KYC's Internal Staff Newsletter! |
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Happy everything, KYC!
Over the coming weeks, I hope all of us will be taking time to gather with friends and family, celebrate holiday traditions, and ring in the new year filled with promise. As a mom, I certainly understand the wonderful chaos that is inherent in the coming weeks. While you juggle supporting clients and our community, finishing projects, and celebrating the season, know that the Leadership Team and I will be toasting you all.
Wishing you all a warm and bright season of joy – may you all take time to celebrate the season in your own way and care for yourselves.
In your service,
Grace Hong Duffin
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Our Together We Thrive Award is a way for our teammates to instantly recognize one another for demonstrating our vision. By exemplifying what it means to be a great teammate, our winners go above and beyond to find solutions. Check out our teammates who have been recently celebrated! |
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Dawn Baldwin
Mev Becoja
Mike Brown
James Bruski
Peter DeGregorio
Rosanna Fiasche
Enza Haas
Terrance Irving
Liz Jefferson
Mckenzie Kibby
Robyn Kilberger
Rae Kocinski
Lauren Limbrick
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Marina Milicevic
Gongmin Mou
Liz Obrien
Jessica Oliva
Sebastian Pogorzelski
Rose Rangel
Edwin Rondan
Saloni Sahani
Larry Steinborn
Ariell Sueing
Manal Suleiman
Ria Tzavara
Christine Wilk
Rachel Zavala
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Show your appreciation to a fellow KYC team member who went above and beyond by sending them an email thanking them for their stellar work, and copy HR on the message to make your award nomination official (and to reward your nominee with a gift card of their choosing!). Make sure your email message includes these key details:

- Who – who you’re nominating
- What – what they did that was extra amazing (don’t skimp on the details – this is your chance to really celebrate their greatness!)
- When – when they shined
- How – how their actions led to something great or made an impact on others
Congratulations to our award winners above, and thank you for helping our clients, our communities, and our teams thrive!
If an entire TEAM deserves special recognition, please send your nomination to your division director or Perla Perez to be considered for our “Team of the Month” recognition!
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Jesus Cisneros
Title: Community Collaboration Project Associate
Start Date: 12/5/2022
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Melvin Harris
Title: CST Counselor
Start Date: 12/5/2022
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Jaime Keirn-Whiting
Title: Community Collaboration Administrative Assistant
Start Date: 12/5/2022
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Rory Robertson Woods
Title: CST Case Manager
Start Date: 12/5/2022
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Check here to see who is taking the next steps in their career within and outside of KYC!
Transitions
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Abigail Gibson, 1/9/23, MCR/SASS Counselor II to LGBTQIA+ Specialist
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Isabel Guerrero, 12/9/22, Bilingual C&A Therapist to Child Mental Health Therapist
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Janelle Souders, 12/9/22, MCR Counselor to MCR/SASS Counselor I
Departures
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Sean Caselton, 12/16/22, CCPRD Project Associate
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Brigid Flynn, 12/16/22, MCR Counselor
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Jessica Mata, 12/23/22, Behavioral Support Specialist
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OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR 2023 BENEFIT: START YOUR ELECTIONS TODAY!
Open enrollment for 2023 benefits will take place from December 6th to December 21st. Full-time staff will be able to make their elections for calendar year 2023 benefits during this window. KYC will be continuing with a fully insured plan through BlueCross and BlueShield of Illinois. Find more information in the 2023 Benefit Booklet found here or view this open enrollment video.
FLEXIBLE SPENDING ACCOUNT (FSA) ROLLOVER FOR 2023
FSA rollover from 2022 to 2023 is $570. Please keep in mind with the FSA rollover that these funds are frozen for the first quarter of the following year to allow a 90-day run-out period for claims from the previous year. Please ensure you contribute enough to cover the first quarter and do not rely on rollover funds for your first 90 days of the new year. Additionally, to be eligible for the FSA rollover staff must make an election to create a new FSA account for 2023 for the 2022 funds to rollover into. If staff have rollover funds and do not create an account for 2023, they will lose those funds.
To help you plan ahead as you're making your elections for 2023, the expected rollover amount from 2023 in to 2024 will be $610.
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2022 FLOATING HOLIDAYS
Floating holidays are considered as "use it or lose it" and do not rollover from one year to the next. Please be sure to utilize your remaining floating holidays within the calendar year of 2022.
2022 PTO ROLLOVER
The final pay period of 2022 officially ends 12/23/22. We will offer an automatic 75-hour PTO rollover into 2023. No action is required of staff for the rollover to occur. However, if you have over 75 hours of PTO remaining at the end of the year and wish to use your 2022 PTO balance from 12/24/22 - 12/31/22 to get under the 75-hour threshold, staff must report the number of hours of PTO to be used during this week to HR so that those hours may be added back into their PTO balance following the final 2022 payroll cycle. If you do not email these hours to HR, PTO time used during this window will count against your 2023 PTO balance. Any 2022 PTO hours above 75 that are not reported to HR to be used between 12/24/22 – 12/31/22 will be lost. For any questions regarding the rollover or to report the number of 2022 PTO hours to be used from 12/24/22 - 12/31/22, please email hr@kennethyoung.org.
MILEAGE REIMBURSEMENT RATE UPDATE
In April 2022, KYC increased the mileage reimbursement rate from the IRS recommendation of 58.5 cents/mile to 72 cents/mile to recognize the increase in gas costs. Effective 12/8/22, KYC will return to the updated IRS recommendation for mileage reimbursement for the second half of 2022 of 62.5 cents/mile. Next calendar year, KYC's mileage reimbursement rate will align with the IRS recommendation for 2023, which has not yet been released.
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Important Dates and Events |
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The January All Staff meeting has been cancelled. Please plan accordingly.
Keep an eye out here for the next All Staff meeting information.
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In observance of the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Kenneth Young Center's offices will be closed on December 24th, December 26th, December 31st, and January 2nd.
Please note that KYC is providing 7.5 hours (1 day) of holiday pay to full time staff for the Christmas holiday, and 7.5 hours (1 day) for New Years Day. If you are normally scheduled to work on both Saturdays and Mondays, PTO may be used to cover the additional closure day, you may be able to flex your schedule around these dates, or you may be able to work from a location other than a KYC office. Please consult with your supervisor regarding your schedule for these days.
Thank you to our Drop-In Center team, crisis teams, and Behavioral Health Recovery (Community Living) teams for continuing to serve the community, including on holidays. Thank you for all you do to support guests and clients throughout the year.
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For the 2023 scheduler please click here. With KYC's growing team, in 2023 the scheduler will now be updated using first initial and last name: John Doe - JDoe.
Please remember to be mindful when making updates to the KYC Live Scheduler to only update the intended timeslots. Please contact Sebastian P. immediately if any major issues or changes happen.
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800% Faster Internet Speeds at KYC! |
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Gongmin happily reports that our KYC Internet speed increased by more than 800% recently. We helped Exceltech and Comcast isolate the problem (which was finally determined that it was caused by the firewall company's firmware version 17). Thank you Robyn, Sabastian, Mike, and Gongmin for diligently monitoring the Internet performance and help resolve this problem.
A regular Internet speed at home is about 50 to 100 Mbps with wired connection and about 15-30 Mbps with wireless connection depending how far your PC is from your modem. With a Wi-Fi booster (which costs about $20-$40), the Wi-Fi speed could be tripled or quadrupled. You can do a speed test by googling "Internet speed test".
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If you nominated someone to receive a gift, please check the tracker now to view the "delivery method" and gift status for each of your nominees. If your client is indicated on the list to have their gift mailed to them, if Team DevCom receives a gift card as their gift, they will mail that gift card out to them when it comes in. If you have any updates to your Adopt A Family requests, please send a secure message to Team DevCom via Identillect here ASAP.
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KYC Staff Nominators - "Shop" For Physical Gifts for Your Nominees!
We have lots of wonderfully generous gifts that have been donated by community members that aren’t assigned to a specific person yet. If you requested a gift card but will be seeing your client in person, please shop our physical gifts with Dev/Com – there will be lots of items that may provide a more generous gift to support clients that we will need to distribute. These gifts will be available starting December 15th – please stop by the Dev/Com office on the second floor in EGV to get connected. (We’re next to the lunch room in 212C!)
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Program management has asked that clinical staff please leave their office doors open during the day while not holding a session so that we can better determine our office utilization levels. As more staff are returning to in-office work, this helps us ensure that we're able to best balance the use of our spaces across teams.
As a reminder, please ensure that you're using the office schedulers for 2022 or 2023 to accurately reserve spaces and record when you are in the office. If you previously reserved an office space that you will no longer need, please remove your unneeded reservations from the schedulers so that other staff members know which spaces are available.
Thank you for all your help and cooperation in this matter.
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Please see the 2023 Schaumburg Township meeting calendar here.
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Extra! Extra! KYC News Corner
Looking for previous announcements or prior editions of KYC newsletters? You can find the last several editions of Solutions, KYC's external newsletter, and the CPYD newsletter here!
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Internal Staff Newsletter: Solutions
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KYC's External Newsletter
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Recurring Events
In-Person HR Office Hours - Every Monday from 10AM to 12PM, drop by office 212 at EGV
Virtual HR Office Hours - Every Wednesday from 12PM to 2PM, send a Teams message to Gina J. to connect
New Hire Orientation - Welcome our new teammates on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month
Mark Your Calendars
December 20th - Behavioral Health Billing Deadline
December 21st - Open Enrollment Selection Deadline
January 3rd - Behavioral Health Billing Deadline
January 17th - Behavioral Health Billing Deadline
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Employee Complaint Hotline
Our employee complaint hotline is operated by a neutral external company 24/7 and will take reports on concerns and provide them to KYC anonymously for follow up. Call the hotline at 877-557-7419 and use reference code 5193.
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Workplace Solutions
KYC's Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider, Workplace Solutions, offers many resources to KYC staff free of charge. Find more information about the programs they offer at www.wseap.com and use access code “KYC” or call Workplace Solutions at 877-215-6614. Your information or use of any of these programs are not disclosed to KYC.
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Rewards & Recognition
Has your team achieved a team goal recently? Send it to your Division's Director be included in drawing for the monthly team recognition! Read more about our Rewards and Recognition Program in the Employee Handbook!
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All KYC staff must track their office and vehicle use in the 2022 Live Scheduler. To reserve an office space, please enter the first two letters of your first name and the first two letters of your last name (for example, Kenneth Young should enter "KeYo") in the needed time slots. To reserve a vehicle, please enter your full name and program name.
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Share Good News!
Do you know a client, volunteer, or supporter who has done amazing things with KYC? Got a favorite source of new studies or findings about mental health or older adult issues? Starting up a group and want to share the news? Let's highlight the KYC community members who do great things and share helpful resources, ideas, and new happenings. Contact Jessica to get started!
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SPAM ALERT
Please remember to only open emails from senders you know. KYC emails have received spam messages requesting readers to click links or open documents - please delete these messages immediately.
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KYC Group Guide
Wondering which groups are currently running? Check out this Group Guide to see what's available for referrals! Please note that this link is for KYC staff only and should not be shared externally or with clients.
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COVID-19 Resource Guide
KYC Staff - check out this guide! It contains a variety of resources around the northwest suburbs. KYC staff can reference this guide our clients and community members turn to you with questions about where they can get support during the pandemic.
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Connect with KYC's social media: |
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