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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-07-09Counci or ~Cuman SerUices Meeting of Wednesday July 9, 2008 2 Fairgrounds Meeting Room Time: 11:00 am to 12:00 pm AGENDA ^ Call the meeting to order. • Review the agenda: changes /additions Approval of Minutes 1-08 ^ WELCOME NEW MEMBERS ITEMS ~, Up-dates I, Information Sharing , Reflecting o.n what's .been accomplished with our ~individuai focus groups II. Nominations for a chairman IIL,-Contract Review Committee appointments IV. Meeting schedule for this year- Planning for Council Goals and Objectives for 2008-2009 ACTION(S) ~ DECISION(S) (10 minutes) tip rrtixc~tes) (10 minutes) • Set time ~ date ~ place of next meeting: • Agenda items: Motion to adjourn COUNCIL FOR HUMAN SERVICES July 9, 2008 2 Fairgrounds Road Attending: Rachel Rosen, Alice McWade, Jackie McCrady, Sue Marques, John Belash, Linda Williams, Maryanne Worth, Ann Medina. Absent: Eve Messing, Greg Mehringer. A positive motion to accept the minutes of January 8t" was made. The council welcomed new members Sue Marques and Linda Williams. Sue had stepped in to finish the term of a former council member, and is now an appointed member, Linda has been involved in many things for many years. Information sharing: Sue has lived on the island for 38 years and has 4 adult children. She does private home health cases and she drives a taxi. Sue also ran the food pantry for 9 years and she is now a volunteer there. Jackie has 2 small children and she is the part-time foundation manager for the Community Foundation of Nantucket. Jackie is an Episcopal priest and fills in when needed at the Unitarian, Episcopal and Methodist churches. Rachel is a nurse practitioner who is about to retire. Rachel has lived on Nantucket for 5 ~/2 years. She is on the Contract Review Committee and is part of the Cape & Islands Oral Health Initiative. John is a retired securities lawyer who moved to Nantucket in 2002. John is involved in various activities on the island, he is the president of the 2 Center Street project, treasurer of the Arts Council, site interpreter for the NHA and is a foster grandparent and goes to the elementary school every Monday, and has for the past 6 years. If anyone knows of a man that would be interested in doing this contact the school office. It is a very rewarding program. Alice works for the Park & Rec dept. She has been on the council for 3 years. Ali is interested in all the needs of the community. Linda has her own consulting business; she has lived on the island year round for 35 years. She has three children. Linda has been involved with human services for many years. She has been on the Disability Commission for 22 years, she is one of the founding members of the Nantucket AIDS network and A Safe Place, she is on the Planning Commission, Community Preservation Committee, HDC, Chair of the Housing Authority and an advisory member of the Nantucket Human Services Center, Inc. Updates: Jackie informed the council that the Community Foundation has talked about the possibility of scheduling an educational forum for non-profits on the island in the fall. This will be open to all non-profits. Possible topics could be how to operate as anon-profit and what does a board do? Maybe a grant writing workshop, these are a few of the ideas and the foundation is hoping to make it free to the agencies. This is just tentative. The goal of the foundation is to establish a permanent endowment for the benefit of Nantucket so that agencies can spend more time helping people instead of trying to raise money. John mentioned that the need of smaller organizations is identifying funds; it is very hard to convey the needs here because of the perception of Nantucket being a wealthy community. There has to be a way to dramatize the needs of the community that most people are unaware of. How can we get the word out that not everyone here is wealthy and the needs are great. Rachel and Eve have been going to the Cape & Islands Oral Health Initiative meetings; this has received funding and they have hired a coordinator, B.L. Hathaway. Dental heath care and access to care was identified in the Needs Assessment survey as the number one problem here. A lot of people end up in the emergency room or have to miss work in order to travel off island for care. This is a major health issue. We cannot meet the needs by ordinary means. Many people here are uninsured or under insured and the dentists here do not take MassHealth. This program has finally taken hold and Nantucket is part of the work plan, they are treating us equally. Hopefully we will be able to have a couple of dental clinics on island in a few years. This initiative includes Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket counties. Maryanne thanked Ali for being chair of the council for the past year however because of other commitments she is stepping down. Does anyone have an interest in being chair and co-chair? The duties include helping Maryanne with the agenda and running the meetings. Ali nominated Rachel and John seconded the motion and Rachel accepted. Linda expressed an interest in being co-chair if no one was interested. Ali nominated Sue and she accepted; Linda withdrew. The Contract Review Committee also needs two council representatives. John and Rachel are both interested in staying on the CRC. Linda is also interested. It was suggested that maybe Linda, being the newest member, could observe this year by coming to the meetings. John and Rachel will be representing the council again this year. There is still no representative from either the BOS or FinCom. What does the CRC do? The CRC was created back in 1993 at town meeting for the non-profits on the island that receive money from the town. Previously any group that requested money would stand up at town meeting and ask for it. There was no accountability for these funds. The CRC prioritizes these funds, the CRC looks at the needs of the community and the requests from agencies. It is the goal of the CRC to eliminate duplication of services and to get these agencies to a place where they no longer will have to come to the town for funds. Maryanne went with Peter Swenson to a recent BOS meeting to talk about continuum of care concept.. Peter's idea is from the place where he used to work before coming here, Nashua N.H. which has a model program. This might replace the current Contract Review process. This concept will be explored by Michael Kopko and Patty Roggeveen in a small working committee Maryanne talked about goals and objectives, these are based on the BOS goals, and Ali suggested that if we are going to do goals and objectives, we do it at the next meeting. It was suggested that we should do a social marketing campaign "Branding Your Organization". There are some good people here that do that sort of thing, which would also be a good workshop for the CHNA. Rachel's view is that you are giving people an opportunity to help out. How can we get this to the people? N magazine did an article on the Human Services agencies and now it is in their minds. Maryanne also reported on the mini workshops that are held on Tuesdays for the immigrant population with Camila de'Olivera who comes over from Community Action Council for Cape Cod & Islands (CACCI). Camila has had workshops on Know your Rights' and Where to go for what'. These workshops will start up again in the fall when these folks are not working as much. Sue would like the council to explore the possibility of having some sort or shelter here on Nantucket that when a person(s) is homeless for a night or two, they do not have to be displaced. It would be just short term. What is the homeless count? This count was done in January on a specific day and Maryanne had a few people helping out this year. The count was 34. Maybe we should get B.L. Hathaway back over here to help us regroup, maybe in September when things settle down a bit. She could help us with the focus groups. The time and date of the next meeting will be determined at a later date. Respectfully submitted by .inn Medina