Rebecca Kuhn is an Information and Access Strategic Advisor with the Human Services Department’s Business Operations and Legislative and External Affairs teams. For our latest Employee Spotlight, Rebecca writes about her work on accessibility and advancing racial equity.
What is your role at Seattle Human Services?
I support the Department’s efforts to improve accessibility to our resources and programs. The goal is to remove any barriers that might block someone from accessing our services. This includes overseeing HSD’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, supporting language access and digital accessibility, processing requests for records through public disclosure, and managing internal and external community engagement and events.
What do you love about your job?
Seattle Human Services has multiple divisions focusing on the needs of different communities. I love that, in my role, I get to work with caring, passionate, and committed staff across the department.
In particular, I love getting to learn about—and from—formidable leaders who helped steer and steward Race and Social Justice (RSJ) work at the City. They include Ms. Mary Flowers, Ms. Sili Savusa, and late Mr. Dwight Mizoguchi. Much of the City’s RSJ work originated from HSD alongside community, and I feel honored to follow in their footsteps. They inspire me to continue to be critical of the way we move and operate so we can be accountable to the people we serve and bring humanity into all spaces.
This Women’s History Month and Social Work Month, I celebrate the many women and social workers who provide care to their families, clients, and communities so often without recognition. I see you and I celebrate you!
How do you contribute to HSD’s overarching goals related to racial equity?
I am deeply committed to racial equity and see government as a powerful vehicle for making progress. That’s one reason why I serve as a Co-Lead of the HSD Change Team, a staff-led group that works to end institutionalized racism, advance racial equity, and address intersectionality and inclusion. I also participate in HSD’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Caucus.
One thing I recently committed to regarding racial equity is the practice of personalized land acknowledgements. There’s so much that we can learn from Seattle’s deep and rich Native history and presence. Some may criticize land acknowledgements as performative, but I believe they can be an opportunity to learn, reflect, and take accountability.
The first step to understanding the full truth about decolonization and reconciliation is critical reflection of our positionality—recognizing the ways we benefit from the current system, as well as our ability to learn from and contribute to Native communities, challenge harm, and be accountable. For thousands of years, Native communities in Seattle and elsewhere have been caretakers of the land, animals, and people. Pausing to consider how these ecosystems affect us, and how we affect them, makes us more conscious stewards of the land and community.