All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome. Before we begin, I want to remind the committee members

and members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings. This includes only

commenting on the specific agenda item and addressing the entire body. Public speakers

will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council members, or staff. All members of the

committee, staff, and the public are expected to refrain from abusive language. Failure to comply

with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct of this

meeting, will result in removal from the meeting. Please note that members of the public can comment

on agendized items, but given that this is a special meeting, there will be no open forum.

This joint meeting in the Neighborhood Services and Education Committee and the County of Santa Clara Children's Seniors and Families Committee will now come to order.

Can the clerk please call the roll?

Campos?

Present.

Candelas?

Here.

Cohen?

Here.

Vice Chair Duan?

Here.

And Chair Ortiz?

Present.

You have a quorum for the city.

Thank you so much. Now I'm going to pass it to my colleague, Silvia Vrenes, from the county.

Wonderful.

Well, good morning everyone.

I'm Sylvia Rines, Chair of CSFC on the county side,

and so I'm gonna ask our clerk to please call roles

so that we can meet quorum.

Vice Chairperson Young?

Here.

And Chairperson Rines.

And I'm here too.

Thank you, you have a quorum.

We need it.

Great, thank you so much.

Coordination between the City of San Jose

and the County of Santa Clara

on the City of San Jose Children and Youth Master Plan.

And the County of Santa Clara County's Latino health assessment and gun violence prevention efforts

are very important to the discussion.

It impacts all of us together.

I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to work with my colleagues from the county.

You know, at the end of the day, we all serve our residents here at the city of San Jose.

We have shared constituency.

Most of our residents don't differentiate between whether the services are coming from the city or the county,

and so I just really want to value this opportunity.

I think that by investing in our youth,

focusing our concentrations on both our children

and our adolescents go a long way.

And really, for every dollar that we invest in the youth,

we get twice the amount of productivity

at the end of the day.

And just one more house rule.

We will be doing all the presentation items,

and then there will be opportunities at the end

to provide public comment for everyone.

I'm going to pass it over to Supervisor Arenas for opening comments.

Great, thank you.

It's also an honor for me to be back here at the City of San Jose

after serving one and a half terms,

in which we spent a really good amount of time.

I look to Angel Rios and some of the former and our city attorneys,

some of the work that we've done to bring forward children and children youth and families to the

forefront and we we did it in a number of ways even before we named the child and youth master

plan the master plan we reminded that the housing department needed to count families in order to

make sure that we recognize them within the network and that we eventually serve them right

And we also did a lot of really wonderful things during the pandemic, and that is to share with the county at that time resources so that children and our youth could be connected in their homes.

And so we shared costs by we covered the hotspots, the county covered the devices, and a lot of our children got connected so that they could attend school and continue to be fruitful.

That continued, that kind of partnership extended to childcare and for the very first time the

City of San Jose invested in childcare by providing a $10,000 stipend to all of our

childcare providers that applied and I safely say that all of them utilized the funds.

We continued that partnership and that investment with childcare by investing in our afterschool

programs as well as some of our community center programming and really grew our rock

program throughout our city of San Jose.

With that journey, we ended with the Child and Youth Master Plan because we recognized

that we wanted something that was organized, something that had a continuum of care for

our children and our youth.

We realize that having one-time programming sometimes doesn't make the mark.

It is wonderful for us to invest in our youth, but we have to do it in a way that is comprehensive,

the one that has a continuum of care so that we can provide the steps that are necessary

for our children and our youth to be able to have a successful and vibrant career and

future.

And so I'm really proud to say that one of the last things that we did was allot $10,000

for our Child and Youth Master Plan as a council member, and I'm really proud of the work

that my colleagues now in place of me and, of course, Angel Rios leading that charge

from administration and Laura Abusa who's no longer here but still was a part of this,

did a lot of wonderful work to move this plan forward.

And while they were doing that,

I was over at the county connecting the dots.

And this is another effort to connect those dots

and continue to have a continuum of care

that is comprehensive because as we know,

the city of San Jose is limited

in terms of what they offer in services

because mainly the city is focused on development,

infrastructure for the city of San Jose,

parks or streets, all of those things

that make our lives a lot easier.

And then on top of that, they also focus on social services

because everybody in our local government needs to step up

and invest in our community.

But the truth is that the county has a lot of what we call

our safety net services, and those are the services

that our families rely on to continue on

if they somehow maybe have a hard time in their lives.

And so the county is here to support in that way.

And this is a tradition that former supervisor Cindy Chavez and myself started.

And we did it with gender-based violence.

We did this with our youth, surrounding our youth, and during the pandemic.

And now I'm really glad that we continue with Supervisor Young.

and so with that I will just ask everybody to take a look at our systems

as one and in that spirit I'll hand this over to our chair councilmember Ortiz

thank you supervisor next I'm going to introduce Angel Rios to discuss our

first item on the agenda thank you all right thank you chair Ortiz and thank

you supervisor Arinas one minor detail you and your colleagues are also

were responsible for securing 10.3 million dollars right after the pandemic that went out into the

community uh post pandemic and that was that was no small task and and it had a significant impact

at the right time um it's really great to see so many uh of our partners and so many champions for

children youth and families here in the chambers uh um i think just the the showing today just

shows how important this issue is not only to those up here those of us up here but to to

those of us in this entire room as we kick off our presentation on the children youth master plan

kind of wanted to frame a couple of of things you know when we launched the development of the

children youth master plan we knew right from the get-go that if we were really going to get to the

root cause issues we were going to have to deal with cause and effect right the the you know if

we were going to just add three or four more programs yeah we were going to have short-term

impact but it wasn't going to be enough to really change and really disrupt the cycle

of poverty that we know many of our children, youth and families found themselves entangled

in.

At the end of the day we knew that in order to disrupt poverty, which is a hard thing

to do as everybody in this room knows, it was going to be kind of a long game.

There were things we were going to have to do short term but things that we were going

to have to do long term more systemically.

We also knew that the greatest antidote to breaking that cycle of poverty is really creating

more access to opportunity.

So that's really what the Children Youth Master Plan kind of North Star ended up being.

We also knew that in order for us to do that, the city and the county, along with our partners

in the nonprofit sector, faith community, business community, we're going to have to

unify our vision around children and youth.

days of just having siloed visions was kind of it was really distracting the

work and and making us more inefficient and so with that in mind the the the

children youth master plan kind of like started from day one with county as a

partner and so we really have been joined at the hip with response to this

we there's a lot of criticism oftentimes that you know about the you know about

the city and the county and did they work well together do they not work well

together well I could tell you that in regards to children and youth the city

and county are working really well together.

The plan that we developed was also community informed, right?

We also made sure that as we kicked this off,

this wasn't about the city or the county saying,

here's what the community needs.

We had to invert that.

This had to be, let's go out, hear from the community,

and let the community tell us what the community needs,

and then we build our systems around that.

So this work is predicated on that approach,

a community informed approach.

It also presents a shared framework, right?

There are seven priority areas in the Children and Youth Master Plan,

and it provides a clear structure for organizing programs and investments across early learning, safety, health,

youth intervention, and pathways to meaningful work, a lot of the key areas that we need to focus on.

And lastly, we know that taking this framework and scaling it citywide was going to be a big effort.

so we started with two pilot sites you see some of our pilot partners in in the box there today

we've identified mayfair and polka way as one pilot site and then the santee and seven trees

as another pilot site and this illustrates how this alignment shows up on the ground

creating a true no wrong door approach and experience for children youth and families

and with that i'll turn it over to our team in the box who will go over our children youth

Master Plan framework. Thank you Angel. Good morning Chair Ortiz and Council

member and Council members, Chair Arenas and Supervisor Dawn. I'm Israel Kanhura,

the Recreation Superintendent who is leading the implementation efforts for

the Children's Youth Services Master Plan. Today's update will include both a

city and county overview as well as a direct implementation update from our

community partners. So I would like to begin by sending in our conversation on

our shared vision. Our vision is to foster a future where every child and

youth in San Jose blossoms into healthy, resilient, thriving adults and rich with

equitable opportunities to live, work, play, dream, and prosper within the

vibrant landscape of Silicon Valley. This is an ambitious and inspiring goal, as it

should be, and one that truly reflects the kind of future we are collectively

working to build for our children and youth and families. With that, the

following outlines the seven areas early learning and child care health and

mental wellness housing access and security learning and empowerment

meaningful sustaining jobs safe clean centered communities system transformation

which is one of the things that Angel just spoke about this area's anchor our

vision and serve as the framework for guiding how we align programs funding

and partnerships. At the city level, the San Jose Public Library, through its array of services,

advances the priority areas under meaningful and sustaining jobs, learning and empowerment,

and early learning. Their services form a cradle-to-career continuum. The San Jose Youth

Empowerment Alliance and Beautify SJ advance priority areas of safe, clean, and connected

communities through coordinated violence prevention efforts, graffiti removal, litter pickups,

and neighborhood beautification projects, creating safer and more vibrant public spaces

for families.

The Recreation Department, through a broad network of neighborhood services, advances

several priority areas which include early learning, health and mental wellness, youth

development, connected communities.

Together, this creates inclusive, age-appropriate pathways that support children and youth from

early learning through adolescence, strengthening community connections while advancing the

core priorities of the Children and Youth Services Master Plan.

And this is where the fun begins, right?

Where our demonstration sites are where our shared priorities move from planning into

practice, becoming an integrated neighborhood system of care.

These sites are led by trusted anchor partners with deep roots in their communities, proving

system level capacity.

For Mayfair and Polkoway, implementation is led through the Cisapuede Collective, who

bring decades of experience in youth leadership development, family stabilization, early learning,

and system navigation.

For Santee and Seven Trees implementation is led by Catholic Charities through the Franklin

McKinley Children's Initiative, providing comprehensive wraparound services including

housing stability, economic mobility, behavioral health, and school-based family supports.

These partners were intentionally selected for their neighborhood trust, cross-sector

relationships and the ability to deliver culturally responsive integrated care at scale.

So how does this funding take place for this initiative, for the pilots?

So the county and the city both provided a million dollars to begin this project.

In addition to that, the public funding that our community partners are bringing in, as

well as leveraging grants and philanthropic resources to enhance the services and expand

capacity.

The funding is up to from December 2026.

With funding secured, we now shift to how services will function on the ground.

So it's taken us a while to get to this phase.

We're in phase three right now.

And at this phase, full coordination is intentionally tested only within the demonstration sites

so that city and county can evaluate, refine, and strengthen the model before broader expansion.

Families will enter through trusted neighborhood-based access points and receive coordinated navigation

referrals and case management.

City departments, county systems, and nonprofits will actively support this pilot through aligned

services, referral pathways, and shared workflows.

This test phase allows us to identify barriers in real time, strengthen coordination, and

build an evidence-informed foundation for future citywide implementation.

This model is supported by a formal city-county system alignment.

So this work has to be aligned with everyone here.

I'm glad to see so many folks here because they're the ones that are really having to

change the system that we currently are trying to shift.

So slide seven outlines the core priority areas where the county and city are intentionally

aligning to create more connected family-centered systems.

The shared priorities centered around integrated care through a no-around-door service delivery

model, family-centered and strength-based care, integrated data and shared outcomes,

and shared neighborhood priorities.

So why does this matter?

By aligning these common priorities, the city and county move together with clarity, consistency,

and accountability.

This shared framework reduces duplication, strengthens coordination across systems, and

ensures that families experience seamless, high-quality services regardless of where

they entered. Most importantly, it allows us to measure impact collectively and

continuously improve outcomes for children, youth, and families. Thank you

for your time and this concludes my part of the presentation and I'll turn it

over to the Cisepueda Collective. Good afternoon and thank you to the members of

the City Council and the County Board of Supervisors for the opportunity to share

our collective progress of the implementation of the Children and Youth Services Master Plan.

My name is Veronica Gowie. I'm the Executive Director at Grell Family Services. Sitting

right next to me is my colleague Saul Ramos, Co-Executive Director of Somos Mayfer. We both

represent the Cisepoeda Collective, a collaboration of five community-based organizations all

rooted in the Mayfer community.

Together, we are honored to lead the Mayfer and Polkaway

demonstration side, a pilot effort bringing the city's

master plan to life in East San Jose.

We want to thank our partners at Park Recreation and Neighborhood

Services, the San Jose Public Library,

and the County Social Services Agency

for their partnership and shared leadership.

Today, we'll walk you through how our implementation begun,

how it's structured, and how we are advancing a truly community-centered system of care

that reflects learning, empowerment, and belonging.

Next slide, please.

Before we dive into where we are today, I want to ground us in how this work began.

The Children and Youth Services Master Plan led by the city laid the groundwork

for a shared vision of what our community wants for its children and families.

It created a framework, and our collective work builds from that foundation,

transforming vision into practice.

Through the visioning process, we added a guided pillar rooted in community,

centering families not as recipients of services but as co-creators of solutions.

This approach drives our work, ensuring that every program reflects dignity, empathy, and equity.

Next slide, please.

Our process begun with brainstorming, design, and partner alignment,

and has been guided every step of the way by shared values of empathy, cultural sensitivity, and equity.

staff leadership and evaluation partners collaborated closely to align goals

refine design and integrate ongoing community feedback would begun as an

internal planning has become a shared roadmap build with not for the community

next slide we understand that this work is only possible through stock strong

partnerships. We are grateful to the City of San Jose, the County of Santa Clara,

our central partners alongside Parks and Recreation and Neighborhood Services,

San Jose Public Library, and the City Office of Economic Development, and the

County Social Services Agency. We also collaborate closely with First Five

Santa Clara County, school districts, neighborhood associations, and other

local organizations deeply rooted in Mayfair and Poco Way. This work builds on the foundation of

the CSEP Weather Collective, five community-based organizations whose established infrastructure and

trust make this collaboration possible. Together, we form the fabric of the neighborhood, offering

a wide range of services that meet families where they are. And most importantly, our key partners,

our families themselves. Through their feedback, we strengthen systems to reflect the changes they

need, creating a system that works with families, not against them. Next slide, please.

The Mayfair and Pokoway demonstration site is designed around the implementation of the

No Wrong Door approach and is an integrated practice into accessing a single system of care.

The visionary goal of this effort is the creation of the infrastructure in an effort to eliminate fragmentation and will provide a strong foundation for the implementation of this initiative.

This means that no matter where a family enters, whether it's through Grail Family Services, Somos May, for a local library or another community partner, they find a coordinated and connected system of support.

Our pilot focuses on children, youth, and families aiming to reach 100 families during this first phase.

Because integrating multiple systems is complex, the pilot allows us to test, learn, and strengthen alignment before scaling citywide.

We are now a fully staffed team with navigators, parent services coordinators, and caseworkers.

and we are working with the county to co-locate caseworkers at the site to ensure seamless coordination.

Beyond using the system, we are building capacity across agencies

so that every partner can serve as an effective front line to families.

We want to strengthen systems, not create new hurdles,

and ensure that support is consistent, compassionate, and efficient

Through shared tools like Salesforce and the City's referral platform, we're unifying processes for tracking outcomes, identifying barriers, and ensuring accountability.

While our contract with the city and county has implementation beginning in January, our

demonstration site has already accepted a few referrals into this work in order for our

teams to iron out any issues that should be addressed through continuous improvement and

training.

Next slide, please.

This visual shows how families move through the demonstration site's coordinated system

of care.

You'll see our two lead organizations,

Grail Family Services and Somos Mayfair,

alongside with key partners from the city, county,

and community-based providers.

Families can enter through multiple doors,

family resource centers, child care centers,

schools, or neighborhood events.

But regardless of where they start,

they enter one coordinated pathway.

This mapping represents our commitment to accessibility,

alignment, and shared accountability.

ensuring that no family is left to navigate systems alone.

Next, please.

Important to us was to define roles for the lead agencies,

and Grail Family Services focuses on families with children ages 0 to 8,

anchoring the system of care, and also leading the evaluations for this initiative.

We are especially focused on early learning, recognizing that a strong foundation in these early years sets the trajectory for lifelong success.

Somos Mayfair leads work with youth and family, family-centering empowerment, leadership, and engagement.

This work builds on the established CISAP Weather Collective, whose five partner agencies form the backbone of service delivery in Mayfair.

As the demonstration expands, the three additional CISAP Weather Collective agencies will take on more active roles, strengthening the community's capacity and reach.

This infrastructure is why the city and county chose the C-Sup Weather Collective, because a trusted, established network already existed to build upon.

In short, every role contributes to a balanced, effective, and community-centered system.

Now I'm going to turn it to my colleague, Saul Ramos, for the next slide.

Muy buenos días, council members, supervisors, staff, county and city.

Again, Saul Ramos.

And first of all, I would like to thank Grail Family Services for leading us up to this point

and their leadership and the development of this plan.

But I also want to thank my colleagues who are here.

Thank you for being here.

And the reason I want to name them is because they also enter our organization as young adults,

not in their best moment of their lives.

They were participants, promotoras, and now they manage and direct core elements of the organization, including the Children and Youth Master Plan.

So as we think about the work ahead and the intentionality that you just saw behind it,

I think that eventually what we want to do is codify a model that's been well and alive and made for in Poco Way for so many generations.

And what I want to see is what I see over there.

So our work, when we think about vecinos activos, it also began as an organic project.

The sons and daughters of our promotoras, their children, were tired of the childcare

space.

They refused to go in.

So they demanded their own space.

And what we responded was leadership development, civic activities, arts, different programs,

and we walked with them the way that their parents had walked with us.

So it is going to be through vecinos and our jóvenes activos that we are going to be conducting

this vessel for the children and youth master plan.

It is going to be through the jóvenes activos that we are going to be enabled to capture

the youth's attention and not only provide them the wraparound services that they need,

but also think about the different and many leadership pipeline opportunities, including

exploring economic pathways.

It is our intention not only to provide wraparound services, but to ensure that our youth voice is at the very center of policy, practice, and system decision making.

So they are really being impacted and are impacting everything that touches their daily lives.

At the very end, our organization and personally, what we would like to see is more presence in this space speaking about our youth lived experience and how we are in service of their own purpose and we can bear witnesses to their power.

Thank you.

Next slide.

Thank you, Saul.

Another area of strength of our demonstration site is that we will operate out of a city-owned facility.

As the mayor announced during our launch press conference, the Capitol Park Neighborhood Center will serve as the physical home for our demonstration site.

site. This site will host staff working on the children youth master plan, after school

enrichment programs, and pending contract negotiation, county social services agency

case workers, creating a shared environment where families can access services, case management,

and early learning programs all at one place. Contract negotiations are underway and we

expect to move in early March. This collocation model brings our no wrong door philosophy

to life where families no longer have to navigate multiple agencies, instead agencies come together

to serve them. Next. An important part of our work is to understand

impact that we're having. So evaluation is key to this project. And why is it important?

It's important not just to know what works, but why it works and for whom it works. Our

evaluation approach centers on shared accountability. Together we're asking one question. Our families

experience a more coordinated, dignified, and trustworthy system of care.

We've developed logic models defining success for children, youth, and families, drawing

from both agency plans, the master plan, framework, community priorities, and the Latino health

assessment.

To measure impact, we are tracking warm hands off to see if referrals lead to timely and

successful outcomes, using family defined goals and feedback to understand progress

and lived experience, and assessing how quickly barriers are resolved and whether families

feel respected and informed.

We're implementing Salesforce to centralize and align data across partners and preparing

to integrate with the city's system for consistency, security, and shared learning.

Across all efforts, community voice is central.

Families tell us what is working for them and where systems can be improved.

And that feedback flows directly to city and county partners to drive systems change.

This structure, from logic models to evaluation framework to shared learning, help us move

from program success to system transformation.

Next.

In closing, I really want to thank the city and the county for your investment in this amazing work.

The Mayfair Poker Way demonstration site shows what's possible when government and community work together.

We share purpose and accountability.

The CISAP Weather Collective is building a model for equitable, coordinated care.

once strengthened during the pandemic and now ready to scale beyond Mayfair and

poke away to benefit families across San Jose. On behalf of Grow Family Services,

Somos Mayfair, our Si Se Puede partners, and the families we serve, we thank you for your

continued commitment and collaboration. Together, we are ensuring that every child,

youth and family in San Jose has the opportunity to thrive.

And as we demonstrate outcomes from this pilot, we look forward to working with you towards

long-term sustainability and growth.

Thank you very much.

Muchas gracias.

Good morning, city council members, supervisors, and colleagues.

My name is Carmina Valdivia.

I am the senior director of children youth and family

development at Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.

I am here on behalf of the Franklin McKinley

Children's Initiative which is a partnership

between Catholic Charities and the Franklin

McKinley School District.

Next slide please.

Wanted to center us today to go over the mission

of the agency which is to serve and advocate for individuals

and families in need especially those living in poverty.

Rooted in gospel values, we work to create a more just and compassionate community in which people of all culture and beliefs can participate and prosper.

We envision a valley where every child has the opportunity to learn from cradle to career.

And as you can hear from the presentations today, that mirrors a lot of what the City Youth Master Plan is aiming to do.

and that families live in a neighborhood free from fear where they can afford to live

in a safe and decent housing and nutritious food where enterprising workers can earn enough to

make ends meet and save for future where immigrants are welcome and where those who

are in prison physically and mentally ill elderly and vulnerable can find healing and hope.

We commit to act with the spirit of compassion, service, and justice guided by the principles of respect, integrity, teamwork, and excellence.

Next slide, please.

We do this through our six pillars.

This is the approach that we use.

We use trauma-informed care.

We center the community in everything that we do.

It is neighborhood-focused.

We have an element of service guidance which is which are team members that walk with families through a pathway of self-sufficiency.

We do this through integrated services with seamless welcome all towards the goal for community change.

Next slide please.

Here are the three key priority areas for the Franklin McKinley Children's Initiative.

These were created with the community and now this initiative has just celebrated its 16th year.

And the reason why the initiative even started was because there was a violent act that occurred in the community for child walking home from school and the community rallied around that.

And 16 years later that initiative is still thriving.

The three priority areas are community schools, safe and strong neighborhoods and economic development.

And from what you've heard again,

a lot of these mirror the priority areas of the city.

For community schools, we build partnerships

and maintain relationships with organizations

to allow schools to act as community hub,

to provide high quality, relevant, academic,

or community resources to support students

from cradle to career.

Our safe and strong neighborhoods is where we empower

community members and families to know and trust each other.

We train leaders who proactively advocate for building

community assets focused on creating a thriving

environment for youth.

For economic development, our families in the neighborhood,

we want to ensure that they have jobs, income, assets,

and access to local resources sufficient to make ends meet,

housing, food, security, and access to education and learning.

Next slide, please.

I won't go over all of the details of this.

I'll just go over the high level.

From May to September was our planning and ramp up,

and we're currently in the initial implementation stage

where we've done a review of tools, our assessment frameworks.

We've been training staff and building capacity

and ensuring that we have family outreach and recruitment

and identify any at-risk families.

We've been monitoring all of this, our data collection and mapping and defining internal tiered services.

From January to March, we will be in the data collection and evaluation where we will be focusing our youth and community through the different services that we offer.

We'll also be doing collection of qualitative and quantitative data to ensure that we are meeting the community needs.

and using our internal awards system as well as the Hassler system.

In the spring, we will be doing our service impact sharing.

We'll be showing the data and report development at our Franklin McKinley Children's Initiative meetings

and sharing their data with city and county partners as well.

Next slide, please.

From July to September, that will be our sustainability and continuous improvement stage,

where we will be doing onboarding of staff and community health workers, exploration

of potential funding opportunities, and again, reviewing our data and sharing it with key

stakeholders.

From October to December will be our sustainability and scaling up, where we will be focusing

on ongoing advocacy with local and regional stakeholders, refining our process, and deepening

our community engagement.

Next slide, please.

Here are some of the data and evaluation tools that we will be using.

Again, I won't be going over all of them, but just very quickly, intake and screening.

We have an internal universal intake form, as well as using different questionnaires,

such as the ages and stages questionnaires.

The different types of assessments that we will be using are risk and candidate assessments

as well as the five protective factors and other comprehensive family prevention plans.

And the tools and evaluation framework that we will be using are internal and external

resource lists and again scaling our internal data systems.

We really want to ensure that we're understanding and co-designing the data system so we're

going to be aligning our data elements with the master plan goals and ensure user-friendly

accessible design, again, through internal Catholic Charities agency data platforms,

as well as making sure that we're able to track in real time and capture all of that

reporting.

Next slide, please.

Really excited to share a lot of the highlights from this year.

This was from the trunk or tree that took place at the Seven Trees Community Center,

where we had 1,000 community members attend, 350 adults, 500 youth, ages 12 and younger,

and then 150 teens and young adults.

Next slide, please.

During the summer, we also offer pop-up parks and summer programming to really ensure that

our youth stay engaged and our community stay connected.

So from July through August at the FMCI Community Center,

we had 333 unduplicated adults

and 453 unduplicated youth attend.

Our youth drop-in numbers were 44 unduplicated youth

and 133 unduplicated adults for our summer meals

and 162 unduplicated youth.

Next slide, please.

The partnership with Franklin McKinley School District, these are our community schools,

George Shirkawa Elementary, Captain Jason Dahl Elementary, Meadows Elementary, Bridges,

Hellyer, and Kennedy Elementary. And the types of services that we offer are referrals, parent

engagement nights, staff engagement, wellness center activities, school outreach, murals,

CalKids outreach and registration support. We've already had 19 referrals and we've had 51

wellness center activities, three parent engagement sessions, and so far 12 outreach events.

Next slide please. Our pathway for college and career. One of the really exciting things that

we're doing in collaboration with the Excite Credit Union is our CalKids. So, so far we've

had 933 scholarships that have been claimed as of June and by September

there were that number jumped to 1,402. For College and My Future for we've had

almost 3,000 students with almost $200,000 on deposit. For the

Step Up Savings Program and the different zip codes we've had 30

accounts in the 95111 zip code, 28 accounts in the 95122 zip code, and 12 accounts in the 95121

zip code. We've also developed a children's savings advisory committee, which includes a lot of the

promotoras that we work with, and we've also offered English as a second language, or we've

had 15 unduplicated participants, and our family, friends, and neighbor program in the

Santee has grown to 15 and 24 for seven trees. So I wanted to highlight the importance of the FFN

work. We know that around 80% of our children under the age of three are taking care in an

unlicensed facility, and so how important it is to ensure that our unlicensed providers taking care

of our little ones also are exposed to high quality care.

Next slide, please.

We've gathered already from the community a survey, and as you can tell, on average,

it's around, averages on to around 80 percent.

If families would recommend this event to a neighbor, they reported 86, 86 percent reported

that they would, how likely they are to volunteer in the community.

We had 73% of families report that they would want to volunteer, participate in any future community activities.

83% report a crime to the police.

82% really working hard with the San Jose Police Department to really change the narrative and the relationship that the community has with law enforcement.

So that's a very promising result there.

go to family or community center, 84%, and ask a neighbor for help, 79%.

Next slide, please.

We've also gathered what the community's most helpful resources are,

and you can tell from this graph here that safety, food, nutrition, mental, and health,

and housing continue to be the top priorities for the community.

Next slide, please.

And we could not do this work alone, and many of you that are sitting in the audience probably see your name up here.

And we're just really thankful for all of the work that we've done to really help sustain this initiative,

and we're looking forward to seeing how this initiative grows.

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Olympia.

Thank you, and thank you to our demonstration sites for highlighting and illustrating all of the great work that they've been doing.

I'm Olympia Williams, Deputy Director for the Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services Department's Community Services Division.

This is a division that is leading and coordinating the implementation efforts of the Master Plan.

As part of this work with our county partners, we have found that there are three joint areas of alignment.

Our efforts around ensuring access to quality child care, disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline through both prevention and intervention efforts,

and supporting and aligning with the county on the implementation of a Latino health assessment action plan that will be developed.

Next slide.

Moving forward, we will be focused on aligning internal and external resources focusing on three key priority areas,

early learning and child care, safe, clean, and connected communities, and meaningful and sustainable jobs.

We are currently finalizing the evaluation plan so we can report on outcomes of this work.

as this will be essential as we look at future opportunities to scale and expand.

Additionally, we are working closely with a philanthropic partner

to secure funding to support this evaluation work that will need to be completed.

I would also like to take a moment to recognize Laura Buzzo, who is here,

and thank her for everything that she did to not only lead the efforts,

the community efforts, the engagement efforts, and actually getting the plan developed.

She has passed the baton to us and put us on a solid foundation.

Laura, if you could just stand for a moment.

I think that's important.

Both the city and county will continue to support our partners as the sites go live in January 2026.

With that, I would like to pass it to Sarah Duffy, director of our social services agency at the county of Santa Clara.

Okay.

This is where we fill in the time with chit chat.

Hopefully everyone's having a wonderful Wednesday.

I'm glad I got the day right at least, right?

All right.

Yeah, I mean I can get us started just maybe

with some opening remarks.

Okay. Well, thank you Olympia and while we wait

for Israel to pull up the slides.

I just want to make a reflect really briefly on the fact

that the presentations we've heard so far really highlight many years of very conscientious

collaboration between a lot of different city and county departments, representatives,

community-based organizations, youth and family members that have spent many, many hours

in meetings talking about what they need and how do we co-design programming and services

to meet those needs.

So Laura Buzzo, I'm so glad she was recognized.

I also really want to recognize from the county, Patty Ramirez and Wendy Kinnear Rauch as the

two leads from the Department of Children and Families Services that really promoted

this work across SSA, across the county, and were very much leaders in this space.

So they're here and they can speak and answer any questions and discussion.

I'm representing the social services agency today, but also the county as a whole.

So I'm kicking off kind of the county piece of this presentation.

You'll hear from public health and others.

But I'm going to focus in today on the family first community pathway work.

And this is really the work that led to the funding on the slide you saw earlier

around the no wrong door model and is the work that while we're focusing

on two demonstration sites and pilots today.

It actually is incredibly important kind of system-wide work

that we see throughout the city of San Jose

where we are able to coordinate the many, many county

and city services to prioritize the needs of community.

Right now this is especially important

as we face some challenging budget times in the county

and some real changes to our community

in terms of some of the new legislation and laws

and how that's impacting our community.

So the need to coordinate really effectively,

listen to community is more important I think than ever.

And so I'm really grateful to all of the partnership

with the city and county.

So I'm gonna go over what is a somewhat complex

no wrong door service delivery model

in terms of the funding from social services

and the community pathway.

But I think you'll see a lot of alignment

between the city of San Jose's master plan

and how we've designed the implementation of this.

So the no wrong door service delivery model is a unique initiative

that was designed to provide services to children and families in a way

that ensures access to seamless integration of supports from multiple systems

with the intention that children and family are not turned away or redirected

and receive the appropriate services that they need.

And this means families can access all the supports they need ideally from a single interaction.

For example, connections to health services, housing assistance, education supports.

All of the relevant services are streamlined, which minimizes burden on individuals

to obtain services from different systems.

Components of the No Wrong Door model include effective service coordination and navigation,

streamlined intake screening and assessment processes.

We heard a little bit about that from the provider presentations,

coordinated care plan development and case management.

And through this process, individuals are connected not only

to the right supports, but ideally very quickly to these supports.

So you heard throughout the presentation so far from the CISAPUETA collective

and Catholic Charities examples of how we provide this coordinated service.

And I'll go through a few more slides to unpack that.

So next slide, please.

Okay, so components of the county's family first community pathway include Title IV E agency

candidacy determination through the county's Department of Family

and Children's Services, connecting individuals to the right services regardless

of the entry point, personalizing services based on an individual's unique needs

and sharing flexibility and adaptability in how those services are provided,

ensuring communication and collaboration across systems

to deliver comprehensive ranges of services.

Again, health, housing, employment, education, these are what we hear

from community as being top priorities and this is what we aim to help navigate.

Facilitating smooth transition of handoffs when additional services are required as they often are.

Ensuring continuity of care through coordinated efforts so individuals receive uninterrupted support

even when multiple agencies and organizations are involved.

And tracking the individual's progress and making necessary adjustments to their prevention plan.

Next slide please.

In order to leverage the Family First Prevention Services funding, the county went through a very rigorous process.

I see a lot of faces of people that were involved in many of the meetings to land on four priority populations that we aim to prioritize in the children and youth system of care.

The basis of participation is children at imminent risk of harm or neglect,

and the four populations are families or youth struggling with substance abuse,

pregnant or parenting foster youth, homeless youth and families,

and families struggling with domestic violence.

Next slide, please.

And on this slide, you can see a visual, and it looks a little bit similar to the one

that Veronica presented, which is how the community pathway is intended to flow.

So in the first circle, you'll see identification of a family in need of supports and services

who will participate in the self-referral or a referral from a community location.

The second step is an intake process where a service provider completes an assessment

and makes recommendations for candidacy determination.

And when the family shares that they are a member of an indigenous tribe, the provider

will adhere to additional requirements.

The candidacy determination is made by the Title IV-E agency and following determination,

a prevention plan is completed by the provider.

Families in a tribe, if involved, are engaged in developing the family prevention plan and

choosing services that are most useful to them.

The service provider then becomes the case manager for the family and if a tribe is involved,

The service provider works closely with the tribe on service delivery coordination.

The service provider will then ensure that services are delivered with model fidelity

and in collaboration with the tribe if involved.

In the last circle, number seven, you'll see the safety monitoring and planning, which

is a critical part of the service provider's case management responsibilities.

Mandated reporter protocols are implemented when interventions are not sufficient to mitigate

potential safety threats.

The county is very grateful for the partnership with the city and the two pilot collaboratives

in not only facilitating the service model, but also providing a pilot opportunity that

allows all of us to understand the needs of the two communities, the successes and opportunities

that we can apply not only within refining those two pilot programs, but also that we

can real time as a system the city and county and our partners can work together to make

make improvements and recognize opportunities citywide in different neighborhoods so

i will end there and thank you very much for the opportunity to present

this concludes our update for the children and youth services master plan report so we'll now

transition to our Latino health assessment and cost of gun violence study presentation.

Good morning. Thank you for assisting with the slides and thank you so much for the honor of being here, Chair Ortiz, Chair Arrhenes, and our council members and supervisors.

I'm Dr. Sarah Redman. I have the honor of serving as the health officer and public health director for the County of Santa Clara.

And because our cities do not have their own public health units, I am your health officer.

This is your public health department.

And so this is such a wonderful opportunity to bring one of the key roles that we serve for you here in public health,

which is to be able to capture at a population, at a community level, the kinds of data, community input,

community voices, and information that help us understand what it takes to have a healthy community,

to have an equitable opportunity for everyone to thrive and have well-being.

And so today I'll have the opportunity to share two key studies that the public health department facilitated,

but which was really conducted by not only my colleagues with deep data expertise

and community connections in the public health department,

but a huge array of partner organizations, many of whom are represented in this room.

And that's part of why I am joined by Dr. Anlilia Garcia, our Chief Equity Officer for the County of Santa Clara, by Angelica Diaz, who is the Director of our Healthy Communities branch here in the Public Health Department, and online by Rhonda McClinton Brown, who is our Deputy Director for Policy Strategy and Planning, and who played a key role in coordinating both of the studies I'll share with you today.

but the these two studies together total about 400 pages of documents all of which is available

online to you we are just going to scratch the surface of what we learned from these important

deep dives into what our Latino community members across the county and here in San Jose

have taught us are experiencing and therefore demonstrate are necessary for these community

members to reach the full extent of their health opportunities, as well as for when

it comes to the cost of gun violence here in our county, what we've learned and where

it means we may need to go.

So first to describe the Latino health assessment to you, the goals, oh, next slide.

Oh, I've got it here.

Hey, all right.

New system for me today.

Thanks for your patience.

We're working to provide historical context and offer a truly comprehensive overview of

Latino health throughout the entire 2 million folks in our county.

You can imagine, given the diversity of our Latino community, of our county geographically

and socioeconomically, is an incredibly complex task and one where we invariably missed things.

And so we've already, in addition to those 300 pages, begun to add, issue addendums,

and in crafting the work, most importantly, that will come out of these findings, learned new

lessons, heard from new voices, and have new understanding of how we can best create a San

Jose and a Santa Clara County that serves our Latino communities. And most importantly then,

guide strategic action planning, which is why we're here today, to understand the connection

between what you just learned about the Child and Youth Master Plan, as well as other elements that

keep our neighborhoods and communities safe and healthy. The data that went into the Latino

Health Assessment started with data we often use in public health, quantitative surveillance data,

the information that often reduces people to numbers but gives us key insights to help us

know that that story we just learned is not a one-off or that story we just learned is not the

full story of what most of our community members are experiencing. We also, for the first time in

the public health department's performance of a community health assessment added utilization

data of the services the county provides to understand the county's specific role in

providing safety net services and creating healthy environments for our Latino communities.

And then we married these more quantitative assessments with the community voices to help

us understand what's behind the numbers, what are the experiences, and therefore what are

going to be the interventions that will be most meaningful to change where we notice

disparities in these data.

But what we've found needed to be looked at through complex lenses, and to do that well,

we engaged a broad steering committee of community leaders that helped us make sure that in every

circumstance where we were looking across demographics and key sectors like housing,

neighborhood conditions, education, family health, and access to care and mental health care,

that we were doing so through the lens of the historical racism and discrimination

that we know has set us up for the current environment in which the disparities we'll start to highlight in a moment have evolved.

Because one of the most important findings that I think rises to the surface over and over again

as we understand the data and the findings of the Latino health assessment

is that our Latino community members have the wisdom, the strength, the brilliance, the willpower, the knowledge to be healthy

if the systems that interrupted their ability to do so were dismantled.

And so making sure we were looking at these data through those lenses is something that our community guided us in doing in every element.

But what we found, and part of the reason it's so important for us to bring it to you here in San Jose,

is that much of the story has to do with place, has to do with location, both the beautiful sides

of the story, the resilience, what our Latino community members bring to Santa Clara County,

but also where there are opportunities or opportunities where we are failing to create

healthy neighborhoods and opportunities for folks. We see, especially in East San Jose,

as well as in southern parts of the county.

Both places where our Latino community members are concentrated geographically

and where we see higher toll of health disparities, lower life expectancy,

less healthy neighborhood conditions, more housing challenges, more housing instability,

and some of the more detailed information we'll get into today around higher rates of firearm violence

and injuries and youth involvement in some of the systems that are there to catch

our youth especially when we fail to serve them and set them up for good health earlier on.

Again, just a very few data items I'll share today to scratch the surface of what we've learned

about our Latino community members, especially in San Jose and especially our youth, because we

learned generally our San Jose, excuse me, our Latino community members are a younger community

than other races and ethnicities here in Santa Clara County, such that across the county as a

whole, Latinos make up 34 percent of children and youth under age 25. And when you look in East San

Jose, that's especially true, that this is a young community, which both gives great opportunity for

hope and wellness and the ability to thrive and contribute to the future, but also a necessity

to make sure we are serving those youth. One important element that rose even actually after

the Latino health assessment was published and our disability community gave important critical

feedback that the intersection between disability and Latino identity was far underplayed in the

data was the way in which children living with disability intersects with the outcomes our

children experience. And I think when looked at through the lens of disparity and racial

discrimination really comes to help us look at why neurodiversity may be misunderstood as

antisocial behavior or why trauma may be misread as delinquency and feeds into some of the school

to prison pipeline that I know this body cares deeply about disrupting. And so while the data

in the assessment said that less than 4% of our Latino children experience disabilities,

and these come from census data. We actually have better data now that say that in one case,

10%, and in one case as high as 17% of our Latino youth actually have an IEP, which suggests

that they must have a disability diagnosis impacting their schooling. And so that difference

between young Latino children being recognized as having a disability and needing certain

kinds of supports and accommodations versus actually receiving those supports may be a

key place that we can intervene and that you'll see echoed in the findings ultimately of the

report. Another similar element where we focus on our youth and see a disparity where there's

an opportunity to intervene is when it comes to chronic absenteeism. We see our Latino youth

similar to our Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander youth being more likely to demonstrate

chronic absenteeism, and that rate varies dramatically by school district, but we identify

some unique opportunities in San Jose and South County.

Similarly, as we look through the entire young and early adulthood period of our Latino youth,

we see those disparities in academic outcomes worsen, such that while there was a smaller

disparity between Latinos and other youth of other races when it came to absenteeism, when it came to

kindergarten readiness. We're seeing that even more striking when it comes to high school dropout rate

and that geographic distribution even more striking when it focuses on San Jose. We also see impacts

to our youth disproportionately affecting our behavioral health outcomes such that 37 percent

of our Latino high school students reported feeling depressed in the past 12 months more than any other

racial or ethnic group we can break out and more than the county overall. And we see that these

early indicators of struggles that we are failing to meet or dismantle play out in our juvenile

justice system so that Latino children represented 70 percent of the juvenile justice cases in the

county and the highest number being in our south county area but additional higher rates in East

San Jose as well. Finally, I'll touch on a few neighborhood safety and violence elements that

are not just specific to youth, but also felt by adults, that in East San Jose, our percent of

adults who felt safe were lower than we found across the county overall. We also recognize

that in East San Jose, we saw almost double the density of tobacco retailers and a huge increase

in alcohol retailers compared to other areas in the county and compared to even the rest of San

Jose. And one of the things I think is most powerful and striking about these data is that

the city of San Jose did not wait. Council Member Ortiz did not wait for this presentation to act on

this as soon as you became aware of this striking disparity. Our leadership here took action to say

we need to focus on healthier ways for our communities to support small businesses and

thrive other than selling tobacco, and moved immediately to update your tobacco ordinances

to reduce the density of tobacco retailers in these areas.

Finally, I will touch again on violence, both self-inflicted.

We do see, while suicide deaths overall are lower for Latino residents, they have been

rising and rising drastically in recent years.

and such that, and then we also, I know, has been key to this body's discussion, see among adults

higher rates of homicide death among Latinos than in the county overall. We see suggestions of

similar increases among youth, although fortunately the absolute number of homicide deaths is low

enough that we can't give you a number to hang our hats on, but it does certainly look highly

concerning when we look at the data we do have. So with that, I'm going to put up in front of you

and encourage folks to read not only the executive summary or the whole 300 pages, but I'll encourage

you to circle back to these slides to see just how many recommendations came from them. They were in

the areas of dismantling historical discrimination and marginalization, prioritizing mental health

and well-being, focusing on opportunities for children and youth to succeed, increasing

access to quality care and improving health outcomes, and improving data collection to

make sure we can continue to tell this story and understand if we are prioritizing putting

our resources in the right places.

And then on top of those broad recommendations that also run deep into how explicitly we

need to act in many areas. Supervisor Arenas led additional recommendations from the board

that we also increase access to quality care and improved health outcomes and additional

opportunities for children and youth to succeed with further focus on housing and homelessness

and violence prevention. And then there were additional that I'm not going to share today,

recommendations specific to county agencies, which we've already hit the ground running to work on.

So when you see how broad, how much work just this one document has led us to say we must

do for the service, for the well-being of our Latino community members, that's why it's

going to take all of us, all of the partner agencies represented here today, both elected

bodies represented here today, and so many more, to make meaningful movement on these

recommendations.

Now, I'll add a bit more about an additional study that was published back in August of 2022 around the cost of gun violence, although much of the data collection actually predates the COVID pandemic.

And so we have early findings in the Latino health assessment that would suggest these numbers would be worse today.

The goal of this study was to understand both the direct costs associated with firearm injury and death across public and private sectors, as well as the indirect costs.

What do we lose financially as a community when we lose community members or when they're injured?

And then really inform policy options and strategies to advance violence prevention to respond to this massive cost.

And so just a few items I'll highlight and then I'll close for your questions.

will be that we found, again, dramatic disparities disproportionately harming our Latino community

members compared to other races and ethnicities in the county. We found that neighborhood safety

and violence highlighted several areas geographically, especially in San Jose and South

County, where we found disparate harms and disparate harms that impacted our Latino residents.

We also found that firearm deaths and injuries disproportionately harm our male residents,

and that many of the interventions needed need to be place-based and focused and unique

to these geographic locations highlighted in the report.

And we found overall the cost is rising, and again, these data were collected ending in

2020 before we know further rising rates have happened to our community.

And part of why these are so important to share with you here in San Jose is that this

cost is disproportionately hitting you here in San Jose, such that the cost per capita

of these harms is almost double for a San Jose resident compared to the county in general

and totals over a billion dollars of negative impact of cost to our San Jose community as

as well as almost $1.2 billion to our entire Santa Clara County community, when we look

at not just what we spend to treat people and to save or help families who have suffered

loss from gun violence, but the loss of those contributions those community members would

have made.

And so the findings and the recommendations that came out of this study, again, highlight

these extensive costs, highlight again that they're increasing, that most of the costs

come from assaults and homicides,

and that there are even further intangible costs

that this study couldn't capture.

The recommendations will look very reminiscent

of what you also saw from the Latino health assessment,

in that we need to focus on breaking the racial barriers

that lead to these cost of gun violence.

And you found the findings from both the cost

of gun violence and Latino health assessment

identify needs to uplift youth,

needs to have a community-centered approach,

and need to foster partnerships with community,

to have place-based approaches,

to have interagency collaboration,

to continue to engage our community

in what solutions will work

and how we'll achieve those solutions,

and again, to support our youth.

And so while major strides have been taken

just in the months since the Latino Health Assessment

was published, the County of San Jose

declared Latino health a public health crisis and gave just yesterday our first quarterly

report back to the board on the huge swaths of work that has already begun at the county

level to respond to the findings.

There we go.

And then in September, a Latino health summit that was held involved many of you, again,

in these chambers to talk about four key areas to share new data focused on Latinos with

disabilities and to come to key findings that were again shared just yesterday about how we need to

proceed as a community to respond to the findings of the Latino health assessment. Likewise, we've

continued to act in the intervening years in response to the findings of the cost of gun

violence study, including a relaunch just this year of our We All Play a Role campaign to focus

on primary prevention and community-based intervention around violence. And you may

recognize some of the faces, in fact, some of them may be in this chamber, featured in our community-based

display here. So a thank you to all those who've already contributed to this important body of work,

but I think more importantly, a thank you to all of you who are here today to commit to continuing

the work that these reports drive us to know we must make. And my colleagues and I will be very

happy to take any questions. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. I want to thank both city and

county staff for their excellent work. I'm just this work moving it forward as well as all the

analysis and the presentation presented to us today. I also want to thank our non-profit and

community-based partners, the CISEPUEDE Collective, Catholic Charities, who will be on the ground

and breathing life into these numbers

and into this strategy.

We are going to move forward with public comments.

Each speaker will have two minutes

to give a public comment.

There are cards in front of the room.

If you'd like to make a public comment,

please fill that out.

Yeah, we will start, pass it off to the clerk.

We have six speaker cards in no particular order.

Can the following speakers please line up

the steps in front of the speaker podium.

We have Carla Torres, Lillian Koenig, Blair Beekman, Laura Busso, Naina Pradeep Kumar,

and Lori Ketcher.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Carla Torres and I'm representing the NAACP and La Raza Roundtable.

Thank you so much for holding this important meeting with the City and County Collaborative

in this critical time.

I'm here to express continued support for youth programs and services that our community

needs.

We need these services for our school-aged children and youth and our vulnerable families

to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline as has been stated that affects all people of

color and the Latino health assessment should be our driving force and our template.

We do not need to further criminalize our youth.

So as a side note, I hope that you could speak to the mayor about his recent article and

comments regarding our youth and how the intent to further criminalize them and educate him

about the school to prison pipeline.

I know about these services firsthand and the importance of these programs.

As a teen myself in my hometown, I personally benefited from employment programs and other

counseling services.

I know that if it wasn't for these programs, my life would be so much different.

my mom always reminds me I was on thin ice, but that's another story.

As a social worker with over 24 years of experience, I've seen the importance of critical services

for our most vulnerable families.

I've seen how when we help someone and give them hope, it helps them.

And we need to change the narrative that people who use drugs and are in the system or in gangs

are bad people and not worth helping.

Many are good people and just made bad choices.

Many have been through trauma, as has been stated, and don't have the coping skills,

and maybe grew up in these neighborhoods with family and neighborhood violence.

And when we help them, empower them, listen, provide culturally responsive services, it

can turn someone's life around.

We've seen it.

Everyone here has talked about it.

Isn't this what we want for our families, helping the most vulnerable?

And I've heard Supervisor Arena say this many times, and I think it was referenced earlier,

The Latino Health Assessment talks about our Latino population being a young demographic.

This is important.

We should all thank you.

That's your time.

Next speaker.

Honorable committee commission, all of you gentlemen and women on this important day.

I believe that having been a substitute teacher in San Jose Unified School District and living

in East San Jose on the border of the fourth and fifth districts.

Oh, okay, thank you.

I'm really impacted with seeing students who are being bused in

and having lack of transportation because of school closures,

and their classrooms are being, like, doubled almost.

And I'm concerned that when you are transporting students

from different communities that you are also impacting the cultural aspect of that also.

The disintegration of the school districts, especially here's one in particular,

Alum Rock, that closed, I think, six schools.

So now we're looking at students that are not only the percentage of youth

in East San Jose is very, very high, but now we are looking at families

that are struggling with transportation.

And you talk about absenteeism.

Well, there is a concern for absenteeism, but I believe that we have some hope in the fact that we do have resilience in young people, but basically how much can they tolerate?

How much can they take?

The BART system was going, and the VTA was going to give free transportation to students so that they could get to the different schools that they needed to, but they said that they didn't have the money, that the grants didn't come through.

So we can look at various options for how we can get students to get to schools now that schools are closed

the impact on schools and the cultural component when you break up a small school district and you

Transport students to other schools and how that impacts them because like I said I work in the school district

I work in San Jose Unified and I've seen quite a bit and it's somewhat distressing. Thank you

Thank you.

Next speaker, we have two more cards, Jennifer Cloud and John Horner.

Please make your way down.

Thank you.

Good morning, City Council and County Board of Supervisors.

My name is Laura Buzzo.

I'm a longtime resident of San Jose and a former employee of the city.

Under the leadership of Deputy City Manager Angel Rios, I served as a project lead

and principal writer for the Children's Services Master Plan and led the establishment

of first five family resource centers with a number of organizations over the past 15 years,

over 15 years ago.

I grew up and worked for many years in East San Jose and saw firsthand the intergenerational,

social, economic, educational health disparities that many families experience.

Unfortunately, the findings of the 2025 Santa Clara County Latino Health Assessment,

like the master plan, shows that despite years of investment and well-intentioned efforts,

challenges facing low-income immigrant and Latino families persist.

In developing the Children's Services Master Plan,

we engaged more than 3,000 residents and over 150 organizations.

The community told us clearly that investing in services alone

are not effectively dismantling inequitable systems, policy, silos, and longstanding barriers.

Therefore, we aligned the Master Plan's strategic direction

with the county's children and youth system of care community pathways to do this effectively

in april 2024 we recommended and the city council approved the master plan in the creation of a city

of san jose system of care into demonstration site communities we knew this was ambitious

and it would require time and trust and collaboration we are facing a federal administration

whose rhetoric and policies are further marginalizing low-income families, immigrants, and communities of color.

Children, youth, and our families are in crisis now and need us more than ever.

We must continue to engage and center children and youth voice

and together ensure that we're creating opportunities for continued allowing children to thrive in our community.

Thank you. That's your time.

Next speaker.

Good morning, council members and county supervisors.

My name is Neha Pradeep Kumar and I'm the vice chair

of the San Jose Youth Commission representing District 2 of San Jose.

I wanted to thank all of you for the presentations we had today.

The memorandums presented, the Latino health assessment,

and the Families First Community Pathway don't just represent numbers.

They describe the lived reality of many young people in San Jose.

Higher rates of depression, chronic absenteeism, housing instability, and neighborhood violence show up across the city,

and those patterns are especially visible in places like South County and East San Jose.

Students feel these disparities in our stress levels, our sense of safety, and how supported we feel in school and at home.

During the Youth Commission's annual Youth Participatory Budget Priority Survey last year,

violence and safety ranked as the number one concern for youth across the city,

followed closely by poverty, housing, and homelessness.

This shows that these issues aren't just abstract,

they're urgent, lived experiences that directly affect young people every single day.

So as you look for ways to align these efforts,

I want to emphasize that young people aren't just represented in the data,

we are actually living it.

We see these gaps first, and we know what support actually reaches students

and what never makes it past a flyer or a link on a website.

If the goal is to build systems that are accessible,

culturally responsive, and generally supportive,

then youth voices need to stay at the center of that work.

The San Jose Youth Commission is ready

to support this collaboration and help make sure

these plans translate into real impact

in the communities that most need it.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker, we also have two more cards

for Maria Fuentes and Olivia Navarro.

Thank you.

How about now?

Awesome.

Okay, hi.

Thank you for restarting the clock.

Blair Beekman.

Thank you for this item.

I got the feeling from this item things are not

on a massive urgent scale but just preventative to prepare ourselves.

We can have good things ready to be considering and that's what we're doing.

Thank you.

For myself, what to me is important working on for the next few years here in the county level

and the city of San Jose, I've been working for the past 10 years on tech accountability items

and that how it can be a responsible, more shared process, a public participation

and community to decide our tech needs, our surveillance, our data collection,

and that it's not just simply dictates handed down by our city government.

It's quite a process to learn and understand and what's possible with it.

It was created to basically leave the era of 9-11 and war.

And notice we don't talk about in terms of being secretive

and we have to keep things hidden from the public anymore, not as much.

We're making a real concerted effort how things can be open and public and shared.

And that's really important.

And I think sharing that with our youth, for people who are working with gun violence issues,

them understanding those concepts of what we're trying to work towards and build towards is important.

I think we've all noted that, you know, when national events happen that are violent,

it tends to affect our local communities, and there's more gun violence.

So sharing that we're working in positive, good terms with our youth is really important,

and that accountable good practices are available.

We can be reducing a lot of the tech that is placed in San Jose

and still creating the same amount of public safety.

Sharing that with young people gives them hope

and understanding of a better future, I think.

Good luck in those efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, we have one more card for Adam Ibarra.

Hi, good morning.

Thank you to everyone who's here, supervisors,

city council members and all of our staff

and all the community-based organizations

who are doing this amazing work.

My name is Lori Katcher.

I am a 23-year resident of San Jose.

I'm a member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Santa Clara County.

And I'm here representing Surge.

We are a group of South Bay people who organize and mobilize

white people and folks with privilege for racial justice.

and to dismantle white supremacy.

I really appreciate the work that you all are doing,

and I'm here to support the memos from Campos and Arenas

as well to continue this work.

Regarding creating equitable opportunities

for our children and families,

Latino and other families of color,

one of the things that we've noticed at Surge

in our solidarity work with some of our neighbors

and families who are unsheltered

and who are living in their vehicles,

whether it be cars or RVs.

The recent policies that San Jose City Council passed

in the spring and are implementing

seem to us to be counter to the goals of this work.

For a family who may be struggling to pay for groceries,

they may not have been able to pay

to update the registration of their car.

And now those families' cars are getting towed,

they're being pushed further into debt,

and maybe losing their only form of shelter.

So I wanted to bring this point up,

and I hope that this is something that can be considered

when we look at our families who are in greatest need

and our children,

to make sure that we are not criminalizing them,

that we are giving them the supports that they need

to thrive so that we create a city and a county

where everyone truly belongs.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Good morning. Hi, I'm Jennifer Kelleher-Cloyde. I am the

executive director of First Five Santa Clara County and prior to that served as

the chief program officer at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley,

implementing our legal advocates for children and youth program. On behalf of

First Five, we stand here as a partner really in all three of the efforts you

heard about today, the square that you saw that showed the funding, 1 million county,

1 million city, that circle in the middle, actually a lot of it is First Five. First Five

is the backbone funder for all of the family resource centers that you heard about today

and have been supporting all those agencies for many, many years. I want to just add that

we invested so much time, money, and resources in the development of this master plan, and the

demonstration sites are a critical piece, but only one piece of a very large plan, and I really hope

the city and county, alongside First Five with the revenue that we have remaining with our declining

proposition $10 that come from tobacco tax, really invest the same amount of resources in

implementation of the plan as we did in the development and we can only do that

if large jurisdictions like yourselves really put our money where our mouth is

in terms of creating those services I want to add my support to the memorandums

provided by councilwoman Compos as well as supervisor Arenas to really start to

look at some of the other aspects of the plan and really how they overlap with

some of the concerning findings that unfortunately aren't surprising that we learned through

the Latino health assessment.

First Five stands ready to partner with you all in all of these efforts.

We certainly are experts in the early childhood space, but want to support families with children

of all ages and are ready to stand by you in that effort.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Go ahead.

Welcome.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to work.

My name is John Horner.

I'm the board president of the Morgan Hill Unified School District.

The issues you're talking about are ones I think about every day.

We have approximately 8,000 students from about 5,000 families, 14 school sites, two

in San Jose, the rest south of there, over 40% free and reduced lunch.

over 40% Latino, over 11% students on IEPs, you know, our word for disabilities.

And yet, last year we achieved a graduation rate of 97%.

So I'm proud of that, but I'm heartbroken about the other 3%.

The spirit of collaboration and coordination that you're talking about is essential,

but I think we all know we're not at scale yet on this.

I was very encouraged to hear Catholic Charities specifically calling out their work with Franklin McKinley School District.

A district like ours, a mid-sized, we're already in daily contact with 5,000 families,

over 2,000 of which are the kind of families you're talking about serving.

So always think about not everything can be done in partnership with schools and at school sites, but much can.

We're already there. I want you to really think about that.

And on the school-to-prison pipeline, Supervisor Aranis is particularly very aware of and involved in our youth diversion program in South County.

It's something we're all very proud of.

It's very intentional.

It's not countywide yet, but we're taking young people at their first encounter with law enforcement

and diverting a majority of them in such a way that effectively they never come in contact again.

You know, that's a hard-to-fund pilot program, but that's something we know is working and can scale.

But please, we have to continue working together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good morning, everyone.

It's good to see you, and it's good to be here.

My name is Maria Fuentes, and I'm a, I've lived here in San Jose since 71,

but I'm one of the members of the San Jose Evergreen Community College Board.

And I detest school-to-prison pipeline because we wanted to be schooled to college to a better life.

And all of us know what it's like to be the first in your family to go to college and what a change that could make.

The main thing that we need to do is not work in silos.

I mean, all the work that's been done that we're talking about here is outstanding.

and our district is in the same high schools that all of you are representing and who we're talking about.

But the main thing I want to say today is let's figure out how to work more closely together.

You know, we're there.

We don't want to be working in silos.

We really need to address that pipeline.

I mean, working in mental health for over 30 years, this is the same thing we were fighting then,

and we're continuing to be fighting it.

But the one answer we have is education.

and community colleges have so many different programs in San Jose City and

Evergreen is right in the middle of the work we're talking about so I just want

to urge us to work together figuring out how we can have a comparable

educational strategy that connects with everything that's being talked about

today all of these efforts all these activities we have to figure out how to

we work together because we should be getting the referrals

when families are seen with needs.

We should be getting the referrals so that we can make sure

that we are educating them and we're reaching out to them

and opening the doors for them.

Of course, we have a lot of supports.

Of course, we have a lot of programs,

but the access is the key.

So I want to figure out how we can work better together.

So thank you, all of you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello.

Hi, my name is Adam Ibarra.

I'm with the Tenacious Group Executive Director, and we have the privilege of being in many

of the schools here in East San Jose.

And I'm very thankful for the master plan and for all the work that has gone in.

From a community perspective, that is awesome, and for young people.

And one of the things that from an organic level, I speak to teachers and principals almost daily.

And, you know, there's such a passion to see their students rise.

And one of the things that I read this week was an article about how rigorous education really brings out the best for, you know, for low-income students.

And one of the things that I just wanted to just keep in mind is that, you know, sometimes people think we need to water down our standards.

But I'm on the total opposite, is that we need, as we're doing our, kind of instituting the master plan, let that be that we, it's rigorous.

that whatever it is that we're providing for our students,

they have the ability to bring out their best.

We just have to help them bring out their best

and not think we need to water down.

And I'm not saying that that's what we're doing here,

but I just wanted to remind us to do that

because our students, they really want, and I see it,

they really want to be, they want to dominate in life.

They want to maximize.

But sometimes the process, we just think that they don't have the ability, but they do.

And I just want to remind that.

And the last thing is this, is that we're just finding many students here in our schools

do not have internet at home.

So I just wanted to, before my time goes, we need to do better on that.

Thank you.

We have one more speaker card for Gabby Chavez-Lopez.

Good afternoon supervisors, council members, and staff. My name is Olivia Navarro. I'm director

of community organizing here at Somos Mayfair, one of the organizations that is part of the

Cisepoia Collective. I'm also a neighborhood leader here in the wonderful city of San Jose

and mother of three kids and also a program participant growing up where I saw firsthand

how these programs can uplift. And I always say we are the, it takes a village to raise a child.

So I want you guys to really marinate in that when you're thinking about services.

Don't exclude yourself.

It might be a child, but you guys are the ones that are going to uplift and develop that child.

I want to especially thank Supervisor Sylvia Arenas in her leadership

in advancing the Latino Health Assessment.

It really has highlighted what we already knew, but really put the data out there

to make sure that we provide supportive services for our Latino

and specifically our Latino youth.

and I want to also thank her for her continued support

for the Children and Youth Master Plan,

in spite of now her being in county,

coming back to the city of San Jose,

making sure that this is still a priority,

as well as thanking our supervisor, Betty Young,

council member, Peter Ortiz,

and the rest of the council here

that have been very supportive of uplifting

our most vulnerable community members.

This kind of city-county collaboration is critical,

And if we're serious about improving outcomes

for our children, I wanna also acknowledge

that using this specific data

on the Latino health assessment to inform the work

in neighborhoods like Mayfair, where families are Latino,

that the data reflects their lived realities

from access to services, to youth mental health,

to prevention and early intervention.

Using the data helps ensure policies are responsive,

culturally relevant, and rooted in truth.

Again, as a mom and a community organizer,

I see how intentional investment in youth

changes the trajectory of entire families and neighborhoods.

When we center the youth, especially...

That is your time, thank you.

Next speaker.

Good afternoon, I'm Gabby Chavez Lopez,

executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley,

a community-based organization

that's been serving the community

for the last 26 years, representing a multi-generational group

of Latinas, mothers, sisters, tias, family members.

And as we thank you so much, first off,

for the leadership that we're seeing from our county,

both County Board of Supervisors who are here,

Betty Young and Sylvia Arenas,

who have really championed the Latino health needs assessment

that has really identified and prioritized some areas

where we can really move the needle

with Latino health in this county,

as well as the memo that was brought forth

by Council Member Pamela Campos,

who has really centered children, youth, and families

since day one in office.

I really, kind of sitting here and thinking about

and letting marinate this kind of comprehensive report,

I really just wanted to uplift the role of parents

and as Olivia mentioned prior to me, the role of mothers

in really being able to support the needs

of their families and their children

And so as much as we talk about children and youth,

I think a real strategy that we need to uplift

and continue to center is the role of parents

in making sure that they have a roof

over their children's head, they have food on the table,

that they have access to economic mobility opportunities,

and that we continue to center that experience of adults

and their ability to be able to provide for their children.

And so I ask that we continue to think about that as we think about these different strategies

and how we're working with caretakers in particular and mothers in this county.

Because, you know, ask me, you know, how your children are, then I'll tell you how you are.

In many ways, we are impacted by the plight of our children quite a bit.

And so we have to make sure that we are thinking about this as a family unit

this as a multi-generational process that will have generated thank you I have

called all the speaker cards back to the committee great thank you so much to all

of our members of the public who commented really appreciate everyone's

input I want to thank my colleagues here both at the city and the county for

continuing this critical joint commitment to both our youth and our families.

Today's discussion reflects a truth we all understand. When government works

together, our children are allowed to thrive. And in places like East San Jose,

that collaboration is not only helpful, it's essential and it's life-saving. I

strongly support both Councilmember Compos' memo and Supervisor Arenas' memo

because they move us towards a system where every family, no matter their zip code,

can access the services, support, and opportunities that they deserve.

Both proposals ensure we are not only sustaining the Children and Youth Services Master Plan,

but expanding it into neighborhoods that have waited far too long for equitable investment.

In District 5, we are not only talking about theoretical needs.

We are talking about urgent, immediate realities.

Gang violence is happening every day in our neighborhoods,

taking young lives, traumatizing families, and destabilizing entire neighborhoods.

These impacts are not abstract to me.

I was a gang-impacted youth.

I joined a gang at the age of 12,

and I grew up watching friends and family fall through those cracks.

and because intervention most of the time came too late or never came at all.

It was only because of programs like MOXA, now a good program that does similar work as New Hope for Youth,

and of course the city's gang intervention program that I was able to turn my life around.

In fact, I am still receiving my treatment from the Clean Slate program.

If you don't know about it, definitely recommend learning more.

And that is why the focus on the no wrong door approach on data sharing and on expanding pilot sites

and on aligning with the Latino health assessment is so important.

Intervention cannot depend on luck.

It cannot depend on a young person happening to bump into the right mentor at the right time.

It has to be built into our existing systems, predictable, accessible, and be culturally grounded.

I especially appreciate the alignment with the Latino health assessment because it pushes us to confront the root issues,

from youth exposure to violence, to gaps in educational access, to a lack of early childhood support that can change a children's life and their entire trajectory.

For too many Latino youth whose systems haven't lived up to their promise, these services are vital.

And while this policy moves forward, I'm also doing everything I can on the ground in my very own district to change the lives of these youth.

We are bringing public murals, art, and community activation into some of the most disinvested and violence-impacted corridors in East San Jose,

places where families have endured shooting, assaults, and decades of blight.

These cultural investments are not cosmetic.

They are a part of this prevention.

They reclaim our spaces, they rebuild our neighborhood pride, and create safe corridors

where young people can see possibility instead of danger.

But our families need more.

We need real investment in gang intervention, real mentorship, and real trauma-informed

support, and of course, pathways to careers and away from this violence.

These memos lay the groundwork for that by expanding pilot locations, strengthening coordination,

aligning city and county systems to reach youth before the streets do. Our

families deserve a future where a child's potential is not determined by

their address or by the gangs that recruit in their neighborhoods in

absence of opportunity. And so I'm looking forward to continue to secure funding,

let's institutionalize this work, and let's embed the master plan into the

core of how the city and the county function and do business. Because our

Our youth deserve a system built to support them, not one held together by a pilot program

alone.

So I just want to thank my colleagues for their partnership and their leadership.

I want to thank all the community-based partners that are here today, the frontline organizations,

and community members and youth who have helped create this roadmap for change.

We have the vision, we have the data, and we have the urgency.

Now it's our responsibility to deliver together and move forward for every child in this county.

I now want to pass it off to my counterpart, Chairwoman Supervisor Arenas.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate your comments as well as the comments from our public.

I think they're very much aligned with where we need to go.

I spent a lot of time earlier in the meeting talking about the history in terms of how

we arrived here and the partnership that we have seen and that we have really shared and

value between the city and the county.

And we're going to continue to do this because we know how important our youth and our children

and our families are for our communities and you all have expressed that.

What I heard from all of you say was you want us to continue to focus on partnerships and

whether that is school or nonprofits or those agencies that are already working with our kiddos in our communities,

that you want to continue to see the partnerships come forward, as well as the support for our parents.

And maybe going back to some basics, right?

There's a lot of issues that impact our families and our children, our youth.

When we first started this joint meetings, former supervisor Cindy Chavez and I focused

on gender-based violence because there was an uptick in gender-based violence and that

typically impacts a great deal of Latina children.

So children between the ages of 8 to 16 are the highest number of survivors.

And it's one of the reasons why we now have the Child Advocacy Center, which has everything

under one roof here in San Jose, and we're building one in South County.

And now my, not because everything is done with gender-based violence, but because the

men and the boys deserve equal attention and because they're actually feeding our systems

in a way that I don't, you know, I wouldn't want them to continue to do,

and this is why it was really important for me to have.

When we did the Latino youth health assessment, when I requested this,

it hadn't been done for 12 years.

I also wanted to see the utilization of the services for the county

because that also tells us a story in terms of what Latinos are doing,

how they're utilizing or underutilizing our services.

And so all that really told a story about the boys in our community, the men in our community.

And recently I also read an article that the governor of California also recognizes the despondency, the loneliness in young men and men.

And actually had an executive order, I think, in July to take a look at the loneliness, the increase of suicide rate, and the high rate of unemployment or involvement in school for our young men.

And this is between the ages of 16 to 24.

We have about 500,000 young men that have no work or school.

And we understand that with that, it leads to a lot of social and emotional issues

and leads to some involvement in what you discussed earlier, Council Member Ortiz.

I also started my career in youth intervention.

And back then, we had Right Connection.

We had, which I oversell Stand for Men and Stand for Women, which was a curriculum-based program.

We also had Clean Slate, which continues to, I think it's one of the very few programs that continue to exist.

And what we have forgotten is that the city of San Jose also has a responsibility,

is equal to the county, to provide the kinds of intervention services that our youth need

and that actually work for them.

And so I think along with what the governor is recognizing,

that there's an increase in suicides between men 15 to 44.

They die at three to four times the rate of women in California.

And I've got to say, when the governor is recognizing these things for us,

I think we also need to be in line with what the services

and what the resources are going to be that are going to come through the state pipeline.

But we already know the cost of gun violence.

We talked about it a bit, and thank you.

I want to say thank you to our county employees who have come here and really partners.

I shouldn't say employees, but really partners and public servants.

And I know there's a lot of you who are in the audience,

and I just know that my heart is full of gratitude for what we have done so far for our Latino community

because we're in desperate need of support.

We're in desperate need of resources and the attention that we deserve

and not the kind of attention that the federal administration is giving us

and the kind of narrative that locally folks, leaders such as the mayor and others

who want to shape who we are.

We are much more than an incident that involves a gun.

We have a lot of value that we contribute to our community.

And with that, with our value and also with the issues that we have,

we must form the kind of strategies that are going to really play a part

in answering and disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline.

And it's one of the reasons why in my recommendations I have a school county collaborative that I'm forming and that actually Sarah, who's sitting to the right of me, is also leading.

Because we recognize that partnerships are really important.

And we are going to continue to focus on Latinos and Latinas in a way that is going to really come to the core issues of what is happening.

and so I'm really grateful that we are starting with the pilot areas that we have done so far.

These are areas that are perpetually touched with crime and poverty and generational trauma,

and I'm really grateful to those agencies that are working with those communities.

I'm looking at all of you because we're going to be looking at you to ensure that what we're doing together

as two systems are going to really work and are going to prove what we know is that and what we

heard audience members say is that the partnerships are key are the part of the key answers but it's

also part of how we carry out the work and speaking up when others want to create a narrative for us

And so I ask you to continue to pay attention when leaders talk about Latinos in a way that doesn't really accurately and comprehensively describe us,

that you also use your privilege, your voice, to correct those narratives, because I will.

And I ask you to join me in that effort.

So lastly, I just want to, I don't know if this is the time

that we have in order to move our memo.

So I'm going to move, make a motion to approve the memo

that I put forward and just quickly, it's to expand the sites,

to add additional information on gaps in services

of priority areas, to have bimonthly verbal reports

at our committees to update the work plan,

to have follow-up meetings hopefully next year early on,

and then to have an additional report in CSFC,

which is our county committee,

as well as to have a Latino Health Assessment Action Plan

project list by jurisdiction so that each city can understand

the Latinos in their respective communities.

So that is, oh, and then, of course, asking our administration to provide that information through presentations.

And so that is my motion.

And hopefully I'll get a second.

Has it come from the county?

Has it come from the county?

Yeah.

Yes.

I'll call one big happy family today.

I am happy to second this referral here from CSFC.

And Chair Arenas, if I may.

Of course.

just like to add to the importance of aligning our desired outcomes between

the city and the county I think that there's been a lot of work in

development a lot of partnership engagement with our community partners

and our staff as we in what I've heard today again and again is is implementation

right what this looks like and this memo go your refer go the long way in

getting us on the path towards implementation and what I really would

like to see for my my own edification and also to and to support policy making

is that how do we align county city outcomes and the paths towards those outcomes so that like what

you said earlier chair Ortiz right the when we we double the outcomes we double the output and I

think I'm looking at the body that's on this dais here today this is a body that knows how to turn

a dollar into five right so if that could I don't know if that needs to be an amendment to the

for a friendly amendment, additional or just for the direction?

No, I think that we're in line with alignment because the first item is to, is options to

prioritize and expand pilot site locations in San Jose and countywide in alignment with

the board's approved child and youth service master plan, direction and Latino health assessment,

as well as options to develop a sub-working group.

So this is to develop standardized applications.

So this is in alignment, and my initial recommendation is in alignment with the Child and Youth Master Plan.

So that means that our systems are always going to work with one another, and that was on our county side,

and hopefully our city side agrees to do the same.

But I'm happy if you feel that we need to have additional or stronger language, I'm happy to take a friendly amendment.

Yeah, and I'm going to have to look to the city side, too, to help me out with this here,

that with the working group that will be developed out of this,

really having one of our next steps or one of our outcomes

in the first quarter is a shared set of outcomes with each other.

I'm happy to include that in the motion

and hopefully that will reflect on the city side as well.

What did I second?

Do we need a vote on the CSFC side?

I believe so.

You will need to vote.

Yes, so if our clerk can call roll so that we can,

oh, there you are.

Vice Chairperson Young?

Yes.

And Chairperson Arenas.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, great.

Thank you so much for your memo, Supervisor,

and for both of your comments,

and you're exactly right.

I've, growing up in East San Jose,

I've had to make a dollar out of 15 cents many, many times.

So definitely agree with that.

Next, I will pass it off to council member

and committee member Pamela Campos.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to begin with gratitude

because I am extremely grateful both to city staff

and our county partners for the work

in addressing the systemic challenges

that are impacting families and youth in our community.

Thank you to Chair Ortiz, Chair Arenas

for your leadership in organizing this opportunity

to learn about the status of this important work

and provide direction to continue

these collaborative efforts.

I'm proud to serve alongside elected leaders

on each of these committees.

All of you have been effective

and passionate champions for our community.

And I am also great, especially grateful

to the essential work of our community-based organizations

and the nonprofits who have been serving

the most vulnerable residents in our community.

I'm also extremely proud that we have

our District 2 Youth Commissioner

participating in this important work

and gave public comment this morning.

Without all of your support,

our work in local government would not be possible.

And as many of you might know,

this work is extremely personal to me.

As I was reading through the Latino Health Assessment,

there was so much that reflected my upbringing and childhood.

This report tells the stories of my loved ones,

the people that I grew up with, that I met at school and at work, and became my community.

And it's powerful to have the city and the county working in lockstep on the issues that matter so

much to me, my colleagues, but especially the youth and the families in our community. Both of these

reports are critical tools in making San Jose and Santa Clara County a better place for all families,

and I'm particularly excited when I saw the slide that shows our city and our county are aligned on

key issues such as child care, school to prison pipeline, and the Latino health assessment

outcomes.

You can make an honest argument that keeping kids in school is grassroots crime prevention.

It's not rocket science.

It is true criminal justice reform when we invest in early childhood education because

we know that children with access to preschool can be up to two years ahead in language development

by the first day of kindergarten. And when a fourth grader is behind in grade reading level,

they are 13 times more likely to drop out of high school and youth who drop out of high school are

50 percent more likely to be unemployed than high school graduates and are eight times more likely

to be incarcerated. And you can measure the cost of homelessness, you can measure the cost of crime

and gun violence, which is why the fact of the matter is that you won't find a better public

return on investment than investing in early childhood education. And so with that, I have a

few questions. First, the implementation of the Children and Youth Services Master Plan requires

not only cross-departmental collaboration, but also a partnership between the city and the county.

And so my question is, what is the role of the city manager's office in overseeing the implementation of this work and ensuring that every city department is working together?

So I think that one's for me.

So as many know, this work originated out of the city manager's office.

And this last fiscal year has shifted over to its new home in Parks, Recreation, Neighborhood Services from day one.

We've involved parks recreation neighborhood services in our library, which are which are our two primary children and youth serving

departments

We've also taken that one step further and if there's any city investment

In children youth and families that all that will get filtered. It has been filtered through this master plan framework

this as you know

lives under the neighborhood services and education committee and any memo that get that involves children and youth and families

has to go through not only this filter but ultimately get signed off by the city manager's office to ensure alignment

so that that ensures that we are connected interdepartmentally and then outwardly we have also

embedded into the pilot locations the need for coordination between the city and those pilot sites

Thank you. And so a follow up to this last piece is how is the city manager's office coordinating with the county?

Yeah, so we hold so in addition to our internal executive leadership team, which consists of like Jill and John, Andrea, Olympia and Israel.

And I shouldn't start naming people because I'm going to leave some people out there. We have a we have an A team executive team.

We also have standing meetings with the county in terms of other department heads at the county.

I mean, I'm looking over there.

Patty Ramirez is, I mean, sometimes I get confused,

and I think she works for the city because she's been

in so many meetings.

But so we do have a standing meeting with department heads

at the county to ensure alignment, to also resolve conflict.

Wherever they're, you know, sometimes we may end up

in a situation where, you know what, we got to work some things out.

Sarah Duffy has been real key in terms of convening anybody

at the county that we need at the table.

And then, of course, at the electives level,

you know, we also have briefings that we do both to our city council members as well as

to members of the Board of Supervisors.

Thank you.

And the memo from Supervisor Arenas provides direction to hold joint sessions between NSC

and CSFC annually.

Does the city administration support this direction?

Absolutely.

We could annualize that.

Okay, perfect.

I'm going to make that friendly amendment to my memo as well as the friendly amendment

by Supervisor Young that includes aligning outcomes in Q1.

Oh, my light is still on.

Can I say any, Chair?

Of course.

Yeah.

And I just want to be, provide further context in terms of aligning outcomes that we're looking

at aligned data and evaluation infrastructures.

I've seen a lot of really innovative approaches to evaluating our steps today, and can we all

Can we all merge that in some way so that it both reflects the work that's being done

in city, county, and community?

Yeah, and Supervisor, if I could add, we'd also be remiss if we didn't mention Camille

and Angelica and others, Celica and others at Sobrado Foundation, who have agreed to

fund our evaluation system.

And we have been meeting with them, and we've been doing it jointly, both city and the county,

in coordination with them to make sure that there's that alignment.

So I want a quick shout out to Camille and her team at Sobrado.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sobrado.

Just two more quick questions before I make the motion.

So data sharing between the county and the city is critical to the success of these programs.

What actions are necessary to formally establish data sharing agreements between our two agencies?

That actually is part of the work entailed in my previous comments.

You know, it's easy to say let's share data.

It's a little harder when it gets into issues around confidentiality and all.

But we have some internal commitments at all levels to say, hey, look, we got to kind of

figure out how to do this once and for all.

We can't let bureaucracy kind of, you know, stand in the way of just good common sense.

And so that's how we're leaning into this work, both at the city.

We see the same from the county and also a lot of support from Sobrado.

So we haven't quite cracked that nut yet, but that's one of the challenges that we have

internally.

If we're going to make this work, we're going to have to address that issue because that's

always the showstopper.

Thank you.

And that direction is included in my memo.

So my last question is about funding, which we know that sustainable funding is essential

to implementing the Children and Youth Services Master Plan.

the City Manager's Office confirm that the city is working to determine which programs or services may be eligible for medical reimbursement

Yeah, council member absolutely you know one of the things you know

We know that both the city and the county are going to be entering into very very constrained budget process, right?

But we also can't let that be the big delimiter to this work, right?

I think there's a lot of creativity in this room and a lot of resource in this valley and so I think we've got to get really

creative on both you know on the city side of the county side and really make

sure that we prioritize this work otherwise we end up reverse engineering

you know on other issues such as you know the unhoused and other other other

situations like that but so so really making this priority is is is number one

and then secondly I think also looking at at the wealth in this valley you know

we want to put a challenge out to the private sector which if you really take

a look at kind of like net donations to local city and county it's it's it that

numbers in the wrong direction and we're hoping that we have some champions in

the private sector that care enough about our children and youth to really

step up financially as well and so yeah so the answer is yes we're gonna have to

get really creative to do that and there was a second part of your question that

I don't think I got can I weigh in sorry over here

Andrea. I'm sorry, Angel. I can take the Medi-Cal question. So, Andrea Flores-Shelton,

Assistant Director of Parks, Recreation, Neighborhood Services. Councilmember, the

Housing Department as well as PR&S are engaged in the CalAIM Coalition, and we're looking at

building the infrastructure, whether we have the feasibility to build the infrastructure within

the city to become medical eligible so that is quite a step that we need to look

at so we are looking at that to support our systems and we can provide updates

as necessary thank you both for those responses I especially again want to

thank city staff for helping me prepare this memo that I've submitted for

consideration by the NSC committee today in particularly grateful for the

thoughts and contributions of Angel Rios, Andrea Flores Shelton, Jim Shannon,

Olympia Williams, Jill Bourne, and all of your teams. Thank you for helping my

team and I identify some key next steps and opportunities to sustain and expand

services to our most vulnerable residents. Many of these recommendations

mirror those in the memo from Supervisor Arenas and together our memos will

provide the direction needed to continue our essential work. So I am excited to

see our policy work in action and I look forward to working with all of you to

support this transformative investment in underserved neighborhoods and with

that I move to approve my memo again with the two amendments one amending to

include an annual city of San Jose and County joint meeting of these committees

and including the aligned outcomes in Q1 related to data and evaluation

investment second all right we got a motion in the second we have a vote

please we will need to take a verbal vote compost yes

gandolas yes Cohen I doan I Ortiz I that motion passes great and do we have any

other colors you'd like to give any comments or no okay thank you so much I

I appreciate everybody's comments.

I want to thank again staff for all their hard work.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to be here and provide your input.

And that leads us to adjournment.

Thank you so much.

Oh.

Let's gamble.

There you go.

It's official now.

Oh, shit.

I think I broke it.

Thank you.

Thank you.