County Wins 54 NACo Awards, Two Best in Category
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The County Public Defender’s Fresh Start Program is one of two programs that won a Best in Category Achievement Award. The program allows some San Diegans with prior non-violent criminal convictions to apply for jobs that they previously may not have been considered for due to their criminal record.
Congratulations to our County groups! The National Association of Counties recognized 36 of our many programs with Achievement Awards, which commend leading-edge government programs. Two of them, the Fresh Start Criminal Record Relief Program and the Medical Examiner’s Open Data Portal were presented with Best in Category Awards.
The Public Defender’s Fresh Start program is designed to educate and advocate for people previously convicted of non-violent crimes who looking to move past their mistakes and start anew. A criminal record creates barriers to employment, housing, education, volunteering, and other forms of civic engagement. Public Defender attorneys investigate clients’ criminal histories, develop comprehensive Fresh Start case plans, and seek all appropriate conviction relief. The goal is for the person to have successful community reintegration, improve access to employment, housing, education, and other forms of civic engagement, reduce recidivism and improve community safety.
The ME’s Open Data Portal released more than 22 years of death record information online in March 2019. The data is available for the public, media, and any other agencies that work in academia, public health or public policy, who can take the data, analyze it, and provide valuable insights back to the department and even advance broader changes to improve public health and safety. Since its release, this data set has been viewed over 16,000 times and downloaded nearly 600 times, making it the most popular data search on the County’s data portal.
The Medical Examiner’s Open Data Portal also won Best in Category for the NACo Achievement Awards. Here, a county employee browses a data set on the site.
Among other programs awarded were the County’s Public Health Nurse Residency Program, which provides a comprehensive learning experience with valuable guidance for nurses who are newly licensed and for nurses new to the field of public health. The program develops a team of professional Public Health Nurses who are trained to respond to public health crises including outbreaks and natural disasters. The program has been highly successful in attracting nurses who seek additional support and professional development during their transition to the public health nursing practice and represent the ethnicity and culture represented in the community’s diversity.
The San Diego County Probation Department won an award for developing a credible messenger mentoring program called Resilience, which hires people formerly or currently in the justice system to mentor justice-involved youth and young adults to help them resist reoffending. The youth can better relate to mentors with similar backgrounds. The six-month program includes two weekly group meetings with an evidence-based journaling curriculum and weekly mentee/mentor one-on-one meetings, and is building positive relationships between mentees, mentors, probation officers, and within the community.
A San Diego County employee training program, “Generation Island,” also received an award for addressing the five different generations --from the Silent Generation to Generation Z-- working together in County workplaces in a fun and informative manner. The goal of this training series is to encourage employees to be understanding of other points of view in order to work more effectively together, a key component of the County’s diversity and inclusion efforts. The course gives the learner an overview of the generational “signposts” that each generation experienced in their formative years, and shows how those early experiences can shape a particular generation’s behavior and explores how workplace dynamics can be affected.
San Diego County won in ten categories. The full list of winning categories and programs can be found on a searchable database and are listed below:
Category: Children and Youth
Child and Family Team Meeting Facilitation Program
Child Welfare Services: Family Visit Coaching
Outdoor Outreach
Urban Beats
Youth Civic Engagement: Empowering and Building Resiliency in Youth
Code Compliance Community Outreach
Category: Civic Education and Public Information
Better Outreach and Education: Disabled Veterans’ Property Tax Exemption
Citizens Academy
Super Saturday Program
CEQA Training for Community Members and Stakeholders
Category: Community and Economic Development
Doubling Down on Affordable Housing
High School Diploma Program
Accessory Dwelling Unit Incentive Program
Borrego Valley Groundwater Sustainability Plan
Service and Celebrating a City- Art Night Encinitas
Category: County Administration and Management
Self Sufficiency Services Through GWOW
Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety
Fresh Start Program*
David’s Harp Interns
Resilience Community Mentoring Program
Resilience is Strength and Empowerment (RISE) Collaborative Court
Category: Health
Accessible Depression and Anxiety Peripartum Treatment (ADAPT)
HHSA/HART Joint Operations East Region
Peer Assisted Support Services (PeerLINKS)
The Center for Child and Youth Psychiatry
Improving the Well Being of Residents and Workers in Disadvantaged Communities
Simultaneous Dengue Virus 1-4 Testing
Category: Human Services
Alzheimer’s Response Team
Cloud-Based Call Center Technology
Las Colinas Liaison
Virtual Reality Training for TANF
Category: Information Technology
Medical Examiner’s Open Data Portal*
Automated Performance Reports Workflow in SharePoint
Software Development for Water Submeter Test Bench
Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training
Community Fair
Discipline Case Support
Diversity and Inclusion Digest
Generation Island
Health and Human Services Agency Workplace Security Training Video
Intramural Sports
Public Health Nurse Residency Program
Searchable Discipline Database
Whole Self Workshop
Ranger Academy
Category: Risk and Emergency Management
Countywide Early Earthquake Warning ShakeAlert Test
School Protection and Evacuation Plan
Category: County Resiliency: Infrastructure, Energy and Sustainability
Electric Vehicle Roadmap
Green Streets Guidance
Preparing for an HLB Quarantine
Category: Library
Homecoming Out
Rural CERT at the Library
Category: Parks and Recreation
East Otay Regional Trail Alignment Study
San Dieguito Regional Park ADA Playground Improvement
Santa Ysabel Nature Center
Category: Planning
Capital Investment Model