Community Partner Concern Policy

/

Adopted June 2024*

*Note that as of June 2024, BHT has engaged a Board Development Consultant to further develop our values, Board roles and responsibilities and clear processes for engaging community in governance of our work. This Policy may be adapted over time. 

Background 

Over the last few years, BHT has stewarded more than $70 million dollars of public funds to benefit the region. We have utilized various methods to allocate and invest these funds, from Pay-for-Performance Contracts to Requests for Proposals to competitive grant-making. We take our management of public funds seriously. Over the past 6 years, we have worked to create transparency in our decision-making. This started with the creation of several Technical Councils to advise the BHT staff on our funding process. Some examples of that work include the creation and elevation of Waiver Finance Workgroup, the Tribal Partners Leadership Council, the Community Voices Council, and numerous informal discussions with providers. By meeting others where they are in their lived and professional expertise, we committed to bringing policy informed by our partners to the Board for approval. Starting in 2020, we expanded our review of RFPs to include community members who made the final recommendation to the Board on who to fund.  

From this experience, we continue to strengthen our efforts to expand community voice in the program and the funding processes through the support of our Community Voices Council, Tribal Partners Collaborative, and Community Health Workers of Eastern WA Network. While our team endeavors to move towards hope with informed action and commitment that is fair and equitable, there is always a chance we will miss the mark in our journey.  

To demonstrate our accountability to the community, we are adopting a Community Feedback process. We hope that this process will generate space for community members to formally express concerns about our practices and processes as we aspire for greater diversity and inclusion of voices.  

 

Process 

If a community member or partner has a concern, we invite them to reach out to whomever they feel most comfortable share concerns with including executive staff: 

Or any member of our Executive Committee: 

 

If folks would like to have this issue addressed formally, we ask that you complete this short form. This form will be directed to President, Alison Poulsen (alison@betterhealthtogether.org) and Executive Committee members: Zeke Smith (zeke@empirehealthfoundation.org) and Kelli Houston (Kelli.Houston@chpwa.org). Alison, Kelli and Zeke will determine what an appropriate next step is. The next steps may include: 

  • Conducting a listening session with the partner to understand the context of the concern and a discussion with the program staff responsible. 

  • Provide a formal response on BHT’s process, frame of understanding, and action taken or that will be taken to enhance our growth and learning on this journey. 

  • Exploring any formal legal or whistleblower considerations  

  • Additionally, BHT will publish (withholding specific names) a summary of the requests, concerns, needs, and actions proposed/taken on our website. 

If the concern raised is beyond the scope and expertise of Alison, Zeke and Kelly or there is a perceived conflict, the Executive Committee and/or President have the authority to request an external facilitated fact-finding process.   

Please note: BHT also has a Whistleblower policy for issues related to suspected illegal or unethical conduct practices, and/or violations. These include theft, embezzlement, bribery or kickbacks, misuse of Better Health Together's assets, undisclosed conflicts of interest, violations of discrimination, harassment, and/or retaliation laws. You can read more about our Whistleblower policy. 

As an agency supporting and serving our community, Better Health Together recognizes that we may not always have the answers, and we move at the pace of interconnectedness and trust to be adaptive and practice transformative relational justice for all.