McLean County Behavioral Health Coordinating Council met March 11.
Here are the minutes provided by the council:
The Behavioral Health Coordinating Council Committee met at 7:30 a.m. in Room 400 of the Government Center, 115 East Washington Street, Bloomington, IL.
Members Present: Chairman John McIntyre; Elizabeth Robb; Ms. Sonja Reece, McLean County Board of Health; Mr. Mark Jontry, Regional Office of Education; Mr. Joan Hartman, Center for Human Services Executive Director; Judge Rebecca Foley; Ms. Schafer, McLean County Board; Brian Wipperman, Marcfirst; Ms. Lynn Fulton, OSF St. Joseph Medical Center; Colleen O’Connor, NAMI Executive Director (Livingston, McLean County); Ms. Stephanie Barisch, Center for Youth and Family Solutions; Mr. Kevin McCarthy, Town of Normal; Kristin Adams, Country Financial; Ms. Lisa Thompson, Project Oz Executive Director; Mr. Chris Workman PATH Executive Director; Mr. David Sharar Chestnut Health Systems CEO
Members Absent: Colleen Kannaday, Carle BroMenn, Ms. Lynn Fulton, OSF St. Joseph Medical Center, Mr. Eric Thome, State Farm, Mr. David Taylor, Executive Director of United Way, Diane Schultz, The Baby Fold, Donna Boelen, City of Bloomington, Mr. Jeremy Hayes Bloomington Housing Authority Executive Director
Staff Present: Ms. Granger-Belcher, Behavioral Health Coordinating Council Supervisor; Ms. Ms. Cassy Taylor, County Administrator; Amanda Hartley; Recording Secretary
Others Present: Nicole Kirstein, Kevin McCall, Taylore Davis, Amy Hancock, Shannon Garlock, Elizabeth Johnston
Chairman John McIntyre called the called to order at 7:34AM.
Chairman McIntyre presented the minutes from the December 17, 2021, meeting for approval.
Motion by Reece/McCarthy to approve minutes from December 17, 2021 regular meeting.
Motion carried
Chairman McIntyre congratulated Joan Hartman for her new position as Executive Director of Center for Human Services replacing Tom Barr.
Chairman McIntyre welcomed Vanessa Granger-Belcher as the new Behavioral Health Coordinating Council supervisor.
Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that she looks forward to working with everyone and collaborating with their agencies and moving forward the mission of BHCC.
Mr. Workman from PATH stated that they received the new state contract to provide the new 988 call center crisis hotline. The National Suicide Lifeline is transitioning to the 988 number effective in July 2022. Mr. Workman stated that they are in the process of hiring 115 staff. They have had the contract for 6 weeks and have received a renewal to start filling out the grant for next year which is due at the end of the month. Mr. Workman stated that SAMSHA is changing the entire crisis system nationally. It’s not just a new 988 number but an entire change for the crisis system model for the entire nation. The system is still being built but there are already 590 teams established in McLean County. Mr. Workman stated that McLean County is far ahead of everyone else in the nation because we have already started doing the work that the feds are implementing nationally. Mr. Workman has received calls from other states asking how we are doing it. He has talked to people from several different states.
Chairman McIntyre asked how its coming with the hiring process. Mr. Workman stated that they have hired 4 managers. They have received 700 applications from 5 states. They have an out of state person that is starting on Monday.
A council member asked if there will be a text and chat option and Mr. Workman stated that there will be that option, but it may not start in July. It will definitely be ready by early fall.
A member asked if this will this reduce calls to 911. Mr. Workman stated that it will reduce the volume of calls and stated that this was developed to reduce 911 usage due to cost. There is discussion amongst the state regarding software that we will all use for dispatch purposes so everyone can communicate with each other, but it is still in development.
Mr. Sharar from Chestnut gave an update on the number of patients that have been served at Chestnut Health Center. He provided information with key metrics of patients that have been served. Over 2800 patients have been served in the last year.
Mr. Sharar stated that they are part of the Healthcare Transformation Project that came out of Health and Family Services Illinois Medicaid office. OSF put in a large bid, and they were awarded the bid for 66 million over 5 years to transform Medicaid, Chestnut was awarded 6 million to build a dental program. The state is helping them underwrite starting up dental services. Mr. Sharar stated that this will heil fill in a big gap in our community with Medicaid that need dental services. They plan on doing a soft opening later this year or early next year. They are currently in the process of buying equipment and hiring staff. They want to integrate dental with primary medical care and behavioral health.
OSF is bringing sophisticated digital platforms that most Medicaid recipients don’t have access to. Mr. Sharar stated that they are hoping to teach the Medicaid recipients how to take advantage of the digital platforms. They are going to hire 12 community health workers to help link Medicaid recipients to their services.
Mr. Sharar stated that there is a bill before the general assembly to increase Medicaid rates. The bill will be the largest increase in Medicaid rates for behavioral health that the state has ever seen. The governor already has put this bill in the budget as well as HFS. It will bring roughly 190 million in increases to behavioral health providers both in substance and in community mental health. The bill is titled Rebuild the Illinois Behavioral Health Workforce.
Mr. Sharar congratulated Ms. Hartman for her new role and is excited that this will open a door to increase collaboration between everyone.
Mr. Wipperman gave an update on what is going on at Marcfirst. Last year Marcfirst announced the second expansion of their Pediatric Therapy Center. They were originally going to be located in the Carle BroMenn Outpatient Center, but Carle opened up a large amount of space for them where they already are. Two years ago, they were operating at Hunt Drive in 1000 square. They now will be operating at 8000 square feet offering OT, PT, speech, ABA services, social work services, and early intervention services.
Mr. Wipperman stated that last year they opened up their own Behavioral Health Clinic and at first it was simply to support the adults that Marcfirst already supports. Their team just applied to expand their Behavioral Health Clinic to under 18 years old. They are opening it up to the community as well through Medicaid.
Ms. Thompson from Project Oz gave an agency update.
Project Oz’s Prevention Education program is still in all the schools talking about drug, alcohol, and tobacco prevention. They are raising awareness about strategies for not getting involved in drugs. They also teach evidence-based curriculum in suicide prevention and early warning signs of mental illness.
Project Oz received some of the marijuana tax revenue. The tax revenue has allowed them to expand The Youth Empowered Schools program into three more schools.
They are still doing Crisis Intervention. They provide crisis intervention for runaway and homeless youth as well as youth that are locked out of their houses.
The SafePlace program is another point of entry into Project Oz’s services. All of the fire departments are SafePlace locations. The buses are mobile SafePlace locations.
They work to get the person help and access to services. The SafePlace is now a nationally recognized sign.
Their outreach program has no fee for services. They offer counseling services, emergency shelter for youth 18–23-years-old. They have an 18-bed transitional program for young moms who are homeless as well as young individuals who are homeless.
Ms. Granger-Belcher spoke about program initiative updates.
We are continuing to see the average number of ED utilizations for mental health reasons significantly decrease with the FUSE clients as well as their touches with any part of the justice system. 11 of our 14 active clients are stably housed. The other remaining clients have current plans in place and efforts made to get them into stable housing.
Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that Nicole Kirstein is leading a tremendous staff of clinicians and case managers who are invested in work they do with the clients in FUSE. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that she knows that at times a questions have come up about the number of clients that are in the FUSE program, and she knows that a lot of people would like to see the number of clients increase. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that the mission of FUSE this year is to increase the number of clients. FUSE staff are going to begin to develop a monthly outreach program. Each month they are going to target one specific population service agency. FUSE staff are going to make more concerted efforts of tracking what happens. In future meetings we will show how we are promoting and pushing FUSE. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that on her end of the outreach will be her coming to each of the members of BHCC and ask how can FUSE help. She stated that is the same message that she is going to have with Triage.
Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that the numbers for Triage are from the last 3 months. The number one referral source continues to be walk-ins. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that coming in and seeing the underutilization of Triage felt very disheartening. Triage is a wonderful program and it’s forward thinking in mental health. There aren’t many communities that have a Triage Center. The utilization of Triage is not in service to our community and more importantly it is not in service to the community members that are living everyday with mental health. The staff of Triage that is lead by Kevin McCall are amazing. The staff that Trisha Malott has built are quality staff. Triage has started doing outreach. They are going to physician and agency offices and dropping off new material. They are putting a face with the name and letting people know that we are here to help. We are not here to replace any other agencies services. We are here to help.
Ms. Granger- Belcher has already met with different agencies to see where how we can help each other and stated that they have really welcome in hearing what she has to say.
Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that when she thinks about Crisis and clients, she categorizes a low, moderate, and high client risk client base. Triage is not in the space of high and moderate. The high and moderate are better served by ER’s and mobile crisis. The space where Triage would help is with the low-risk crisis clients and the individuals who need someone to talk to for more time than the ER has to offer. She is not sure why these clients aren’t getting to us but is exploring why. Triage is a space where we can increase utilization immediately.
The reason why FUSE and Triage were initiated is to fill the gaps in the community where other service providers didn’t have the bandwidth to be able to fill. Ms. Taylor and Ms. Granger-Belcher met recently about the FUSE and looking at how to make the program more robust. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that FUSE has run into issues because of the qualifications of getting into the program. There is a space of re envisioning or growing services beyond what we currently have. We have had agencies that have referred individuals that we have had to turn away and we point them to agencies to connect them with other services in the community. We are looking at re envisioning the FUSE program so that we are able to help more people. In the coming months Ms. Granger-Belcher will be reaching out to the BHCC members to talk where everyone sees Triage and FUSE and how everyone would like to use the services. Also, how can we become a part of the systems of operation that everyone already has.
Mr. Workman stated that part of SAMSHA’s document on the ideal crisis system talks about having a Triage Center. It is part of their ideal plan that they are implementing nationally over the next few years.
Ms. Granger-Belcher introduced Ms. Taylore Davis. Ms. Davis is the new Behavioral Health Program Coordinator. She has been assisting Ms. Granger-Belcher on macro level projects as well as leading the Trauma Informed and Resilience Oriented Initiative. Ms. Davis stated that when she started in her role, she set up meetings with individuals who have worked on Trauma Informed initiatives. She has met with people that have done this on an organizational level, county level, and a statewide level. She learned how they structured their initiatives and what their focus has been. Ms. Davis developed a 5-year strategic plan by taking the information she learned in the meetings and some side research. 2022 has specific action steps outlined with deliverables to stay on target for the year. Future years will have the same types of action steps that will be developed in the fall. The focus of 2022 is building the foundation of the initiative so that it is sustainable in the future. One of our key tasks is rebranding the initiative. The new name for the initiative is RISE Mclean County. RISE stands for resilience inspires and spreads to everyone and the slogan is resilient together. She is working on the marketing of the initiative to be able to put out messaging in future years. A mission, vision, and purpose statement have been chosen as well as values. The core group will be working on a logo and hope to get a landing web page up by the end of the year.
Ms. Granger-Belcher gave an update on the NYU Criminal Justice Lab Diversion to Treatment Screening tool. As of December 2021, the testing of the tool with the fire departments and EMS came to a pause. We stopped receiving submissions of data at the end of November. Ms. Granger-Belcher’s predecessor made efforts to see about reengaging and due to some turnover, we were asked to pause for now. We followed up with NYU and letting them know that we will be coming back to them in early summer after the Behavioral Health Action Plan is finalized and we have a clearer picture where we are going. NYU remains a willing partner so there will be reinitiating of the initiative, but it is currently on pause.
Ms. Granger Belcher spoke about TriWest. TriWest is a health and human services consulting company. They have helped clients with system assessments improvement of evaluation planning and financing for over 20 years. They specialize in behavioral health systems and their intersection with other systems such as social, education, law enforcement, adult and juvenile justice systems, and hospital and health systems. They have developed a specific area of focus and expertise in the crisis system assessment which includes use of a planning tool that helps organize the various flows of services and anticipated cost of savings to an agencies crisis system.
Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that the opportunity to work with TriWest is coming to BHCC at no cost thanks to council member and partner of Chestnut. In Ms. Hartman’s previous position at Chestnut, she approached BHCC with this opportunity and turned it over to Ms. Granger-Belcher to initiate contact and collaboration with other organizations. At this time there is no defined plan or formal agreement. They are ready and prepared to come to a future meeting. Ms. Granger-Belcher stated that TriWest is ready to go and are ready to initiate at any time.
Ms. Taylor stated that this a great opportunity to work as a system to improve our crisis response. Ms. Taylor will be encouraging Ms. Granger- Belcher to get as much buy in as possible so we can use TriWest to the fullest extent possible.
Ms. Granger- Belcher asked if there were any questions about the newsletter that was included in the packet. No one had any questions.
Chairman McIntyre spoke about the Behavioral Health Action Plan and the history behind the development of the plan. Chairman McIntyre thanked Ms. Schaefer on all the work that she has done with the Behavioral Health Action Plan. He also thanked
Ms. Granger-Belcher and her staff as well as Ms. Taylor and her staff for their work on the plan.
Ms. Schaefer wanted to thank the other people that were involved with the plan as well. She stated there were 25 people that wrote parts of the Behavioral Health Action Plan. There were also numerous community wide groups that provided information for the plan.
Chairman McIntyre stated that part of the Behavioral Health Action Plan and part of the intergovernmental behavioral agreement is that in the county board gives an annual report to the municipalities for the sales tax part. The County Board will be reviewing accountability and will be taking a look at the metrics and outcomes to see where we need to go.
Mr. Granger-Belcher stated that the Behavioral Health Action Plan is a living document, and it will be updated yearly and there will be a section added to show progress. Every 3 years there will be a in depth revision of the plan.
Mr. McCarthy thanked everyone involved with the Behavioral Health Action Plan. Mr. McCarthy stated that he represents the Town of Normal as a funding partner. The Town of normal would like funding added to the Behavioral Health Action Plan. Mr. McCarthy wants to pause the vote for the Behavioral Health Action Plan so the Town of Normal can look at the plan and the recommendations. They want to see some level of prioritization with a budget allocation to reflect the priorities. Mr. McCarthy wants to table the vote until April 8th in order for additions to be made to the plan.
Chairman McIntyre motioned to table or postpone voting on the 2022 Behavioral Health Action Plan until April 8th @7:30 am
Roll call vote requested
12 yes
2 no
Motion carried
Ms. Taylor motioned to approve proposal for funding for Bridge Academy Motion by McCarthy/Reece to approve proposal for funding for Bridge Academy Motion carried
Mr. McIntyre indicated the next meeting is scheduled for Friday, April 8, 2022. He asked if there was any other business, hearing nothing he thanked everyone and adjourned the meeting at 9:23 a.m.
https://www.mcleancountyil.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/8764
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