The KYFS Behavioral Health Programs transitioned its client clinical chart record keeping to an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system in 2015. This significant change propels KYFS’s clinical services into the future of health care record keeping as all health care systems transition to all EHR systems over the past few years and into the coming years.
KYFS AfterSchool, with support from the Kent School District and Puget Sound Educational Service District Race To the Top funds, created the first “Summer Splash” summer learning retention project. With two sections of school age students who participate in KYFS AfterSchool, elementary and secondary school age, in collaboration with Kent School District certified staff, the success of this project meant these students returned to the 2015-2016 school year without experiencing summer learning loss. AfterSchool also continued the highly successful summer Kinder-Academy for the fourth summer.
KYFS continued its significant presence in Early Childhood Education with participation in WAKIDS and Early Achievers with nearly 100% of these at risk preschoolers who attended the full school year obtaining scores on all domains of school readiness indicating readiness to begin each of their K-12 educations.
Watson Manor Transitional Living Program marked the 25th year of providing transitional housing to homeless youth mothers, age 16-25 at entry and their children. This milestone, rare in projects of this nature, is a legacy to the KYFS board of directors, who collectively recognized the need for housing these young mothers in the late 1980’s. 25 years proves the vision of the leadership by the then board of directors.
These high quality evidence based approaches are not possible without a solid and professional Administration (internal) infrastructure supporting the work. KYFS’s Administration services meet that standard every day.
KYFS through its Board of Directors provided an early endorsement of the King County Best Starts for Kids, Proposition #1, passed by the voters of King County on the November 2015 general election ballot. KYFS also took a lead role in working on the “BSK” campaign. This six year, $65M per year, property tax will significantly change the lives of virtually every child growing up in King County.
KYFS was selected for a very generous $150,000 gift by the board of directors of the Irving Paul Law Group (formerly the Associated Counsel For the Accused) during 2015. The gift recognizes KYFS long standing Substance Use Disorder treatment of youth, particularly youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
This 2015 annual report reflects on the past year, but also indicates that KYFS continues to position itself for many years to come. The vision at KYFS is squarely on the future with its expected challenges and continuing evolving needs of the communities KYFS calls “home, South King County.
Michael Heinisch
Executive Director