MEETING MINUTES OF THE CHILDREN AND YOUTH COMMITTEE
ACTION MEETING
September 7, 2017 at 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm
DHS, 1 West Wilson Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53707
Members of the Children Youth Committee (CYC) in Attendance: Phil Robinson, Kim Eithun-Harshner, Teresa Steinmetz, Carrie Finkbiner, Peggy Helm-Quest, Bonnie MacRitchie, Phyllis Greenberger, Rick Immler, Joanne Juhnke
Members of CYC in attendance by phone: Amy Polsin, John Parkhurst
Department of Health Services Staff/Other state staff in Attendance: Karen Bittner
Members of the Public in Attendance: Kisten Gillespie
Item 1: Call to Order
· Members were welcomed and everyone introduced themselves. Joanne summarized the meeting guidelines.
· Bonnie made a motion to approve the March minutes and Kim Eithun-Harshner seconded. The minutes were reviewed with the following corrections:
o Page 1, under Announcements: the age range for the Now is The Time Grant Conference should be 16-25.
o Page 3, Item 2, very top of the page: The last two sentences should replace the word “letter” with “motion.”
o Page 3 Item 3 should be:
CYC discussed the Council Strategic Plan and commented on the following items:
Goal 1, B: add “including optimizing the use of Medicaid funding and private insurance” after the use of state and federal resources…
Goal 2, B: expand to youth beyond the criminal justice system by removing the language that reads “who are involved in the criminal justice system”
Goal 2, C: add “child-serving” before the word settings if the CYC committee will be the only committee assigned to this item.
Goal 3, A: “Working with stakeholders on education, prevention, early intervention, and assessment efforts to reduce suicide.” (“on education, prevention, early intervention, and assessment” was added to middle of phrase.
Goal 3, B: Add “infant mental health consultation” to list of services
Goal 4, C: “Continue to work with DHS…”
Goal 5, D: Move this item under Goal 4.
o Page 3, Item 6, first sentence: SAMHSA should be replaced with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
o Page 3, Item 6, first sentence: “Center of Excellence on Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation” should be inserted before Technical Assistance Grant.
o Page 3, Item 6, middle of paragraph: DCF should be replaced with Department of Children and Families.
o Page 3, Item 6, middle of paragraph: sentence should read, “The group is not currently focused on funding strategies right now…”
Minutes were approved as amended. All agree. No one opposed. Peggy and Phyllis abstained.
· The next meeting is scheduled for October 5, 2017 and will be located at DHS, conference room 850A.
· Announcements
o Joanne stated that the workshop descriptions are on the website for the CCF Conference. Joanne will send the link to Karen to forward to members.
· Joanne also provided an update on the state budget. She stated that the budget is done in the Joint Finance Committee (JFC). It still has to go through the Legislature and then it goes to the Governor. There are good and bad news for the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) budget item that CYC weighed in on. The DPI budget proposal items for school social workers, training, and grants for mental health students were all approved, plus an additional $750,000 for the grants. Funding for clinical consultation was approved in the amount of $610,000 was added. $1.6 million in high cost special education aid was also added to the budget; however, special education categorical aid remained frozen. Despite opposition from a long list of disability and education organizations, the JFC added a significant expansion of the special needs voucher program by removing enrollment requirements and changing the funding structure to allow voucher amounts beyond $12,000 when actual costs are higher. The expected increase in enrollment is projected to cost resident public school districts an additional $3.1 million.
· No public comment.
Item 2: Workforce Development: Review Findings
Phil, Carrie, and Peggy reviewed numerous publications around the topic of workforce development. They stated that the time allotted today will be divided into thirds to discuss each section, review findings; discussion and feedback; and formulate a practical recommendation to send to the Council.
In the research that was reviewed, there were consistent themes for the mental health workforce, including:
1. We have an aging workforce and it is growing. It poses a challenge of motivating the younger population to work in this field.
2. The workforce lacks diversity. By 2044 the census bureau predicts no one racial or ethnic group will dominate the US in terms of size.
3. There are geographic disparities. Rural communities are especially impacted by provider shortages. The entry point for children for mental health is the schools.
4. There is low status and pay. Mental health providers are not seen as professionals in the field. A factor is the high cost of schooling for this field and then after graduation, there are only low paying jobs. There is a misperception of the mental health field by other professionals.
5. There are significant concerns about the workforce being able to provide high quality care. There is not a lot of data on this but the majority of the workforce does not have the background in health promotion and prevention activities and are not engaged in these system activities.
6. The practice environment is of concern. There is isolation, burnout, lack of supervisory support and few opportunities for collaboration with other professionals.
It was noted that all mental health providers were lumped together in this research and the research did not separate child mental health providers from adult mental health providers.
Item 3: Discussion and Feedback
Members discussed their reactions to the information provided. Some notable thoughts:
· Mental health work tends to be crisis driven. What works best for younger children is to normalize mental health.
· There are some incentives available but they tend to mostly be for the physical health field or for psychiatrists only.
· There are programs and models that are strengths and CYC can build on, including:
o School mental health
o Evidence based trainings
o Coordinated Services Teams expansion
o Brain development and the impact on mental health
o Child Psychiatry Consultation Program
o Collective Impact model
o Center for Medical Educators
· Strategic Challenge: There needs to be a “Home” for the initiative. Perhaps the Office of Children’s Mental Health and their Collective Impact Process could be the home.
· Framework: There is a need to build upon and utilize other initiatives that have been addressing parts of the workforce development issue.
Item 4: Formulate Recommendation
After much discussion, it is noted that this issue is an urgent need and needs the attention of the governor. It was suggested that a task force is assigned to bring people together to develop a plan to address it. The task force could be formed to bring together stakeholders to address access and children’s and families’ needs and suggest a framework and a home.
Members agree that Bonnie will bring this issue up at the Council meeting next week and ask them to include this as a priority in their strategic plan to make a broad recommendation about a framework, a home for an ongoing initiative, and a taskforce that will be asked to develop next steps/interventions for this issue. Bonnie will also suggest that CYC could do a presentation on the information that has already been gathered to show why CYC is so concerned about this issue.
Item 5: Summary of Action Items + October 5th meeting Agenda
2018 schedule
Council update: Bonnie will present
Item 6: Adjourn
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