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HomeMy WebLinkAbout201103_DDAB MinutesJEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH 615 Sheridan Street  Port Townsend  Washington  98368 www.jeffersoncountypublichealth.org Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 1 of 7 Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board (DDAB) M I N U T E S March 22, 2011 Board Attendees: Carl Hanson (Co-Chair), Lesly Sheinbaum (Co-chair), Phil Johnson, Patty Perry, Kim Rafferty Board Absentees: Catharine Robinson, Kathryne Kent Guests: Tobias Clawson Staff: Julia Danskin, Anna McEnery, Donna Marvin (recorder) Call to Order Co-Chair Carl Hanson called the meeting to order at 3:26 pm. Approval of Agenda There were no changes proposed to the agenda. Member Sheinbaum moved to approve the agenda as written. Motion seconded by Member Rafferty. Motion carried unanimously. Approval of Minutes from January 25, 2011 Member Rafferty moved to approve the minutes as written. Motion seconded by Member Perry. Motion carried unanimously. Introductions Those in attendance were introduced and a sign-in sheet was circulated. Public Comments No comments at this time. New Business and Presentations: Update on Legislative Session/Budget Lesly Sheinbaum, PTCO Administrator, shared information about her visit to Olympia as a member of Community Residential Services Association (CRSA). CRSA is a state-wide association made up largely of group home and supported living providers and is a very strong lobbying organization. They meet every 2 months and met recently in Olympia specifically to try to make contact with the Legislators. Lesly and a hired lobbyist met with Senator Jim Hargrove and Rep. Steve Tharinger. The Legislators are aware of what we do and the issues and are struggling with decisions to be made due to the budget crisis - so there is no good news. As a provider, she is bracing for some kind of a reduction in reimbursement rates. They can’t really cut hours per person, so the cuts would come through wage freezes or reductions. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 2 of 7 Lesly talked about a training requirement bill –that requires more training for long-term-care workers. Originally the State was going to reimburse agencies for their time spent for training staff through certified trainers. (Trainers have to go through a certification program through the State). She questions where they are going to get the money to reimburse staff. This is a big question and many are lobbying to get us out of that requirement. At this point it is on-hold. Agencies like hers have many training requirements and spend a lot of time orienting/training people. Some agencies as small as Lesly’s, train existing staff to be a trainer, as of January 1 they send their new staff to another agency for their training hours. There are a couple of other Bills that if not passed-will not be good. The rehabilitation center (RHC) closure issue (institutions) is uncertain and a lot of questions remain. Anna noted that she heard at the ACHS meeting that 32 out of 52 people from Frances Haddon Morgan will move to another institution and only 18-20 will move into the community. The Legislature has to make an official decision before anything can occur and because they are dragging their feet, staff at FHM they are unable to have a high-quality planning process around the move. Phil Johnson noted that he had attended one of the Wednesday DD gatherings. He found it very interesting and said that “the people who can speak best for them, are the people themselves – they have a loud voice”. He offered to be of assistance if there is ever any time that testimony is needed before a Senate or House committee, as he does that all the time and is frequently in Olympia. Transition Network Update Kathyrn Kent, Special Education Director, Port Townsend High School, was not in attendance to make this presentation. So Anna filled-in by explaining about the work that is being done toward creating a transition academy in Jefferson County. This is an off-site campus transition program for students. Many other communities have them for students with disabilities. The school district has an apartment where students with disabilities go and experience things like shopping for food, cooking a meal, or doing laundry – it’s their central point for going out into the community for vocational assessments and employment sites, etc. Work on this has been going on for the last 3-4 years and we are getting closer to moving ahead with a final project and will give updates as things progress. Anna also noted that the Transition Network is still up and running (we don’t have as many people as we would like, but it is still very positive). Update on Coordinated Transportation efforts in Jefferson County Patty Perry, Jefferson County Mobility Coordinator, gave an update on coordinated transportation issues in the county. She noted that she is now working also with Mason Transit – they did not have a Mobility Manager so she also goes to Mason County on Fridays to help them out. She shared a story about a transportation challenge for a client who very much wanted to go to work (in Gardiner). Transit has 3 Dial-a-ride buses and they try to cover the whole county by grouping people together, but they sometimes are unable to form a group in the Gardiner area. The client knew how to ride transit, but the bus stop was too far for him to walk to and he would have to cross 101 to get back on the bus. Patty is trying to make it work with the case worker and the agency where he was working (who agreed to take him to the bus stop after work). They went out, took pictures, walked it, found a safe location for the bus to stop – and with a little effort they had a success story. She also reported on other activities. She is surveying the needs and interest in the Kala Point area where they would like a mini-route to go through there which would provide easier access to Dial-a-Ride, (Dial-a-Ride requires that the person be within ¾ mile from a route). She is also Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 3 of 7 looking at the Quilcene area and may possibly group people together for a shopping day. Travel training is available for people who are capable of riding the bus but need training from getting from point A to point B. They assess them at their residence to evaluate how much they know, what their abilities are. Generally speaking, if they can remember and do 3 consecutive things in a row, then they can usually learn how to ride a bus. DDD Update Tobias Clawson, DDD Outstation Manager, gave an update. There are many unknowns, but one thing we do know is that change is definitely in the air and despite many uncertainties, he wanted to focus on what we do know is happening. Non-paid services caseload information: he distributed a handout with the letter and flow chart. DDD serves a lot of folks with a lot of different needs. There are many folks who are eligible for DDD who are not receiving a paid service. In January many received a letter telling them that they no longer have a case manager with a phone number to call if they need help. The handout also included a “Process flow for Managing Requests from Clients on No-Paid Services Caseload” which depicts what happens to phone calls. It’s very confusing. People can also contact a local person (Tobias). This is the information that we know now and shows what is currently happening in our community. Tobias distributed the “2011 DSHS Regional Map”. He explained that we do know one thing that is happening – the regional consolidation. There were previously 6 Regions, they are being consolidated into 3. We are in Region 3 (old Regions 5 and 6 combining). The new Regional Administrator has been selected, anita delight, (no capitals). These changes take effect May 1. He does not know who we are going to be falling under, whether Tacoma or Olympia. Each Region is going to have a “hub” and our hub will be in Vancouver. The map shows the locations of the RHCs. Each adult age 18 and over who is eligible for DDD is also eligible for up to 30 days in an RHC, (a respite). He noted that there are not a lot of requests for this, but it does happen. Dates for the next State furloughs are March 28, April 22, May 27 and June 10. This is a reality of our times, so everybody has just got to try to adjust and deal with it and remember that the priority is to help people who experience developmental disabilities to be healthy and safe. The individual and family support program is out of State funds & was frozen in December. This helps individuals who are not on a waiver. They obtain an allowance on a monthly basis to make purchases that are needed. There is significant change coming, so there is a paradigm shift that is happening. We need to look more at informal supports – what we can do within our communities to support individuals - we have to be more creative. Approval of By-Laws Copies of the updated By-Laws were distributed and Carl Hanson noted that this has been a long process and explained the delays. Ultimately there were only 2 changes: 1) it now better reflects the Co-Chair structure, and 2) a clarification was made (on page 3) to define the quorum as “majority is 1 more than half” for a quorum. Currently there are 7 members, so 4 are needed to make a quorum. A needed correction (the 3rd bullet under Article III: Duties) was pointed out by Anna McEnery - it should read “Region 3” instead of “Region 6”. There was no further discussion. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 4 of 7 Member Rafferty moved to approve the By-Laws as amended to reflect Region 3, motion seconded by Member Sheinbaum. Motion carried unanimously. DDD Budget Update/Employment Program Changes (Client Rates & Acuity Levels) Anna McEnery distributed a condensed version of the budget to bring it down to the basic pieces. Changes that we’re looking at: In our county we have always used a budget category called Community Information and Education, but in many other counties, they have not put funding into that category. In our county we fund the ARC, People First, job clubs, posters and resource guides and staff time. We fund many services to augment other services. DDD started looking around the state and noted the discrepancies in use of the funding. We previously received a certain amount of funding, it stayed the same (depending on if we got a little more for Transition students, or not). If we served all of our clients we were able to take that funding and do some of these other project to use for education, etc. Now DDD wants to take all the funding back into 1 pile and to reallocate it based on a cap percentage or maybe $100 per client in the community. We have been spending an average of $96,165 this fiscal year and last fiscal year. So if they are looking at capping it at 5 or 5 ½ %, that would mean that we would go down to $18-20,000 – a huge cut. There has been a lot of discussion on this and the Division Director, Linda Rolfe, said that she believes that every county should be using the indirect and the direct funds, so that every county needs to start accessing some community information and education funding. The other issue of the table is for a 3 year transition period, which means that the first year, starting 07/01/11, all counties would stay the same when it comes to the amount of community information and education that they have and then we would have a year to do some planning to look to the community to try to find those resources, to plan with the providers that currently receive this funding to say “well, the following year, then we’d have it in half of what we have now, and then the third year it would go to this new formula. At the last Association of County Coordinator meeting, DDD was saying that they thought they had agreed to a 2-year transition where the first year is by half. So right now we are in negotiations about that. But that would be a big shift for our budget. The other big shift is that DDD wants to look at every client that is on our County employment and day services caseload, and they want to group them based on low, medium or high acuity levels and they would have a range of hours that they would have their own individualized budgets, then that’s how much funding each County would get, based on the amount of clients that they have right now. In our community we have had fluctuations for various reasons, and we’ve always been able to work out with our budget and never have a waiting list and if someone needed funding we tried to move funding for them to have it. Now it’s not going to be as flexible, it’s going to be pretty rigid. In the larger Counties, like Pierce and King, there is a huge waiting list of clients. It’s a mandate that clients who are on the Waiver have services, so that is part of the issue. It remains to be seen how all of this new re-structuring of funds is going to turn out. Depending on how the acuity levels come out for the clients, we could be looking at some drastic cuts. Anna feels very saddened about all the infrastructure that we have created here in our community and all the work that we have done, we would hate to see all of that disappear, and then if and when funding did come back we would have to rebuild it again. We will just have to see what happens. There was additional discussion Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 5 of 7 Connected Communities Project Anna explained that this is a Federal project (that just ended) that focuses on building community relationships and networks. This project looked at 36 people with severe disabilities across four different counties in Washington State that needed to find individualized employment. They looked at a people in the community who would be considered a “community connector”. An individual with a lot of personal connections to people, places, businesses, organizations and resources, but not necessarily connected to the disability field. They worked on hiring that person 3-5 hours/week and using their contacts and opportunities to help them connect with the community and find employment for people. There were a lot of interesting stories that occurred and 41% of the people found employment through this program. Anna thinks that when we are looking at a lack of funding in the future and less resources, this seems like a way to harness some of the relationships and connections in our own community networks, as far as trying to find jobs for people. She distributed copies of their handout and requested that Board members keep them in their DD notebooks as she has invited one of the organizers of this project (Jim Korey) to give a presentation. Anna and Tim Bruce, County Coordinator from Clallam County, attended this workshop. Tim has Jim Corey come and have a discussion with the Clallam County Board members, and Anna would like to introduce this idea to the Board in order to talk about this project in more detail. The handout describes the “why, how, who and what”. One thing that has come out of this is that they are doing a lot of work with Rotary - with the focus on employment connections. Anna had thought that there might be one or two mentoring projects that we could focus on for adults with developmental disabilities that don’t have as much employment experience. She talked about the workshop and lines of thinking that it triggered (ways we volunteer in the community; get out of your comfort zone). We will be hearing more about this in the future. Skookum Recycling Anna reported that Skookum now has the contract for recycling. She explained that every four years the DD Program goes out and does a recycling safety review in the context of the client’s safety. There was an accident with a client quite a few years ago and so we just want to make sure we’re monitoring safety for the clients. She distributed copies of the previous consult review of July, 2007. The next review will be March 28th. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 6 of 7 Old Business & Informational Items a. Updates: STEP UP (Special Training (on) Emergency Preparedness (for Unique Populations) Emergency Preparedness Group Update Anna reported on presentations given to JPREP, PTSD Special Ed Classroom, Neighborhood GRP and Seaport Landing. (Jefferson Peninsula Emergency Response) presentation: JPREP is made up of Jefferson County emergency first responders, agencies, neighborhood organizational groups, the Red Cross, Public Health and is coordinated by Emergency Management. A presentation was given to them by Anna, Carl Hansen and several members of with various disabilities. Anna introduced it and talked about what STEP UP is and some statistics on people with disabilities and then each person spoke about their own experience with their disability as well as their connection to emergency preparedness. They talked about using appropriate (People First) language and ended with Anna sharing notes from a great the Public Health Emergency Health Summit that that she attended in Atlanta, GA. She received a lot of positive feedback on it and may do it again to other organizations. There was further discussion about emergency preparedness. The presentation to PTSD Special Ed Classroom was given by Carl Hanson and Shirley Williams and it was very successful. Two other members gave a presentation to the Neighborhood GRP and there were a series of classes at Seaport Landing that were very well attended. TEAM (Transition Towards Excellence in Achievement & Mobility ACT Anna distributed informational e-mail about TEAM ACT which is Congressional legislation out of Washington D.C. relating to Bills to Aid TEAM )Transition Toward Excellence in Achievement and Mobility). Aimed at education empowerment and employment for public funded systems for youths with significant disabilities in high school. The end result is to become gainfully employed in an integrated setting or pursue a post-secondary education or contribute in a meaningful way to your community upon leaving high school. She thinks that there may be funding for a Transition Coordinator coming out of the ESD. She wanted everyone to know about this. Senator Harper was impressed with Washington State because of the partnership project, and Jefferson County was one of the counties that got that Project Search funding. This is about schools getting out and connecting with their community, other agencies & students getting a job before they leave from school. b. Upcoming Workshops: Systematic Instruction – Kathy Goldenberger – April 12th 8:30-3:30 pm – Skookum Building Fading & Natural Supports – Kathy Goldenberger – May 17th 8:30-3:30 pm – Skookum Building Volunteering & Unpaid Workplace Assessments: Requirements & Strategies – Susan Harrell – April 18th – 1-4 pm – Main Conference Room, Public Health Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 03/22/11 Page 7 of 7 c. DD Program Planning Update Schedule DD Community Forum, DD Board Retreat & DD Provider Retreat/Meeting in early June 2011 Board Sub-Committee for Forum & Retreat to schedule dates Anna explained that she was hoping to get a Board sub-committee to look at dates, agenda items and other details with her. Carl offered to help. She clarified that the Retreat will happen after the Forum. RFQ Sub-Committee needed: Anna is working on an RFQ for employment and day programs for contracts that begin July 1. She is also working on the RFQ process. Carl asked how things are set up for the continuation of Project SEARCH. Anna reported that the schools have taken on the funding for it. She was overseeing the MOU but that has been given over to Concerned Citizens. The County is still part of the partnership with the schools, the hospital, Concerned Citizens, and we provide funding technical assistance if needed. Public Comment No comments at this time. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm.