Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout201101_DDAB MinutesJEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH 615 Sheridan Street  Port Townsend  Washington  98368 www.jeffersoncountypublichealth.org Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board (DDAB) M I N U T E S January 25, 2011 Board Attendees: Lesly Sheinbaum (Co-chair), Phil Johnson, Catharine Robinson, Patty Perry, Kathryne Kent, Board Absentees: Carl Hanson (Co-chair), Kim Rafferty Guests: Lisa Falcone, Janie Nelson-Clark, Tobias Clawson, Jenell DeMatteo, Amber Kent Staff: Anna McEnery, Donna Marvin (recorder) Call to Order Co-Chair Lesly Sheinbaum called the meeting to order at 3:19 pm. Approval of Agenda Proposed changes to the agenda: under New Business, deletions of Item 6 and Item 8 (presenters unable to attend meeting). Copies of the By-laws will be distributed. Member Robinson moved to approve the agenda as amended. Motion seconded by Member Kent. Motion carried unanimously. Approval of Minutes from May 25, 2010 Member Sheinbaum moved to approve the minutes as written. Motion seconded by Member Robinson. Motion carried unanimously. Introductions Welcome extended to new Board member Phil Johnson (replacing John Austin as Jefferson County representative). Those in attendance were introduced and a sign-in sheet was circulated. Public Comments No comments at this time. New Business and Presentations: Chamber of Commerce Presentation about hiring People with Developmental Disabilities in Jefferson County/Lisa Falcone Lisa Falcone, Skookum Program Manager, explained that October was National Disability & Employment Awareness month. Anna Mc Enery worked with Skookum & Concerned Citizens to coordinate a series of activities including a presentation given to the Chamber of Commerce about hiring people with developmental disabilities. Lisa lead the presentation and everyone in attendance heard from three local employers who shared personal experiences they had when hiring and working with people with disabilities, including both the positive aspects and the challenges they had encountered. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 9/28/10 Page 2 of 5 Lisa reviewed the slide presentation she gave to the Chamber and how she responds to questions such as: How will hiring someone with a disability benefit my business? ---Reliability, longevity, willingness to do a good job and willingness to put in the extra effort – even if it’s a minimum wage job. What if I’m unable to offer full-time employment? --Skookum is willing to work with you in finding what type of job might be created, or finding a piece of a job that is currently not being done. They want to make sure it’s beneficial to the employer as well as the individual they are supporting. She shared an example from Pan de-Amore that has been very successful for both employer and employee, even though it was only a part time position. Lisa told about several other successful employee stories of individuals in the community. Presentation from members of the Younger People First Group & Advisor who attended the State-wide People First Convention/10 Amber Kent told about her experiences while attending the Fall 2010 People First annual State convention in Ocean Shores. She was 1 of 3 representatives from the local chapter of People First. It was a very positive experience for all. Amber thanked the Board for sending her & other People First members to the Convention. Upcoming Legislative Session/Budget Jenell DeMatteo (ARC of Kitsap and Jefferson Counties) distributed a budget comparison and gave an update on State Legislative budget issues. She provided some basic statistics about Developmental Disabilities in the State of WA. Approximately 80,799 people are estimated to have developmental disabilities in the State of WA. Only 39,000 are actually enrolled with the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) and only 20,000 of the 39,000 clients receive at least one paid service in DDD. This leaves 13, 617 of those enrolled in DDD who receive no paid services. There are so many in the developmental disability population that are not getting the services that they need - and those who do, are in danger of their services being downsized or eliminated. The State’s deficit forecast is $1.14 billion, so there is no choice but to cut services. It is a very serious situation. She stated that our job this legislative session is to really fight and promote and try to maintain as many of the services that we can. The more people who are cut - the more people will go into crisis or need services in the future. Jenell pointed out that she has been doing this for almost 5 years and that these numbers have continued to grow, and will continue to grow, causing more people to be in need of services. The atmosphere in Olympia is very tense, they are being inundated with all sorts of promotions and advocacy efforts, and they are under a lot of pressure from many directions. It’s a tough job. Jenell will be doing a local training on “Advocacy 101, Legislative Issues for Developmental Disabilities”. This training is designed for parents, family members, and self-advocates to learn how to talk about what the budget issues are and what the upcoming Bills are. The training will be Wednesday, February 2nd from 4-6:00 pm at the Girl Scout House (flier attached). This training will help prepare people to attend Advocacy Days in Olympia which are every Wednesday through the end of the session in April. The local Chapter of People First will be taking a group to Advocacy Days in February and a group in March. The are encouraging Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 9/28/10 Page 3 of 5 families, self-advocates, or anyone who can, to attend. They will be trying to set up meetings with our Legislators. She distributed a booklet, “Hot Tips for Legislative Advocates”. The Advocacy Days are very well organized and is used as a model for others. Copies of the budget were distributed. Jenell reviewed and commented on many of the budget cuts and services being eliminated. There have been many cuts and people are receiving letters. Tobias Clawson encouraged people to stay aware and active. Changes are occurring frequently and rapidly. The Governor’s budget came out first, the Senate will be working on their budget. One of the positive things out of the budget is the closure of some of the institutions. The community support still needs to be there for everybody. Institutional costs are double/triple what the costs are to serve someone in the community, so it makes good fiscal sense, but there is a lot of fear. The residential providers have been trying to do a lot of educating of Representatives and Senators about community living and why it is a good thing to be doing, and the benefits of getting people out of institutions. But people continue to be institutionalized. It’s a long road that all the advocates have been working. Project SEARCH Update Kathyrne Kent shared that Project SEARCH continues to be a strong program. They have four young women continuing in their placements. As in any dynamic program, there have been some adjustments to be made and they have been able to successfully negotiate their way through that. Next year they will probably have three of the four placements continue and at least one additional placement. Project Transition continues to be a growing program also and provides some alternatives in terms of young adult vocational assessment. There was further discussion on the specifics of what has been going on and the positive results that they are seeing. DSHS Budget Reduction & Jefferson County Budget 2010-2011 Update Anna distributed copies of a letter sent out by Linda Rolfe, DDD Director that addresses Transition employment proviso funding. It basically tells us that we do have funding for students who are on the Waiver, but that we really only have funding for State-only students if they are leaving DVR with a job. Anna explained that our County received $15,311 of State Transition proviso funding. She has heard that we will be eliminated, but hasn’t seen an actual contract amendment yet. We still have another $24,136 in Waiver dollars for our Transition students who are on the Waiver who get the federal match, so that’s good news. But it’s unfortunate for people who are not on the Waiver, people who do not have a regular Case Resource Manager. There was further discussion. Anna explained that the funding and the rate structure will be shifting. We don’t yet know enough about the changes to talk about it, but we can discuss it further at the March meeting. In addition, DDD is in the red with Child Development and Birth to 3 State funding. An email was sent to all counties asking if all Child Development funds were going to be spent - everyone responded by saying “yes”. So DDD decided that County’s who fund Birth-to-Three will be held at last fiscal years amount. This means that we are going to have $2,383 less because we didn’t spend all of our funding during the last biennium. There are some counties that had cuts in other services because they were under-spent, but we didn’t have any under-spent funding, so our only cut was in the State-only proviso and there will be a future cut or reduction in Birth-3 funding. Anna received information at the ACHS meeting that the DDD Central Office is looking to find Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 9/28/10 Page 4 of 5 another $1.8 million in county budgets (a 32% cut). All these numbers are being thrown around all the time so it’s hard to know what the reality is. She did say that Community Information and Education funding is not always perceived as valuable as direct services. But we know that we need both to have effective services. We need direct service funding, but we also need to be able to educate the community, or we’re never going to be able to move forward. We will just have to wait and see what happens to that funding stream. Update-Kevin Van De Wege Visit Lesly Sheinbaum reported on her visit with Representative Kevin Van De Wege. Following the Legislative Forum, she invited him to tour a couple of homes (he had allowed and hour of his time, which she greatly appreciated). During the visit he was able to meet four residents and two staff members. Lesly shared that he was very down to earth, easy to talk to and asked many questions. He had no idea what a residential provider looks like. He asked about funding streams and other details about how the system works. This proved to be a great opportunity for her to do a little lobbying and share her concern about cuts and the effects of cuts on already underpaid staff. Lesly felt it was a very productive use of his time and he was very gracious, very thankful, and promised no more cuts. She sent a memo to staff members to let them know about his support and encouraged them to vote accordingly. DD Advisory Board Mission & By-Laws (this item tabled until next meeting) Anna distributed the final draft of the By-Laws that were previously under revision, but need to have Board approval. She proposed that the Board members review them and that it be on the agenda for discussion at the Board meeting in March. Old Business & Informational Items a. Update on National Disability Awareness Month Events in Jefferson County Anna thanked Lisa Falcone (Skookum) for all the work that she had done on National Disability Awareness Month in October. She also acknowledged the good work of Janie Clark. The theme was “Everyone Can Work”. Anna talked about some of the events that they did: “Everyone Can Work posters with photos of local clients working in the community, an article and photo in paper on the Poster campaign, & the Chamber of Commerce presentation, BOCC proclamation, City proclamation, Rose Theatre showing of The Bill Sackter Story (fundraiser for People First and Special Olympics), and the Chamber of Commerce presentation about hiring People with Developmental Disabilities in Jefferson County. The fundraiser brought in about $1,700. b. DD Program Planning Update Anna is working with a sub-committee (Kim Rafferty and Carl Hanson) on the DD Community Forum. They are still negotiating about what kind of interviews should occur. A Board Retreat & Provider Retreat/Meeting is being planned. She will work with Carl and Kim to schedule dates for the sub-committee for the Forum and the Retreat. The DD Board meeting calendar and the Provider contact list were distributed. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 9/28/10 Page 5 of 5 c. Jefferson County Regional Emergency Planning Network (J-PREP) A facilitated panel discussion on emergency plans and response involving people with developmental disabilities is planned for January 28th from 9:00-11:30 am at Mountain View meeting room. It’s designed for first responders, management planners, community service providers, neighborhood program coordinators, government leaders – and is open to all who are interested in emergency preparedness. Public Comment Tobias Clawson commented that it is a pleasure working with the DD Coordinator because she is willing to spend the money (which is not always the case). Other meeting announcements: -SEPAC, 3rd Tuesday of February – quarterly county-wide meeting -Transition Network will meet on 3rd Wednesday of February. Anna will be sending out a notice and agenda. Amber Kent announced that People First will be having be a dance at the Tri-area Community Center, Saturday, January 29th , 2 – 4:00 pm Agenda Planning Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 22, 2011 Phil Johnson pointed out that he is on the Legislative Steering Committee in Olympia, so please stay in contact with him concerning specific legislation Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 pm.