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Prevention Works! Minutes |
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Clallam
County
Prevention
Works! February 9, 2004, Olympic Medical Center with Telelinking to the West End The meeting of Prevention Works! was called to order by Angie Graff. Those attending included Ida Carrol, Steve Ironhill, Carol Featherstone, Karen Junell, Rob Brooke, Susan Hillgreen, Patty Hannah, Susan Renes, Ron Spanger, George Maciejewski, Ann Bell, Jim Borte, Ellen Fetchiet, Pam Arnott, Norma Turner, Florence Bucierka, Rachel Anderson, Jennifer Charles, Gwen Cole, Fiona Hert, Barbara Clampett, Angie Graff, and Cynthia Martin Peninsula Partnership for Children’s Mental Health Steve Ironhill, with West End Outreach, gave an overview of the Peninsula Partnership for Children’s Mental Health…A Family Centered Strength Based Vision for with Clallam and Jefferson Counties. What is it? It is collaborative effort for families and agencies who serve children with serious emotional disturbances in rural communities of Clallam and Jefferson Counties. About 100 such projects across the country have been funded since 1992. Family involvement is a significant part. Program is pays very careful attention to cultural issues. Who are the partners? Family members, advocates, division of children and family services, schools, tribes, juvenile justice, public and mental health, Head Start, and ECEAP, and substance abuse providers. The collaboration between providers and families is vital because the family has a primary role to care for children, and the role of providers is to support the family. These two roles go hand in hand. Family involvement is frequently lacking because of little information about the system and access to the system, often times meeting time won’t work with meeting hours, family members are not available, costs of going to meetings are not supported, some family members have trouble expressing dissatisfaction with the system, families are busy meeting the needs of their children, and bad past history of working with the system. Providers are reluctant at times because they have too little time and too much to do to include families, unwilling to give up control, the belief that it is not a direct service to the child, bad experience working with families, and their training doesn’t teach them how to work in a family centered system. But Steve emphasized that growth occurs when there are these interactive times. As part of their proposal they want to 1) make sure parents have access to be involved, 2) train and retrain staff, and 3) include parents, children and others as members of the service delivery team. They want to provide services within the child’s own home and environment which will promote family centered care. There will be lots of emphasis on family control. The issue of respecting diversity and becoming culturally competent will be a strong component. They will be examining how the diverse funding structures weakens the system. They have a significant buy in from those groups already providing services to children. They want to look at ways to consolidate funding streams using this grant. This grant will be for Clallam and Jefferson Counties. They will look at ways to contract with system of care providers, train providers, credentialing, managing children’s inpatient hospital dollars and specifically on quality. The goal is to increase accountability, ensure full involvement of families, sustain gains through financial reinvestment, and assure interagency cooperation. This would be a comprehensive system of care in Clallam and Jefferson Counties. Steve explained the grant had first been submitted in 1998 but not funded on that round. After a couple more attempts at smaller planning grants, they decided to apply again in August. They came in 8 with only the first 5 accepted. They resubmitted with the previous feedback and now feel quite positive about their potential. They will in mid-February. If they are funded this will have a huge impact on services being offered in Clallam and Jefferson with a possible 8 million dollars over a six year period. This would radically change how we offer services to children. It would break down the categories of care to create one system but a system which would include family involvement. This proposal will not be done in a vacuum but done by collapsing the traditional funding streams we have. Norma asked where the match is coming from. All the people who are currently providing mental health to children now are the match. Hopefully the general funding then would be managed by local people probably in Port Angeles. All the partners agreed to provide matching funds. Florence asked what would Prevention Works! role be in this project. Steve indicated that the grant was written with a year to plan for implementation. Prevention Works! would be a collective or individual resource on the better way to connect with families. The mission of Prevention Works! is about prevention issues and there is growing interest in providing services to kids and families and on a preventive basis. This is an opportunity to reach a younger population earlier with more prevention services. This would allow us to be more creative and to look at prevention earlier. The need to get the message out about the stigma of these kinds of emotional conditions on how they impact the family is clear and hopefully Prevention Works! can help. What is the role of schools? There is a huge role for the schools and also some financial commitment from some schools. This will also be a replication of the programs that the ESD that was happening in the schools but has been cut back severely. The need to strengthen the mental health system for children in the state was never a funded program by the legislature. Our child welfare system is under pressure to solve some huge problems. Monitoring the child welfare system in Washington and in several other states shows some of the failures of the system. Issue of multiple placements and lack of treatment are big issues in our state and this grant might help meet some of these challenges. This will cover ages 4-21 but can be a bit younger also. Could go from birth through 21. Speaker in Sequim Co-Sponsored by Prevention Works! Following Steve’s presentation, Karen Junell from the Sequim School District told us she had come as a walking thank you. The school district is sponsoring a speaker, Len Fellez, a speaker for elementary and middle school age students. He has written two books on parenting. She has heard him and feels he is direct, witty, practical, and knowledgeable. He stresses the importance of parent involvement from kindergarten on up with special emphasis on the importance as the child grows older. He urges parents to see their involvement as an inverted column; he feels involvement at higher level is most important. As your child aqes, you need to have more contact and greater skill; parents need support to do this. He talks a lot about ways to change the message and how to provide the involvement. He is a former principal from Seattle. He includes lots of humor and good stories with a strong message to parents in his talks. . He is a parent of 4 grown children. He appeals a lot to fathers or male figures of what they bring to parenting. He can be pretty strong in his message but very worthwhile. Prevention Works! has agreed to co- sponsor this even which will be on April 27 at 7:00 in the Sequim Cafeteria. This is a great fit with Prevention Works! efforts. It is open to parents from around the county. There will be child care and refreshments but child care is open only for parents from Sequim. John Medina Night-Parenting With Love and Laughter Jim Borte reported on the progress on the John Medina’s meeting on March 12 at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. Jim is looking at a low budget media campaign. We are going to be working extensively with e-mail extensively. We will be doing radio, interviews, cable TV. He asked the group to talk about this event at any community group they will be meeting with in the next month. Some of these groups may be willing to make donations to help others come or to become a sponsor. The involvement of Clallam County Literacy Council as a co-sponsor was brought up. Their involvement will enable us to give out a free children’s book to any parents who come to the event. Fiona Hert and Kathleen Dionne will be getting information out to groups who might be interested in putting up displays. The availability of free tickets for parents who can not afford to come was discussed. If we have more requests, we will find the funding elsewhere. Election Norma Turner gave a report on the By Laws stating that we elect new board members for 2 year terms. The nominating committee will meet shortly and report back at the annual meeting in March. The committee consists of Angie, Gwen, and Cynthia. Anyone else is welcome to join them. Committee Report Jim Borte reported that Steve Tharinger said that Christine Gregoire will be in Clallam County sometime in the next month to see what services we provide. He will be in touch on what Prevention Works! could do for this meeting. Gwen Cole asked for additional materials to distribute for new members. She will contact Jennifer and Florence. Rachel Anderson from the tobacco coalition told of a recent compliance check on 21 businesses. Of that group 19 were in accordance with the law. One of the others, Walmart, is willing to have their employees trained to do a really good job by Rachel. Rock and Rolll will be meeting on Wednesday at 3:30. Contact Fiona for more details. (fhert@pic.kitsap.wa.us or 360 457-2108) More details coming on the Annual Meeting in March and on the Elections. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Martin Substitute Secretary |
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