RPE Directors Council Meeting Minutes
June 11, 2007
Atlanta, Georgia
Present
Region I and II
Vicki Lunde Rodriguez- New Jersey
Sharon Tarala- Conn
Rhonda Seigel- New Hampshire
Christine Merchant- Maine
Deb Joralemon-New York
Beatriz Perez- Rhode Island
Marci Diamond- Massachusetts
Region III
Christine Brazell- District of Columbia
Chuck Thayer- West Virginia
Becky Odor- West Virginia
Region IV
Jane Key- South Carolina
Ingrid Bou-Saada- North Carolina
Savannah Harris- Alabama
Valeria Pruitt- Tennessee
Natalie Kelly- Kentucky
Jan Davis-Florida
Region V
Susan LaFlash- Wisconsin
Lynda Dautenhahn- Illinois
Amy Kenzie-Minnesota
Amanda Suttle-Ohio
Debra Seltzer-Ohio
Region VI
Theresa Jacobs- New Mexico
Peggy Helton- Texas
Kathy Middleton- Oklahoma
Region VII
Laurie Hart-Kansas
Shirley Pickens White- Nebraska
Binnie LeHew- Iowa
Region VIII
Kelly Parsley- Montana
Leslie Lowe- South Dakota
Diana Read- North Dakota
Catherine Guerreo-Colorado
Region IX
Carol Hensell- Arizona
Nicola Miller-Hawaii
Stacy Alamo Mixson-California
Region X
Natalie Bodine-Idaho
Julie McFarlane-Oregon
Debbie Ruggles-Washington
The meeting was called to order by Chair Binnie LeHew at 6:08 PM.
Binnie announced she had extra copy of the new RPE Council Brochure. This is a short history/summary of the Council. By-laws and other documents will be attached to the minutes when they are sent out. The Council will be working to have NSVRC to post important document from the Council on their website
Chair’s Annual Report
Binnie reported on the activities of the Council and the Steering Committee for the past year. This was the second year of the Council and the main goal was to strengthen communications. The main system of communication of the Council is by the regional reps passing information to their district members. She introduced the regional reps.
Biggest Accomplishments
1. To strengthen our collaborative contacts with CDC and the Alliance. There have been
a number of issues the Council has been to give comments and concerns.
2. Letter to Julie Gerberding addressing concerns with PGO
3. Making our presence know to CDC and making our concerns known. For example,
Marci served on the annual report committee. We have forwarded our comments to
the CDC, we have been invited to the table and listened to our feedback.
We need to strengthen our mentoring process to new directors. Binnie will work in her role as past chair. Her goal is to develop a system to match people up.
Another outstanding issue for the Council is how long we continue as this ad hoc group without any funding? Do we ask the CDC for monies to fund the group or do we affiliate with another group? This is an issue the Council will investigate in the future.
Committee Reports
We have established standing committees in our by-laws. Currently, we don’t have any official standing committees in operation but we have had two ad hoc.
Curriculum/Best Practices Committee- Kathy Middleton reported that Jan Davis and she had talked to NSVRC about collaborating. The Council would like for NSVRC to post curricula, best practices, continuing applications and annual report on their websites. NSVRC said they were short of staff and needed support to do this.
Jan reported it has been a struggle to find best practices for sexual violence prevention or a curriculum that has been endorsed. This has been a real void. It has also been a struggle to get evaluation that is consistent so we can measure across the board.
MARCI Diamond reported the NSVRC is getting additional funding from CDC. As part of that, NSVRC wanted to know what they could do with this money? Suggestions:
· Password protected area for our circle to set that up that we only have access to….
· Addition to section they have on sexual violence prevention curricula and information.
· Clarity between strategies and programs. Put on the website programs that have been tested but also have strategies.
If you have any questions or suggestions pass on the Kathy or Jan.
.
Annual Meeting Committee- No report
As we identify priorities we will set up committees to meet those needs.
Nomination Committee Report
New Officers
Results:
The slate:
Chair- Becky Odor- Virginia
Chair Elect- Debbie Ruggles-Washington
Secretary-Treasurer- Jessica Grzywacz- Michigan
Christine Brazell-District of Columbia Region 3
Lori Hart- Kansas Region 7
Diana Reed - North Dakota Region 8
Carol Hensell- Arizona Region 9
Natalie Bodine-Idaho Region 10
Becky moved to accept the slate. Susan seconded.
The past slate of officers were thanked. Binnie passed out the new list of officers and regional directors.
The gavel was passed to Becky. Becky’s focus will be getting the information from the CDC out to the council. We need to be laying the lines for communication from us to CDC and vice versa. We have more power as a group bringing issues up to CDC.
Suggestion was made that if we have problems and send e-mail to CDC we might want to cc our regional director so we can get a greater perspective of problems.
The discussion then centered on the best way to address the CDC on our concerns regarding the Annual Report. We have been receiving no feedback from CDC on the annual report after numerous responses from our members. Is there a way we can come together to have a bigger voice? We can voice our concerns through the steering committee that there is a problem. This way we can be a collective voice. CDC is soliciting for the Annual Report Work Group. Need to take this opportunity to have council input. This group will be developing guidance and tools. This will be a chance for input. However, we need to figure out among ourselves how we need to come together as a group with agreement on our concerns. The decisions they are making will greatly affect states and local entities.
It was suggested to have an ad hoc sub-committee to address concerns of annual report. Regions could have calls and then send concerns on to leadership of council so can report back to CDC as a group.
Annual Report RPE Council ad hoc Committee
Jane - South Carolina
Peggy- Texas
Sue- Wisconsin
Chuck- West Virginia
Debra-Ohio
Katherine- Colorado
Jane and Debra will co-chair
Other Business Items:
It is very important for regional directors to actually communicate to their region. Need to make sure regional rep is communicating with their regions.
We need to address with the CDC about carry over funds for both Cycle I and II that were applied for before the February deadline.
Priorities on regional breakouts
The Council broke into Regional Groups and the topics discussed were:
Region I & II- Request CDC reconsider RPE Grantee meeting time. Please do not schedule when reports and continuation applications are being worked on.
Region III- 1. Annual Report 2. State RPE Plans- no blueprint (maybe could use plans from Empower states)
Region IV- 1. Support and training for annual report. (Ask NSVRC to program data web-based) 2. PGO issues 3. GTO-Using GTO for strategic plan. 4. New model again! Risk reduction-Prevention-Promotion
Region VI- For NSVRC- 1. Monitoring, overview, website location, developing options. 2. structure of other states core elements scope of work, sample contacts, forms reporting, strategic plan, annual report, website, discussion board. 3.Every other month regional call
Region VII- 1. Annual Report 2. Sexual Assault comprehensive planning committee
Region VIII- BRFSS- 1. What do they do with that data? How will it benefit us? 2. CDC site on NSVRC?
Region X- 1. Annual Report- timelines, data collection, clarification/guidelines. 2. Work with Alliance and other public health organizations to ensure routine surveillance is supported and funded by additional dollars. i.e. BRFSS, Communication to others in Council, CDC, etc.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:10 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Jane Key
Past Secretary-Treasurer
Notes to self:
Let steering committee
Send out the information to new regional reps about setting up regional calls.
Send out the info steering committee call will send info to new directors info on calls.
Corrected list from Margaret to regional directors.