conversations with community partners because I agree with you so strongly how important that is.

Uh, as you well know, I have all sorts of legal and other types of technological barriers for how I can share data outside of the city.

So I certainly don't want to say too much or overpromise here in this context, but one thing that I'm definitely thinking about in very early days is maybe what are some ways that we can do some of that hosting or organizing ourselves to be a convener and facilitate some of that super early days, but my head is right there with you, Council.

Great.

Thank you so much.

The last thing I'll say before I move on is that I am a little bit disappointed because I thought that we would be getting information about the gain program, which was something that was brought up by multiple council members, and I was I must must have misunderstood during one of our previous committee meetings that that was something that was going to be presented today.

So I would look forward to getting um at the very minimum an individual briefing and then maybe um hopefully bringing it to committee in the future.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, uh Councilmember.

Um what I stated specifically in last week's meeting was that the gain discussion um would be added to the November presentation from this team, that this presentation was specific from the budget uh discussion of identifying truly what ONS OSEI, what their structure was because we had a set amount of time.

We asked them to come even though they weren't on the calendar because we wanted to get this in before the budget.

But again discussion would be um in a November meeting, and we'll we'll announce what that time is and there are briefings between now and that November meeting for every city council member.

Um, Dr.

Sanders, I was wondering if you wanted to just elaborate a little bit on the specifics on kind of the collaborative approach and the the question that Councilmember Gonzalski Terror has brought forward, but I I didn't think you had a chance to answer them.

We go to Councilmember Flynn.

Yeah, and I think it's really important, right?

I mean, and there's kind of two points I want to name here.

One, the ESI side of OSCI is doing the same thing that it's done since the agency was created, which is supporting city agencies.

What we've done over the past 15, 18 months, and we can sort of agree to disagree on this, but I don't think that there is the case that there's not anything new here.

I would disagree with that because I know what these folks have done.

We what we had before was we had separate programs with a major lack of data, right?

And this is not to throw anybody under the bus, but when these programs existed in the Department of Safety, they had a very different function.

They had a very different purpose.

Their purpose was to support Department of Safety departments when they needed to do community-facing work.

That's very different than what the very great questions that you're asking uh councilwoman uh Gonzalez Gutierrez about establishing data sets that allow us to measure not just inputs but outcomes and outputs over time that are actually uh related to what's happening uh uh in communities.

That is just not a data set that existed before and that we're super excited to have the foundation for.

But all these things were already going.

Diversion, Rani, the data MDT, that stuff was all established before.

I just want to be very clear.

Like the programs themselves were already in existence and already functioning in the way that they are, and the data piece, yes, is the addition.

Correct.

And I think I think in addition to adding that the data piece is the is uh the difference, these programs did not exist as a singular whole before.

So we're creating individual data points for each program and a centralized data systems for the office that these programs now represent.

That did not exist because there was no way for it to exist a year ago, right?

That's how we get an office of neighborhood safety rather than a collective of programs that existed in the department of safety that all did community-facing work, but did not do it in a centralized way, and that's been a huge lift for this team.

I just don't want that to be.

Thank you, Dr.

Sanders.

Um, Councilmember Flynn.

Uh, sure, uh Sifon, can I get some more clarity on the safe haven network?

As I read this, two things, two questions on this.

Um, I mean, faith-based, faith-based, uh, prayer vigil, yeah, prayer walks.

Um first question, how much does faith-based work resonate with today's youth?

And secondly, the safe haven network, is that a network that's deployed only when there's a violent incident, or is that an ongoing um uh continual outreach?

Oh, the first question uh I'll answer first.

Um, what we've seen and what we've experienced in doing these safe havens is that we have far more young people that come out to take part in the safe haven than I would have imagined on the surface, right?

For instance, we did a safe haven event uh in District 5 last night where we had about 60 young people that came through, and only about 20 adults that came through.

A majority of the individuals that that came through and were interacting and were hanging out, were youth.

Can you tell me what the reason for that was?

Was there an incident that occurred that this was in response to or it wasn't?

And what does that what does that event look like?

Yeah, and I'll get into that a little bit more expanded in the second portion of the question.

Um what this was in regards to was ongoing community violence uh in the district five Green Valley Ranch area.

Um so it wasn't tied to a specific event, so to speak, right?

Now, uh Safe Haven is one of those programs that's undergone a few different changes uh over the course of the last year or so.

Um and since it's coming under uh my control with again, we have layoffs where impacted by by different things.

Um, what my goal is is to reinvigorate the Safe Haven network to where we're meeting the needs of every community across the city, and really tending to what those individuals might need at that period of time.

Now, the way that these look is uh there is a strong faith-based connection to it.

Um, it doesn't have to be any one faith that's predominant uh in there.

Um if we're, you know, over off of uh East Colfax, there might be Buddhist, there might be Muslim, there might be uh Jewish, there might be Christian.

It's irregardless of faith, uh what your faith base is, but it is something where we do want spiritual leaders and faith healers from the respective communities to come out and support people that might belong to their community.

In addition to that, we also want therapeutic uh interventions uh on site for those individuals that might be struggling with trauma, even if they don't have a faith uh center, so to speak.

We also want uh individuals out there that might interact with a couple of the police officers that might show up because we know that the stigma exists.

Essentially, what we want is people to come out of their houses to not fear their community, but to embrace their community, take back their community, interact with people within their community, and know that there are people and programs within their local communities because that's a big chunk of the Safe Haven Network.

If we did one in District 5, Struggle of Love is there right there at the Safe Haven Activation.

And many more organizations are invited to the table.

GRASP came, Lifeline came.

Um any organization can come to those safe havens and provide services and support for those individuals that are based in their local neighborhood.

We don't want to have Safe Haven activate and then all of the information come to us.

We want it to go out to uh steps to success.

We want it to go out to Struggle of Love Foundation.

We want them to go to the Denver Dream Center.

We want them to go to their local churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, uh, to help in that restoration, so to speak.

So it really is a wider initiative that we're really trying to appeal to a greater populace of individuals, and we'll do that through various means as we activate, right?

Now we do have three types of activation.

One is a prayer walk, where we'll literally mobilize and we'll walk through affected communities to provide structure and service and community to those individuals.

We'll greet people as we go, we'll socialize with them, we'll invite them to the walk.

Um if they want prayer or require prayer, uh, there are groups that are there that will pray with them that will talk to them.

Um if they need additional services, there are those community providers that are with us that will stop, give flyers, give information, tell them to come down to whatever their center or their central office is to retrieve receive additional support.

Um if we do a partial activation, it's more like a resource fair where people can come and really get their needs met in a myriad of different ways.

And if we do a full activation, we're gonna do a cookout for the community, um, and we're really gonna sit with the individuals from those communities that are affected and really take the time to love on them to really hear their concerns, hear their needs, and see what we can do moving forward.

With all of those activations.

There also is aftercare, again, by those community providers and partner agencies that that we partner with.

I did sounds like you anticipated my follow-up question.

Who are these community organizations?

Sounds like they are the ones that are outlined in the first box here, which is community partnerships because you mentioned struggle long, uh grasp uh lifeline Colorado, sorry.

Yeah, and not only them, but we have uh groups like uh uh CFCU, the Christian Faith uh Churches United.

Um we also have uh different groups of of faith initiatives.

Um we're trying to reconnect with the Jewish Services Center uh to provide additional support in that regard.

Um we are providing with therapeutic agencies, resolute counseling, well power, uh different organizations and agencies like that to bring them out in addition to because we recognize there's a widespread need, and not one service works for one type of person or one populace.

Thank you.

I appreciate having a much more full picture of what that safety and that work done.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you so much, uh, Councilmember Flynn.

I want to look around the room to see if there's any other questions.

We have eight minutes uh remaining, and then also Council President Pro Tem.

I always wanted to check while you are online to make sure that we're keeping you involved in the process, and if you have questions.

Thank you.

I just actually had a real quick um comment, and I appreciate my colleagues' um questions.

Uh I wanted to make a real quick comment about the prayer walk.

Um, there was a prayer walk that did occur in um district four.

I joined in in it, and I think it was exactly as stated, it was very powerful.

We um ran into a number of people um on that walk and had some really I think some really good conversations, not only healing for our community, but also for those who were um on the prayer rock um going through the community.

So I just wanted to give a shout out to that and say thank you for for doing that in the community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Council President for coming out share as well that uh um at Folo Park, I think it was last summer we did the same.

It wasn't based on a specific incident, um, as Councilman Flynn asked.

I mean, it was an opportunity to touch folks, and so GRASSP was there.

Um, I think Shruggle Blob was there.

We took um um uh we connected with um youth and family, and then we walked uh over to Madam CJ Walker Park, and um and along the walk, folks joined uh from community.

So I think the support um, and that has no.

Are we all right?

Give me a thumbs up when we're over again.

And so there are often times where OSCIONS um touches community where there's not a clear data point.

Um, but I know within a community that I live in, uh, some of these touches with communities the the barbecues that the outreach is, ensuring that the community members that are trusted are elevated from make a um a chess move and all of them involved in these processes.

Um, and so I appreciate it.

Um, there are some takeaways um uh obviously um uh so providing clarity on uh the hierarchy of your organization before the November meeting.

Um I know for council members that are here and those are are gonna are watching, um, encouraging folks to take that briefing before that November meeting because there's a lot of information and a lot of OSEI piece um was not spoken um directly today.

Um make sure we take those and any of the briefings.

I know Dr.

Sanders, you've offered before.

Um, the full budget discussions began next week, and even during that, um, the line of questions that were sent to your office, um, the answers to those questions, your team can send those back to council members to make sure they have those as they are um looking at um any of the uh ongoing outgoing uh questions they have as it impacts the budget.

Um, seeing no other uh questions from council members look around the room.

Um we have three items on consent.

I want to thank you, Dr.

Sanders, and your team, and all the good work that you do.

Um, and we have this now on channel eight, so folks can go back and review kind of uh the full scope of the good work that you do, at least on this side of your business.

So thank you all.

And with that, this meeting's adjourned.

Thank you.