Delaware State Implementation Project on Preventing Secondary Conditions and Promoting Health for People with Disabilities

Friday, September 21, 2007

10:00am-11:30am

Conference Call

Present/Call-In: Lou Bartoshesky (Nemours/AIDHC), Fred Breukelman (DPH), Kathie Cherry (for Wendy Strauss, GACEC), Alice Coleman, Joyce Edwards (Practice Without Pressure), Nancy Freedman (CDS), Gerard Gallucci (DSAMH), Stephen Goodwin (Get Up & Do Something), Stephen Groff (DMMA), Linda Heller (DSAAPD), Kyle Hodges (SCPWD), Tony Horstman (SCPWD), Thomas Kelly (DDDS), Joseph Keyes (DDDS), HarrietAnn Litwin (DVR), Beth MacDonald (DPH), Daniese McMullen-Powell (ADAPT/SCPWD), Heidi Mizell (ASD), Nancy Ranalli (Easter Seals), Kim Reinagel (CDS), Ilka Riddle (CDS), Andrea Rinehart (Quality Insights), Dennis Rubino (DPH), Jim Salt (CDS), Paulette Smith (Breathe for your Life), Vicky Tosh-Morelli (DBCC), Jamie Wolfe (DDC)

Approval of Minutes: Minutes from August 10, 2007 meeting were approved.

Updates:

Some members have sent in data for their agency. Thank you to those who have. If you have data, please send it in or email it to Nancy Freedman at

Please see power point of the September meeting for the list of updates.

The Lt. Governor has been invited to attend a DSIP advisory council meeting.

DE Oral Health Coalition – Pat Maichle and Joyce Edwards are both on this coalition. Pat asked for others from the disabilities community to join the coalition to strengthen the voice representing individuals with disabilities.

Welcome New Members: Please see Power Point for new members

Contacted:

Nemours Health & Prevention – waiting to hear. Try contacting Midge (Mary) Barrett and Mary Trotter

Cancer Consortium – Quality of Life subcommittee – waiting to hear

Christiana Care, Medical Director – Lou Bartoshesky will follow up

Special Olympics – Ann Grunert contacted

DDC Recreation Grant:

Awarded to CDS by DDC

$15,000.00 grant to train exercise facility staff on including individuals with disabilities into exercise facility and program

Partnering with 1614 Exercise and Fitness Centers, a business that already has approximately 50 members with disabilities.

Start date of grant is October 1, 2007.

Will create model facility that can hopefully provide technical assistance to other facilities in the future.

Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leaders RFP:

Seeks nominations of mid-career level professionals who enhance the lives of individuals with disabilities.

10 awards of $125,000 each - $20,000 to the individual and $105,000 to their agency.

Advisory council members are urged to nominate directly or through DSIP by contacting Ilka

Deadline: October 19, 2007

Link: http://www.rwjf.org/applications/solicited/cfp.jsp?ID=19839

Evaluation Plan:

Please refer to the Evaluation Plan pdf file.

This plan is required as part of the CDC grant and its purpose is to communicate the effectiveness of programs.

CDC prefers stakeholder-guided evaluation, so please provide feedback on the evaluation plan to Jim Salt at .

Mission, Vision, & Values Statements:

Based on charge from CDC and the direction the project will take. Ilka Riddle asked members to think about proposed statements and give feedback, as they will be revisited at the next meeting.

Kyle Hodges asked if the project would be getting a new name. Ilka answered that we are currently working on a new name.

Comments on Mission Statement

Linda Heller – instead of “facilitating” reword to “act as a catalyst for”

Steve Goodwin – “live healthy lives” reworded to include “quality of lives”, to give it a larger scope (e.g. dental health).

Comments on Vision Statement

Tony Horstman had concerns over the word “use”, wondering how one gets or demands individuals “to use” services and programs; perhaps it is worded too strongly. HarrietAnn Litwin suggested that it was interpreted differently than intended. Kathie Cherry suggested instead of “use” word it “knowledge of the importance of”.

Steve Goodwin – Some people with disabilities will not have the knowledge; direct support professionals may be the ones who have the knowledge. Replace “all” with “the”.

Heidi Mizell would like to include the idea of promotion of awareness. Linda Heller suggested adding the concept of people with disabilities having health and wellness as a goal.

Comments on Value Statement

Tony Horstman commented that Medicaid does not cover costs for exercise and efforts should be made to have Medicaid allocate money for exercise. Nancy Ranalli suggested promoting and implementing “no or little cost” exercise activities, such as walking clubs. Others agreed, but some expressed concerns of exclusion of individuals and/or family members with wording such as “walking clubs”. “Walking and wheeling clubs” was suggested by Daniese McMullen-Powell as a possible way to make such projects inclusive.

Steve Goodwin thinks that the YMCA may give free memberships to individuals with disabilities.

Heidi Mizell felt that the value statement focused on adults, since schools, etc. were not mentioned. Heidi would like the Value Statement to include the phrase “throughout lifetime, including children”. Ilka thanked her for making this observation and urged others to please point out when certain age groups are excluded. Ilka said that Martha Toomey of DOE was originally on the advisory council, but that neither she nor her staff are able to be members at this time. Jamie Wolfe suggested that DSEA may have potential members. Heidi Mizell also suggested looking for members from the School Nurse Association. Steve Goodwin suggested John Ray who is the Supervisor for Physical Education for DOE and Iva Obrusnikova, PE Specialist at UD (note: she is already a member of the DSIP advisory council).

Tony Horstman – Could UD facilities be made available to people with disabilities?

Ilka – Marianne Carter from the DE Center for Health Promotion at UD may be able to provide information on this.

HarrietAnn – School programs and schools throughout the state might be open to offering programs, not just UD. Jamie said that schools need to understand that their programs must be inclusive from the start, otherwise they will continue to be segregated if they start out that way.

Alice Coleman asked about Nemours/AIDHC and any programs there if they emphasize and refer to family/recreational services. Lou Bartoshesky replied that programs are division-based; different divisions may or may not refer or connect families with community-based programs and services.

Linda Heller suggested that instead of “health-focused” use “service-focused” organizations to be more general, e.g. a housing-focused agency that provides recreation activities.

Gerry Gallucci – not just “understand”, but actually “help implement”.. and not just “access and use” but also “contribute to…”.

Nancy Ranalli – need to talk about affordability of these services. Linda Heller pointed out that affordability is an accessibility issue.

Paulette Smith – Even those individuals with income above poverty level often have trouble paying for recreational programs due to medical expenses.

Joyce Edwards – Will transportation be addressed?

Ilka – May be addressed as part of the strategic plan.

Joseph Keyes suggested that a definition that addresses all aspects of accessibility be added to the values statement.

Lou Bartoshesky – In regards to the last part of the value statement, where is the most current information now?

Ilka – DSIP is collecting information on best practices and guidelines from DE and national sources. Data from “The Future of Disability” (book is not out yet; should come out in the fall 2007) by the Institute of Medicine. Individual chapters are currently available for $5 each on the internet; book will cost $57.00.

Ilka stressed that we are working on getting advisory council members from both health-focused and disabilities-focused fields to work together.

Please look over the Mission, Vision, and Values Statement, as we will discuss possible changes at the next meeting.

Announcements:

The project is interviewing candidates for the Public Health Specialist position beginning next week. This will be a part-time position and will start by mid-October or early November.

Website – we will continue to have the information on Healthy Delawareans with Disabilities 2010 website, but add a page enabling one to choose either that information or the information related to the current DSIP new grant. Working on creating new website for current project.

The CDC Project officer(s) will be visiting in November and will attend the November advisory council meeting in Dover.

DSAAPD has implemented a successful fall prevention program, and has been asked by the US Office of Disease and Health Prevention to apply for the next program. DSAAPD hopes to make this a statewide program.

Vicki Tosh-Morelli of the DBCC attended a very informative panel discussion on women and disabilities. Vicki will pass this information on the advisory council.

Adjournment: 11:30am

Next DSIP meeting will be October 12, 2007 from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm in Room 132 at CDS, 461 Wyoming Road, Newark, DE.

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