Connect Newsletter (July 1, 2025)

Kaysey Pollan Earns Regional Service Excellence Award for Mass Casualty Exercise

We're incredibly proud that Kaysey Pollan, our Director of System Preparedness and Continuity, was honored with the Regional Service Excellence award by the North Central Texas Council of Governments for the work she and her colleagues put into the September 2024 Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo Mass Casualty Exercise. 

The dedication of our team helped make this the largest mass casualty exercise ever held in Fort Worth. Check out our Connect Newsroom article to learn more. 

Congratulations to Kaysey! 

Coming soon: changes to the Tuition Assistance program

Cook Children’s is partnering with EdAssist as part of an exciting new update to our Tuition Assistance program.

Here’s what you can expect from your new education assistance benefit: 

• Financial assistance toward the cost of your education – up to $5,250 per year for full-time employees or $2,625 for half-time employees
• Free, one-on-one coaching sessions with college and university admissions experts to map out your education path, find cost-savings, and learn about what your tuition benefit covers
• Access to exclusive discounts on tuition and other fees at 230+ accredited schools in EdAssist’s network
• Programs and courses tailored to working adults
•  Various professional development resources, tools, and helpful webinars

How will this impact employees currently enrolled in Tuition Assistance?

• Eligibility remains the same (must be a full- or half-time employee)
• Reimbursement will still be paid upon course completion with supporting documentation sent to EdAssist
• Applications will now be required at the start of each course in which you are planning to request reimbursement
• All application submissions will go directly through EdAssist’s portal
• Deadline to submit documentation under the current process is July 10 for payment on the July 18 paycheck
• EdAssist will launch July 29, 2025. No applications will be processed between July 19 - July 28

Phase two of our partnership with EdAssist, expected to launch early 2026, will include the option for Direct Pay where you can choose to have Cook Children’s provide tuition payment made directly to your school on your behalf, eliminating the need for you to provide payment upfront and be reimbursed later.

Stay tuned for more information. In the meantime, please reach out to the Benefits department with any questions or visit Tuition Reimbursement. 

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Alert Mode in Microsoft Teams 

To enhance the security of our network, users, and systems/data, Information Services will enable a security feature in Microsoft Teams starting July 7, 2025. This feature, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) “Alert Mode”, will notify you when protected data (PHI, etc.) is sent to contacts outside of Cook Children’s. 

DLP Alert Mode protects Microsoft Teams chats between you and people outside of Cook Children’s. For example, Teams chats or meeting chats with users at another health care organization or a vendor. Alert mode will not impact your chats or communication with anyone internal to the Cook Children's organization.

Starting on July 7, 2025, if your Teams chat is flagged for review (Figure 1), click “What can I do?” to access the action pop-up (Figure 2). If you believe your message has been flagged incorrectly, click “Override and unflag” to enter a business justification for audit purposes. This option will allow the message to be sent to the recipient (Figure 3). 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

If your blocked message is red (Figure 4) and does not contain the “What can I do” indicator, please click “Report it to my admin. This message doesn’t violate organization policy”. Once this step is completed an Information Services team member will be notified and will contact you to assist with sending the chat message.

Figure 4 

IMPORTANT: Construction Updates

As we begin building the new West Tower, impacts on local roads and thoroughfares are to be expected. To ensure a smooth journey, it is highly recommended to plan ahead for your commute and allow extra time to reach your destination and report for your shift at your scheduled time.

To ensure you know the most current traffic updates, please bookmark this page. It will be updated often and will include major street closures, pedestrian sidewalk closures and any potential reroutes.

For more general information on the growth and development across the system, visit our "We're Growing” page.

Celebrating Our 2025 Presidents’ Scholarship Recipients

On Thursday, June 26, Cook Children’s proudly awarded the 2025 Presidents’ Scholarships during a special luncheon with the recipients and their families in attendance. This year, 12 remarkable children of Cook Children’s employees each earned a $5,000 scholarship to support their academic journeys. 

Click here to learn more about our 2025 Presidents' Scholarship recipients.

Learn the Basics of Estate Planning from Fidelity

Want to learn more about wills, trusts and other components of estate planning? Join the experts from Fidelity for the virtual workshop “Preserving Your Savings for Future Generations” at 11 a.m. on Thursday, July 10. The webinar gives instruction on how and why to start making an estate planning strategy.

Register Here

You’ll earn 100 Personify Health Points as an added benefit of participating. Points may be cashed in for gift cards through the Cook Children’s employee wellness program.

Assistance Available for Cooper Apartments Residents

On June 23, a fire broke out at the Cooper Apartments on Rosedale. We're relieved to report that all residents were evacuated and only one non-life-threatening injury occurred.

If you are a resident of the Cooper apartments, we want to make sure you’re connected to the help you need after this devastating fire.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Beck, United Way of Tarrant County and Near Southside, Inc., have established a Cooper Relief Fund that will be distributed through cash/gift cards.

Fill out this quick form so you can get updates and offers from local businesses and information on the cash/gift card distribution: https://lnkd.in/gMxJBGPi 

Please share this with other Cooper residents to make sure everyone gets the support they need!

Share Your Content with Us!

Do you have any tips, ideas or content you would like us to know about? We want to hear from you! Please view our SharePoint site and email us at InternalCommunications@cookchildrens.org. 

To find more content about our employees and news you need to know, bookmark our Connect Newsroom website.