Inclusion and Diversity Work Group

The Yolo County Inclusion and Diversity Working Group was established in 2019 and consists of staff from a variety of departments, including: Library, Human Resources, County Administrator's Office, Health and Human Services, Probation, District Attorney, Public Defender, Board of Supervisors, Finance, General Services, and more.

VISION

Yolo County has a vision of a region that includes thriving residents, safe communities, a sustainable environment, flourishing agriculture, and a robust economy. To help achieve this vision, Yolo County acknowledges, respects and incorporates diversity and inclusion in our operational plan.

What We Do

What Outcomes We Hope For

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT STATEMENT

The Inclusion and Diversity Work Group has developed the following strategic alignment statement consisting of our vision, commitment and defined terms.

COMMITMENT

Yolo County is committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive and equitable work environment which supports and values our diverse community. By embracing and leveraging the diversity of our employees, Yolo County is better equipped to adapt to changes in the external environment. Yolo County’s diverse teams bring different information, opinions and perspectives to their work, resulting in more effective problem solving, broader thinking and innovative solutions.

What We've Done

2021

Condemning violence directed against Asian communities
Comprehensive DEI updates - December 2021
- Inclusion & Diversity Working Group
  - Completed a Leadership Readiness Assessment with leaders from all County departments.
  - Conducted an Employee DEI Climate Survey that was completed by more than 660 Yolo County employees.
  - Scheduled, promoted, and facilitated more than 40 employee focus groups from August to October 2021.
  - Tangible Development will share their assessment results and recommendations in February 2022.
- Office of the County Administration & the Board of Supervisors
  - Capay Valley Health & Community Center - Medical and dental services for an underserved community, $2,250,000
  - Crisis Now - Funding for implementation of 24/7 Mental Health Crisis services, $3,000,000
  - Yolo Regional Food Hub Facility – Expand our community’s ability to aggregate, process, store, and distribute locally farm grown produce in rural Yolo County, $2,000,000
  - Welcome Baby - Provide home visiting to low-income and at-risk mothers, $2,000,000
  - Workgroups formed to review, refine and make recommendations on proposals received in the priority categories below
    - housing and homeless
    - food security
    - child youth and family
    - mental health
    - community parks and facilities
- Child Support Services
  - Staff participated in focus groups, DEI trainings, or participated in conference workshops.
- Health and Human Services Agency
  - Two new work groups have been created: An African American families’ workgroup, and an Older Adult workgroup. The Cultural Competence Committee will continue to include the following workgroups: Latinx, LGBTQ+, Russian-Speaking Communities.
  - Offered a subcommittee/ongoing focus group for staff and supervisors
  - Implemented regular brown bags with topics and mini trainings to create culture of engagement and sharing
  - Improved onboarding processes for new staff with shadowing, trainings, lowered caseloads for extended period of time
- Information Technology
  - Focusing on DEI principles for the hiring, recruitment, hiring, retention, and advancement of employees
  - Creating a culture where people with “diverse perspectives, ideas, experiences and backgrounds” are valued
- Library
  - Aligning staffing and service priorities to eliminate barriers to access library resources\
  - Conducting an organizational audit through a racial equity lens and utilizing findings to align resources with our services
  - Recruiting, hiring and retaining staff who are multilingual, multicultural and who can connect with our diverse communities
  - Inviting residents to share their lived experiences to help us learn how to equitably deliver services to meet their needs and interests
- Public Defender’s Office
  - Racial Justice Committee engaged in quarterly, office-wide groups for processing and reflecting on racial justice issues
  - Hosted an office-wide screening of Rage of Innocence: A Book Talk with Professor Kristin Henning
  - Presented to a variety of culturally diverse undergraduate and law school clubs and organizations at University of California, Davis and Pacific McGeorge School of Law to broaden the diversity of the intern pool
  - Secured grant funding to offer stipends to legal interns from diverse backgrounds to improve the intern-to-hiring pipeline
  - Engaged in office-wide and state-wide trainings to implement and utilize the Racial Justice Act effectively to redress discrimination within the criminal and juvenile justice systems
  - Participated in community outreach on issues involving racial justice, to include sitting on a panel for the University of California, Davis to discuss a screening of Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem

2020

Support Black Lives Matter
December 2020 Update
- Assessor / Clerk-Recorder / Elections
  - Waived local recording fees and DA fraud fees for people wanting to modify restrictive covenant languages
- Child Support Services
  - All Child Support staff trained by the Center for Support of Families in Unintended Bias
- Criminal Justice
  - Brainstormed initial projects for action planning group
- District Attorney
  - Worked on a Bail Reform policy with the Vera Institute for Criminal Justice
  - Required attorneys to participate in a coordinated by a manager at the Museum of Tolerance in LA (First DA’s office to do so in California)
  - Hosted a groundbreaking 6-day collaborative presentation on races issues in prosecution
  - Worked with the non-profit Measures for Justice to build a transparency dashboard portal for public access to all DA data
- Health and Human Services Agency
  - Attended anti-racism training by UC Davis Center for Human Services
  - Co-facilitated 'Becoming the Beloved Community Racial Equity Inter-faith group
  - Established weekly Black Leaders Support group
  - Expanded Racial Equity Learning Workgroups
  - Added 'Inclusion and Cultural Considerations' in all Mental Health First Aid trainings and CIT family presentations
- Inclusion & Diversity Working Group
  - Worked on disseminating and programming efforts to engage and educate agency staff
  - Awarded a contract to Tangible Inc. for County-wide Racial Equity programming
  - Joined National Organization of Counties (NACO) in committing to ending racial and ethnic health inequalities
  - Enrolled in GARE (Government Alliance on Race and Equity)
- Library
  - Participated in California Libraries Cultivating Race, Equity, and Inclusion (CREI) Initiative
  - Reached out to the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation to learn how to better acknowledge the indigenous people
- Public Defender
  - Augmented the office’s mission and statement of core values to explicitly include the pursuit of racial equity
  - Drafted a comprehensive blueprint for racial justice change, with community and stakeholder input
  - Collaborated with UCD to host a proven expert to lead racial justice training for staff and other public defenders across the state
  - Re-examined recruitment outreach/strategies and made improvements with the goal of developing a workforce that more closely resembles the communities we serve
  - Member of steering committee for the juvenile RESTORE diversion program, which focuses on reducing racial disparities in the juvenile court system
  - Conducted community outreach on racial justice issues

Our Definitions

DIVERSITY

To Yolo County, diversity is rooted in the recognition of the vast differences among human beings. Embracing diversity is a building block for inclusion.

INCLUSION

To Yolo County, inclusion is actively and intentionally valuing and involving the thoughts, ideas and perspectives of all human beings so community members and employees of all identities – whether visible or not – are able to be authentic as well as feel safe and respected.

For questions, email the group at: InclusionWorkGroup@yolocounty.org.