Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Children, Seniors, and Family Committee.
I'm Sylvia.
I'm
your chair. And before we begin, we're going to establish quorum.
Vice
Chairperson Young?
Here,
and Chairperson Arenas.
And
I'm here, too.
Thank you.
Have
a quorum.
Awesome. Okay,
Camille. So we are going to go on to public comment and check in with you to see if there's anybody who would like to talk about anything off today's agenda.
We currently have one hand raised on Zoom.
We'll
do two minutes.
Two
minutes. Okay.
All
right. We'll call on our Zoom speaker. Parent, you will have two minutes to speak.
The
timer will begin when you begin speaking.
Yes. Hello.
Good
afternoon to you all. I've come to you guys many times.
My
kids are being sexually abused. My son, he's confirmed that beginning at the age of 13, Max's wife was letting somebody molest him,
rape
him, actually. There was unnecessary bathing with two of the children, and there was sexual contact between two of the children.
And
all the screams, you know, do a screening for my kids.
But
because of my former attorneys involved, the county is refusing to conduct a screening for them.
I
mean, I can't get in an investigation of any kind.
And now this person is threatening to kill my kids and to make shoes out of their skins if I don't stop talking about getting a screening for my kids.
I
mean, this isn't a joke.
I
mean, this person said this to me.
I
emailed the post to Wendy Kinnear -Roush, to Daniel Little, even to Supervisor Arenas. And this is just not being invested. Investigated.
Nothing
is being done to protect my kids. And this is just completely unacceptable to me that the county is treating other people's children this way.
I
mean, this person has a free pass to do whatever they want to my kids. And, I mean, maybe I am being completely unreasonable.
I
don't know.
Am
I being unreasonable for asking for a screening for my kids?
Please,
if you guys could tell me.
Am
I being unreasonable?
I
beg you guys, please.
I
mean, how many times do I need to come to meetings and ask for a screening? My kids have never gotten
one.
There's no investigation.
There's
never been an investigation.
I've
called the CANK hotline multiple times.
I
don't get any response except one line from Wendy Kinnear -Roush.
And
she said, if you want to file a complaint, you can file a complaint with our Complaints Division. That's it.
No,
I'm sorry this is happening to your kids.
This
is terrible.
I'm
so concerned. Nothing like that.
Please,
help my kids get a screening.
Thank
you so much for your time.
Thank you. That concludes public comment.
Wonderful. And
I'd just
like to share a message with the public because California law prohibits the disclosure of information related to an investigation of suspected child abuse or neglect.
We're
not authorized by law to speak to the specifics of any particular case, no matter how horrendous the allegations are. The law also requires child welfare departments to immediately cross -report physical and sexual abuse. The law also requires child welfare departments to immediately cross -report physical and sexual abuse of children to law enforcement and the district attorney so that swift action can be taken when needed.
And
the public can be assured that our county takes all allegations of child abuse and neglect
seriously.
If you are concerned and would like to report, please call 833 -722 -5437.
Thank
you.
All
right.
We
are going to move on to item three, which is approving consent calendar and changes to the committee agenda. At this time, I'd like to ask my co -chairs. To consider moving item five to consent, as we have previously heard this this week.
Happy to move item five to consent. I'll make a motion
to approve the consent calendar with the addition of item five to it. Wonderful. Yes,
please. And we will check for public comment to see if there's anybody. Yes, I was about to say we do have one hand raised on Zoom. I'm going to give 30 seconds on that one. 30 seconds. Okay. One moment, please.
All right. Our speaker is parent. You will have 30 seconds to speak. Please go ahead.
Yes, this is precisely why we have a problem with our child
welfare reform, that we only give 30 seconds to speak on this item. That's very, very, very important. I mean, it shouldn't even be on consent. But, I mean, 30 seconds? I mean, a parent who's telling you that the county is failing to protect children from being sexually molested and murdered? Sir, can you... Sir, can you please stick to the agenda item?
I'm speaking to agenda item five. Please, let's replace Wendy Kinnear -Roush because we can't protect children like this. Thank you for your time.
That
concludes public comment. All right. Camille, we'll go ahead and take roll call,
please. Vice Chairperson Yung? Yes. And Chairperson Arenas? Yes, as well. Thank you.
Motion passes. Wonderful. So, we are going to begin with item number four, welcome. And this is item number four, for those of you who are following us at home, is receiving the annual report from First 5 Santa Clara County.
There we
go. Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer Kelleher -Cloyd, Executive Director of First 5 Santa Clara County. And I'm joined by my colleagues, Trina Hudson -Davis, who is our executive overseeing early learning and care. And family strengthening and support and health. And also our Director of Research and Evaluation, Nathan Thomas. I am sharing my screen, but I'm not seeing it show up yet.
There we go. And I'm not sure how to make it bigger, but we will go ahead and proceed. Okay. From the beginning. It's
not letting me do it. Let me
go back.
There we go. Okay. Wonderful. All right. Here we are. We are First 5 Santa Clara County. Now we've got our screens working. So this slide just tells you a little bit about our history of First 5, which I know everyone on the dais here is quite familiar with. So I won't reiterate it. But we were established by a voter initiative in 1998 that essentially created a revenue stream from tobacco products to support early childhood. Because that revenue source is a declining revenue source, and we'll talk about that a bit more in another slide. We have determined that we should be prioritizing our resources and our revenue to make sure we are impacting the families that
need our support the most. So while First 5 stands for all families, we have identified these priority populations and ensuring that these families are at the center of our decision making when we are allocating resources. And you'll see that through the slides that I'm going to share later.
So
this is a little bit of a by the number slide. So you can see how much we invested last year in Santa Clara County, $22 .7 million.
And
these are some of the numbers, over 102 ,000 children, as well as 96 ,000 parents and caregivers. And the pie chart shows you the breakdown of the families that we served.
This
data shows you the families who identified a race or ethnicity and excludes families that did not identify or were listed as unknown.
But
you can see a significant change. A chunk of the families we are supporting through our work identify as Latinx, followed by Asian, followed by Black, African American, and then the rest of the populations.
So
this is
what I was referencing earlier in terms of the decline of Proposition 10 revenue. The dark green line shows you how that has declined since 2021 at a pretty substantial clip. There was a significant drop, as you can see, when the flavor -based. But luckily, at the same time, you can see the gray line, which shows that we have been successful at leveraging other revenue streams in order to support our work. However, I will share that some of those revenue streams are county revenue streams.
And
as you all know better than I do, many of those streams are in jeopardy at the moment due to the federal environment.
This
just shows you how we have allocated that revenue.
So,
obviously, you can see a breakdown of where it came from and sort of where our investments are going.
Our
largest investments are in family strengthening, and that is where you see most of our Family Resource Center dollars, which is one of our most expensive and impactful initiatives, followed by child development.
That
includes our Quality Matters work and our support of the early childhood workforce. And then, similarly, we continue to invest. Thank you. We will save some money and move forward, if we can.
richting forward. Music This
just reminds you of our strategic plan focus areas.
We
shared more about this last year.
We
are currently in year 2 of that three -year plan. These are our 4 major focus
areas.
3 of those areas are really external
facing.
The green square is really about working on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging within First 5 to make sure it is really embedded. embedded in the fabric of how we work together, as well as how we work with the community. And the other three boxes really encompass all of our work with our community, including our investments and programs.
This is the second year of our Stronger Systems, Stronger Families initiative. This is our tentpole initiative that really came out of our last strategic plan and our largest RFP process
that
we initiated 18 months ago. So this is really looking at, as we closed out a multi -year, seven -year Family Resource Center initiative, this new initiative includes Family Resource Centers and place -based centers, but also encompasses other efforts, including systems change work, as well as other community -based services. So this is just a quick snapshot of some of those programs. These are highlights. This is not a list of every single service or organization that we are supporting. But we think it gives you a good vision of kind of the areas of work that we're invested in and the number of families or children served. You can see that with those two arrows where it says
SSSF, that's just really trying to explain that that initiative is a cross -cutting initiative that really looks at serving family -strengthening child development and child health. As opposed to having different initiatives focused on different outcomes, since truly we believe that once the family is strengthened, child development and health are impacted and vice versa.
Just a couple of programs we did want to highlight for you today. The first of which is our Diaper Kit program. This is through a large investment from our partners at SSA and frankly one of our most popular programs. So we have diaper kit distribution sites across the county. This is one of our most popular programs. They are embedded in some of our family resource centers and we also have many standalone sites as well as sites with the Department of Family and Children Services and the Santa Clara Family Health Plan. I do want to share that in the last quarter of this fiscal year, we've seen a significant uptick in families picking up diapers and
we anticipate that is not going to die down in light of the current environment of fear and also resources being threatened. So we have had to allocate an additional $130 ,000 from our fund balance in order to ensure we have enough diapers to last throughout this fiscal year.
One of our other problems we wanted to talk about is the Guaranteed Basic Income Pilot. I know the county has invested in several of these pilot programs including this one. First five, as we had shared early on, is really looking at trying to address families that are at risk of homeless or financially disadvantaged and also those who are struggling falling into homelessness with young children. It turned out that this pilot, which was being run by Destination Home, had identified a significant number of families. You can see 225 children in the pilot were under five. So we decided this was really an important investment for us at First Five to support those families who ideally move
them out of homelessness and into stable housing environments, as well as link them to some of the services listed here, as well as link them to the First Five network for services for those families. And I believe the county, as well as other philanthropic partners, invested in this as well. And like all of the pilots, there is a robust research study with findings that tell us what we've now known for 10 years, that this project and pilot works, and we just need to find a way to invest in it. And now I'm gonna turn it over to Trina to share a little bit more about some of the programs that she oversees. Thank
you. So I'll be starting with talking about our Quality Matters Initiative, which really addresses three urgent realities at once when it comes to our early learning system, addressing the childcare shortage, workforce instability, and the need to improve just the overall quality of childcare. This year, we have served 5 ,539 children with over, well, with exactly, 877 early educators enrolled, and that includes family, friend, and neighbor, family childcare home providers, as well as their assistants, and also community members from our family resource centers. 48 % of them pursued professional development that are directly tied to stipends, and 97 % of families at family resource centers report feeling well -supported in understanding of their child's development.
So early learning apprenticeship, which is our paid on -the -job training, it's no -cost college coursework, cohort -based learning in a community setting. We have now, and throughout the program so far, had 110 program participants. Recently, we launched a bachelor's degree program, which is stackable on top of the early learning apprenticeship, and we have 20 candidates right now. 89 % of them plan to remain in the field, 82 % participate in the program, 80 % participate in the program, Employers plan to retain their apprentices, and it's just another direct way where we're strengthening the pipeline into the early learning system. All
right, then we have our TK Equity Initiative. For the last five years, I believe five years was the implementation, with this year being the first year it's fully implemented. California fully expanded their TK program, and through this process, we learned early on that, the early educators that, typically serve that particular age group, was getting pushed out of this system. And so this initiative really worked on keeping them there. So we work with San Jose State University, which was the first, one of the first three educational institutions to offer the PK -3 credential. And it's very similar to our apprenticeship in terms of the wraparound supports that we provide. And we are proud to announce that
the three of the first 12, PK -3 specialist credentials issued in the whole state were from our cohort. So we really are proud of that and we hope to have ten more this semester and a few more the following semester.
Our Shared Services Alliance really is how we support our small business owners, which are family child care providers. They are also educators and often the primary breadwinners in their home. And the Shared Services Alliance seeks to really sustain these businesses through shared business supports, professional development, and networking. And through 18 months of both design and implementing, we have created a two -tier model for shared services, with tier one being really around the providers receiving coaching and technical assistance. And tier two is more of a leadership role, so they get to support with things like our upcoming family child care conference. So this is going to be our third annual conference, which is around family child
care leadership. The theme is Wellness to Success, Rest, Rise, and Recharge. It is actually coming up next Saturday. And so we're really proud of the work that we continue to do here, and we get lots of positive feedback from our shared services team.
Next I'll talk about home visiting, which remains one of the most evidence -based strategies for improving child outcomes. And through our five year home visiting collaborative, we've engaged 14 programs across seven agencies. We have 152 home visitors that we're supporting, over 3400 children that are receiving services. And we have 193 families that receive an average of 52 visits per year.
So our work around support for core impacted families, I mean we all know children under six and the system face some of the highest risk factors for that kind of pay. for developmental delay and trauma. So through our partnerships with child advocates of Silicon Valley, Gardner Health Services, Healthy Families, Happy Families, we have worked to ensure that children have trusted adult advocates, families meet court mandates while addressing immediate stressors, non -custodial parents maintain supervised contact, and these are all really stabilizing interventions during a time of extreme disruption. Next,
our most recent initiative, Standing Firm for Families. So this initiative emerged in response to economic instability and immigration -related uncertainty affecting our priority populations, which Jennifer shared early on. And so we've done this through three different focuses. First, with our workforce wellness supports, which is us investing in those that are providing frontline support to the families that are experiencing these crisis. We actually just recently launched the second part of our wellness supports. So the first part was with supporting our strategy one of our SSSF initiative, and
22
of the grantees were applied and they received their funding. Our next tranche is emergency funds, which our wonderful Nathan here is supporting. And that is really just around stabilizing assistance. When a parent or parents have been removed and just really providing those emergency supports. And our last tranche is around family preparedness, which we are really hoping to launch tomorrow. And that's around helping families build stable plans, especially again, in the risk of what can happen with one of their parents is removed. So these are our responsive strategies into what we are doing to support the immigration community right now.
Our wonderful Potter the Otter Day. So hopefully this isn't news to everyone, but we are hosting our first Potter the Otter Day. It's gonna be April 25th at the Children's Discovery Museum. It is of course gonna be a lot of fun, but we also look at it as a way of operationalizing our strategic priorities.
So
we talk a lot about family engagement.
It's
an opportunity for that to happen in that space.
We're
gonna be promoting literacy.
We
also will have an area there for our quality matters, participants to come and engage and network.
And
we just feel like Potter's is always fun. So we can get people to come out and celebrate and promote all of the wonderful things that First Five offers. We are always ready to do that.
Another
exciting announcement.
So
we recently completed our newest Potter the Otter book, Potter the Otter Grows a Garden. That was sponsored through the California Department of Public Health.
And
this book really promotes nutrition awareness, early literacy, family engagement. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a great book. It was developed in partnership with Vegilution and local families and support from the First Five team, of course,
and
we think it really reflects community voice, both in content and design. So we will be officially also launching that on Potter the Otter Day.
So
make sure you come out and celebrate with us.
I
believe that's the end of our presentation and we're open to any questions.
Perfect.
Thank
you so much.
I'm
gonna look to Camille to see if we have any questions. Any in -person or online speakers?
We
do not have any requests to speak.
Perfect. So I'm gonna look to my co -chair for comments.
Thank
you, Chair.
Thank you so much for sharing the annual report. From a practical perspective, it was really easy to read and digest and understand the work that First Five is doing in our community.
So I wanted to talk a little bit about access to childcare.
Really
would love to get your thoughts. As it relates to access, which our colleague, Supervisor Ellenberg, has been such a huge champion for at the state level and locally. Would love your thoughts, I mean today, and of course in the ongoing conversations as to how we can further local efforts to support access and opportunity on both sides of the equation for both for families and for providers. And congratulations on the first three graduating members of the cohort, by the way. I think that's one of the answers right there.
Yeah.
Just seeking, turning to your expertise and your innovation.
Would
love to get a flavor of what you're thinking of and the time to come.
I'll have Trina answer it. Trina is our, Trina has been in all the spaces of childcare throughout her career. So I think she's got the most knowledge here.
I mean, it definitely requires a comprehensive support. I think there's different challenges, both when it comes to a mixed delivery system that the state is definitely endorsing. But really, all of what we're trying to do requires money. Mm -hmm. And we talk a lot about where the wage and how we can make sure that all providers are making not just a livable wage, but a wage that they can thrive in, you know? And so that's, it's difficult when you're talking about the mixed delivery system as there's not just like the public school systems, but we have our family childcare providers, our subsidized providers, our FFN providers, and most children are in spaces that are not
licensed. So it's like really being creative around how we can elevate all of those spaces. Promote quality, which definitely all of our programs do. I definitely think from a fiscal standpoint, if we really wanna retain and grow, then we have to really figure out ways how we can compensate the field much better.
And I think this is exacerbated, obviously, in our community, especially, because of the very high cost of living in terms of operating a childcare,
but
also we have so many families that don't meet the federal poverty guidelines in order to be eligible for some of those subsidies.
So
we have not only families with subsidies who can't find a spot,
that
is a real problem, and we have a number of families who are just above that threshold who really can't afford childcare, but they're not eligible for any support.
So
I think we have to look at both of those populations in particular.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that insight.
And
that's actually what San Francisco is doing.
They're
looking at that, that threshold of families, because they have a similar cost of living challenge.
And how do we effectuate changes there? Does that happen at the local level, up to the state or state to local?
So, I mean, ideally, we're looking at doing it at the highest level, rather than a county by county or city by city solution. I do think we have done various efforts.
The
city of San Jose has done scholarships, for example.
So
there are programs. The only issue is most of the programs are pilots. And so we're able to support families, but eventually those go away. So truly, if we can, at the state level is, I think really, obviously, if we could do it at the federal level, all the better,
but
there's not much getting done right now at the federal level in this space.
But
I certainly think at the state level, really looking at the true cost of care would make a big difference in terms of families being able to access it, because more, more providers would be able to remain open. The mixed delivery piece that Trina is referencing is, because of so many children moving into that TK space, it makes it really difficult
for
operators, all operators, including center -based operators, because it is so much more expensive to provide infant toddler care than it is to provide care for four -year -olds. So it's definitely a real shift in the economic model.
I'll also add, there's recent, I believe, I think, it's New Mexico that has done, like, free childcare preschool for all.
So
I think there is an emerging model that could potentially be there, but it's very, very preliminary, and they don't have a lot of
data
out yet. Right there with you, Trina, I checked it out.
So
they funded it through their oil and gas.
Yeah,
I was like, dang it, we don't have that.
Yeah. Not
in the same way.
They're
the oil and gas.
Yeah.
And
San Francisco has a, had a city ballot measure.
Yeah, thank
you. And
thank you for just turning over all the leaves to try, and stones to try to find.
If
you have an idea, we're with you. Yeah.
I'm working on it. We're all working on it.
Thank
you for that. I think,
and
I know from your report in 2023, there was a gap of 30 ,000 childcare spaces. Do we have a sense of what that is today?
So our County Office of Education does that study, I believe, every two years. I see. And I do think the gap for infant, toddler has widened, again, for that same reason, that some of the operators couldn't stay in business because of the TK model.
Mm -hm.
But I have a feeling that your director of your Office of Family and Children Policy might actually have that number in her head, should she care to join us.
Hi,
friends and former colleagues.
No,
we don't have, I don't have the general number at the top of my head, but I can say that traditional. Lack of childcare, we tend to have enough spaces for about 30 % of the population in need and tend to not have spaces for about 60 % of the population in need.
And
that varies based on whether
you're
looking at childcare subsidized slots or full fee slots.
Yeah,
thank you. But we are working on these issues in the childcare blueprint, which first five is involved in as well.
Thank you so much for that, Heidi.
And
thank you for the reminder that the County Office of Education will be doing that in timely, timely intervals.
Yes.
Be interesting to see how the TK expansion has affected, impacted, uplifted, or what I've also been hearing, negative, unintended consequences
in
certain areas, in certain age groups.
Yes,
and
the partial day aspect of it is another challenge for families.
Mm -hm, yeah,
thank you.
Well,
thank you so much for this presentation, for the work that you do. I understand that funding streams are a challenge right now. On the one hand, we do want people to smoke less,
right?
Yes, we do. Yes, on the other hand, we constantly need revenue, right,
to
do the great work that supports life,
right?
That's right. So I know that's gonna be an ongoing conversation between all partners to identify sustainable ways to support. But just thank you for your great work. Super excited about Pot of the Otter. What a great spokesperson for drinking water and healthy lifestyle and living. Yes, yes. Yes. And I had a chance to visit. I was at the Discover Museum on the opening day of the Pot of the Otter exhibit. So I love that there's more to come with the new book, his latest book launch. Yes, and the
exhibit's coming back as well. So that will be open during Potter the Otter Day. And we also, this isn't in the slides, but we also are doing a revision with Santa Clara Family Health Plan. A revision of our vaccine book that was originally designed for COVID vaccines. But in light of some of the concerning trends, downward trends on childhood vaccines, we're partnering with them to revise that book and make it more accessible. So that way, we can get more generally promoting, you know, following up on your recommended vaccines. So we should actually have that out in the next couple of months as well. Very
timely. In seven
languages. Very
timely, very necessary. Thank you for that. And Pot of the Otter is going to be at our Lunar New Year celebration next week. So, yes. Potter's
very busy that day.
Potter's very busy and Potter's very culturally competent. I really appreciate that Potter is a friend to all communities. Yes. Well, thank you. Chair, that's all my questions. Thank you. Thank you.
I appreciate it. I'm going to pick up a little bit from where you left off. I heard the TK impact.
And I'm going to guess that you're already part of the local early education planning council. And they are meeting to look at the ‑‑ create recommendations for the mixed delivery system. Correct? Yes. Right.
And I'm going to also assume that you're going to address this gap or the gap that TK is creating. And I'm wondering what are some of the ‑‑ what has been some of the inputs or the recommendations so far? Go ahead. I
mean, I think it's still kind of early to tell, at least in the conversations that we've been in, especially when it comes to, like, the most immediate impact. I think there was just a lot of fear of what could happen.
And as of right now, I think that fear is still there. I think both for families and for providers, like, just not knowing, like, what it means. Like, some programs do have, like, the half‑day program, right? And there's supposed to be extended learning opportunities outside of that. But that's, like, district to district, school to school, just not really consistent. And so we have learned that some families were just really decided to remain in whatever traditional settings that they were in. So I think this is ‑‑ it's just ongoing, and we're just really trying to keep our ears and hearts out to everything that's going on in the
community. I think one of the other ‑‑ you know, ideally, if we could better link our providers within school districts and school attendance zones, really they could help each other with the parents who are struggling to figure out that gap when kindergarten gets out at 1140, or TK. It's out at 1140 for some of our districts. So we really see opportunity there, but it's very challenging in our environment of so many different districts. So this is definitely something we think the County Office of Education can really help with, because they do hold the resource and referral contract as well. So they really have the list of who the providers are out there. And so that's,
you know, something that is a conversation with the local planning council, and I think something that has been really important. And it has come up through our Shared Service Alliance team as well, is if they could be better linked with their local school districts. But it is challenging. And
then there's still more, like, information, right, that's going to be coming out. So for example, at the onset of this implementation, I don't think it was, you know, strongly considered the impact from a licensing standpoint for where these children would be. This age group of children, when it comes to after school programming, because it just wasn't traditionally for, you know, these pre‑school programs. So some of those things, like even licensing is struggling to figure out, like, what is the best place and space to support this age
group? So we've seen the destabilization of child care providers, whether they're
‑‑ well,
home child care providers, especially during the pandemic, because there was folks in their homes that were either chronically ill or just for whatever reason, they just couldn't accept children and create that risk. For their family members, center‑based care is a little different, right? And one of the things that we were exploring, because at that time, there was a survey that was happening with child care providers, and they were very interested in becoming or offering services in a very different type of setting, and we had an idea, and this is actually during the transition. I was in a position when I was leaving the city and coming into the county, and so it kind of just
hung
in
the air, but a lot of the child care providers, when we asked first five to include some of the questions in their survey, would you be willing to provide child care services at a different setting, you know, they were just very much on board with that, and it was just a matter of trying to figure out ‑‑ and we already know what school districts need and where the families are. There are a lot of families that need the most support, that have parents who are impacted by poverty or have multiple jobs, and it is a luxury to have, to go to TK, to go to pre‑K, to go to any
center‑based
program because usually it's just three hours, right? Or the unlicensed is very limited in terms of what they can offer, like the City of San Jose's programs. Right. Right. And so what we were trying to do is really marry some of these different funding sources but have
one
location and have it be at a school because obviously the environment's already set up for it and be able to have some of those school teachers come on board, have unions work those issues out, iron things out. And I wonder if there's an opportunity for us to return back to that since at this point it may not be only the home child care providers who, and this is one of my questions that I have is, where are they at in terms of pipeline? I know that you're creating a lot of opportunities to grow that pipeline. Are we back where we were pre -COVID and child care providers center -based, I think, are the ones that
you were talking about that are mostly impacted by TK, I think is what you said, or just in general. Okay.
Then I think this is an opportunity for us to really be creative about where do we provide the service because I'll tell you as a mom who had a kiddo, I had flexibility
but
I didn't have flexibility all the time so I would have to ask grandma to go pick up
my
kiddo from school. And it's really difficult to do, right, as a mom to be able to provide that. Yeah, I think that's an opportunity for your children and much less if you have two different jobs with logistics that you have to, and multiple children, right? So I'm wondering, are we thinking about very creative
opportunities
with the school districts? I mean, I hear you, a county office of ed doesn't speak on behalf of school districts and specifically, I know they do the R &R, but they are not the ones representing the school districts. Right. Have you had or begun? Have you had anyone to speak with any school districts to
see how creative they can be? So we actually have been looking at some of the elementary schools that unfortunately are closing. And so we have some
facilities
that are potentially open, one of which actually is the Toyon Elementary School in Berryessa School District where Cadango, as an operator, has rented out the full site.
The
Children's Discovery Museum is interested. We're interested in moving the Potter the Otter exhibit there permanently. And we looked at a model just a couple of weeks ago and actually
Heidi
joined us as well. Where Solano County actually was able to get investments from their state and federal electeds to modify the facility. And they have a center based operator, but that operator is also providing classrooms potentially to family child care home providers. Mm -hm. Who their only expense is really the share. The shared operating expense of the space.
So
they don't have to rent the classroom. So if we could identify a significant capital investment up front, I think that could be a very promising model. They haven't opened yet. They're really just on the precipice of opening, but we think that's a really intriguing model. There's some models like that in Detroit as well. So it's like a shared space agreement where they share the cost of the space, but they're not renting the space.
Mm -hm. So
that might be one with all of our schools closing. Well, what I was referring to is a
model that is based at school. Because if you have one kid, you already know this research. One child who's under the age of five, you're going to have a sibling, right? And so then
it
creates less trips for the parent. I'm talking about facilitating trips and accessibility and convenience for the parent in particular. I understand childcare providers also need
that
level of consideration. But they also need work, right? And so whether it's on site at the school or at some very creative sites like this, what I'm hoping to maybe take offline with you, and I can take this myself. I'm thinking about attending those meetings myself, is being very creative on site at the schools. At the schools that are operating? At the schools that are operating. Not that are - Right. I know they're vacated because my daughter's actually - Her school is closing this school year, so we are unfortunately impacted that way as well. But there's opportunity for other folks to come in, but what I was referring to, an active school. So I'm going
to move forward and ask about the
Diabricate program. I remember when Jolene first established this, when we were, I think we were the first ones to help at the City of San Jose. And I think that's something that we can all contribute, especially during the pandemic, very significantly. And I'm just so pleased that it continues to live and that it's thriving. And just this is amazing that you're continuing to provide additional diapers. I wonder what the, you said you had to contribute, I think, an extra 130 ,000. What does that mean in terms of families or children?
Does it mean like 20 more
families, 50 more families? So it may not mean, I mean, what it will mean is based on the family uptake we have now, we want to make sure we have enough diapers for them. I think based on the quarterly report,
we definitely
had a significant uptick. I don't know that I have the exact number or even a range of families. I'm looking to see if Nathan has that, just
the increase. I know we know the increase in diapers, but do we know the increase in the number of families? Do we know the increase in the number of families that were coming monthly? Yeah, we can
look that up for you. Perfect. All right. That was just a question that I had. I thought, gosh, how many families are coming to you in addition to whom already came? And I guess the other question there was, you know, there's some folks who might be relying on the diapers, obviously, because the child hasn't grown out of them. Is there any additional support for, you know, toilet training? I know it was a challenge. For me, boy and girls are very different, right? And sometimes kiddos have a really hard time transitioning out of them because there's lack of stability. And for a lot of our families who just are impacted by poverty, there is a lot
of
lack of
stability. And when I was working in the clinics, there were some families who couldn't transition out of diapers because they didn't have access to the bathrooms, especially overnight.
Mm -hmm.
And, you know, the doctor couldn't say, hey, listen, this is a concern. Even though the child is above a certain age, there was a lot of really compassion and understanding. And I wonder
what
kind of the profile is of these families and if there's any additional maybe classes or workshops or supports that can be offered to families so that we can also, one, it's one thing. And then, two, so we can understand what that,
if
there's any complexities in their lives that create, you know, this longevity of diapers in the kids' lives. So that was just something I was wondering if there's any opportunity to maybe gather some of that information. I would really love to know
because
I know that a lot of our families, and I saw the number, I saw the ethnicity break down. Yeah. And I'm guessing those are a lot of families who are living, multiple families in one location. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have listening sessions every year with those families. I don't think we were specifically asking questions about, you know, are you having challenges with potty training, but we can definitely, you know, add that to our listening sessions this year. And, I mean, the one thing that we think about with the diaper distributions
is
that we try to have them all embedded in a space where there are other supportive services as opposed to take your diapers and go. Right. And we really find. No, of course. It's really a gateway to a lot of those services. So, families might come a couple times to pick up diapers. Now, they're coming to story time. Yeah. They're warming up to the system. Yeah. So, now they're integrated with the family resource centers, and that's actually what the data is showing. Oh, awesome. I do have the number you asked for because Nathan is so fast.
Nathan? I know. I
didn't even see your fingers move. What? He's amazing with that phone. So, it's pretty significant. Quarter one, we had 2 ,813. Quarter two, we had 3 ,813. So, I am terrible at math. I'm like, I don't do math in my head.
It's
an increase of 1 ,000, which is about 33 % increase. Oh, wow.
Oh, wow.
Between quarter one and quarter two. Wow, that is very significant. And really seems to align a
fair amount with
the very, very significant public ICE activities that we do think are a real contributing factor.
So, when you do that listening session, or if there's any opportunity to really connect with the families in a private or confidential way, not only would I love it if you asked about would they like additional services or interested in some of the workshops for toilet training, but do they have issues
with
access to bathrooms specifically? Because they might say, no, we don't have trouble with toilet training. We know how to do this. Right. We have two other kids, but we just don't have access to a bathroom, right? And every kiddo is different, for sure. Would love to learn a little bit more about what that represents, but for sure, we know what's been happening in our communities.
I love the guaranteed basic income pilot.
Would
love to learn a little bit more about what the families are able to accomplish. And maybe that's just stability, right? And stability alone goes a long way, right?
Yeah. But it would be wonderful if you could share with us, and I know not now, but in the future, were they able to actually take an additional class because they didn't have to have an additional
shift
or job or something that really alleviated? I'm sure that these are some of the things that people are thinking about or their families are considering. I'm just wondering. What does that translate to? And I love that there's 165 parents and 225 children, but what does that translate to? In the end of the year, maybe it just means that everybody could breathe a little bit easier, right? And I did see the quote from the parent, which kind of translates to that, but it would be wonderful just to also see if they had an additional year or two additional years that they could complete. I don't know, a two -year. They can complete their GED. They could
do something that they've been meaning to do, but because of work, they're not able to. Yeah. We have a lot of
robust data from that. Again, it's Destination Homes program that we partnered and invested in, but they have done a significant amount of research that we can share. Perfect. And
the other
thing that I was going to share is, and I apologize, this is going to be a little subdued. It's kind of solemn, but I couldn't help but connect both of these two things. There is a child death report that has come out. You've reviewed it, it sounds like. And based on that, there was two
deaths
related to unsafe sleeping that happened in childcare centers because of the, is it called the training sheet or the protective sheet? Oh. Oh, the Chucks pad. Yeah. Chucks pad. Chucks pad. And that happened in childcare centers, in formal childcare centers, and I wonder if there is something that is happening within the childcare world to address that.
Of
course, our public health department has these really wonderful back to sleep campaigns that we've all seen and we appreciated, although the number of deaths over the years that they have seen. This is running from like 20, 2021, 22, and 23.
They all varied. There are five in one year, seven in another, and seven in another, 19 complete, 19 deaths in among those three years, but two of those from childcare center. And so I just wonder if there's something that can be appreciated or maybe
a
practice that can be changed that you implement and begin to really talk at every level of your programming as you're interacting with different childcare providers, whether at home or
child or center -based. Yeah. I mean, we do, we do do a fair amount of professional development. We just had, do you want to talk about the safety, the health and safety day? We held a whole day that was focused on kind of health and safety practices for, and I don't know the exact number.
Who
exactly? Who attended? I don't know the exact number. I want to say it was at least 50 family childcare providers, but yeah, we had a health and safety day where they could come in and
get
their fire extinguishers checked, their CPR and first aid. And I mean, that's really, that is a need for the providers, especially when it comes to accessibility. So, you know, First Five is a trusted partner, so we're looking to do that more.
Yeah.
Well, I'm just wondering. Not, not only on just a one -day kind of an event, and typically you don't think about these pads. These are just pads that protect, you know, the bassinet or the, you know, the little mattress just for convenience sake, right? Because there's going to be another baby or a toddler or somebody else is going to come in. You normally don't think that that's going to compromise the
sleep
of the child, but I thought that was significant enough. That maybe we just pop up a little, an additional alert as you move through or interact with different childcare providers, just to remind them to make sure that, you know, this might, while this might be a practice that is common for everybody, that it creates risk. But, you know, I leave it to you to figure that piece out. I just wanted, my responsibility is just to connect some of the dots at times.
I appreciate that. And we do, we do have, you know, we think about this a lot. We have, I think, a really robust communication network with providers. So we can absolutely look into including that in some of our communications and, you know,
professional development. Oh, I love that. I love it. Thank you so much. I, I think we owe it to those babies to make sure that we, we alert folks of the risk. I just never thought of that myself as mom, you know, you know, okay,
don't
be tired and don't nurse as you're tired and falling asleep. So we're, you know, that is
embedded
in your head, but those pads, you kind of don't think about.
Lastly, you know, I just really wanted to congratulate you. I think you said that you were the first 12 providers that received, I think at the, was it the Early Learning Apprenticeship
Initiative? It's actually the, the special credential that was created
for
pre -K to third grade. So we had three of the first. 12. There's only 12. Right. In the whole state. In the whole state.
And three of them came through our program. Yeah. Well, congratulations. Congratulations. That means you're doing a really wonderful job in, in ensuring that our childcare providers are integrated and have accessibility to, to higher learning, to all of the opportunities that
you're
all coming up with, as well as the state is coming up with. So congratulations to all of the work that you're doing. I just love hearing about First Five. Cause it just reminds me, takes me back, was there for, for roughly 12 years. Yeah. And the work is never finished, right? The work is never finished. No. So I deeply admire what you are doing currently and just congratulate you on everything. Cause I know that this is the biggest impact we have, right? This is the age range. And then we're, of course, we're responsible for the rest of the, the, the age brackets here at the county. Right. But we love the work that you're doing.
So congratulations and thank you so much. And thank you, Nathan, for bringing that information up. Thank you so much. All righty. So we are going to go ahead and look at, oh no, did we do a motion? No.
Make
a motion to receive report.
Perfect. I'm going to second that. All
right. And I'll call the roll. Vice Chairperson, you?
Yes, I think we have.
Yes. Yes. And Chairperson Arenas? Yes. Thank you. Motion passes.
Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're going to move on to item six, which is receiving bimonthly verbal report from the Office of Children and Families Policy, Social Services Related to the Realignment County -Led Children and Youth System of Care Efforts with the City of San Jose. That's a long title.
I
didn't even finish. Welcome.
Good
afternoon, Chair Arenas and Vice Chair Young.
Heidi
Emberling, Director of the Office of Children and Families Policy.
This
report is the first of the bimonthly updates on progress to be shared with the CSFC, which was requested during the joint CSFC and City of San Jose Neighborhood Services Unit meeting in December.
Also
on Tuesday, our office reported to the full board about the overall context and alignment of the county -led
Children
and Youth System of Care efforts with the city. We're going to move on to item six, which is receiving bimonthly verbal report from County -Led Children and Youth System of Care Efforts with the City of San Jose Children and Youth Services Master Plan through the No Wrong Door Demonstration Site Pilots. The Pilots being implemented by Catholic Charities through its Franklin McKinley Children's Initiative in the Seven Trees and Santee Neighborhoods, in addition to the Si Se Puede Collective through Somos Mayfair and Grail Family Services in the Pocahue and Mayfair Neighborhoods. In the past few months, the demonstration sites have moved from planning and hiring of staff into implementation. Outreach to families has begun in a way
that prioritizes resident safety and trust given the current political climate, such as by providing advance notice that they will be at a community location at a particular time and day. Simultaneously, both demonstration partners are working with the city and the county to develop tools that facilitate intakes,
tracking
referrals, case notes, family interviews, closure surveys, all necessary infrastructure supports that support high -quality, coordinated services to the community. A key focus will be continuing to learn from these early implementation efforts and further refine inter -organizational referral pathways, particularly in response to persistent systemic barriers such as limited availability of services. Ultimately, the learnings from these pilot sites can be shared and expanded to other Resource Center sites around the city and county, and any policy needs can be elevated and shared with the Board. This
concludes my brief update. I
need those magical words. Sorry. Okay, thanks so much. I'm going to look to Camille to see if we have any public comment. So
we have one request in person and one request on Zoom. Okay, we will do two minutes. Two minutes, all right. I'll call our in -person speaker. Okay. There you go. We have two minutes. Hello,
good afternoon, Chair and Honorable Committee members. I am Sona Grover, Director with Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County. I would like to briefly expand on the public comments I shared during Tuesday's Board of Supervisor meeting and highlight the early data -driven outcomes of the city's Children Youth Service Master Plan and county's Families First Community Pathways pilots.
In
just six months. We are already seeing measurable results. In the Santee and Seven Trees neighborhoods, outreach efforts reached over 1 ,000 residents with more than 80 % reporting increased awareness and willingness to engage. At the individual level, 42 unduplicated families are actively participating in prevention services. We achieved a 98 % of referral engagement rate and 80 % of the families report increased stability. And 91 % of the families reported increased stability. And 91 % have adopted a new parenting strategy, which is well above the projected rate for the services we were hoping. These early outcomes demonstrate that prevention -focused community -based services are working. As we continue strengthening data collection, refining service delivery, data platforms,
and aligning with county and city systems, we are building a model position for long -term impact. We are also building a model position for long -term impact and potential replication in other neighborhoods. We respectfully ask the county and the city to remain physically committed for the year two and sustain the momentum.
Thank you.
Thank you. And we'll move to our Zoom speaker. Our Zoom speaker is Parent. Parent, you'll have two minutes to speak. Please go ahead.
Thank you
for the presentation. I mean, we do need strong collaboration between our cities, particularly our low -income areas, largest city san jose and the county and i was just wondering um what happens if the city of san jose discovers child abuse such as maybe perhaps child molestation or the child is in danger of physical danger and the county does not care or do anything about it does the city of san jose have any recourse i mean that's my question for the presenter i mean is can can san jose do something i mean we just had a report recently that we had three additional uh child deaths and due to negligence from the county um what if
one of those uh were reported by the city of san jose to the county and nothing was done about it i mean it is i really want to know because i mean i can't get a screening for my kids and um i think that our cities should have separate powers perhaps i i don't know i don't know what can be done thank you for your time
thank you and that concludes public comment
i'm going to look to my co -chair go ahead heidi
thank you so much for your work on this and i really appreciate the thoughtful conversations that um have been going on for some time and most recently at tuesday's board meeting at our joint county city meeting um and all the updates along the way in terms of where this um where things are heading and how things are going and i really look forward to the next report in about two months um where i know there'll be more data to share and also thank you to our representative from catholic charities day for bringing some preliminary um data um to help us understand that really this is what i think what everybody has always known to be
true this is going to be a good idea when you do place -based services and really lean in and center community in this um i would be interested in hearing what trends are emerging from the data collected as we got a sneak peek of today when this report comes back again and um i i believe our contracts for demonstration sites have a robust reporting requirement so i want to make sure that that um we are city and county um our our mutual opera our our operations are are collecting data in the same in the same way
or collecting the same points of data so that it's not apples to orange or it's not doesn't require a converting you know of information and that that was one of the takeaways from our joint meeting with the city that we were going to do some work around that to define absolutely
and that's emerged as one of the early learnings is that there's um an intake form that the city of san jose uses their universal intake form there are also intake forms that the family research centers themselves have used traditionally over time and then there's our intake forms for county services so we are trying to figure out how to streamline so that families are not filling out multiple intake forms or having to answer the same questions again and again that's definitely part of the effort and certainly in early learning
thank you for that and then of course with the the programmatic outcomes right that we're tracking in similar fashion in in shared um understanding of how we're collecting that information absolutely yeah and then i'm just uh for us to um you know as always remain flexible and allow these programs to pivot as needed i know that's one of the hallmarks of this um of this partnership so i look forward to hearing more about it and just really appreciate this body and our chair for really driving this work yeah thank you
thank
you i actually am going to start where you ended i think the last um item was the same way and i think it's a very clear to understand that the data will be the data we're concerned with data and how it's being collected and for me it would be really not only how we're collecting the data or how we're intaking
information from from families so we don't over um tax them in this way right
Is there something that they could utilize, meaning the city of San Jose, that not only for these demonstration sites, but in general that they could, some kind of intake form, maybe a universal form that we use that could help facilitate the qualifications for some of the county or state -funded services or benefits? But what I had said at the moment was that that's very specific, I think, to eligibility workers here in the county, and I don't know whether collecting that information ahead of time would be too burdensome for the families to do, especially if we don't... really know whether they're going to be eligible or not, because those workers who are working with them on
the front line may not be as knowledgeable as an eligibility worker who could probably say yes or no, or let's move ahead. And so has that question come up just yet? Heidi, are you looking at Sarah? Sarah's looking
at me. No, I do think there's an additional assessment that needs to happen when they're... found to be at imminent risk of abuse or neglect, and then they are routed more to a DFCS worker that can do that level of intake. I think there's a universal screening that happens first. Yeah,
no, I didn't mean abuse. I just meant, and this is with a council member, at least she had said it was more of, you know, maybe families don't know that they are eligible for some of our programs, maybe some are nutritional programs that they can qualify for, and so they got that information ahead of time that on the city's end of it, which is something that the city normally doesn't do, and I'll tell you this is one of the reasons why we had first started the Child and Youth Master Plan, but for many of the reasons in terms of inaccessibility to services and programs for our families, but one of which is we normally, we
don't, we didn't have an intake form at the city of San Jose, so I know that they are probably coming up with that as we speak, right? And so is there a benefit, could it be helpful for them to collect any information that could maybe signal to us on the county side, this family could be eligible, may be eligible, let's connect them to an eligibility worker, see if we can get them any additional benefits. Does that make sense?
Yeah, Supervisor, I think that that's a great suggestion. I think what I would want to do is kind of go back to our team to see how we can provide that level of support for them. I think probably as people here know, the eligibility determination process is extremely complex, and I think families do have to fill out a lot of information. We would want to make sure that we have somebody to be able to guide that, so I think that's something we can take back to see how we can support those sites. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think they can do it in the same way that we piloted, Sarah and Wendy, we piloted the social worker program based in a school. Maybe we could have an eligibility worker based at some of these sites just so that they can understand what this is all about. But, Danielle, thank you for taking it back. This is just a suggestion in terms of trying to figure out, how can we best do this for, you know, receive the information or do the intake and or a level of assessment so that we can figure out how to best serve that family, right? And sometimes I think agencies are very insular, and they
will offer the services that, so say, for example, as SOMOS offers the services, they have a plethora of programs and services that they offer internally or with other agencies that they have created partnerships with. It may not refer back to the county, right? And that family may not be served by some of the benefits that they may be interested in. So I leave that to you all to help me figure this piece out. I just want to, since we're starting, you know, this is kind of the beginning, I don't want to take a couple of steps back later and then say, hey, there was this one feedback that a council member had in terms of
eligibility. Certainly, if there's an opportunity for us to figure out how to do that, it would be wonderful. Yeah.
Okay. So I'm going to stop here. The other piece is in terms of data, and Supervisor Young referred to it, is ensuring that the data that each of the service providers are being is the same, although I think I made a distinct, I know I made a distinction earlier this week that the service provider model is going to be different because they're, different service providers, right? One is more school -based, is school district -based. They have a different network that is built in than the other provider. And so we will, inadvertently, we will be comparing a little bit of apples to maybe pears, right? They're kind of similar, but not exactly. They look a little
bit.
And I think it's just in the nature of who we've chosen. If we had chosen two school -based or strong partnership school, a strong school partnership -based providers, not to say that one of them isn't, it's just one of them is within the school district. So, of course, they work from what they know and what they've built. So that's the other question that I'm, that how are we going to look at the data and take into the account, the actual providers, right? And their strengths, because they do have those strengths that they, that work, that really works for our community. So when we deliver the, or try to replicate the system that we learn, I
don't know if this is maybe, you know, two different service provider models and to see which one is a comparison. I don't want to use it as that, but we kind of,
inadvertently, are, are, will be doing that.
I can start us off and then Heidi can certainly elaborate, because I think she's been working more closely with the providers in the past couple months and talking with the City of San Jose regularly, which has been helpful. So this is a pilot, right, and we want to take what's applicable and apply it wherever we can in terms of increasing access and best practices. And I think through the information we're going to collect from the providers, and we got a lot of feedback on Tuesday, as well as just in conversations that we've had with stakeholders that are interested in this pilot, we can take back really useful information about what's working in terms of services
provided that are specific to the pilots and specific to the locations where, where the organizations are working, be it in FRC or be it a school or just be it in community, and look at how we can apply that in different contexts. I was in a meeting last week with nonprofit organizations totally unrelated to the pilot, and I could see kind of when we start to talk with providers that we have grants with or that are doing services and are interested in navigation or kind of referral,
referral and outreach practices that work well, we can start to bring what we're learning into those contexts. So I think what it is, is it's learning from these two pilots, understanding what works, and then trying to apply it as much as we can to our clients. So I think that's a great point. And I think we're doing that with a lot of our existing grants and funding. I hope that makes sense. No it
makes sense. I just think if I was thinking as you were speaking that, you know, the schools and the school system will have kind of pre -identified some of the families and some of the children that are impacted, and really given us a heads up in terms of, you know, we see these behaviors or we see the resources that are lacking, or that, that, that our families would benefit from. And maybe within the other network of the service provider, that may not be available. And so then how do they then go into that community and look for the families that are most in need, right, so that we can have a leveled approach?
Otherwise, and this is something I mentioned earlier this week,
service providers will do what they do best, which is outreach and connect with families. And the families that tend to respond are the families that are more easily engaged. But that doesn't mean those are the families that we need to support the most. Of course, we can support at the many different levels. But I want to make sure that we have a tiered approach, one that is, you know, in general, just all over the country. All of the families with, I don't know, prevention or just family support, but some of those that need some additional in, I don't know, a tiered two approach. And those are the families that probably the school district has already
identified and could help out with referrals. And maybe we could emulate that with the other service provider and approach one of the schools. And do the same thing. I just, I want to make sure that we are serving the different kinds of families that exist within one community. And that we not inadvertently create two different models, one that will be for kind of the general public and the other one for maybe a higher need. And we already understand that difference, right?
I'll just add, I think what you're just, what you're, what you're describing is a very adaptive, is learn, taking what we're learning and being able to adapt it based on the context. And I'm going to defer to Heidi because I think one space that could be really useful is the schools county collaborative for this. And thinking through how we share, we both kind of bidirectionally discuss the, what we are learning from the pilot, what's working in terms of the kind of full continuum from outreach to understanding the service need to making those referrals. And then closing it, and I'm interested in what Heidi's thinking around the schools County collaborative as an avenue for that,
got it? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great menu for talking about what the schools are seeing and how we tie them into this work. We are talking about merging a lot of different systems, the community -based organizations, the city of San Jose, the county and the schools. So there's some systems partnership, work that's going on, I think that Children in Youth System of California, care is a great opportunity for all the system partners to come together, learn from these pilots, learn from what's happening, and everybody share their voice, uplift their voice in terms of how do we address some of the challenges that have emerged and how do we make sure that we're meeting
the needs of the families, to your point. Great.
Would love to figure out and be part of that conversation in terms of criteria and the different approaches for the families that exist within the community, but also that may fall naturally, that may naturally be recruited within the two different types of service providers that are linked very differently to school systems, right? And I hear you. We could kind of create that for one of those service providers that may not have it, and I think that would probably go a long way. Not to say that they haven't developed that over time or with their own just natural partnership. And existence in that community. I just want to make sure that they're kind of fair, if
we're fair in terms of how we're providing services.
And within those different tiers of the different needs of the family, and I can go over this on the offline, is to figure out are we engaging with families that are in crisis and how much in crisis? Are we going to also recruit from some of the systems that are internal to us? So some of those families that have a CPS call, but abuse isn't substantiated, but we know that they live in one of our neighborhoods. And how will a screener at the CAN Center be able to refer to some of these models? And so I just want us to make sure that we take... From what we already have and be able to supply
these pilots, some of our own folks, or the voluntary. I don't know if the voluntary is appropriate or not, but certainly maybe those who are interested in referrals that call the CAN Center or that the referrals are unsubstantiated, but we recognize there was something there because there's already been one, two other referrals.
Does that make sense? Awesome.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much.
I will ask to have just an offline conversation and meeting so we can continue to see how we impact those children and youth that are in those families and whether, you know, if the criteria or the outcomes are improved attendance in the schools or improved, you know, relationships with parents, between parents and children or whatever it is that we are hoping to really target. I just want to continue to understand as we just move forward and really putting boots on the
ground here. So
if we can just have that as an offline conversation, would love to dig in a little deeper with all of you. All right. So we are going to go ahead and accept the questions. We are going to take a motion so we can close this conversation out.
Thank you for the very robust conversation. Motion to receive report. Looking forward to the next one. And I'm going to second that. Thank you. Vice Chair Person
Nguyen?
Yes. And Chair Person Arenas?
I'm going to say yes,
too. Thank you. Motion passes. Perfect.
All right. We are just moving right along. This is now item... Let
me get my... All right. Cheat, cheat. Are we in item seven, Camille? Yes, we are. All right. This is receiving a verbal report from the Office of Children and Families Policies, Social Services Agency relating to the County's Child Care and Early Education Infrastructure Grant Program.
Welcome, Heidi.
I didn't have to go too far. No, you didn't. Thank
you so much. Is anybody else joining you? No. Okay. Wonderful. We'd love to discuss that. Thank you, too.
Yes. So, in partnership with the Valley Health Foundation, we are currently working on a full report that will come back to the full board on March 24th that will go deeply into the Child Care Expansion Grant Program. We'll provide an overview on this three -year ARPA -funded effort to expand access to child care across the county, focusing on an equity -centered criteria that centered our expansion plan to provide a comprehensive and inclusive child care system for all children. care across the county, focusing on an equity -centered criteria that centered our expansion efforts in qualified census tracts and services to families eligible for subsidized child care. The project overall, just sneak preview, has issued a total
of 52 grants for a total of 699 expanded child care spaces. These expansions include the addition of new classrooms, infant and toddler care spaces, support for family child care providers moving from small licensed homes to large, small licensed homes, and increased hours offered to families. We'll include an update on the final status of the child care facility grants issued, along with many of the lessons learned through this multi -year effort. We'll also include information on the remaining need from this cohort of applicants, and we'll present more information on future cost -effective child care investments that serve our county's most vulnerable families and children. That
concludes my presentation. Thank you. Brief update and sneak preview of what's coming back to the full board in March. Wonderful.
So we're going to go to Camille and see if we have any public comment.
We do not have any requests to speak.
All right. So we are going to move to my
co -chair. Heidi, just my deepest appreciation and also a shout out to our Valley Health Foundation. I know they managed a lot of the grants, and that was no small or easy feat.
And
thank you. And of course, the need far, far outweighed the resources available to provide through these grants.
Do
you know what we're, I guess what that list of outstanding requests or needs that were, the unmet need? What is our engagement plan? Do we still keep that list? Or is it, I hope it's not, oh, program's done. Thank you and
good luck. We received close to 500 applications. I think it was 499 applications.
And
we were able to issue 52 grants. So there is definitely a remaining need. We'll have to, since this is a three -year project and the grants criteria and time period was over a few years ago, some of the providers may have already either moved out of the county, closed, or done their expansion efforts without the benefit of the ARPA grant. So we'll have to look at it.
But
that's certainly going to be part of the report coming up in terms of staying in touch with this population, making sure that they're being routed to any resources that we do decide to invest in this
continued
expansion effort.
Yeah,
I know that the grant application itself was not, not that we made it difficult, but it was a lengthy process. It was an involved process.
It
was. Yeah. So, I mean, I feel like this is, it's reflective almost of kind of the top tier of child care providers, right? Folks who were informed, proactive,
and
took the time to complete the documents and go through this process with us. So it sounds like even without a grant program or until we have more resources to provide support, it's a great focus group to be able to engage with to understand the different trends and changing landscape of child
care availability. Definitely. And there were, I actually worked on this criteria setting with Valley Health when I was at First 5, and they did multiple in -person and online supports for family child care providers in both Spanish and Vietnamese to try to encourage
application
and going through the application person to person to help facilitate the application process. And I do know that there were, again, quite a lot of applicants that were classified as Tier 2, so we were able to fund almost all of the Tier 1 applications, but the Tier 2 meeting fewer of the criteria were a lot of the remaining need.
Thank
you for that context, Heidi. I, again, feel like there's a lot of opportunity here to engage with a very proactive network
community
of child care providers as we try to continue to tackle the significant need in our community. And looking forward to our next report and seeing what opportunities may come out of this.
Thank
you.
Heidi, I'm just going to add once again to see if we, the folks who benefited from our grant programs.
I think that, you know, the work group is currently working on the planning grant program. And I think that's a good way to see if we can get the programs that we're working on and the programs that we're working on to be considered in the, you know, the LPC, the mixed delivery system, the planning grant that the work group is currently working on. In the same way that I talked about earlier, you know, let's think about schools, let's think about just some really creative ways. I just want them to also be considered because they might not have been in existence or an actual option, right? So, I just want us to be able to have
them considered. Do you attend those, that work group? The local early ed planning council? Well, they have a planning grant that is a recommendation for the mixed delivery system. And I think they're in the planning group. They are a third year of the five year grant. And they haven't come up with actual recommendations is from what I understand.
Sorry,
I'm not sure which working group that it is.
I
only know that it's, I don't know what the formal letter, I don't know what this stands for. It's the UPK work group. And I don't know what that one is. I would think maybe you know. Oh, the universal
pre -K? Oh. UPK is universal? I
DON'T THINK THAT'S IT. WHERE IS MARIELA? SHE WAS WITH ME AT THE MEETING. NO, IT WASN'T THE UNIVERSAL PRE -K. SORRY. I'M LOOKING AT MY MATERIALS AND I THINK I WROTE THIS ONE INCORRECTLY. I'M CERTAINLY
HAPPY TO FOLLOW UP WITH YOU AFTER THE MEETING. YEAH.
SO THERE IS A MIXED DELIVERY SYSTEM GRANT THAT THEY ARE PLANNING FOR. AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS HAVEN'T COME UP YET. WHAT IS IT? THE
CATALYST GRANT? THROUGH THE JOBS FIRST? YOU
PROBABLY KNOW BETTER THAN ME. OKAY. THEY USED A LOT OF ACRONYMS. THERE ARE SO MANY ACRONYMS IN EDUCATION. IT IS SO HEAVY ON ACRONYMS. YES. AFTER A WHILE, I'M JUST NOT SURE WHAT, WELL, I WON'T USE MY OWN ACRONYMS HERE, BUT. YES.
YES. IN FACT, TRINA FROM FIRST FIVE AND I WORKED FOR 18 MONTHS ON THE ORIGINAL CATALYST APPLICATION, WHICH PROBABLY BROUGHT THE PLANNING GRANT TO THE COUNTY.
WONDERFUL. THANK YOU. WE JUST NEVER KNOW. IT'S A SMALL WORLD.
YES. IT IS A SMALL WORLD. AND SO, YES, SANTA CLARA COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION IS LEADING THAT EFFORT NOW FOR THE CATALYST GRANT IMPLEMENTATION. IT'S THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLANNING GRANT. WE WILL STILL NEED TO GO BACK TO THE STATE FOR AN ACTUAL IMPLEMENTATION GRANT ONCE THEY HAVE IDENTIFIED WHAT THE NEEDS ARE, BUT WE 'VE BEEN INVOLVED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING OF THIS PROCESS. SO
IT WOULD BE WONDERFUL IF WE COULD FEED ALL OF WHAT WE'RE DOING INTO HOWEVER WE CAN. ABSOLUTELY. HOWEVER WE CAN. WE'RE ALL VERY ALIGNED. OKAY. WONDERFUL. SO I 'LL LEAVE THAT TO YOU TO FIGURE THOSE PIECES OUT, BUT I DID ASK CATHY BETTER TO REEL ME IN. I DON'T KNOW THAT SHE'S THE LEAD THERE BECAUSE I KNOW THAT SHE'S RETIRING SOON. YES. I
THINK IT'S BEING RUN BY DAVID PUTNEY OVER THERE. HE'S THE LEADER OVER AT THE SANTA CLARA COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION WHO TOOK OVER WHEN ADORA FISHER RETIRED. GOT
IT. THANK YOU. SO THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL IF WE COULD JUST BE INTEGRATED. AND I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHEN WE TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE GRANTS, YOU KNOW, CERTAINLY THIS CHILDCARE INFRASTRUCTURE GRANT PROGRAM I KNOW IS JUST CREATING MORE CAPACITY THAT WE ARE LOOPED INTO ALL OF WHAT IS BEING DONE AT THE COUNTY LEVEL. AND CERTAINLY WITH THE WORK THAT THIS WORK GROUP IS DOING, I CAN'T SAY THAT I UNDERSTAND IT ALL BECAUSE IT IS A VERY COMPLEX WORLD, BUT ANY OPPORTUNITY THAT WE CAN TO OVERLAY OUR EFFORTS WOULD BE WONDERFUL.
THE CATALYST GRANT, JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION, IS ALSO PRIMARILY FOCUSED ON WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT. SO THEY'RE VERY MUCH FOCUSED ON DEVELOPING THE EARLY EDUCATION CHILDCARE WORKFORCE. SO THAT'S THEIR AREA OF FOCUS. AND IT'S A MULTI -COUNTY EFFORT ACTUALLY. WELL,
THAT'S MUSIC TO MY EARS, ALTHOUGH OF COURSE I CARE MOSTLY ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR COUNTY. BUT LOVE TO LEARN WHAT OTHER COUNTIES ARE DOING. ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW, THERE'S BEST PRACTICES IN A DIFFERENT COUNTY, BUT IT MEANS THAT THEY HAVE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENT AND DIFFERENT PLAYERS AND THEIR COMMUNITY IS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT. BUT I ENJOY LEARNING FROM OTHER FOLKS. SO ANYTHING THAT OTHER COUNTIES ARE DOING, I'M SURE WE WILL HEAR IT THROUGH YOU, AS YOU ARE A HUGE RESOURCE IN THAT RESPECT. AND AS YOU SAID, YOU KNOW, YOU INITIATED THIS ONCE UPON A TIME. AND SO YOU HAVE A WEALTH OF INFORMATION.
OKAY. SO I WILL GO AHEAD AND ASK CAMILLE TO JOIN US. I DO THINK WE DID HAVE A MOTION. NO? DID WE DO A MOTION? NO. HERE IT COMES. HOLD ON. MOTION TO RECEIVE REPORT. NOW I'M READY. I WILL SECOND
THAT. ALL RIGHT. VICE CHAIRPERSON YOUNG. YES. AND CHAIRPERSON ARRANAS. AND I'M GOING TO SAY YES, TOO. THANK YOU. MOTION PASSES.
PERFECT. OKAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH, HEIDI. NOW YOU ARE OFF. YES, OFF THAT CHAIR. THANKS SO MUCH. ALL RIGHT. WE ARE GOING TO MOVE ON TO ITEM NUMBER EIGHT. THIS IS A RECEIVED REPORT FROM THE SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY RELATED TO CONTRACT AND PROCUREMENT OPERATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2024 -2025.
WELCOME, SARAH. AND ANYBODY ELSE WHO YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN?
I'M GOING TO ATTEMPT TO COVER THIS. BUT I DO HAVE MY COLLEAGUES HERE WITH ME. SHOULD THERE BE PROGRAM SPECIFIC QUESTIONS THAT WE WANT DURING THE DISCUSSION. SO I HAVE A VERBAL. I CAN GIVE YOU A VERBAL OPTION. I 'LL GIVE YOU AN OVERVIEW OF THE REPORT IF THAT'S HELPFUL. YES. VERY HELPFUL. SO THIS ANNUAL REPORT OFFERS A SUMMARY OF THE SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCY CONTRACT AND PROCUREMENT OPERATIONS. AND THIS IS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2024 -2025. AND THERE ARE SEVERAL ATTACHMENTS WITH DETAILED TABLES AND DASHBOARDS DESCRIBING OUR CONTRACTED SERVICES. OUR AIM THIS YEAR WAS TO ADDRESS FEEDBACK FROM THE COMMITTEE SPECIFICALLY FROM YOU, SUPERVISOR ARRAIGNES AND COMMISSIONERS TO OFFER INCREASED TRANSPARENCY INTO OUR CONTRACTING, INCLUDING DETAILS
THAT SUMMARIZE CONTRACT SCOPE, CATEGORY OF SERVICE AND PERFORMANCE METRICS, AND WE HOPE THAT THIS INFORMATION PROVIDES MORE DEPTH TO THE CONTRACT REPORTING THIS YEAR. IN TERMS OF AN OVERVIEW, IN 2024 -25, SSA HAD 360 CONTRACTS TOTALING OVER $111 MILLION. THE VAST MAJORITY OF THESE CONTRACTS WENT TO COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS, AROUND 85%. WITH ADDITIONAL CONTRACTS ISSUED TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT, HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTES AND INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS. SSA OVERSEES A BROAD RANGE OF CONTRACTS THAT SUPPORT ESSENTIAL COMMUNITY SERVICES AND OPERATIONAL NEEDS THAT INCLUDE SERVICE DELIVERY CONTRACTS IN THE AREAS OF CHILD WALFARE, SENIOR NUTRITION, IN -HOME SUPPORTIVE SERVICES, EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS, PROFESSIONAL SERVICE CONTRACTS FOR CONSULTING, TRAINING, AND PROGRAM EVALUATION, FACILITY
SERVICES, TECHNOLOGY AND DATA MANAGEMENT, CONTRACTS TO SUPPORT CASE MANAGEMENT AND REPORTING SYSTEMS, AND CBO AGREEMENTS THAT PROVIDE SPECIALIZED SUPPORT SUCH AS HOUSING STABILIZATION AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AS TWO EXAMPLES. SSA ALSO MANAGES FISCAL REIMBURSEMENT CONTRACTS TIED TO STATE AND FEDERAL FUNDING STREAMS, ENSURING COMPLIANCE WITH REGULATIONS SUCH AS TITLE IV -E, CALWORKS, AND MEDICAL. TOGETHER, THESE CONTRACT TYPES ENABLE THE AGENCY TO FULFILL ITS MISSION OF PROTECTING VULNERABLE POPULATIONS AND PROMOTING SELF -SUFFICIENCY THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY. ALSO IMPORTANT TO CALL OUT IS THAT SSA FUNDS ITS CONTRACT RELATED SERVICES THROUGH WHAT IS OFTEN A COMPLEX BLEND OF FEDERAL STATE AND COUNTY SOURCES EACH TIED TO SPECIFIC PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS AND CLIENT POPULATIONS AS WELL AS COUNTY GENERAL FUND CONTRIBUTIONS THAT
COVER LOCAL PRIORITIES OR COST SHARING REQUIREMENTS. SO WE HAVE A ROBUST TEAM OF FISCAL AND CONTRACT STAFF THAT MANAGE ALL OF THOSE REQUIREMENTS. OUR PROCESS FOR ANALYZING CONTRACT PERFORMANCE ARE PREMISED ON STANDARDIZED AND CONSISTENT DATA COLLECTION METHODS THAT ARE CENTRAL TO OUR MISSION. SO OUR APPROACH IS TRANSPARENT AND INCLUSIVE AND WE APPLY STRUCTURED DATA COLLECTION METHODS TO INFORM OUR STAFF, THE BOARD, COMMUNITY, AND OTHER CONSTITUENTS ON THE SERVICE EFFECTIVENESS, POPULATIONS SERVED, AND COST FOR SERVICE AMONG OTHER PERFORMANCE INDICATORS. AND YOU CAN SEE THOSE IN THE DASHBOARD AND WE ALWAYS WELCOME FEEDBACK ANNUALLY ON THOSE
TO
SEE IF WE CAN IMPROVE HOW WE ARE DESCRIBING OUR CONTRACTED PERFORMANCE.
AND
OUR VENDORS ARE HELD ACCOUNTABLE TO OUTCOMES AND QUALITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND CONTRACT MONITORING. EACH CONTRACT ESTABLISHES CLEAR PERFORMANCE MEASURES, DELIVERABLES, AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. AGAIN, IT'S A LONG ATTACHMENT BUT WE HOPE THAT YOU NOW HAVE A GOOD REFERENCE DOCUMENT WITH ALL THAT INFORMATION IN THE ATTACHMENTS.
SO
WE DO HAVE SEVERAL ATTACHMENTS WITH TABLES DETAILING MONETARY CONTRACTS, NON -MONETARY CONTRACTS, LETTERS OF UNDERSTANDING WITH OTHER COUNTY DEPARTMENTS, REVENUE AGREEMENTS AND DASHBOARDS AND WE HOPE THESE WILL SERVE AS USEFUL REFERENCES TO OUR CONTRACTS, WELCOME QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK.
AND
WITH THAT, I AM HAPPY TO TAKE ANY QUESTIONS. AND AGAIN, WE HAVE STAFF HERE TO ANSWER MORE SPECIFIC THINGS AROUND PROGRAMS. AS NEEDED. THANK YOU. AND BEFORE WE
HAVE OUR CONVERSATION, WE 'LL GO TO CAMILLE AND SEE IF THERE'S ANY SPEAKERS. WE HAVE ONE REQUEST ONLINE.
WE
'LL DO ONE MINUTE. ONE MINUTE? OKAY. SO OUR SPEAKER IS PARENT. YOU WILL HAVE ONE MINUTE.
PLEASE GO AHEAD.
YES, THANK YOU FOR THE REPORT.
I'M GLAD THAT WE'RE BRINGING IN CONSULTANTS TO PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE IN OUR COMMUNITY. I KNOW THAT SUPERVISOR ARNES BROUGHT IT UP AFTER
THE
DEATH OF BABY PHOENIX CASTRO THAT WE SHOULD BRING IN A CONSULTANT
TO
HELP WITH CHILDCARE REFORMS. AND I BELIEVE THAT NEVER HAPPENED. AND THAT'S REALLY A SHAME BECAUSE
SO
MANY KIDS ARE DYING. I MEAN, WE HAD THREE NEW REPORTED DEATHS BESIDES PHOENIX CASTRO AND
JORDAN
WALKER AND ELLIE LORENZO. AND THAT WASN'T DISCLOSED DURING THAT MEETING. AND THERE COULD BE MANY MORE. AND THERE LIKELY IS MANY MORE SINCE THAT REPORT AND THAT'S NOT BEING DISCLOSED.
AND I
BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD BRING A CONSULTANT IN BECAUSE IT APPROACHES WHAT'S GOING ON IN THIS COUNTY. WE'RE TURNING INTO A PEDOPHILE SANCTUARY HERE. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR
YOUR TIME. AND THAT CONCLUDES PUBLIC COMMENT. THANK YOU. I'M GOING TO LOOK TO MY CO - CHAIR
FOR COMMENTS. THANK YOU. VERY,
VERY DENSE REPORT. WITH A VERY ROBUST ATTACHMENT, A, JUST THANK YOU FOR THIS WORK AND REALLY HELP WITH AN APPRECIATION FOR HOW MUCH OUR STAFF MANAGES WHEN IT COMES TO LIKE CONTRACTING
AND
SUCH. AND I KNOW THAT IT'S BEEN A THEMATIC REQUEST AND PRIORITY GOAL OVER THE YEARS WHEN IT COMES TO PROCUREMENT CONTRACTING IN TERMS OF HOW TO MARRY THE DATA WE HAVE ON COST, RIGHT?
OUTPUT.
OUTCOMES WITH, WELL, YEAH, OUTPUT WITH OUTCOMES, RIGHT? LIKE WHAT HAPPENS? HOW DO WE MEASURE JUST SUCCESS? HOW DO WE MEASURE ENHANCED OUTCOMES, JUST BETTER OUTCOMES THROUGH THESE PROGRAMMATIC INVESTMENTS AND SUCH? SO I THINK THAT'S GOING TO BE AN EVER EVOLVING CONVERSATION. ALSO SOMETHING THAT WE CONSTANTLY HAVE TO STRIVE FOR.
IN
TERMS OF FORMAT, IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT. CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THAT? YOU MENTIONED A DASHBOARD, SARAH, BECAUSE ALL I DID WAS LOOK AT ATTACHMENT A AND ME AND MY TEAM, IT WAS A GROUP ACTIVITY WHERE WE HAD TO PUT OUR DUAL MONITORS TOGETHER AND HAVE IT EXTENDED TO LOOK AT THE FULL
STRETCH
OF THE SPREADSHEET. SO IT SOUNDS LIKE THERE WAS A ARE YOU SAYING THERE WAS A DASHBOARD
THAT WE COULD HAVE REFERENCED? YES. YOU KNOW WHAT? I REALIZED I FORGOT TO THANK ALL OF THE GEORGE MONTEZ AND THE CONTRACTS TEAM FOR PUTTING ALL THIS TOGETHER. THEY SPENT QUITE A LOT OF WORK ON IT. THE DASHBOARD I WAS REFERRING TO IS A DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION DASHBOARD THAT IS I BELIEVE ATTACHMENT E THAT HAS ALL OF THE DATA ON THE UTILIZATION OF CONTRACTS TO THE EXTENT THAT IT WAS APPROPRIATE AND WE WERE ABLE TO COLLECT THAT. I SEE. SO ANOTHER SLICE OF A
KEY
SLICE OF THE INFORMATION AND JUST REALLY US HAVING TO BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO PUT THESE TOGETHER AS COMPANION PIECES WHEN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE DEPTH AND THE BREADTH OF THESE CONTRACTS AND WHAT TYPE OF OUTCOMES WE'RE GETTING WITH IT. SO ATTACHMENT A IS A PDF DOCUMENT. IT WAS
JUST
SOME FEEDBACK THAT IT WAS TECHNICALLY CHALLENGING AND IT'S ACCESSIBILITY.
SO
I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S ANOTHER DASHBOARD OR IF THERE'S ANOTHER WAY OF BEING ABLE TO QUANTIFY THIS INFORMATION FOR EASE OF ACCESS TO UNDERSTAND ESPECIALLY AS WE HEAD INTO
VERY
ROUGH BUDGETARY TIMES
THAT
IT WOULD BE IT'S GOING TO BE VERY EASY TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THIS INFORMATION AND BE ABLE TO CONTEXTUALIZE IT IN THAT WAY. AND I KEEP ON THINKING ABOUT OUR OPEN DATA PORTAL, LIKE
THAT
WHERE WE HAVE OUR BUDGET INFORMATION, OUR COUNTIES, OUR
WHOLE BUDGET, RIGHT? NOT JUST THE SSA BUDGET. IF THAT'S THE TYPE OF FORMAT, IF THAT'S A TYPE OF PLATFORM THAT WE CAN LEAN INTO THAT'S ALREADY EXISTING IN OUR PLATFORM, THEN THERE'S A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES AND FORMS AND OFFERINGS TO DO THAT.
YEP. WE CAN DEFINITELY EXPLORE THAT.
GRETTA, DO YOU WANT TO? YEAH, I WAS GOING TO SAY, YOU KNOW,
AS
WE MENTIONED IN A COUPLE DIFFERENT CONTEXT, WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF A COUNTYWIDE PROCESS TO LOOK AT SOME OF THOSE CORE SYSTEMS. SOME OF, YOU KNOW, A GOAL FOR ALL THIS WOULD BE TO TRY AND HAVE CENTRALIZED INFRASTRUCTURE THAT ALLOWS FOR ACCESSING OF
SERVICES FOR ONE DEPARTMENT OR ONE AGENCY, ALTHOUGH IT WOULD BE GREAT IF YOU COULD ORGANIZE IT THAT WAY, BUT REALLY ACROSS THE COUNTY, AND I THINK THAT'S PARTICULARLY TRUE WHERE AS
THIS
COMMITTEE IS WELL AWARE, WE HAVE SERVICE PROVIDERS WHO PROVIDE, FOR EXAMPLE, SERVICES THROUGH CONDUCT WITH MULTIPLE DIFFERENT COUNTY DEPARTMENTS, AND SO IN ADDITION TO PRODUCING THE KINDS OF REPORTS WE DID HERE THAT ARE SPECIFIC TO ONE AGENCY, REALLY WHERE
WE'RE
HOPING A LOT OF THE NEW TECHNOLOGY WE'RE ACQUIRING WILL HELP US GO IS JUST WHERE YOU ARE NAMING, WHICH IS TO
REALLY
ENRICH THE PUBLIC -FACING DATA THAT JUST IS AUTOMATICALLY AND CONTINUOUSLY UPDATED. IT'S VERY LABOR INTENSIVE TO PRODUCE THESE KINDS OF POINT IN TIME SNAPSHOTS, AND AS YOU NOTED, THEY DON'T, YOU KNOW, THEY'RE OUT OF DATE THE MINUTE WE ISSUE THEM, AND THEN THEY DON'T ALLOW FOR KIND OF DYNAMIC INTERACTION AND SORTING OF THE DATA, AND SO WE OBVIOUSLY HAVE ALREADY MADE MORE PROGRESS THAN MANY JURISDICTIONS IN GETTING A LOT OF THAT INFORMATION UP AND ACCESSIBLE THROUGH OPEN DATA PORTAL, BUT ARE DEFINITELY LOOKING TO DO SO, AND IT ALSO REDUCES THE TIME AND COST SPENT ON PULLING INDIVIDUALIZED REQUESTS FOR RECORDS, WHICH IS VERY TIME CONSUMING AND SOMETHING THAT WE HAVE A LOT OF STAFF INVOLVED
IN THAT WE CAN AUTOMATE IF THAT INFORMATION IS
JUST GENERALLY ACCESSIBLE ON THE WEB. THANK YOU, GRETHA, FOR THAT. SO THE WORK CONTINUES, AND I JUST WANTED TO EXPRESS MY APPRECIATION. THESE ARE GOING TO BE
REALLY
VERY CRITICAL AND VERY HELPFUL COMPANION DOCUMENTS AS WE HEAD INTO OUR ANNUAL BUDGETING
PROCESS.
THIS IS GOING TO PROVIDE A LOT MORE CONTEXT THAN I THINK ORIGINALLY WE WOULD HAVE HAD. SO CHAIR, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS REQUEST FOR THIS INFORMATION IN THAT SENSE. I 'LL GO AHEAD AND MAKE A MOTION TO RECEIVE REPORT AND THEN CONCLUDE MY COMMENTS.
WONDERFUL. THANK YOU.
SO I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS HERE, KIND OF A MIXTURE OF QUESTIONS, AND THEN I 'LL ADD TO THE MOTION.
SO
I 'LL START WITH SOMETHING THAT WE ACTUALLY PUT ON CONSENT, WHICH IS THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN, AND I'M WONDERING HOW ARE WE REVISING THE CONTRACTS TO BETTER SUPPORT WHAT WE KNOW IS IMPORTANT IN THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT AND THEN ALSO IN THE STRATEGIC
IMPROVEMENT PLAN? HOW ARE WE CONNECTING THE DOTS THERE? I 'LL LET WENDY ELABORATE ON THIS, I THINK. I WILL SAY THAT I 'LL CALL UP KIND OF THE BLEND OF CONTRACTS THAT WE HAVE. SO WE HAVE, YOU KNOW, QUITE A NUMBER OF
CONTRACTS
THAT JUST SUPPORT CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN MANY, MANY DIFFERENT AREAS OF THE DEPARTMENT THAT ARE INTENDED TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES, AND THE SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT PLAN IS VERY CRITICAL IN HELPING US IDENTIFY AND REFINE EXISTING INVESTMENTS. WE ALSO HAVE PROFESSIONAL SERVICE CONTRACTS, AND THAT'S WHERE THROUGH KIND OF THE CHILD WALFARE REFORM, THROUGH THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN, THROUGH JUST
GENERAL
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FROM STAFF TO SUPERVISORS TO MANAGERS TO LEADERSHIP, WE LEVERAGE THOSE, AND OFTENTIMES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE STATE TO HELP US IMPROVE OUR PRACTICE AS A WORKFORCE, BUT I 'LL LET WENDY SPEAK WITH MORE SPECIFICITY TO THE CAP. I THINK YOU SET THE STAGE
NICE, SARAH, FOR THAT, THAT WE MADE SURE THAT ANYTHING LINKED INTO THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN WE HELD TIGHT TO. I WOULD ALSO SAY THAT WE LOOKED AT ALL OF OUR SERVICE CONTRACTS FOR FAMILIES, LOOKING AT IT THROUGH THE LENS OF
MANDATES,
SAFETY AND RISK, AND MAKING SURE THAT WE TETHERED OURSELVES TO THOSE THINGS, AS WELL AS THOSE FAMILIES THAT WE STEPPED DOWN TO THINGS. SO REALLY LOOKING AT FAMILIES HOLISTICALLY THAT'S LINKED INTO THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN BECAUSE WE ARE TETHERED TO NOT HAVING REPEAT MALTREATMENT. SO IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT ONCE A FAMILY HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION HOW ARE THEY WARM HAND OFF TO OTHER SERVICES OR SUPPORT. SO WE WERE VERY MINDFUL OF THAT WHEN WE WENT THROUGH THIS.
SO
LET ME ASK YOU THIS. IF WE KNOW THAT WE WANTED TO FOCUS, BECAUSE WE
DID
FOCUS, WE HAD A POLICY CHANGE FOR CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE OR SIX, AND VERY SPECIFIC TO INFANTS OR BABIES THAT WERE BORN.
AND WITH DRUGS IN THEIR SYSTEM,
HOW ARE THE PROGRAMS CHANGING DOWN BELOW TO RESPOND TO THAT HIGHER NEED? NOW, YOU ELEVATED THE CRITERIA SO THERE'S MORE CHILDREN THAT ARE BEING REVIEWED AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE BECAUSE OF THAT.
YET
I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT TRANSLATES TO FOR SERVICES. SO IS THERE A PARTICULAR PROGRAM THAT IS BEING MADE THAT
THEN
SUPPORTS FAMILIES WHO HAVE BABIES WHO ARE BORN WITH SUBSTANCE USE OR BORN WITH SUBSTANCES IN THEIR SYSTEM TO HELP GARNER OR GAIN THEIR CHILDREN BACK INTO THEIR CARE? HOW SPECIFIC ARE WE IN TERMS OF OUR FUNDING CONNECTED WITH OUR CAP?
THANK YOU FOR THAT QUESTION. AND WHAT I WOULD SAY IS THAT SO FOR ALL OF THE CONTRACTS THAT WE MONITOR WITHIN DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN'S SERVICES WE PAY ATTENTION TO THE UTILIZATION, WHO IS UTILIZING AND WHERE DO WE NEED IT. SPECIFICALLY FOR THE KIDS ZERO TO FIVE THERE WAS HEAVY LEANING IN TO OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH PUBLIC HEALTH AND OUR VISITING PUBLIC HEALTH NURSES. THERE WAS HEAVY LIFT
INTO OUR PARENTING
CLASSES THAT WERE SPECIFIC FOR OUR YOUNGER CHILDREN. SO WE'RE BEING MINDFUL OF WHAT'S OUR CAPACITY. DO WE NEED TO INCREASE CAPACITY? WHAT IS THAT LOOKING LIKE? ALSO LOOKING AT IT THROUGH A RACE AND EQUITY LENS AND MAKING SURE WE'RE MINDFUL OF THAT AS WELL. SO WE MONITOR ACROSS ALL OF THAT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE TAKING A LOOK AT CAPACITY, TAKING A LOOK AT UTILIZATION AND IF WE NEED TO INCREASE IN THAT AREA OR BE MINDFUL OF ANYTHING THAT MAY BE A BARRIER.
CAN I ADD TO THAT TOO? SURE, OF COURSE. THIS REPORT IS VERY, LIKE A VERY FORMAL KIND OF REFERENCE DOCUMENT THAT LEANS HEAVILY INTO JUST SUMMARIZING WHAT'S IN THE AGREEMENTS THEMSELVES AND THEN HOW WE MONITOR IT. BUT I WOULD SAY TOO, JUST ON A DAILY BASIS, THERE'S A LOT OF CONVERSATION THAT GOES ON BETWEEN CHILD WELFARE STAFF AND THE VENDORS AND THE CONTRACTORS TO ADAPT TO KIND OF WHAT WE'RE SEEING AS NEEDS. AS WELL AS WITH OTHER DEPARTMENTS FROM HEALTH AND HOSPITALS TO PUBLIC HEALTH AND
FIRST FIVE. HOW DOES THAT REFLECT IN THE CONTRACTS? I MEAN, IF YOU DON'T TELL THEM, IS IT JUST AN UNDERSTANDING OF THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE SENDING YOU REFERRALS THAT ARE MORE BASED? BUT IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE CAPACITY INTERNALLY, HOW ARE WE GOING TO ACHIEVE THE KIND OF SUPPORT FOR THAT FAMILY IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE SPECIALTY?
SO TWO THINGS. NUMBER ONE, WE WOULD BE ENGAGING THAT CONVERSATION TO HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE TO ANYTHING IN THE CONTRACT. IF THERE WAS SOMETHING NOT IN THE CONTRACT THAT WE NEEDED, THEN WE WOULD BE PARTNERING TO MAKE THOSE MODIFICATIONS IN OUR CONTRACT. AND IF THEY INDICATED TO US THAT THEY NEEDED SOMETHING MORE TO MEET THOSE MANDATES IN THE CONTRACT, WE WOULD PARTNER THROUGH OUR OFFICE OF CONTRACT MONITORING AND OUR COUNTY STAFF TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. IF THEY WERE NOT DELIVERING ON ITEMS THAT WERE IN THE CONTRACT, THEN WE ALSO MIGHT ENTER INTO SOME OTHER TYPE OF AGREEMENT WITH THEM, TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT THOSE BARRIERS ARE.
SO
FOR EXAMPLE, IF THEY WERE NOT MEETING NEEDS AROUND LANGUAGE OR NOT MEETING NEEDS AROUND HOURS NEEDED FOR FAMILIES, THEN WE HAVE A WHOLE PROCESS SET UP TO ENGAGE IN CONVERSATIONS WITH OUR PARTNERS AROUND THAT. AND
MY QUESTION IS, WHAT WERE THOSE MODIFICATIONS? HOW CAN I LOOK AT THIS LIST, BECAUSE IT'S, YOU KNOW, IT'S A LIST OF SERVICE CATEGORIES. HOW CAN I TAKE A LOOK AT THIS LIST AND UNDERSTAND THERE WAS MODIFICATIONS TO, YOU KNOW, THE CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES WITH 52 CONTRACTS WITHIN THAT CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICE. THAT INCREASED WITHIN THEIR CONTRACTS FOCUS ON INFANTS AND TODDLERS. I JUST, I DON'T SEE THE CONNECTION. AND I DON'T KNOW HOW, I UNDERSTAND THAT YOU WOULD DO THAT CONTRACT BY CONTRACT. BUT AS POLICY MAKERS AND THOSE WHO, AND WE ALSO APPROVE THE BUDGETS, HOW AM I TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU MADE THESE MODIFICATIONS WITH THESE SERVICE PROVIDERS AND WHO ARE THE SERVICE PROVIDERS
AND WHAT DID THEY ACTUALLY AGREE TO AUGMENT WITHIN THEIR SERVICES TO ACCOMPLISH WHAT IT IS THAT WE WANTED AND DID THEY ACCOMPLISH IT?
SO,
SUPERVISOR, IT SOUNDS LIKE WHAT WOULD BE HELPFUL IS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION TO SHOW WHAT MODIFICATIONS WERE DONE BASED ON THAT DISCUSSION ABOUT UNDERSTANDING CHANGING NEEDS, CHANGING DIRECTION. RIGHT.
YES. YEAH.
SO I THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE COULD LOOK AT BRINGING BACK WITH SOME OF THAT ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. YEAH, AND
THIS IS CONNECTED TO THE CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN AND, OF COURSE, THE SIP AS WELL. AND, YOU KNOW, I'M GOING TO THROW IN THERE HOUSING BECAUSE THIS IS THE NEXT QUESTION THAT I WAS GOING TO ASK IS, YOU KNOW, HOW ARE WE ALIGNING OUR SSA HOUSING PROGRAMS WITH OCH, WITH THE OFFICE OF SUPPORTIVE HOUSING FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE AT HOME THE HEADING HOME CAMPAIGN AND THE COMMUNITY PLAN AND HOMELESSNESS, AND WHAT ROLE DOES THE OFFICE OF SUPPORTIVE HOUSING PLAY IN REVIEWING THE RFPs? BECAUSE IF THEY ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE THE EXPERTISE IN HOUSING AND THE TYPE OF APPROACHES THAT ARE BEST WORKING FOR OUR FAMILIES, THEY SHOULD HAVE SOME KIND OF PARTICIPATION IN
CHANGING, IN INVOLVING THE
CONTRACT CHANGES OR MODIFICATIONS THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT EARLIER. AND OR THE CONTRACT PERFORMANCE OF TRANSITIONAL HOUSING PROGRAMS THAT ARE CONTRACTED BY SSA. HOW ARE THOSE TWO THINGS, HOW ARE THE TWO DEPARTMENTS WORKING WITH ONE ANOTHER, AND HOW IS OSH HELPING GUIDE US WITH THE KINDS OF PROGRAMS THAT WE SHOULD AUGMENT, DECREASE, DECREASE, THESE ARE THE WAY, THESE ARE THE PATHWAYS THAT ARE PROBABLY MOST HELPFUL TO OUR FAMILIES. DOES THAT MAKE SENSE? YEAH.
I 'LL START THIS OUT AND THEN I 'LL WELCOME ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM OTHERS AT SSA. BUT SO WE WORK VERY, VERY REGULARLY WITH KJ KAMINSKI AND HER STAFF ON THE KIND OF FULL RANGE OF CONTRACTING, SO FROM HELPING THE COMPETITIVE PROCESS TO ACTUALLY SHARING SOME OF THE IN CERTAIN CASES, SHARING SOME OF THE WORK ASSOCIATED WITH UTILIZING THE CONTRACTS BETWEEN SAY FOR EXAMPLE DFCS AND OSH,
MONITORING, SHARING INFORMATION ON IF KIND OF WHAT YOU WERE DESCRIBING BEFORE, SUPERVISOR, WHERE WE NEED TO MODIFY OR ADJUST CONTRACTS BECAUSE WE FEEL LIKE IT'S NOT QUITE MEETING THE NEEDS OF WHATEVER THE POPULATION IS THAT WE'RE WORKING TO SERVE WITH HOUSING BECAUSE WE FEEL LIKE WE NEED TO BE AT REFERRALS OR ACTUAL HOUSING PLACEMENTS. SO THERE'S VERY REGULAR CONVERSATION IN THAT SPACE AND PARTNERSHIP DEPENDING ON WHO THE CLIENT POPULATION IS THAT WE'RE TRYING TO FOCUS ON. FOR EXAMPLE, WE 'VE BEEN TALKING QUITE A BIT RECENTLY AROUND HOUSING FOR YOUNG ADULTS THAT HAVE BEEN OR ARE CURRENTLY IN THE FOSTER USE SYSTEM AND HOW DO WE WORK TOGETHER AS TWO DEPARTMENTS TO ENSURE THAT WE'RE LEVERAGING
ALL OF OUR AVAILABLE FUNDING AND CONTRACTED RESOURCES TO MEET THOSE NEEDS. SO I THINK IT'S A PRETTY HOLISTIC APPROACH TO TRY TO LEVERAGE ALL AVAILABLE FUNDING ACROSS DEPARTMENTS WHEN THERE'S OPPORTUNITIES OR EXISTING FUNDING. SO I 'LL LET WENDY OR DANIEL ADD TO THAT BUT THAT'S BEEN MY EXPERIENCE AND WE CAN CERTAINLY IDENTIFY FOR YOU FOLLOWING UP TO THIS MEETING WHICH OF THE AGREEMENTS OR CONTRACTS ARE HOUSING AND GIVE YOU SOME NOTES ON HOW WE 'VE PARTNERED ON THOSE
FUNDINGS. NO, I
REALLY APPRECIATE AND THANK YOU. I MEAN, THE HEADING HOME CAMPAIGN ALONE IN AND OF ITSELF IS RESPONSIVE TO FAMILIES, RIGHT? BUT I BELIEVE THAT CAME FROM THE BOARD, RIGHT, IN TERMS OF DIRECTION. AND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR IS THE DIRECTION THAT YOU ALL LEAD EACH OTHER IN WHEN, YOU KNOW, I SIT ON HEWLETT AND I SEE THE STATISTICS, THE DATA, AND I SEE CONSISTENTLY HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD WHERE THE MOST IMPACTED ARE WOMEN, SINGLE WOMEN WITH CHILDREN, TYPICALLY LATINAS, AND SO THEN IF WE KNOW THAT THAT'S THE DATA ON A REPEATED, YOU KNOW, ON AN ONGOING BASIS, HOW ARE WE
ADJUSTING OUR CONTRACTS SO THAT WE CAN MAKE SURE THAT IT'S THE RIGHT, CONTINUES TO BE THE RIGHT APPROACH BECAUSE OTHERWISE WE 'LL FIND THAT MAYBE THE CONTRACTS ARE JUST NOT USING THE FOLKS ARE JUST NOT USING THE FUNDING IN THE SAME WAY.
IT, IT, I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW DO EACH OF YOUR SYSTEMS, BECAUSE YOUR SYSTEMS ARE VERY COMPLEX ON BOTH SIDES OF IT, HOUSING ISN'T EVEN HERE BUT I'M DEFAULTING ON THIS SIDE OF HOUSING, BUT HOW DO WE EACH SYSTEM FEED EACH OTHER SO THAT THERE ISN'T WASTE, YOU KNOW, WE ARE GOING TO CONTINUE TO TRIM THE FAT, AND SO TO ME THIS KIND OF STRATEGIC COORDINATION IS REALLY IMPORTANT. SO FOR EXAMPLE, THERE WAS, THERE WAS AMIGOS DE GUADALUPE THAT HAD FUNDING I THINK FOR 962 ,000, BUT THEY USED 823 WITH 761, SO 86 % OF THE AMOUNT, AND THIS WAS FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES NEEDING ASSISTANCE FOR RAPID REHOUSING OR FAMILIES WHO WERE AT RISK
OF HOMELESSNESS. SO THIS CONTRACT I'M GUESSING WOULD BE THEN REDUCED TO ALIGN WITH CURRENT NEEDS OR IS IT BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT OR THEY HAVE MAXED OUT IN TERMS OF THEIR STAFF CAPACITY TO REACH THE FAMILIES? I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WOULD BE UNDER UTILIZATED. I WOULD EXPECT THAT TO BE AT 100 BECAUSE OUR FAMILIES ARE HURTING OUT THERE, RIGHT? I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD LEAVE NOT ONE DOLLAR ON THE TABLE. SO I GUESS I'M REALLY CONFUSED. YEAH,
I CAN SPEAK GENERICALLY TO THAT AND I DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE CAN SPEAK SPECIFICALLY TO THE AMIGOS DE GUADALUPE CONTRACT. IN GENERAL, I THINK YOU SHOULD EXPECT TO SEE FOR A LOT OF CONTRACTS FOR DIRECT SERVICE PROVISION NEAR 100 % BUT NOT ACTUALLY HITTING 100 % PARTICIPATION OR UTILIZATION OF THE CONTRACT FUNDS BECAUSE WE DO TRY TO FUND CONTRACTS GENERALLY UP TO THE CAPACITY THAT WE THINK WILL BE UTILIZED WITH A LITTLE BIT OF CUSHION MORE IN CASE THEY ARE ABLE TO SERVE MORE FAMILIES. SO WE WILL SEE ALSO CONTRACTORS MANAGING WITHIN THEIR MAXIMUM FINANCIAL OBLIGATION TO GET TO THE END OF THE YEAR. SO THERE'S A LOT OF WORK THAT'S DONE ON THE CONTRACTOR'S
END TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T GO OVER BUDGET ON A PROGRAM WHICH CAN SOMETIMES RESULT IN THEM GETTING CLOSE TO THAT TOP NUMBER BUT NOT FULLY UTILIZING IT BECAUSE THEY THEN CAN'T GO OVER BUDGET AND END UP NOT HAVING THEIR SERVICES COVERED. SO SOMETIMES THERE'S TIMING CHALLENGES OR SOMETIMES IT WILL BE THAT FOR VARIOUS PROGRAMS TAKE WRAP AROUND SERVICES IS A GOOD EXAMPLE. IF WE THINK THAT THEY'RE GOING TO A PARTICULAR CONTRACTOR IS GOING TO SERVE 20 KIDS, SOME KIDS MAY NEED $100 ,000 WORTH OF SERVICES, SOME KIDS MAY NEED $27 ,000 WORTH OF SERVICES, SOME KIDS MAY NEED $80 ,000 WORTH OF SERVICES OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR SO IT CAN ALSO MEAN
THAT THEY'RE AT FULL CAPACITY BUT THE NEEDS OF EACH OF THE NUMBER OF FAMILIES THEY SERVED DIDN'T BRING THEM TO THAT FULL CONTRACTED AMOUNT SO IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHEN YOU JUST SEE THESE HIGH LEVEL NUMBERS WHAT'S THE REASON DRIVING FULL OR NOT FULL UTILIZATION OF A CONTRACTOR. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO CONTRACT BECAUSE IT CAN BE A WIDE VARIETY OF FACTORS. BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT WOULD CONSIDER REDUCING A CONTRACT THEY WOULD LOOK AT THOSE THINGS. FOR EXAMPLE, IF IT HAPPENED TO BE AN ABERRATIONALLY, LET'S SAY IT'S A CONTRACTOR PROVIDING WRAPAROUND SERVICES AND THEY GET A MAXIMUM OF 15 KIDS EACH YEAR AND THEY HAPPEN TO HAVE A YEAR WHERE THE NEEDS OF THOSE INDIVIDUAL KIDS
AND FAMILIES ARE SLIGHTLY LOWER THAN THE 15 KIDS AND FAMILIES THEY SERVED THE PRIOR YEAR, WE'D NOT WANT TO REDUCE THEIR CONTRACT FOR THE FOLLOWING YEAR BASED ON THE FACT THAT THEY HAPPENED TO SERVE FAMILIES THAT NEEDED A LITTLE BIT LESS. SO THERE CAN BE FACTORS LIKE THAT WHERE WE 'LL SEE SLIGHTLY LOWER THAN FULL UTILIZATION BUT DON'T GO FORWARD WITH A REDUCTION. CONVERSELY, WE CAN SAY, HMM, YOU KNOW, THIS PROVIDER SEEMS TO BE CREATING GREATER EFFICIENCIES. THEY USED TO NEED THIS AMOUNT. THEY 'VE BEEN ABLE TO FIGURE OUT A BETTER MODEL TO DELIVER THE SAME AMOUNT OF SERVICE AND SO THEY'RE NOT FULLY UTILIZING THEIR COST REIMBURSEMENT CONTRACT. WE CAN'T LOWER IT. WELL,
IN YOUR UTILIZATION REPORT, THIS IS WHAT I READ FROM YOUR UTILIZATION REPORT. IT SAYS DFCS HAD MORE HOMELESS FAMILIES NEEDING ASSISTANCE FOR RAPID REHOUSING THAN FAMILIES WHO WERE AT RISK OF HOMELESSNESS. BUT THAT IN AND OF ITSELF IS CONCERNING BECAUSE EITHER FAMILIES ARE WAITING TO LOSE OR ARE LOSING THEIR HOMES OR LOSING THE PLACE WHERE THEY'RE LIVING, WHICH ALLOWS THEM TO BE IT ALSO TELLS US THEN
PREVENTION ALSO NEEDS AN ADJUSTMENT, RIGHT? SO THEN IF MORE FAMILIES ARE NEEDING ASSISTANCE FOR RAPID REHOUSING, THAT ALSO MEANS THERE NEEDS TO BE AN ADJUSTMENT THAN FAMILIES WHO WERE AT RISK OF HOMELESSNESS. AND I GUESS I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW IT IS THAT YOU ALL ARE FINE -TUNING THESE CONTRACTS.
BECAUSE THERE ARE A LOT OF CONTRACTS. THERE BEARS A QUESTION ABOUT, OKAY, WELL, MAYBE YOU 'LL, IT SAYS HERE THE CONTRACT WILL BE REDUCED TO ALIGN WITH CURRENT NEEDS. BUT THEN TO ME THERE IS A VERY QUESTION THAT IS, YOU KNOW, IS BEGGING TO BE ASKED AND IT IS WHY? WHY ARE THERE MORE FAMILIES NEEDING AN ASSISTANCE FOR RAPID REHOUSING? THEN THAT MEANS OUR PREVENTION
PROGRAMS ARE NOT EFFECTIVE, ARE NOT ENOUGH. WE NEED MORE, YOU KNOW, WHAT IS IT THAT IS NOT HAPPENING THAT NOW WE NEED TO INVEST IN RAPID REHOUSING?
I WANTED TO ANSWER, I THINK, THE QUESTION ABOUT THE UTILIZATION. BECAUSE I THINK THIS ONE WAS A LITTLE BIT MORE COMPLEX, TOO, BECAUSE THIS WAS A STATE PROGRAM THAT THE STATE KEPT KIND OF TEASING THAT THEY WERE GOING TO CUT. SO I THINK THAT THERE WAS SOME UNCERTAINTY ABOUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUNDING WAS GOING TO BE YEAR TO YEAR, WHICH CAUSED SOME, I THINK, ADDITIONAL CONCERNS AT THE PROVIDER LEVEL, TO GRETA'S POINT ABOUT SPENDING, BECAUSE THIS WAS A PROGRAM THAT THE STATE KEPT AT THE INITIAL BUDGET KEPT SAYING WAS GOING TO GET CUT EVERY YEAR. SO I THINK THAT ADDED A LITTLE BIT TO THIS ONE AS WELL.
OKAY. GOT IT.
YET WE STILL ARE ACKNOWLEDGING THIS, THIS, THIS, THERE'S A RECOGNITION FROM YOUR SYSTEM, FROM THE SYSTEM, TO SAY THAT THERE'S MORE FAMILIES THAT NEED RAPID REHOUSING. SO WHERE DOES THAT CONVERSATION TAKE PLACE TO FIGURE OUT WHY? YOU KNOW, THIS IS, AND I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND, MAYBE THE SERVICE PROVIDERS HAD SOME CONSTERNATION ABOUT HOW TO SPEND THE DOLLARS AND WHERE THEY'RE GOING TO COME UP, BUT TO ME, I'M STILL A LITTLE CONCERNED. BUT I CAN MOVE ON AND WE CAN TAKE THE QUESTION A LITTLE BIT OFF LINE, OR ACTUALLY I 'LL MAKE WITHIN A MOTION, I 'LL MAKE A I 'LL ADDRESS
IT. GO AHEAD. SURE. I WAS GOING TO JUST ADD ONE THING, WHICH IS YOU ASKED EARLIER KIND OF WHO'S TAKING THE LEAD IN ASSESSING WHERE WE PUT FUNDING AS A COUNTY ORGANIZATION BROADLY, BOTH FUNDING THAT MIGHT COME THROUGH DFCS TO THE COUNTY OR THROUGH OSH, AND I WOULD SAY OSH IS DEFINITELY AT THE LEAD OF TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS THE RIGHT WAY TO ALLOCATE FUNDING BETWEEN, FOR EXAMPLE, RAPID REHOUSING VERSUS PREVENTION SERVICES, AND I THINK THEY CAN ALSO SPEAK THOUGHTFULLY ABOUT HOW WE CAN HAVE FAMILIES, FOR EXAMPLE, WHO ARE FACING EVICTION,
AND
IN ONE INSTANCE YOU MIGHT HAVE A FAMILY FACING EVICTION WHO IF WE CAN HELP CATCH THEM UP ON BACK RENT THROUGH OUR HOMELESS PREVENTION SERVICES MAY BE ABLE TO STAY IN THAT UNIT, AND THEN OTHER FAMILIES WHO WHEN THEY COME TO US, THEIR LANDLORD HAS ALREADY PROCEEDED PRETTY FAR DOWN THE EVICTION ROUTE AND THEY ARE GOING TO NEED RAPID REHOUSING. SO I THINK WE CAN DEFINITELY GET BACK TO YOU WITH A LOT MORE INFORMATION ON HOW WE CAN DETERMINE HOW OSH APPROACHES THE PROCESS OF DETERMINING HOW MUCH MONEY GETS ALLOCATED TO EACH PROGRAM, KNOWING THAT UNFORTUNATELY WE'RE IN A POSITION WHERE WE ACTUALLY WOULD LOVE TO ALLOCATE MORE MONEY IN EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY, BUT IT
IS REALLY DIFFICULT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS THE BEST APPROACH OF ALLOCATING THE LIMITED FUNDS WE DO HAVE BETWEEN THE VARIOUS CATEGORIES. I THINK WE'RE REALLY ENCOURAGED AT THE TREMENDOUS VALUE WE'RE GETTING OUT OF THE
HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION SERVICES,
SO
WE'RE TRYING
AS
BEST WE CAN TO SPEND AS MUCH MONEY THERE AS WE CAN, BECAUSE WE KNOW WE CAN SERVE MORE FAMILIES, PREVENT MORE FAMILY AND CHILD HOMELESSNESS WITH DOLLARS SPENT THERE THAN JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE ELSE, BUT IT ALSO MEANS WE HAVE TO CATCH PEOPLE EARLY ENOUGH ON THAT TRAJECTORY TO BE ABLE TO SPEND THAT LESSER AMOUNT OF MONEY TO PREVENT THEM FROM FALLING OUT OF HOUSING.
EXACTLY. YES,
GRETA, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY POINT WAS.
IT'S
NOT THAT WE JUST NEED TO SHIFT THE MONEY AROUND, BECAUSE THE
QUESTION
IS, WHY AREN'T WE CATCHING THEM EARLIER, OR HOW CAN WE CATCH THEM EARLIER? AND, YEAH, AND MAYBE WHY NOT?
IS
THERE SOMETHING IN OUR SYSTEM THAT IS PREVENTING US FROM
CONNECTING WITH THOSE FAMILIES OR KNOWING ABOUT THOSE FAMILIES? AND I THINK THAT'S A VERY FAIR POINT, RIGHT? WE MAY NOT HAVE THE KIND OF CONTACT WITH THOSE FAMILIES, AND SO THEY 'VE NEVER TOUCHED THE SYSTEM.
MAYBE
THE PILOTS, YOU KNOW, DEMONSTRATION SAYS, I DON'T KNOW,
BUT
NOT KNOWING IS PART OF MY QUESTION THERE. I 'LL GO AHEAD AND MOVE ON, AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT FEEDBACK.
THIS
IS UNDER,
SO
I TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT CHILD WELFARE REFORM, THE HOUSING.
I'M
GOING TO MOVE ON TO WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT, AND SO I'M HOPING THAT I CAN GET MORE INFORMATION ON THE DEB'S FUNDING TO COLLEGE DISTRICTS,
AND
THIS IS IMPORTANT, BECAUSE I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT IN PARTICULAR TO THE WORK STUDY PROGRAMS, AND THERE WASN'T FULL UTILIZATION OF THE FUNDS, AND I'M REALLY CONCERNED AND WONDERING WHY, BECAUSE NOW THEY'RE GOING TO BE NEED,
THERE'S
GOING TO BE A NEED TO BE REDUCED, BUT IT MAY NOT GET TO THE PROBLEM, WHICH IS MAYBE CAPACITY AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL TO ACTUALLY IMPLEMENT THOSE WORK PROGRAMS. OR I DON'T KNOW SITES WHERE THE STUDENTS CAN WORK AT. I DON'T KNOW EXACTLY HOW THE PROGRAMS WORK, BUT BOTH OF THESE ARE IN GAVALON AND THEN SAN JOSE CITY SLASH EVERGREEN COLLEGE, AND SO I KNOW OUR STUDENTS ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR JOBS. HOW CAN WE BETTER UTILIZE INSTEAD OF JUST HAVING A REDUCTION IN GAVALON AND SAN JOSE CITY?
HOW CAN WE FULLY UTILIZE THE WORK STUDY COMPONENTS THERE?
OKAY. I CAN START WITH THIS. ELONA IS OUR EMPLOYMENT BENEFIT SERVICES DIRECTOR WHO IS NOT HERE TODAY, SO WHAT AND ALSO I WANT TO FLAG THAT UNFORTUNATELY WE DON'T HAVE THIS YEAR'S NUMBERS WITH US, SO I THINK IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE WITH THOSE TWO CONTRACTS IN THIS FISCAL YEAR AND SEE IF THIS MAY HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH, I DON'T KNOW THE HISTORY OF THESE SPECIFIC CONTRACTS, BUT I
APPRECIATE FLAGGING THIS BECAUSE WE DO HAVE, I THINK, I WOULD DESCRIBE STRONG PARTNERSHIPS WITH THOSE COLLEGES, AND SO I THINK TWO THINGS. ONE, I WANT TO LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE WITH THIS AND HAVE ELONA WEIGH IN ON IT AND HER TEAM. AND THEN THE SECOND PIECE WOULD BE IF WE'RE SEEING CONTINUED TRENDS AND NOT USING THESE FULLY, I THINK THAT'S A REALLY GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR PARTNERSHIP. WE STILL HAVE A LOT OF CONTRACTS, BUT I WANT TO LOOK AT A LITTLE UNDER HALF THE YEAR AND SEE IF WE CAN UTILIZE THEM FULLY THIS YEAR.
ABSOLUTELY. I MEAN, WITH THE LEVEL OF POVERTY IN SOUTH COUNTY, I KNOW THAT THEY CAN MAX OUT, BUT THESE ARE THE KINDS OF THINGS THAT, YOU KNOW, I ASKED FOR THIS REPORT, BUT WE DON'T GET THIS AS POLICYMAKERS, WE DON'T GET THIS SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO PUT PRESSURE WHERE PRESSURE IS NEEDED IN TERMS OF THE POLICYMAKERS, BECAUSE THAT'S PART OF THE ROLE THAT I TAKE, THAT I WANT TO CONTINUE TO TAKE IS JUST UNDERSTANDING. I HAVE GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH FOLKS FROM THOSE COLLEGES JUST AS WELL, AND IT'S JUST A MATTER OF UNDERSTANDING AND MAYBE JUST PROMPTING FOLKS, RIGHT? BECAUSE IT'S NOT A LEVEL OF CRITICISM, AND IT COULD BE A MATTER
OF JUST CAPACITY, RIGHT? AND UNFORTUNATELY, THAT TRANSLATES INTO, YOU KNOW, LESS OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR KIDS TO HAVE A JOB, TO HAVE THAT STREAM OF INCOME THAT COULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR THEM AND FOR THEIR FAMILIES, TO BE HONEST WITH YOU. I THINK A LOT OF KIDDOS CAN'T WORK ON THEIR, I MEAN, CAN'T LIVE ON THEIR OWN AND ARE JUST LIVING WITH FAMILY MEMBERS AT THIS POINT. OKAY. SO THAT'S WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT. I'M GOING TO MOVE ON TO THE SUPPORT SERVICES FOR KIDS. AND SO IN THIS ONE, I'M GOING TO SHARE MORE ABOUT THE APPROACH THAT WE'RE SERVING FOR KIDS WHO ARE EXPERIENCING ACES AND GETTING CALLS TO THE CANN CENTER AND HOW ARE WE ENSURING THERE'S
A SMOOTH PIPELINE OF GETTING SERVICES TO A CHILD?
ARE WE PROVIDING SUPPORTS LIKE AFTER -SCHOOL CARE, TUTORING, CAMP SPORTS PROGRAMS AND OTHER PROGRAMS THAT CAN SET UP A CHILD TO EXPERIENCE THOSE POSITIVE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES? AND WHAT I SAW, YOU KNOW, IS THAT THE CATEGORIES OF FUNDING ARE REALLY FOCUSED ON THE ADULTS OF THE FAMILY AND FOSTER CARE CHILDREN, WHICH I THINK IS VERY LEGITIMATE WAYS TO INVEST AND TO SPEND ON OUR FAMILIES. BUT WHAT I'M SEEING IS THAT THERE ISN'T THIS, AND, YOU KNOW, WE 'VE SEEN THIS ALSO THROUGH THE CHILD WELFARE REFORM, IS THAT THERE AREN'T ENOUGH SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR THOSE CHILDREN WHO ARE BEING ABUSED, WHO ARE IN OUR, WE RECOGNIZE IN OUR SYSTEMS SO THAT THEY CAN ALSO AUGMENT THEIR POSITIVE
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES.
SO HOW ARE WE APPROACHING THAT?
SO ONE OF THE REASONS IT MAY NOT REFLECT FULLY IN THIS REPORT ABOUT ALL THE SERVICES FOR CHILDREN IS BECAUSE WE ARE LEVERAGING AND NOT DUPLICATING ANYTHING THAT WE MIGHT BE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE SCHOOLS OR WITH PARTNER CBOs AND WITH BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES. BUT I WILL TELL YOU THAT WE HAVE A DIRECT PIPELINE YOU MENTIONED OUT OF OUR HOTLINE FOR ALL FAMILIES THAT ARE EVALUATE OUTS OR NONREPORTS. THOSE FAMILIES ARE SUPPORTED BY OUR PROVIDERS WHO ARE SAFE PROVIDERS, SO SUPPORTING ALL FAMILIES EQUITABLY. SO THEY OUTREACH IN THE COMMUNITIES TO THE FAMILIES AND THEN CONNECT THEM TO WHATEVER IS IN THAT. SO THAT'S WHY WE HAVE A RESPONSE AREA AND DO CASE PLANS AND NEEDS
ASSESSMENTS FOR THOSE FAMILIES. IF I HAVE AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE WORKER GO OUT AND IT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT RISES TO THE LEVEL OF OUR INTERVENTION, THOSE FAMILIES ARE CONNECTED TO OUR COMMUNITY -BASED PROVIDERS FOR DIFFERENT RESPONSE. SAME THING, VERY HOLISTIC, WHAT DOES THE FAMILY NEED? AND IT'S CONNECTED AROUND THE YOUTH'S NEED, THE CHILD'S NEEDS AND THE PARENT'S NEEDS. AND SO THAT'S WHY YOU MIGHT NOT SEE ALL OF THAT IN THIS REPORT THE WAY IT'S WRITTEN TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ARE HAVING THE SERVICES TO THE CHILDREN UPSTREAM INTO THE COMMUNITY. ALSO THE SOCIAL WORKERS CAN MAKE CONNECTIONS DIRECTLY TO ANY COMMUNITY -BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND PARTNER WITH ALL OF OUR FRCs AS WELL AS NSU AS WELL.
GOT
IT. IT IS JUST REALLY DIFFICULT TO EXTRACT THAT FROM THESE SERVICE CATEGORIES AND I'M WONDERING IF THERE'S ANY WAY THAT WE CAN CREATE THAT. I THINK WE CAN CREATE THIS TABLE IN A WAY THAT ALLOWS FOR US, FOR THE BOARD MEMBERS TO APPRECIATE THAT SO THAT WE CAN HAVE ENGAGEMENT SERVICES ASSESSMENTS OR TREATMENT PLANNING OR CASE MANAGEMENT OR ALL OF THE SERVICES THAT YOU ARE LISTED OFF RIGHT NOW. I JUST DON'T SEE THEM. I DON'T SEE THEM. I'M NOT SAYING BECAUSE I DON'T SEE THEM THEY DON'T EXIST. BUT I DID HEAR LOUD AND CLEAR THAT THERE ARE SOME SERVICES THAT THEY WERE MISSING WHEN WE WERE GOING THROUGH THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM. THERE WAS JUST
NOT ENOUGH FOCUS ON THE CHILDREN AS MUCH AS THERE WAS FOCUS ON THE PARENTS AND I GET WHY BECAUSE WE WANT TO HAVE SOME BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION FROM THE PARENTS WHO ARE ABUSING THE CHILDREN BUT THERE NEEDS TO BE IN THE SAME LIGHT THE KINDS OF PROGRAMS AND SERVICES TO SUPPORT THEM. SO
THIS IS ACTUALLY VERY HELPFUL TO HEAR THIS FEEDBACK ON HOW WE COULD BETTER LOOK AT THE DATA IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE INVESTMENTS. I THINK ONE RESOURCE THAT IS HELPFUL IN STARTING TO ANSWER SOME OF THE QUESTIONS NOT COMPREHENSIVELY BUT STARTING TO ANSWER IS THE CHILDREN'S BUDGET BECAUSE A LOT OF CARE WAS TAKEN IN THAT DOCUMENT TO COME UP WITH CATEGORIES. SO IT'S NOT GOING TO GIVE YOU THE CONTRACT INFORMATION BUT WHAT WE COULD DO IS LOOK AT THOSE CATEGORIES AND START TO THINK ABOUT CAN WE APPLY THESE FOR THE PORTFOLIO OF CONTRACTS IN SSA. AND ENCOURAGE OTHER DEPARTMENTS TO DO THE SAME BECAUSE TO WENDY'S POINT, A LOT OF THE PROGRAMS AND SERVICES THAT
WE MIGHT LEVERAGE ARE NOT JUST SSA PROGRAMS BUT OBVIOUSLY BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AND PROBATION. THERE'S A NICE TRIANGLE THERE. WE RELY ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND THEN OF COURSE OUR EXTERNAL PARTNERS WHICH IS MORE CHALLENGING TO KIND OF DOCUMENT BUT I THINK STARTING TO LOOK AT WHAT MIGHT BE BETTER CATEGORIES THAT WE COULD USE TO UNDERSTAND KIND OF WHAT IS GOING TO BE THE NATURE OF THE SERVICES IS AN IMPORTANT EXERCISE AND WE CAN DEFINITELY THINK ABOUT HOW TO DO THAT BETTER AND WORK ON THAT. I
DO SEE PREVENTION AND, YOU KNOW, WITH PROBATION AS WELL, I JUST DON'T SEE THE KIND OF INTERVENTIONS FOR THE CPS RELATED KIDS. AND THAT, YOU KNOW, I THINK THERE'S THAT SPACE BETWEEN WHEN WE SEE THEM OR WHEN THEY MAKE CONTACT WITH OUR SYSTEM AND IF WE MANAGE TO ACTUALLY SUBSTANTIATE THAT ABUSE AND WHEN THEY TOUCH THE SYSTEM ONCE AGAIN
IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM, THERE TO ME IS AN OPPORTUNITY IN BETWEEN TO PROVIDE MORE INTERVENTION OR SUPPORTIVE SERVICES. SO I THINK WE NEED TO DO THAT IN A MORE MEANINGFUL WAY BECAUSE WE ARE BASICALLY WAITING FOR THOSE KIDS TO JUST COME BACK TO US.
AND I 'LL TELL YOU THAT SOME OF THE PROFILE OF KIDS THAT I 'VE SEEN WITHIN PROBATION AND IN THEIR PREVENTION PROGRAMS WERE NOT HIGH RISK. THEY WEREN'T HIGH RISK KIDS.
AND
I 'LL GO BACK TO AND I 'LL DEFAULT IT AGAIN.
IT
IS SO MUCH EASIER TO SERVE THOSE KIDS WHO ARE SHOWING UP. BUT THE KIDS WHO ARE SHOWING UP ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE KIDS THAT NEED THE SERVICES. AND SO HOW DO WE DO THE DEEP DIVE OR THE DEEP OUTREACH AND CONNECTION TO SOME OF THOSE KIDDOS THAT ARE GOING TO TAKE A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME, MORE INVESTMENT, IT'S GOING TO BE A BIT MORE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO REALLY ROUND THEM UP IN A WAY AND INVEST IN RELATIONSHIPS. BUT IN THE END, WE ARE GOING TO
BE ABLE TO PREVENT THEM FROM STEPPING INTO THOSE
JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS,
REALLY SAVING OUR SYSTEM DOLLARS AND
THE
LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN, THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND TRAJECTORY THAT THEY CAN TAKE.
I
JUST DON'T SEE IT.
I
DON'T SEE THE CONNECTION. I HAVE BEEN DELVING INTO THE PROVATION. YOU KNOW, I HAVE BEEN DELVING INTO THIS END OF THE POOL HERE.
I
JUST DON'T SEE WHERE. I CAN'T SEE IT.
I'M
NOT SAYING IT DOESN'T EXIST, BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW WE ARE PROVIDING SERVICES FOR THOSE KIDDOS, AND I FEEL LIKE THEY JUST FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS. OKAY. SO I'M GOING TO MOVE ON TO THE UPCOMING COMPETITIVE PROCESS SOLICITATIONS. AND SO HERE I'M AT THE STAFF REPORT ASKING IF WE COULD PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND WHERE WE ARE IN THE SOLICITATION PROCESS FOR THE SEVEN SOLICITATIONS THAT ARE DESCRIBED IN THE STAFF REPORT. AND IF YOU COULD PLEASE EXPLAIN THE FOOTNOTE WHERE THAT LEAVES THE PROGRAMS THAT WERE DEFERRED AND ONLY MENTIONED IN THE FOOTNOTE, WHICH IS CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE TREATMENT, WRAPAROUND SERVICES, KINSHIP AND SUPPORT SERVICES, AND INTEGRATED VISITATION SERVICES. AND I THINK THE TOP THREE TOTAL NUMBER
WAS 18.
BUT ONLY SEVEN ARE DESCRIBED.
SO IF YOU COULD SHARE A LITTLE BIT. AND IF YOU CAN'T NOW,
BECAUSE
OF COURSE I'M JUST ASKING ON THE SPOT, I CAN PUT THAT IN A MOTION AND THEN WE CAN HAVE THAT
ADDRESSED.
YEAH. SO SUPERVISOR, THAT'S AN EXCELLENT QUESTION. SINCE THIS IS LAST YEAR, I THINK WE DO NEED TO COME BACK AND LOOK AT THE STATUS OF ALL OF THESE SERVICES. WITH A LENS OF THE CURRENT FISCAL YEAR, IF THAT
WORKS. OKAY. PERFECT. I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP JUST COUNTY PROCESS. I LOVE IT. SO I THINK WHAT THIS IS REFERRING TO HERE, BUT I 'LL LEAVE ROOM FOR THE ACTUAL ANSWER, IS THAT THE CONTRACTS THAT WERE ALREADY IN EXISTENCE FOR THOSE SERVICES GOT AN EXCEPTION TO THE COMPETITIVE PROCUREMENT PROCESS. SO THEY EXTENDED THEM FOR AN ADDITIONAL YEAR. ALLOWING FOR MORE TIME FOR THE SOLICITATION TO BE DONE. THAT CAN BE DONE FOR, I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE CASE WAS FOR THESE CONTRACTS, BUT IT CAN BE DONE FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS.
MAYBE THERE'S PARTICULAR NEED FOR THE DEPARTMENT TO HAVE CONTINUITY OF PARTICULAR SERVICES, MAYBE THERE'S A LACK OF VENDORS, BUT IT'S NOT THAT THE SERVICES AREN'T BEING PROVIDED, IT'S JUST WHEN IS THE SOLICITATION COMING OUT.
OKAY. ALL RIGHT. SO I 'LL GO AHEAD AND ASK FOR A LITTLE BIT MORE INFORMATION ON THAT, BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT. OKAY. SO I'M GOING TO ADD TO THE MOTION, CO -CHAIR, AND I CAN ALSO GIVE A COPY OF THIS TO CAMILLE IF WE MISS ANYTHING.
THE
MOTION IS, OR THE ADDITION IS TO REQUEST THAT SSA PROVIDE MONTHLY REPORTS TO, TO REPORTS THAT GO INTO EACH CATEGORY OF FUNDING CLUSTERED IN TEN REPORTS THAT CLUSTER SIMILAR SERVICES TOGETHER FOR A MORE DETAILED REPORT AND DISCUSSIONS. FOR EXAMPLE, THE SERVICE CATEGORIES OF TRANSITIONAL HOUSING PROGRAM AND HOUSING SHOULD BE HEARD TOGETHER. AND ONE OF THOSE TEN REPORTS PROVIDE INFORMATION ON PROGRAMS FOR KIDS WITH CHILD WELFARE REFERRALS AND OTHER ACES, SIMILAR TO DIRECT SERVICES FOR KIDS, BUT NOT OVERALL FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS. SPECIFICALLY INCLUDE PRO -SOCIAL PROGRAMS OFFERED TO KIDS WITH CAN CENTER REPORTS, INVOLUNTARY DIFFERENTIAL RESPONSE AND OR COURT SUPERVISED PROGRAMS. ALSO REPORT ON THE PROCESS FOR CHILDREN WITH CHILD WELFARE REFERRALS TO ACCESS THE SSA
CONTRACTED SERVICES AND WHICH ONES ARE ELIGIBLE FOR. PROVIDE CLEAR NUMERICAL TRACKING OF NUMBER OF KIDS IN THESE SUPERVISION PROGRAMS, WHICH CONTRACTS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR AND WHICH PROGRAMS ARE REPORTING CONTRACT DELIVERABLES OF SERVING THESE KIDS. SO REALLY KIND OF CONNECTING THOSE DOTS. SECOND IS TO INCLUDE IN FUTURE REPORTS ON CORRECTIVE ACTS ACTION PLAN AND THE STRATEGIC IMPROVEMENT PLAN INFORMATION ON HOW DFCS CONTRACTS ARE BEING ALIGNED WITH COMMITMENTS TO THE BOARD AND THE STATE.
THE THIRD ONE IS TO PROVIDE AN OFF AGENDA REPORT ON SSA COLLABORATION WITH
OTHER
DEPARTMENTS SUCH AS PROBATION, OSH AND PARKS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTRACTS WHERE MORE THAN ONE DEPARTMENT HAS ROLE OR SPECIALIZED SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE. I WOULD EVEN INCLUDE THE PUBLIC DEFENDER AND DISTRICT ATTORNEY
ASSOCIATE
IF NEED BE.
THE
FOURTH IS TO REQUEST AN OFF AGENDA REPORT FOR WHICH AGENCY IS CONTRACTED TO SUPPORT SOUTH COUNTY FOR EACH SERVICE AREA. AND LASTLY IT'S TO REQUEST ADMINISTRATION PROVIDE THIS COMMITTEE WITH A REPORT ON THE UPCOMING SOLICITATIONS WHILE STILL IN DRAFT FORM THAT THE COMMITTEE HAS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR OVERSIGHT OF ALIGNMENT WITH COUNTY POLICY AND TO REQUEST THAT THE GEOGRAPHIC AND POLITICAL COVERAGE BASED ON NEED DATA IS DISCUSSED AND REPORTED IN THE SOLICITATION PROCESS. THAT'S
MY MOTION.
VERY ROBUST MOTION, YES. SO SORRY, SELVIA, YOU WERE READING THROUGH THAT IN SOME PARTS PRETTY FAST SO IT WAS A LITTLE HARD FOR ME TO FOLLOW. BUT I'M HOPING THAT OUR COLLEAGUES ON THE DAY WAS
CAPTURED MOST OF IT. I'D LOVE TO GET YOUR FEEDBACK IN TERMS OF HOW WE MOVE FORWARD. IS THERE A TIMELINE FOR THE VARIOUS MOTIONS? JUST BECAUSE SOME OF THE ITEMS ARE MY, FALL INTO MY WISH LIST CATEGORY OF HOW DATA IS PROVIDED TO US AND HAVING BEEN PREVIEWED TO SOME OF THESE QUESTIONS BOTH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TO THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION, SOME OF IT TAKES A LOT OF TIME TO DO IT THE RIGHT WAY SO WOULD LOVE TO GET YOUR THOUGHTS ALSO ON TIMELINE OF THINGS.
NO, THANK YOU. AND I DISCUSSED IN EVERY MOTION, JUST THE CATEGORY THAT I BELONG TO. SO IT IS CONNECTED, AND CONNECTED TO THE QUESTIONS THAT I 'VE MADE. I WILL LEAVE THE TIMELINE OPEN SO THAT ADMINISTRATION CAN FIGURE THOSE PIECES OUT. I THINK IT'S VERY UNFAIR FOR ME TO SAY, YOU KNOW, IN NEXT MEETING, LIKE OUR LIST TO COME BACK. WHAT I WOULD LIKE IS REALLY AN ALIGNMENT OF WHEN WE GIVE DIRECTION IN TERMS OF THE PROGRAMS OF EITHER OUR CORRECTION ACTION PLAN WITH OUR CHILD WELFARE REFORM, OR IF IT'S, YOU KNOW, IF IT'S TRENDS THAT WE'RE SEEING, WHETHER IT'S IN ANOTHER COMMITTEE THAT YOU SIT ON OR WHERE I SIT ON AND I HEAR
MORE OF THE HOUSING DATA THAT COMES IN ON THE DASHBOARD, YOU KNOW, EVERYBODY HAS ACCESS TO THE DASHBOARD, BUT TO JUST CONNECT ALL OF THOSE DOTS IS REALLY WHAT I'M HOPING FOR. SO THAT KIND OF ALIGNMENT TO BE RESPECTED SO THAT WE CAN BE RESPONSIVE WITH THE TRENDS AND THE NEEDS OF OUR COMMUNITY IS REALLY WHAT I'M HOPING TO DO, AND THAT THAT KIND OF RESPONSE THEN IS CONNECTED TO THE CONTRACTS
AND
THE KINDS OF MODIFICATIONS THAT WE'RE ASKING FOR IN THIS UPCOMING YEAR OR EVEN CURRENTLY, RIGHT? IF WE SEE THAT THERE'S MORE FAMILIES, AS WAS NOTED IN THE REPORT, THERE WAS MORE FAMILIES THAT WERE IN NEED OF RESPONSE INSTEAD OF HOMELESS PERSONAL PREVENTION, WE SPENT SOME GOOD TIME TALKING ABOUT THAT. WHY? DO WE NEED TO SPEND, SHOULD WE SPEND MORE TIME? SHOULD WE JUST NOT REDUCE THE AMOUNT,
WHICH
I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD JUST REDUCE THE AMOUNT BECAUSE OF SOME OF THE ISSUES THAT YOU TALKED ABOUT, DAN, BUT THAT WE'RE REDUCING THE AMOUNT OR MAYBE SHIFTING AND ASKING THE QUESTION THAT I SAID, THE QUESTION IS BEING BEGGED THERE, WHY ARE WE NOW INTERACTING WITH FAMILIES WITH RAPID REHOUSING RATHER THAN PREVENTION?
HOMELESS PREVENTION, RIGHT? WHICH WE KNOW IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP FAMILIES IS TO TOUCH, TO CONNECT WITH THEM WHEN, BEFORE THEY LOSE A HOME. BUT RIGHT NOW, WE'RE, MOST OF THE FAMILIES ARE RAPID REHOUSING, SO THEN IT BEGS THE QUESTION ABOUT WHY IS THAT
HAPPENING?
IS IT BECAUSE FAMILIES ARE JUST IMMEDIATELY LOSING THEIR JOBS? OR IS IT BECAUSE THEY'RE LOSING THEIR HOUSING, RIGHT? AND SO THEN THAT IS IMMEDIATELY LOSING THEIR HOUSING, AND THEY'RE LOSING IT FASTER THAN WE CAN ACTUALLY CONNECT WITH THEM, OR HOW ARE WE CONNECTING WITH THEM IN A WAY THAT WE CAN BE MORE UPSTREAM? SO
I
DON'T HAVE THE ANSWER TO THOSE QUESTIONS, BUT I THINK THE SYSTEMS MAY HAVE ONCE THEY SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER, AND I THINK GRETA, YOU WANT TO ADD TO THAT? I
WANTED TO SAY ON THE TIMELINE QUESTION, I THINK WHAT
OPPORTUNITIES WE MAY HAVE TO BUILD IN RESPONSES TO SOME OF THE SPECIFIC REQUESTS YOU INCLUDED IN SOME OF OUR UPCOMING MONTHLY REPORTS TO THIS COMMITTEE RELATED TO THE CHILD WELFARE REFORMS,
AND
THEN I THINK WE CAN SEPARATELY ALSO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU OFFLINE ABOUT A FEW OTHER EXISTING REPORTS WHERE WE'RE PROVIDING SOME INFORMATION THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL. FOR EXAMPLE, WE PRODUCE A MONTHLY REPORT TO THE FULL BOARD ABOUT UPCOMING SOLICITATIONS AND CAN FIGURE OUT A WAY TO MAKE SURE THAT REPORT MEETS SOME OF THE NEEDS YOU'RE FLAGGING ABOUT PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES. I KNOW THERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF COMPLEXITY THERE BECAUSE THERE'S CERTAIN PROCESS -RELATED RULES AROUND OUR SOLICITATIONS, AND SO SOME OF THAT WE MAY PROVIDE YOU NOTICE THERE'S AN UPCOMING SOLICITATION AND NEED TO GET THE FEEDBACK OFFLINE RATHER THAN IN A COMMITTEE DISCUSSION OR THE LIKE. SO WE CAN WORK THROUGH THE LIST OF ITEMS YOU REQUESTED
TO FIGURE
THAT OUT AND ALSO PERHAPS CIRCLE BACK, I KNOW ON SOME OF THESE YOU 'VE RAISED REALLY GOOD QUESTIONS WHERE THE DATA, THE WAY IT'S CURRENTLY COLLECTED MAKES IT HARD SOMETIMES TO PULL SOME OF THE INFORMATION SO WE MAY CIRCLE BACK TO YOU AND SAY WE CAN'T GIVE THIS REPORT
BUT WE DO
HAVE THIS OTHER REPORT WHICH SEEMS TO GET AT THE KEY PART OF THE QUESTION YOU'RE ASKING SO WE CAN WORK WITH YOU ON THAT.
AT THE HEART OF THIS IS REALLY HOW ARE WE MAXIMIZING,
WHAT DO WE HAVE WITH WHAT WE KNOW TO BE TRUE
REGARDING
THE NEEDS OF OUR FAMILIES, RIGHT? AND HOPEFULLY WE GET TO A POINT WHERE OUR SYSTEMS, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE BUREAUCRATIC AND
VERY COMPLEX
AND MAYBE, YOU KNOW, WE RELY ON OUTSIDE FUNDING THAT IMPOSES DIFFERENT KINDS OF RESTRICTIONS BUT THAT WE CAN AT THE VERY LEAST INTERNALLY MOVE AND SHIFT AND RECOGNIZE PATTERNS AND TRENDS AND THEN WE CAN THEN BE ABLE TO SAY, NOT ONE YEAR LATER, BUT IN THE MOMENT OR ACTUALLY IN VERY OPPORTUNE TIMES OR WHEN WE'RE DOING A PILOT PROGRAM, HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT? MOST OF OUR FAMILIES ARE DOING, YOU KNOW, WE'RE FINDING THEY'RE NEEDING MORE RAPID HOUSING. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE SHOULD
RELATE TO THOSE SERVICE PROVIDERS THAT WE 'VE CONTRACTED OUT TO, JUST SO THAT THEY ALSO ARE IN THE KNOW OR WHEN, YOU KNOW, THERE'S UNDERUTILIZATION FOR A WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM,
THERE'S
UNDERUTILIZATION WITHIN OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGES THAT WE JUST DON'T REDUCE THE AMOUNT, BUT WE FIGURE OUT MAYBE IT'S THE CAPACITY OF THE COLLEGE TO NOT BE ABLE TO IMPLEMENT THE PROGRAM OR WHAT IS IT, RIGHT? SO IT'S JUST THE QUESTIONS. IT'S NOT, I'M NOT QUESTIONING NECESSARILY THE SYSTEM, BUT I'M QUESTIONING WHAT IS BEHIND SOME OF THE INFORMATION THAT WE'RE GATHERING AND HOW ARE OUR SYSTEMS THEN COMMUNICATING WITH EACH OTHER. AND PART OF THE ANSWER, AND I APPRECIATE THAT THE CHILDREN'S BUDGET MIGHT BE ABLE TO ANSWER THAT, BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT IT WILL BE ABLE TO ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT I HAVE AROUND OUR CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN AND HOW
OUR CONTRACTS HERE ARE ACTUALLY BEING RESPONSIVE TO OUR CORRECTIVE ACTION PLAN AND HOW WE ARE ON AN ONGOING BASIS FROM HERE ON OR FROM LAST YEAR ON, WE ARE NOW FUNDING MORE PROGRAMS AND SERVICES FOR INFANTS OR FOR FAMILIES WHO HAVE INFANTS OR BABIES WHO ARE BORN WITH
SUBSTANCES IN THEIR SYSTEM
THAT
WE ARE REALLY LINING THOSE TWO THINGS UP, THE NEEDS THAT WE AND SOME OF THE AREAS THAT WE NEED TO MAKE CORRECTIONS AROUND THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM AND THE CONTRACTS THAT ARE COMING THROUGH, RIGHT? AND SO FOR ME, IT'S REALLY THIS ALIGNMENT, AND I WILL BE OPEN TO YOUR COMMENT, HOWEVER, AND GRETA, IF SOME OF THE QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED THROUGH SOME OF THE
DIFFERENT REPORTS, I'M HAPPY TO SEE IT THAT WAY. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO COME BACK TO THE COMMITTEE, BUT AT THE VERY LEAST, WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IS AT A VERY HIGHER LEVEL IS THE REALIGNMENT OF THE FUNDING AS WE ARE MOVING THROUGH THIS VERY DIFFICULT TIME WHERE WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A LOT OF CUTS. I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THE CUTS ARE NOT
TO
THE SUBSTANTIAL FUNDING. SOME OF THE PROGRAMS THAT ARE MEANT TO SUPPORT ARE MOST VULNERABLE, AND THESE, TO ME, LIKE THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM AND OUR FAMILIES THAT TOUCH THAT SYSTEM ARE THE MOST VULNERABLE AT THIS POINT. YEAH,
I THINK THAT'S REALLY HELPFUL, AND I THINK MAYBE IF I CAN OFFER ONE COMMENT, WHICH IS WHAT I REALLY HEAR YOU SAYING, IS YOU WANT TO JUST MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER THE CHANGES WE MAKE TO THE WAY FUNDING IS ALLOCATED IN A REALLY DIFFICULT BUDGET TIME REALLY ALIGNS WITH THE GOALS AND MISSIONS THAT THE DEPARTMENT IS PURSUING. SO SOME OF THAT MIGHT BE CHANGING EXPECTATIONS INTO OUR CONTRACT. OTHERS OF IT MIGHT BE SHIFTING IF WE THINK ACTUALLY, TO YOUR POINT YOU WERE SAYING, IF WE NEED TO FOCUS ON YOUNGER KIDS AND WE HAVE A PARTICULAR INTERVENTION THAT WE 'VE REFERRED SOME FAMILIES TO, MAYBE IT'S EXPANDING THAT SPECIFIC CONTRACT JUST SO THEY CAN SERVE MORE
FAMILIES. WE CAN REFER MORE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES TO THAT PARTICULAR SERVICE, NOT MODIFYING THE CONTRACT BUT INCREASING THE AMOUNT THAT WE SPEND ON THAT SERVICE. SO I THINK WE CAN PROVIDE THAT INFORMATION AND I THINK IT'S HELPFUL TO HEAR YOUR QUESTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WAY THE DEPARTMENT CAN ALSO DO THEIR BEST AS THEY PRESENT WHAT ARE
THEIR
PROPOSALS TO
THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE'S OFFICE AND THEN ULTIMATELY THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE'S RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BOARD, HOW THE REDUCTIONS BEING MADE, WHICH WE ALL WISH THAT WE WERE MAKING INCREASES, BUT THE REDUCTIONS ARE TARGETING SERVICES THAT REALLY DON'T GO TO THE HEART OF SOME OF THOSE KEY AREAS WHERE WE'RE REALLY TRYING TO MAKE SURE WE'RE AT LEAST PRESERVING IF NOT INCREASING OUR CAPACITY. RIGHT.
RIGHT. AND WE'RE MOVING INTO THE STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR THE STATE THAT IS A FIVE YEAR PLAN AND SUPERVISOR YOUNG, WE WERE KIND OF BACK. WE WERE A LITTLE LATE IN OUR LAST SIP SO WE ENDED. YEAH. YOU KNOW, IT IS WHAT IT IS AT THIS POINT. BUT KNOWING THAT WE'RE MOVING INTO THIS NEXT FIVE YEAR PHASE THAT WE REALLY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SIP, THAT IT'S NOT JUST SOMETHING THAT WE SUBMIT INTO THE STATE, BUT THAT IT'S A COMMITMENT TO IMPROVING THE SYSTEMS IN A WAY THAT IS GOING TO RENDER THE KIND OF OUTCOMES THAT WE WANT, THAT IS GOING TO LEVERAGE THE FUNDING ACROSS OUR DEPARTMENTS AND SERVICES, BECAUSE THERE'S, YOU KNOW, DIFFERENT
SERVICES LIVE IN DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS. AND WHAT I HAVE SEEN IS SOMETIMES, YOU KNOW, THE DEPARTMENTS, WE'RE VERY INSULAR, NOT ONLY IN OUR COUNTY, BECAUSE WE HAVE A LOT OF WORK, AND OUR JOB IS REALLY IMPORTANT, AND THERE'S A LOT OF STRESS THERE, BUT EVEN IN OUR DEPARTMENTS, RIGHT, WE DO THAT BECAUSE IT'S EASIER JUST TO FUNCTION ON OUR OWN WITHOUT HAVING TO HAVE THIS PARTNERSHIP, WITHOUT HAVING TO HAVE THESE ADDITIONAL CONVERSATIONS, WITHOUT HAVING TO FIGURE OUT, LIKE, HEY, OSH, WHAT ARE YOU SEEING OVER THERE? BECAUSE WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT? RIGHT? BUT IT'S UP TO US TO FIGURE OUT TO CATCH THIS IN OUR, IN THIS WAY, IN THEIR CONTRACTS, AND I KNOW THAT THIS
IS JUST, THIS IS MY FIRST KIND OF STAB AT ALL OF THE CONTRACTS, AND CERTAINLY WE 'LL TALK ABOUT HOW THESE ARE JUST ORGANIZED BY SERVICE CATEGORY SO WE UNDERSTAND AND WE CAN SEE IT, AND THAT THE CHILDREN'S BUDGET IS ALSO SPEAKING TO SOME OF WHAT WE HAVE ACTUALLY DONE. IN OUR CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM, RIGHT? IN THE WORK THAT'S BEING DONE IN CHILDREN'S JUSTICE SYSTEM, BECAUSE THERE'S ALSO A LOT OF REALLY GOOD WORK HAPPENING IN A LOT OF DIFFERENT SYSTEMS, BUT HOW DO WE, HOW DOES IT REALLY SPEAK TO US AS POLICY MAKERS TO HELP US UNDERSTAND THAT WE ARE CONTINUING TO FUND THE SERVICES AND PROGRAMS THAT ARE ESSENTIAL AND THAT ACTUALLY SUPPORT AND
CAN HELP OUR CHILDREN AND CHILDREN HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE TRACK AND A HIGHER LEVEL OF QUALITY OF LIFE, RIGHT? AND OUR FAMILIES, OF COURSE. AND I 'VE YET TO REALLY SEE THOSE TWO THINGS EXIST BECAUSE THE BUDGET IS VERY SEPARATE FROM THE WORK THAT WE'RE DOING, AND THERE IS, BECAUSE, AND I KEEP SAYING THIS, THERE'S NO PROGRAM -BASED BUDGETING. WE DON'T HAVE A PROGRAM -BASED BUDGETING, AND THIS IS AS CLOSE AS IT CAN GET TO PROGRAM -BASED BUDGETING. BUT IT'S NOT THERE. IT'S JUST NOT THERE YET, AT LEAST FOR ME, SO I CAN CONTINUE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORK THAT WE DO IS NOT JUST A PROCESS, BUT IT ACTUALLY CREATES CHANGES IN THE SYSTEM, AND TO
ME, ULTIMATELY, IT'S THE BUDGET, RIGHT? SO, ANYWAYS, FOR THAT AND FOR SO MANY DIFFERENT REASONS, BUT I ALREADY PUT
THOSE ALL IN THE MOTION. I APPRECIATE THE FOLLOW -UP CONVERSATION. AND THE CLARIFICATION IN TERMS OF TIMELINE OF THIS, I THINK THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY WORTHY ENDEAVOR AND A LARGE BODY OF WORK TO BASICALLY RESTRUCTURE HOW WE TRACK AND REPORT AND HOW WE GRADE OUR PROGRAMMATIC OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES, RIGHT? AND I WOULD HOPE THAT DURING THIS PROCESS, TOO, THERE'S AN OPPORTUNITY TO ALSO SEE HOW WE UNDERSTAND THE BURDEN OF CONTRACT COMPLIANCE, YOU KNOW, PROCUREMENT AND CONTRACT COMPLIANCE FOR OUR PARTNERS AND COMMUNITY WHO WE 'VE HEARD ABOUT OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS HAVE SHARED INSIGHTS SUCH AS HIRING STAFF JUST TO DO DATA ENTRY, RIGHT? JUST TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF SOME OF
THE GRANT PROGRAMMING
THAT COMES ATTACHED ALONG WITH IT. SO WITH A VERY ORGANIC OPEN TIMELINE, AND GRETA, WITH YOUR SUGGESTION OF VETTING AND EVALUATING AND PROVIDING SOME INITIAL RESPONSES OF WHERE THIS INFORMATION CAN BEST LIVE AND LIE SO THAT IT COMES SOONER RESTRUCTURED. AND SOME OF IT BECOMES MORE OF DEVELOPMENT. YES. AND AMENDING THE MOTION TO INCLUDE THIS. WONDERFUL. WITH OUR DISCUSSION POINTS. AND CAMILLE, MAYBE FORCED TO BE WITH YOU IN CAPTURING ALL THIS.
BUT, YES, AMENDED MOTION.
SO MOVED. AND I 'LL LOOK
FOR A SECOND. I 'LL CONTINUE TO SECOND THAT ONE. AND SO, CAMILLE, YOU CAN GO AHEAD AND TAKE OUR VOTE. OKAY. VICE CHAIRPERSON YUM. YES. AND CHAIRPERSON ARRANAS. YES, MA 'AM. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. WE ARE AT THE END OF OUR MEETING. AND I'M CLOSING IT. NO, I'M KIDDING. WELCOME. THIS IS ITEM NINE. I KNOW. I WANTED TO SURPRISE YOU ALL. WELCOME. WELCOME. WE'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM ALL OF YOU WHO ARE INVOLVED IN OUR LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT. THIS IS ITEM NINE. WE'RE GOING TO RECEIVE A VERBAL REPORT. AND REALLY TALK ABOUT THE ACTION PLAN AS WELL AS THE OUTREACH TO CITIES REGARDING LHA AND THE COST OF GUN VOTE. AND THE CASE -BY -CASE
VIOLENCE STUDY. GOOD AFTERNOON,
CHAIRPERSON ARRANAS. AND GOOD AFTERNOON, VICE CHAIRPERSON YUN. ANA LILIA GARCIA. I AM THE DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF EQUITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. AND I'M ALSO THE CHIEF EQUITY OFFICER.
I'M
GOING TO ASK MY COLLEAGUES TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES.
GOOD AFTERNOON. RONDA MCCLINTON BROWN.
I'M
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY PLANNING POLICY FOR THE PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT. HAPPY TO BE HERE
TODAY. HELLO. HEIDI UMBERLING, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES POLICY. THANK YOU
BOTH. RONDA AND I ARE HERE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH AN UPDATE ON THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT
ACTION
PLAN JURISDICTION INFORMATION AND TO ALSO GIVE YOU A BRIEF SUMMARY OF OUR OUTREACH TO CITIES REGARDING THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT AND THE COST OF GUN VIOLENCE STUDY PRESENTATIONS THAT WERE REQUESTED. WE 'VE ALSO INVITED HEIDI HERE TO BE AVAILABLE FOR THE QUESTIONS AS THEY RELATE TO THE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION WORK IF THOSE WERE TO COME UP. AS IT RELATES TO THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT, THE ACTION PLAN AND THE JURISDICTION INFORMATION THAT WAS REQUESTED, THAT ITEM IS IN PROGRESS AS WE ARE PREPARING TO GO TO THE FULL BOARD ON MARCH 10TH. AT THAT TIME, WE WILL BE PRESENTING TO THE BOARD OUR SECOND QUARTERLY UPDATE ON THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT ACTION PLAN PROCESS AND PROGRESS. WHAT
I CAN TELL YOU TODAY IS THAT AS YOU REVIEW MATERIALS FOR THAT MEETING, THE ACTION PLAN MATRIX IS GOING TO INCLUDE IT NOW LISTS COUNTY SUPERVISORIAL DISTRICTS, CITIES AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS. AND THIS WILL HELP INFORM AND ORGANIZE ALL OF THE ACTIONS WITHIN THE ACTION PLANS TO GIVE YOU A LEVEL OF SPECIFICITY. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING YOU REVIEW THOSE DOCUMENTS IN PREPARATION FOR THAT MEETING AND ALSO FOR THAT DISCUSSION THAT WILL FOLLOW THEN. I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE RONDA TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE BRIEF UPDATE ON THE OUTREACH TO CITIES. SO
I WILL PROVIDE YOU AN UPDATE ON THE OUTREACH TO CITIES. SO FAR, THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICE HAS REACHED OUT TO THE CITIES OF MOUNTAIN VIEW, MORGAN HILL AND GILROY, OFFERING A PRESENTATION ON THE 2025 LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT AND THE 2022 COST OF GUN VIOLENCE STUDY. WE 'VE RECEIVED ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND MOUNTAIN VIEW, FOR EXAMPLE, ON THE CITIES OF MOUNTAIN VIEW AND THE UPCOMING AGENDAS. TO DATE, WE HAVE NOT CONFIRMED ANY PRESENTATIONS WITH THESE CITIES, BUT WE WELCOME SUPERVISOR REYNOS' PARTNERSHIP IN THIS AREA. WE WOULD WELCOME THAT. ALSO RELATED, ON A RELATED AND IMPORTANT TO NOTE IS THAT THE PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN CONDUCTING FOUR COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS THAT WE ARE CALLING CLOSING THE LOOP. WE'RE GOING
BACK TO COMMUNITIES THAT PARTICIPATED IN OUR ORIGINAL COMMUNITY PRESENTATIONS AND SHARING THE FINDINGS AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT REPORT. SO WE 'VE HAD CLOSING OF THE LOOP SESSIONS IN GILROY AND EAST SAN JOSE, IN THE CATALAQ WINCHESTER AREA, AND IN THE MOUNTAIN VIEW AREA. EACH OF THOSE PRESENTATIONS WAS HOSTED BY COMMUNITY GROUPS THAT HOSTED US AND FACILITATED, AND WE FACILITATED THOSE IN BOTH ENGLISH AND SPANISH, AND THE PRESENTATIONS HAVE BEEN VERY WELL RECEIVED SO FAR. BY THE COMMUNITY. I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU ONE EXAMPLE IN THE MOUNTAIN VIEW AREA, THE COMMUNITY ACTION TEAM HOSTED THAT MEETING, AND INVITED MAYOR SUPERVISOR ABBY COCA, WE ALSO HAD AN ATTENDANCE FROM THE MOUNTAIN VIEW
MAYOR THERE, AND TWO COUNCIL MEMBERS, ONE FROM SUNNYVILLE, I BELIEVE, AND ONE FROM MOUNTAIN VIEW, LUCAS RAMIREZ ATTENDED THAT SESSION. SO WE HAVE COMPLETED THOSE SESSIONS. WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO GO TO THE CITY COUNCIL AND MAYORS AND DO A PRESENTATION IF THEY SO WISH TO HAVE US.
THAT CONCLUDES OUR UPDATE. OF COURSE, I WOULD WANT TO HAVE YOU, HOW DARE THEY OR NOT. BUT WE'RE GOING TO FIRST HEAR FROM OUR PUBLIC COMMENT. THERE ARE NO REQUESTS TO SPEAK.
OKAY. SO WE'RE GOING TO GO TO MY CO -CHAIR. I HAVE NO QUESTIONS. JUST MY, REALLY, MY GRATITUDE FOR THIS WORK AND DEFER TO THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS WORK.
THANK YOU FOR OFFERING THAT OPPORTUNITY TO BE SUPPORTIVE. I WOULD LOVE TO BE SUPPORTIVE. SO I WILL FOLLOW UP WITH YOU OFFLINE AROUND THAT. I LOVE THAT YOU'RE TAKING THIS ON THE SHOW ON THE ROAD. AND I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS. I DON'T KNOW HOW, HOW YOU'RE GOING TO PUT THIS TOGETHER. I THINK IT'S VERY FEASIBLE. IT IS. BUT IT REALLY, I THINK, IS VERY MOVING WHEN WE BRING SOME OF THE YOUTH, ESPECIALLY THE FOLKS, THOSE KIDDOS FROM, AND I THINK SOME OF THE ONES THAT WERE PARTICIPATING, THAT PARTICIPATED WITH US ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN RELEASED. AND I WONDER IF THEY, THERE WAS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO KIND OF REACH OUT TO THEM AND SEE
HOW THEY CAN FIT INTO THIS PICTURE.
BECAUSE I THINK THEIR VOICES ARE MUCH LOUDER. AND THEY WERE JUST SO ELOQUENT IN HOW THEY TELL THEIR STORY. IT IS, IT JUST IS REALLY BEAUTIFUL. SO I WONDER IF WE CAN DO THAT. YOU'RE SHAKING YOUR HEAD, YES.
YES, I, WE AGREE WITH YOU. I THINK THAT THEIR TESTIMONY, THEIR PRESENCE, THEIR STORIES WERE JUST SO POWERFUL AT THE SUMMIT. I DO VERY MUCH WOULD LOVE PERSONALLY TO FOLLOW UP WITH THEM AND TO ENGAGE THEM IN THIS WORK IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. THEIR VOICES ARE POWERFUL. AND I THINK WE CAN CONTINUE TO LEARN A LOT FROM THEM AS WELL.
YOU KNOW, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I THINK THAT I, YOU KNOW, IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME IS ELEVATING THE VOICES OF THE
YOUTH, ESPECIALLY THE IMPACT THAT IS, THAT THEY HAVE IN THEIR LIVES BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE THOSE POSITIVE EXPERIENCES, RIGHT? THEY HAVE ADVERSES. THEY HAVE THE ACES, RIGHT? AND THEY REALLY ADD UP. AND WE TOOK A LOOK AT, UNFORTUNATELY, IN THE CHILD DEATH REVIEW REPORT, HOW THE ACES, YOU KNOW, IT WAS THE VERY FIRST TIME THAT TEAM HAD INCLUDED THE ACES AND HOW THEY ADJUSTED IT PREVIOUS, TO PREVIOUS THE DEATH AND POST DEATH. AND THOSE NUMBERS WERE JUST REALLY DISHEARTENING, RIGHT? THERE WAS RECOGNITION OF SOME OF THOSE CHILDREN WHO HAD CALLS INTO OUR OWN SYSTEMS. AND THERE WERE A NUMBER OF DEATHS THAT WERE RELATED TO
NEGLECT. NOT ONLY, OF COURSE, BECAUSE IT IS ABUSE, BUT IT IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF ABUSE THAT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO PROBABLY SUBSTANTIALLY DEAL WITH. AND THAT'S A DIFFERENT CONVERSATION. BUT THE REASON I SAY THIS TO YOU IS BECAUSE I KNOW THE NUMBERS THAT ARE EMBEDDED INTO THE LHA TALK ABOUT THE OVERREPRESENTATION OF BLACK AND BROWN CHILDREN AND, OF COURSE, OUR PACIFIC ISLANDERS IN SOME CATEGORIES. AND ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I REALLY WOULD LOVE FOR US TO ELEVATE IS THAT ABUSE IS ABUSE, RIGHT? WHETHER IT'S SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND WE UNDERSTAND AND WE'RE VERY COMPASSIONATE ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE AND THE IMPACTS THEY HAVE ON THE TRAJECTORY OF PARTICULARLY YOUNG GIRLS, NOT TO SAY THAT IT
DOESN'T HAPPEN TO YOUNG BOYS, BUT TO BOTH. BUT OVERREPRESENTED IN THAT AREA ARE YOUNG GIRLS. AND SO WE UNDERSTAND THAT THEY HAVE, YOU KNOW, THAT MAY LEAD IT TO ANOTHER SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THEIR LIVES. AND THIS IS RESEARCH SHOWING THAT. AND RESEARCH ALSO SHOWS IT'S THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHEN SEXUAL ABUSE IS LEFT UNTREATED, IT'S THE NUMBER ONE REASON THAT YOUNG GIRLS COME INTO THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM. AND THEY MAY HAVE MORE JUST MORE LIKELY TO BE INVOLVED IN SEX WORK OR SEX TRAFFICKING, RIGHT? SO WE KNOW THESE THINGS IN TERMS OF RESEARCH, BUT I WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO ALSO ELEVATE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN ABUSE AND PROBABLY MORE PHYSICAL OR INCLUDING NEGLECT FOR THE
YOUNG BOYS WHO ARE WITHIN THE SYSTEMS AND HOW ABUSE IS ABUSE. THE YOUNG GIRLS OR GIRLS COME INTO OUR SYSTEM BECAUSE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, BUT OUR BOYS ARE COMING INTO OUR SYSTEM BECAUSE OF ABUSE, RIGHT? THEIR FILES ARE PRETTY THICK BY THE TIME THAT THEY REACH THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM. AND THE REASON I ASK YOU TO ELEVATE THIS IS BECAUSE THERE IS A NARRATIVE THAT IS BEING, I THINK, REFLECTED BY SOME OF THE LEADERS IN, YOU KNOW, I 'LL SAY THE MAYOR IN PARTICULAR WHEN THERE WAS A SHOOTING OVER AT VALLEY FAIR, AND ALSO REPEATED BY THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY. AND THAT KIND OF NARRATIVE IS REALLY PENALIZES OUR CHILDREN AND DOESN'T ALLOW FOR THE COMPASSION
AND UNDERSTANDING OF HOW ABUSE FITS INTO THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE COMMUNITY AND THE REASON WHY WE MAY BE OVERREPRESENTED IN THOSE SYSTEMS. AND I THINK IT'S UP TO SOME OF YOUR VOICES AND THE PRESENTATIONS THAT YOU'RE PROVIDING IN THE DIFFERENT CITIES TO CONNECT THOSE DOTS AND TO REALLY ELEVATE THIS PROFILE OF ABUSE FOR BOTH THE CHILDREN AND OUR GIRLS AND OUR BOYS AND ANYONE WHO FALLS WITHIN THAT, ANY OF THE DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF OUR LGBTQ COMMUNITY,
BECAUSE
IN OUR DEATH REVIEW REPORT IS ALSO A TRANS KIDDO WHO ENDED LIFE BECAUSE OF BULLYING. AND SO THERE'S A LOT OF JUST DIFFERENT LESSONS THAT ULTIMATELY THIS IS THE ULTIMATE LESSON, RIGHT, THAT WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE CONNECT BOTH THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT IN TERMS OF HOW WE ARE DOING HERE AND THEN WHAT IS THE WORST THAT CAN ACTUALLY HAPPEN IS THE DEATH OF THESE CHILDREN, RIGHT? I BROUGHT THIS REPORT UP IN CHILDCARE AS WELL BECAUSE IT IMPACTED CHILDCARE AND SO I'M BRINGING IT INTO EVERY ASPECT OF OUR CONVERSATIONS BECAUSE WE ARE THE SAFETY NET SERVICES AND SO I'M BRINGING IT UP TO YOU HERE BECAUSE THERE ARE ALSO DEATHS THAT WERE INVOLVED
BECAUSE OF HIGH RISK ACTIVITY FROM OUR YOUTH THAT ENDED UP COSTING SOMEBODY'S LIFE OR SOMEBODY ELSE TAKING THEIR OWN. SO ANYWAYS, I KNOW THAT'S A LOT AND IT'S A VERY KIND OF SOMBER POINT THAT I WANT TO MAKE TO BRING OUT INTO THE LHA, BUT I'M HOPING THAT IT ISN'T THE LOST IN THE PRESENTATIONS, THE REASON WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT FOR US TO MAKE SURE THAT WE SPEAK ABOUT SOME OF THE WHAT WE KNOW TO BE KIND OF THE PROFILES OF OUR COMMUNITY. IT IS VERY WELL KNOWN THAT A
LOT
OF LATINOS ARE IMPACTED BY DIABETES OR CONTRACT DIABETES BECAUSE OF DIFFERENT LIFESTYLES AND THERE'S A LOT OF DIFFERENT RESOURCES THAT ARE BEING PROVIDED BECAUSE OF THAT OR ACCESS TO FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, RIGHT, AND MAYBE OPPOSITION. SO I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT MAYBE OPPOSITION TO MORE FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE CITY OR BECAUSE OF THE CANCER RATE OR BECAUSE OF THE IMPACTS WE OPPOSE CERTAIN INDUSTRIES COMING INTO DIFFERENT PARTS OF OUR CITY. SO IT IS ALSO, YOU KNOW, THIS OPPORTUNITY THAT YOU HAVE TO TELL THE STORY IN THE WAY THAT YOU SEE FIT, BUT I WOULD LOVE IT IF YOU COULD CONTINUE TO COUNTER SOME OF THE NARRATIVES THAT ARE BEING ESTABLISHED BY
OTHER LEADERS IN OUR COUNTY BECAUSE EVENTUALLY, YOU KNOW, THIS IS, NO, WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT THIS, BUT THIS IS A CAMPAIGN YEAR FOR A LOT OF FOLKS AND SOMETIMES IT'S REALLY EASY TO DEMONIZE THE PROBLEM AND THE PROBLEM LOOKS LIKE ME, RIGHT? AND SO IT REALLY HURTS THE WORK THAT WE'RE DOING HERE IN DIFFERENT WAYS IN TERMS OF TRYING TO UNDO A LOT OF RACIST POLICIES THAT WERE ESTABLISHED BEFORE THAT CREATE KIND OF THESE TRACKS FOR CHILDREN TO END UP IN PRISON.
AND SO ANYWAYS, I LEAVE IT TO YOUR CRITERIA IN TERMS OF HOW TO REALLY PUT THIS TOGETHER, BUT I JUST ASK YOU TO HELP COUNTER SOME OF THOSE NARRATIVES THROUGH THE PRESENTATIONS. YOU'RE
ALMOST ON. YOU'RE GETTING
THERE. THIS ONE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE CAPTURING MY VOICE. THANK YOU FOR THAT. I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ENCOURAGING US TO UPLIFT THAT AND TO COUNTER THE NARRATIVE. I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, PART OF THE STORY. IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE DATA, BUT IT'S EVERYTHING AROUND AND WHY THE DATA IS SHOWING TO BE THE WAY IT IS. SO I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU FOR THAT AND APPRECIATE THAT. AND WE WILL DEFINITELY
KEEP THAT IN MIND AND TAKE THAT BACK. PERFECT. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU. AND IF THERE'S, YOU KNOW, ANY OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO TALK ABOUT THIS, IT WOULD BE GREAT FOR US TO JOIN FORCES WITH, YOU KNOW, THOSE WHO ARE REPRESENTING AND MAYBE OXXA OR THE NAACP BECAUSE IT IS BLACK AND BROWN COMMUNITIES. WE ALSO HAVE, OF COURSE, A HEALTH STUDY FOR OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS THAT IF YOU FIND THAT THERE'S A PATTERN THAT UNIFIES SOME OF THE GROUPS THAT WE ELEVATE ALL OF THOSE ISSUES FOR THE GROUPS THAT NEED US TO BE THEIR VOICE. SO I APPRECIATE
THAT, RONDA.
THANK YOU FOR THAT RECOMMENDATION. WE WILL DEFINITELY GO BACK AND LOOK AT PRIOR ASSESSMENTS SPECIFICALLY AS IT RELATES TO THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE SO THOSE UNDERLYING ROOT CAUSES AND DRIVERS AND ANY THEMES THAT WE IDENTIFY THERE AS WELL THAT ARE CONNECTED BACK TO THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT.
I
LOVE IT. AND AS YOU GO THROUGH THESE COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS, I WOULD LOVE TO SEE IF THERE'S ANY FEEDBACK, ANY DIRECTION, ANY KIND OF ACTION PLAN WORK THAT YOU THINK COULD BE ADDED THAT YOU
THINK IS DIFFERENT THAT WE HAVEN'T HEARD. YEAH, I MEANT TO MENTION THAT. THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THAT UP. WE HAVE TAKEN NOTES. SO ONCE WE HAVE A CHANCE TO EVALUATE THE NOTES, WE 'LL BE HAPPY TO SHARE WHAT'S COME UP AND WHAT THE THEMES ARE. I WILL SAY, JUST FROM THE ONES THAT I
ATTENDED,
THAT THE GIST OF THE CONVERSATION IS SO MUCH ALIGNED WITH WHAT IS IN THE LATINO HEALTH ASSESSMENT REPORTS AND THE THINGS THAT YOU 'VE UPLIFTED AND WE 'VE BEEN WORKING ON. IN TERMS OF THE RECOMMENDATION, SO ALIGNED. SO WE'RE HAPPY TO SHARE THAT ONCE WE
ARE ABLE TO SUMMARIZE THEM. LOVE IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH. ALL RIGHT. SO THAT'S IT FOR ME IN TERMS OF MY FEEDBACK, BUT JUST FOREVER IN ADMIRATION OF YOU ALL COLLECTIVELY AND AS SINGLE AND JUST AS PEOPLE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO WHAT WE ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. AND SO JUST ETERNALLY GREAT GRATEFUL FOR THE WORK THAT YOU'RE DOING, FOR THE COMPASSION, THE LOVE, THE DEDICATION THAT YOU SHOW OUR COMMUNITY
IN
EVERYDAY WORK. I KNOW IT'S HARD AND IT'S GOING TO CONTINUE TO BE HARD AND ESPECIALLY WITH THESE BUDGET CUTS, BUT KNOW THAT I JUST COMPLETELY APPRECIATE IT AND WHAT WE'RE DOING NOW IS HOPEFULLY GOING TO BE STRATEGIC IN A WAY THAT IS GOING TO CREATE A SHIFT FOR THIS COMMUNITY THAT IS MUCH NEEDED. WE ARE A VERY GROWING POPULATION. WE'RE A YOUNGER POPULATION. WE 'VE LOST OUR ELDERS. WE HAVE A HIGHER SUICIDE RATE. WE HAVE A LOT OF THINGS THAT WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST, BUT ONE THING THAT WE DO HAVE IS PASSION AND LOVE AND DEDICATION TO OUR FAMILY. I MEAN, THERE'S JUST A LOT OF REALLY WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY, AND REALLY WE
MUST TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE
ISSUES THAT ARE IMPACTING OUR COMMUNITY, BUT I KNOW YOU'RE ELEVATING, AS WELL, JUST THE BEAUTY OF WHO WE ARE AS THIS POPULATION AND AS A COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE. SO THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING THAT, AND I KNOW THIS IS KIND OF A DIFFERENT THING THAT YOU ALL DO IN PUBLIC HEALTH, BUT, WELL, IN MIXED DEPARTMENTS, THIS OVERLAY OF DEPARTMENTS, AND I LOVE IT. I LOVE IT. ALL RIGHT. SO I'M GOING TO ASK MY CHAIR, MY CO -CHAIR. OH. I'M GOING TO MAKE THIS MOTION. I WILL MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE, FOREVER APPROVE THIS.
HOPEFULLY, MIKAYLA WILL ALLOW ME TO SAY THAT.
THANK YOU. APPROVAL IN PERPETUITY.
IN PERPETUITY.
ALL RIGHT. AND YOU 'LL SECOND IN PERPETUITY? SECOND. WONDERFUL. CAMILLE?
OKAY. VICE
CHAIRPERSON YUM? YES. AND CHAIRPERSON ARANAS? YES. THANK YOU. MOTION PASSES. WONDERFUL. WELL, THANK YOU SO
MUCH. THANK YOU FOR HELPING US END
THE EVENT. WE LOVE IT.
AND I THINK THE LAST THING THAT WE HAVE, OF COURSE, IS OUR ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM OUR CHILDREN AND SENIORS AND FAMILIES, DEPARTMENT HEADS, TO SEE IF THERE'S ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH US.
THANK YOU, SUPERVISOR ARANAS AND VICE CHAIR YUM. I JUST HAVE A COUPLE THINGS.
EARLIER
THIS MONTH, CSAC HONORED OUR DEB'S INTERN AND EARN PROGRAM WITH A CHALLENGE AWARD RECOGNIZING US FOR THE INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVITY AND DELIVERING SERVICES TO THE COMMUNITY. THAT WAS, WE ACTUALLY HAD TWO SELECTED FOR OUR COUNTY, OVER 500 APPLICANTS. AND INTERN AND EARN HAS BEEN AROUND FOR ABOUT TEN YEARS, AND WE HAVE SERVED OVER 2500 YOUNG ADULTS IN FINDING INTERNSHIPS. THE YOUTH TASK FORCE IS RECRUITING PARTICIPANTS. OUR OFFICE OF FAMILY AND CHILDREN'S POLICY IS LOOKING TO FILL TEN OPENINGS. THE TASK
FORCE IS A VOICE FOR YOUTH IN THE DECISIONS AND
POLICIES OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS THAT AFFECT THE LIVES OF YOUNG PEOPLE. APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN SHARED WITH BOARD OFFICES, AND THE DEADLINE TO APPLY IS MARCH 31ST.
OUR
ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES IS HOSTING A COMMUNITY PRESENTATION ON FINANCIAL ABUSE AWARENESS IN THE GILLEROY SENIOR CENTER. THE EVENT IS SCHEDULED THURSDAY, MARCH 26TH AT 1030 A .M., AND WILL PROVIDE PREVENTION, EDUCATION, AND RESOURCES ON THE GROWING ISSUE OF FINANCIAL ABUSE FOR OLDER ADULTS AND VULNERABLE PEOPLE. FINALLY, OUR VETERAN STAND -DOWN WAS RECOGNIZED BY THE STATE'S CALVET ANNUAL REPORT AS A MODEL FOR VETERAN ENGAGEMENT AND ACCESS TO SERVICES. STAND -DOWN HAS BEEN A VALUABLE WAY TO CONNECT VETERANS WITH VA DISABILITY BENEFITS, HOUSING, AND PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES. AND I KNOW THAT VANESSA ALSO HAD A SPECIFIC UPDATE I WANTED TO PASS TO HER, TOO. YEAH, THANK
YOU SO MUCH, VANESSA. WOW, THIS IS VERY FAR. SHORT. AND THE THING YOU JUST SPOKE OF.
VANESSA MERLANO, DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGING AND ADULT SERVICES. THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY. I JUST WANTED TO SHARE THE GRAND OPENING OF THE CAMDEN COMMUNITY CENTER KITCHEN FOR THE SENIOR NUTRITION PROGRAM. REALLY, REALLY BIG DEAL. THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR OVER 15 YEARS. AND THE CITY OF SAN JOSE SECURED FUNDING, AND I WANT TO BE VERY CORRECT. I WANT TO JUST ACKNOWLEDGE MY COLLEAGUE ANDREA FLORES -SHELTON WITH THE CITY OF SAN JOSE, WHO IS OUT THERE DOING THE PROMOTION FOR THE EVENT. THEY SECURED
MEASURE
T FUNDS AND EMERGENCY PURPOSE FUNDS TO ESTABLISH. TO OPEN UP THE KITCHEN, THEY INVESTED AROUND $350 ,000 TO REDO THE KITCHEN THERE. AND IT ALSO SERVES SUPERVISORS AS THE EMERGENCY OPERATION CENTER FOR THE CITY OF SAN JOSE. SO IN AN EMERGENCY OPERATION, IN AN EMERGENCY SITUATION, THE CENTER WOULD BE OPENED UP. THE KITCHEN WOULD BE FULLY OPERATIONAL TO PRODUCE FOOD FOR THE CITY, BUT ALSO THERE WOULD BE PLACE FOR SHELTER IN PLACE AT CAMDEN COMMUNITY. THE SITE WILL SERVE AROUND 41 INDIVIDUALS MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, AND I JUST CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THE CENTER WOULD NOT MINIMIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE CENTERS
AS
BEING A PLACE FOR NOT ONLY FOOD, BUT FOR SOCIALIZATION, FOR COMMUNITY, AND FOR GROWING FAMILY, HONESTLY, WHERE OFTENTIMES, OLDER ADULTS, YOU DO SEE THAT FAMILIES SHRINK
BECAUSE
OF A VARIETY OF REASONS, AND THESE COMMUNITY CENTERS PROVIDE A PLACE FOR THAT FAMILY TO BE EXTENDED. SO JUST WANTED TO SHARE THOSE QUICK POINTS. WONDERFUL. THANK YOU.
ANYBODY ELSE?
NO
ANNOUNCEMENTS? NO WORK? NOTHING HAPPENING? I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. NEXT SATURDAY, MARCH 7TH, OUR OFFICE WILL BE HOSTING AN ALL -INCLUSIVE CHILDREN'S CELEBRATION FOR LUNAR NEW YEAR TO CLOSE OUT THE SEASON. SO IT'S AT THE ROTARY PLAYGROUND FROM 10 A .M. TO 1 P .M. SO SNACKY'S PRIZING IS GOING TO BE AT THE ROTARY PLAYGROUND. APPEARANCES BY POT OF THE OTTER, SOME OTHER LOCAL MASCOTS WILL BE THERE, BUT IT'S THE PROGRAM AND THE ACTIVITIES WILL BE DESIGNED TO BE ALL -INCLUSIVE FOR
CHILDREN OF ALL ABILITIES AND DISABILITIES. THAT'S AWESOME. YAY. AWESOME. OKAY. WELL, THIS BRINGS US TO THE END OF OUR MEETING, AND WE ARE FORMALLY ADJOURNING. THAT'S THE SOUND OF A FORMAL ADJOURNMENT. HAVE A WONDERFUL REST OF THE DAY, AND WE 'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH. THANK YOU, EVERYONE.