IOWA CHILD ADVOCACY BOARD
STATE BOARD MEETING
Conference Room 319
Lucas State Office Building
Des Moines, Iowa
Friday, December 16, 2016
11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
State Board Members Present:
Mark Hargrafen
Judge Gerald Magee
Beth Myers - Phone
Elaine Sanders - Phone
Wayne Schellhammer
Michael Steele
Shannon Unternahrer
Staff Present:
Jim Hennessey, Administrator
Amy Carpenter - Phone
Lesa Christianson
Shirley Hoefer – Phone
Sherri Ripperger
Jennifer Slife - Phone
Marla Treiber - Phone
Guests Present:
Jane Steele
Call Meeting to Order; Roll Call of Board Members
Magee calls the meeting to order at 11:00 a.m. with a quorum present.
Approval of Minutes for Previous Meetings
Exhibit 1. Hargrafen moves and Steele seconds a motion to approve the September 2016 Iowa Child Advocacy Board meeting minutes. Motion passed unanimously.
Management Report
Exhibit 2. Hennessey goes through the Budget Summary report. ICAB’s projected revenue for FY17 is $3,394,492. The ICAB spending plan is entered in the state budget system by DIA well in advance of the beginning of the fiscal year and the numbers stays that way throughout the year. A column has been added with spending plan revisions with footnotes explaining why the changes were made. Hennessey provided a detailed explanation of the way the report is set up. Hennessey states that we will be filling the Mason City and Ames positions using the state’s temporary services contract. The Budget Committee goes over this document in detail each month.
Legislative Proposal Update
Proposed legislation related to the monthly report DHS provides to DHS was not included in the package of proposals approved by the Governor’s office. However, DHS is now sending all necessary data to ICAB on a monthly basis.
28-E Agreement with Friends Board
Exhibit 3. Hennessey is trying to find a better way to keep track of the money that has been donated to ICAB through Friends. DIA recommends ICAB moves the money from the Friend’s account to an ICAB special revenue state account. This money would not be used for operational expenses. Exhibit 4. Hennessey reads through this exhibit and summarizes that this exhibit says that the Board agrees with the DIA Director and directs that the recommendations be implemented with the listed stipulations. After adjusting the suggested language in paragraph 3 of the proposed motion from “under direction of program staff” to “under procedures established by the Board,” Hargrafen moves to approve and deliver response to DIA. Motion passed unanimously.
Administrative Rules
Exhibits 5 & 6. The goal is to update Chapters 1 and 2 for Child Advocacy Board. Hennessey updated the chapters by deleting items covered by statute except when needed to provide context for understanding the rules, updating definitions to be consistent with current statute and changing from “foster care review” to “child advocacy” board. Myers motions and Schellhammer seconds to approve Chapter 1 for filing of notice. Motion passed unanimously.
The board discussed Chapter 2 which is updated to be consistent with current statutory provisions about membership. Quorum was changed from “four” to “a majority of the members.” A voting majority was changed from a majority of “the entire membership of the board” to a majority of “members present and voting.” Myer motions and Schellhammer seconds to approve Chapter 2 for filing of notice. Motion passed unanimously.
Sanders requests that the board receives the draft minutes within a month of meeting.
CASA Update
Exhibit 7. Carpenter states that we have asked staff to add one active advocate a month to help reach our goal. A little over 1/3 of our advocates have a coach they are working with. Training time has been lowered and the supervisors are working with coordinators bi-monthly to be sure they are reaching their training percentages to bring in the projected amount of IV-E money. Coverage of the Mason City and Ames office has been difficult. Supervisors are working as quickly as possible to get contracted staff into those positions. Carpenter states that ICAB leads are trying to raise their own funds to be able to attend the National CASA Conference. Hoefer will be attending using state funds. The CASA Pre-Service revision has been completed. The EDMS pilot has been going great with over 50 volunteers signed up. By mid-January most of our volunteers should be able to use EDMS on their own.
FCRB Update
Exhibit 8. Hoefer goes over her report. One thing that is new interested parties are able to submit a questionnaire if they do not attend the FCRB meeting or do not want to leave a recorded update. We are hoping this will increase participation by interested parties. The focus group consists of 9 groups in the pilot. Hoefer states that now that the state uses Google, Google Drive should help the boards share documents, etc.
The board received the application and references for the first time on three new FCRB applicants. The board approved the new FCRB board members.
Change Plan Briefing
Exhibit 9. Schellhammer states the concept of preparing this briefing is to remind ourselves of the project we took on a year and a half ago. He explained each of the slides in the slide deck with the Board. The regional meetings helped us get a sense of the good, the bad and the ugly. We need to measure where we started to see where we have gotten and that’s what this presentation will help us do. Looking at the map, the advocate counts from ICO is incorrect and staff are now updating this. The funding for the agency is very important. It’s important for everybody to understand where the funding comes from and particularly the role that Title IV-E funding has played. The two key measures of our mission is getting slots filled and more families with advocates. We need to think about how to get out ahead of the next steps, so we know where we are headed. We need measures to track our progress. Magee suggests that we show how many kids are available for an advocate.
Hennessey will add this to the charts.
Staff Communication
Sanders asks if a staff engagement procedure/process needs to be set. Schellhammer states if your thoughts are about problem solving or improved process then staff would contact the board. If it’s a people issue then staff needs to go through the correct chain of command. Hennessey states that he doesn’t believe staff should go directly to the state board members with problems. He feels they should go to their supervisor first. Management cannot deal with the issues of they are not aware of them. The board agrees that a charter of the staff engagement committee needs to be finalized. Exhibit 10. Hennessey talks about the Kubler Ross Chart on stages of change. Magee and Schellhammer state that the results are much better than expected. The staff engagement committee will write up guidelines for communications between board and staff for the board’s review at the next meeting. Once this tool is developed, we may or may not need the staff engagement committee in the future.
Annual Report
Exhibit 11. The first part of the report is about the FCRB and CASA Programs, a recap of Carpenter and Hoefer’s reports. The second part of the report provides detailed data on foster care. The main points Hennessey feels we get out of the data are a major issue with disproportionate representation of minority children in the system, a lot of variation in terms of the number of kids per thousand placed in care from county to county, and variations in the average length of time in care. This report covers the period of January 2015-June 2016. From now on the report will be issued on a fiscal year basis. Board members are asked to look at annual report once all board comments are incorporated. Hennessey suggests that the some board members assist in developing findings and recommendations for review at the next board meeting. Hennessey asks if there are any board members to help with recommendations. Magee and Hargrafen agree to help with this.
Review of Future Meeting Dates
Next meeting scheduled for Friday, March 10th from 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. at the Lucas Building Rooms 319 & 320.
Schellhammer motions and Myers seconds the meeting adjourned. Meeting adjourns 2:40 p.m.
ICAB Minutes Prepared By: ______
Sherri Ripperger
ICAB Minutes Approved On: _
CAB Minutes Approved by Child Advocacy Board Vote
Approved By:
______
Judge Gerald Magee, ICAB State Board Chair
______
Jim Hennessey, ICAB Administrator
Exhibit 1: September 2016 Minutes
Exhibit 2: ICAB Budget Report FY17
Exhibit 3: Letter from Director Roberts
Exhibit 4: Suggested Motion related to Director Robert’s Letter
Exhibit 5: 489 Chapter 1
Exhibit 6: 489 Chapter 2
Exhibit 7: CASA Report
Exhibit 8: FCRB Report
Exhibit 9: ICAB Briefing
Exhibit 10: Kubler Ross Chart
Exhibit 11: ICAB Annual Report
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