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HomeMy WebLinkAbout201105_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 6 Developmental Disabilities Advisory Board (DDAB) M I N U T E S May 31, 2011 Board Attendees: Carl Hanson (Co-Chair), Lesly Sheinbaum (Co-chair), Phil Johnson, Patty Perry, Catharine Robinson, Kathryne Kent Board Absentees: Kim Rafferty Guests: Amber Kent, Lisa Falcone Staff: Julia Danskin, Anna McEnery, Donna Marvin (recorder) Call to Order Co-Chair Lesly Sheinbaum called the meeting to order at 3:18 pm. Approval of Agenda There were no proposed changes to the agenda. Member Kent moved to approve the agenda as written. Motion seconded by Member Hanson. Motion carried unanimously. Approval of Minutes from March 22, 2011 Corrections needed to show Kathryne Kent as absent and to correct the “second” for the motion on approval of the January 25, 2011 minutes. Member Kent moved to approve the minutes as amended. Motion seconded by Member Johnson. 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 People First Activities Amber Kent, Treasurer of People First of Jefferson County, distributed the People First flier and gave an update on their recent activities: There was a Bowl-a-thon fund-raiser on May 7th to raise money for Jefferson County, Clallam County and Statewide People First groups. They raised $170 for Jefferson County and $500 for Statewide. They had a float in the Rhody Parade on May 21st. The group enjoyed putting the float together and being part of the community. Their 2nd annual yard sale is scheduled for Saturday, June 4, 9:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Quilcene Community Center. If you want to donate to the sale or need more information please call Leslie Bunton. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 05/31/11 Page 2 of 6 They hope to be able to send a couple of representatives from Jefferson County to the Statewide Convention this summer in Spokane. Amber thanked the Board for their support and Anna McEnery thanked Amber for all her work as an Officer. Anna noted that Amber is still looking for a job – she would like to do office work. The ARC is helping her with her resume. She has been doing volunteer work with Goodwill, but they currently have not hired any people with developmental disabilities. Anna suggested that a letter be sent to Goodwill to encourage them to include people with developmental disabilities as employees. Update on Presentation at the Homeland Security Pathways to Resilient Communities Summit Anna McEnery and Carl Hanson were invited to be on a panel to be on a panel at the Homeland Security Summit. The topic focused on how to better involve citizens who have access and functional needs, with the organizations, businesses, and agencies that support them during times of emergencies and disasters. Other presenters at the Summit included the Deputy Chief from the City of Kirkland, representatives from Coastal Transport, and Seattle Emergency Management. Anna reviewed the Power Point presentation that she presented at the summit. She briefly shared comments, ideas and information given by other Keynote speakers at the summit. Carl Hanson commented that he thought it was wonderful that representatives from our county were able to be included on the panel and he commended Anna for the connections that she has made across the state. He noted that Jefferson County is known for what we are doing here and that people want to learn from what we are doing locally. Even though we are somewhat isolated in this area, we are sharing with other counties across the state. Even FEMA was going to be taking some of our ideas back with them. Julia Danskin (Jefferson County Public Health Manager) noted that we have been innovative and ahead of the curve as far as being organized in neighborhood groups and vulnerable populations. The mixed blessing of being rural is that we have the opportunity to meet people and get to know each other in a way that urban cities don’t. They don’t have the same level of networking and connectedness that we have established. Carl gave his perspective on the Summit and focused on some of the things that they have been learning through the process of presenting the Emergency Preparedness classes to various groups (i.e. people at an assisted living complex, people from senior living apartments, and staff people who work with people with disabilities). They have been working through the process of fine-tuning the classes and learning how to work best with the individual groups. As they share the information they listen to those who are involved in the class through their questions, and continue to listen to those who are coming to them to learn and to be prepared. Anna distributed a handout prepared by the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management, “Emergency Planning Integration Project – Involving the total community in emergency preparedness” and the Safety Plan form. Update on Transition Academy Kathryne Kent, Special Ed Director of Port Townsend schools provided information on the Transition Academy. The Transition Network meets monthly and includes representatives from vendors, parents, agencies and the school district - or anyone who is interested in helping to plan for and coordinate services to folks who have disabilities, specifically those who are in the Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 05/31/11 Page 3 of 6 16+ range and are leaving school and going into early adulthood. One of the things they have been working on this year is the idea that an off-site location is needed for students with disabilities who have completed their time in high school and want to move on to the next step. These folks are in need of transition services and have a right to receive services until the year that they turn 21. They are looking at some ideas. Sam Markow, from Jefferson Mental Health Services is now part of the Transition Network and his agency has become a CRP (Community Rehab Professional) working with DVR (Department of Vocational Rehab). This is a good addition to the Network and fills a missing component. People with disabilities that are related to mental health have had even more difficult access to transition services. At the last meeting they discussed the possibility of using a building at Jefferson Mental Health that would be a good central location for a Transition Academy. Kathryne explained that Anna has set up a field trip in June for the group to visit Transition Academies on Bainbridge Island and in South Kitsap. They will explore what they are doing and how they have put that together. She noted that one unique thing in our community is that we probably have more agencies collaborating and a broader range of folks (in terms of age and population) that can be served. We have small numbers but in some ways we can think bigger. She noted that there was some excitement at the table and she feels that this discussion is starting to gain some momentum. Kathryne is looking for any ideas regarding grant funding (especially start-up grant funding) to help them set up the Transition Academy. They are envisioning a place where folks can meet with advocates, where they can do specific classes of interest, it would have a kitchen and several big rooms - this could be a part of a community center. They are looking forward to further conversation about it and it will require a lot of energy from all the partners. There are Transition Academies all over the country and this is the way it gets done now. In other areas the school districts are large enough to do it by themselves, unlike our smaller district, good strong partners are needed to make it happen. Anna spoke about the new Project Transition that started this year. This is innovative in that not a lot of schools contract with employment agencies to actually do the assessment piece, and she believes that is working. Kathryne agreed, adding that it plays into job development, job exploration, job coaching – it is working really well for students who are still in high school, and they are really pleased with its effectiveness. Lisa Falcone (Skookum) noted that they have seen big improvements in some of the students. Kathryne talked about the School District’s partnership with West Sound Tech in Bremerton where they have a number of students with disabilities who have individual education plans. West Sound Tech is a Tech Prep program that is sponsored by Bremerton School District. They have programs such as culinary, construction, welding, auto mechanics, auto body, hair and beauty. She noted that students who fit a profile of traditional non-graduates have gone to Nationals in their Tech Prep area. Update on Legislative Session/Bills Passed/Budget Anna talked briefly about various Bills of interest (some are still under review). The group discussed their status and the potential effects on the developmental disability population. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 05/31/11 Page 4 of 6 DDD Budget/Legislative Update – Future Jefferson County DD Program Budget Changes The main issue for Jefferson County is the reduction of the State-only funding for employment and day services. We had 10,538 of State only funding last fiscal year, but this fiscal year we only received have 6,000. Anna reviewed Legislative highlights & gave a budget update. She explained that a lot of people with developmental disabilities that access day and employment programs have a waiver and there’s a lid. If you are on a Basic Waiver you get up to $6,844 in employment services per year. If you are on a Basic Plus, the lid is $9,944, and the Core Waiver is unlimited, except that you cannot go over $400/day, including residential, without an exception. It’s been her experience that it is rare when someone is funded at that high of a level. There have been some issues around those waiver lids being too high, the Legislature may want to alter them. When the Working Age Adult Policy came down, the Community Access program was put on hold - you couldn’t access it, if you were of working age (between 21-62 years of age), without an exception to rule. Some parents & clients have become dissatisfied with the policy. So the Legislature requested that after a Vendor has provided a client, (with a developmental disability who is on the waiver) an employment option for 9 months, the person can choose continued employment or a Community Access program. There were a lot of advocates in the Legislature that said that “you have a Community Access program, is there a way that we could make that a little bit more robust and open the doors up again and let people with developmental disabilities access that”. So it appears to be heading in that direction. The Legislature would also like to provide an alternate day option to 900 clients who access adult day health services through long-term care. That’s not a program we have here in Jefferson County. They may want to add a day service to 2,600 Waiver clients who get no service because they do not choose employment. Anna will bring additional info back to the Board. Washington State is a leader nationwide along with the Working Age Policy, but it can be very challenging. Anna believes that there are more jobs out there, but we just need to continue to use our connections within the community and open people’s minds up a little more about hiring people with developmental disabilities. We are not giving up on employment, but she believes we need to give families what they need and if accessing this new pumped up Community Access program is going to do it, then that’s fine. We haven’t heard anything final from DSHS. We are going to continue on the employment path– (we’re not giving up on that), but we will try to beef-up Community Access for those parents who want it. There was additional group discussion. Anna commented that 10-15 years ago, people who made it through the door of DDD, got all kinds of services. As money started decreasing, there was less funding for people and now you have 13,000 people on a waiting list and then you have less than 1,000 people in institutions. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 05/31/11 Page 5 of 6 Anna said she received some draft funding information concerning our upcoming budget in fiscal year 2013, (beginning July 1, 2012) it looks like we will loose $103,838, or 37% of our total budget of $336,575. The majority of the funding loss will be from the community information and education budget. We are going from $96,000 to $11,339 –an $84,826 cut. That loss of funding will cause our admin to go down by $8,334 from $23,560 to $15,226. Many of the County Coordinators who are going to be receiving large cuts, asked DDD to please give us some transition time in order to strategize the sustainability of services & staffing. So, DDD is giving Counties one fiscal year to strategize & plan. We are going to be looking at all the programs/services that we have under the community information and education budget. DDD has not given us the final budget number for this fiscal year, but it looks like the DD Program will continue with a similar amount of money. Anna will have the final numbers by the next Board meeting. Every County had the option to use community information and education funding, and some counties chose not to, but we were really creative. When all of the direct service was taken care of, the remaining funds were put toward other positive services. So our budget and rate always stayed the same. The question was raised (by DSHS) in regard to why there were such significant differences from one county to the next regarding community information and education, so they decided to take it all back and reallocate it at 5 ½ % for every County. That is why we’ve lost $86,000. Anna reflected that the DD Program has been blessed; it has been a good thing to be able to use the funding and implement a lot of great programs & my position over the last decade. It’s hard to see the effects of some of these funding cuts, but we are going to try to remain positive and continue on. Julia noted that we are looking at some other funding available to do some work with DVR and Transition students. Old Business & Informational Items a. Updates: Field trip to visit local Transition Programs/Academies: Anna distributed information from the Community Transition program at S. Kitsap School District and also from Bainbridge Island. They are looking forward to the trip and there may be 4 or 5 people going. Recycling Center Safety Review: Results on the review were very positive and it was the best review to date at the Recycling Center. (Results were emailed to everyone.) There were only two very small findings. The DD program does this to guard the safety of people with developmental disabilities who work there. Skookum has done a great job in bringing this up-to-speed. She had invited Dennis Bates and Jack Reed from Jefferson County Solid Waste Management to participate and they also felt very positive about the results. RFQ for Jefferson County Employment & Day Programs: Those on the email list should have received a link to the RFQ. DDD, DSHS asks every County to do Requests for Qualifications every 4 years for day programs for persons with developmental disabilities. Anna asked if anyone would be interested in reviewing applications with herself and Julia. Please let her know and she will arrange a schedule. She will send out an email. Transition Towards Excellence in Achievement & Mobility (TEAM) ACT: This will be addressed in August – we don’t know anything more right now about if there is going to be any funding attached. Developmental Disability Advisory Board - Minutes 05/31/11 Page 6 of 6 b. Upcoming Workshops: APSE Conference, Seattle, June 13-16, 2011: This is a national conference being held in Seattle. Please let her know if anyone is interested in attending and she will send you the link for more information. It’s been about 12 years since this conference has been offered in Seattle. c. DD Program Planning Update DD Board Members are needed who are interested in participating in the Provider evaluations at end of June. Evaluations will be scheduled with Skookum, Concerned Citizens, the ARC, Beth Hendricks & Kathy Goldenberger. Please let her know if you are interested in participating and she will email you a schedule and the evaluation tool that is used. She recommends participating if you have not previously done so. (It is possible to sit-in on only a portion of the evaluation if that is helpful for people.) There have been delays in scheduling the Forum & Retreat and it looks like it will not take place until the Fall. Public Comment Julia Danskin expressed her appreciation for Anna’s presence and the work that she does. Carl Hanson thanked Anna for all of her hard work & Lesly Sheinbaum told her she was appreciated. Agenda Planning TEAM Act Presentation about the visit to Transition Programs in Bainbridge Island & Port Orchard Transition Academy Budget Evaluations Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 4:40 pm. Next Meeting: Tuesday, July 26, 2011