Over the past several months, Eastside Pathways Backbone has convened a powerful cross-sector coalition through the Strategic Cuts & Mutual Aid meeting series. This initiative was born out of a shared need: to navigate a time of great change with intention, coordination, and care. As funding landscapes shift and community needs grow more complex, our goal has been to align resources, make informed and coordinated cuts, and collectively pursue funding that supports youth behavioral health across East King County.
A special thank you to our sponsors and co-hosts KidsQuest Children’s Museum, Rainier Athletes, Friends of Youth, Leadership Eastside & City of Kirkland for investing in our collective action.
Session 1 Highlights
Date: August 26, 2025
Location: KidsQuest Children’s Museum
The first session laid the groundwork for understanding how organizations can do more with less while ensuring that people with specific strengths are supported to lead in their areas of expertise.
Key Themes:
- Collaboration over Isolation: Partners celebrated programs like Pizza with a Purpose and ParentMap Talks, emphasizing how Eastside Pathways enables connections that prevent siloed efforts.
- Funding Gaps and Equity: Disparities in school district funding were discussed, especially the lack of assistant principals in elementary schools and reduced support for students with disabilities.
- Basic Needs and Graduation: A systems-thinking iceberg activity revealed how food insecurity and mental health access are deeply tied to high school graduation rates.
- Structural Challenges: Post-COVID policy shifts (e.g., changes to free lunch eligibility) and ongoing immigration-related fears are impacting attendance and access to services.
- Mindsets and Values: Despite feelings of fear, scarcity, and confusion, partners expressed hope in the power of Collective Impact to address these challenges.
Systems Thinking Iceberg: High School Graduation & Basic Needs
- Event Level: Students not graduating; food debt paid off year after year.
- Patterns: Food insecurity persists; socializing new behaviors is slow and uneven.
- Structures: Policy changes, reduced staffing, and lingering pandemic impacts.
- Mindsets: Fear and scarcity dominate, but there’s a shared belief in the importance of belonging, basic needs, education, and co-regulation as human rights.
Session 3 Highlights
Date: October 28, 2025
This session focused on access, cultural responsiveness, and redefining care in youth behavioral health.
Key Themes:
- Access is Cultural: Mental health access must include cultural understanding and be linked to basic needs like housing and food.
- Integration Over Assimilation: Youth should be able to show up as their full selves—identity should be celebrated, not erased.
- Expanding the Definition of Care: Mentorship, connection, and cultural spaces are valid forms of care.
- Ethical Data Practices: Concerns about data collection, especially around immigration status, highlight the need for protective practices.
- Equity in Labor: The nonprofit sector must stop glorifying unpaid labor—especially for women of color—and advocate for fair compensation.
Shared Values:
- Civic literacy, cultural humility, empathy, and adaptive leadership.
- Centering youth aspirations and lived experiences in data and decisions.
- Commitment to doing better together, not just doing more.
What We Do Well:
- Behavioral health support, youth development, wrap-around services, housing stabilization, crisis response, and safe community spaces.
- Validated through qualitative data, surveys, listening sessions, and standardized tools.
Moving Forward
The Strategic Cuts & Mutual Aid series is more than a response to funding challenges—it’s a movement toward deeper collaboration, equity, and impact. Partners are committed to collective learning and courageous conversations that center youth and community needs.
“Our work isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing it better, together.”
- Assess cross-sector capacity to support the behavioral and mental health of ~83k+ K–12 youth.
- Align on shared frameworks for measuring impact and connecting services to outcomes.
- Identify core indicators, data practices, and cultural factors that improve youth well-being.
- Strengthen coordination for potential deep investment focused on behavioral health.