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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJCPC minutes 120117Orange County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council Meeting Friday, December 1, 2017 (12:00noon – 2:00pm) OrangeWorks Employment & Training Center Hillsborough, NC Proposed Minutes Attendees: Meg McGurk, Tina Sykes, Ana Salas (proxy for Donna King), Amanda Farris, Peggy Hamlett, Maren Hardin, Carol McClelland, Dana Graves, Kristi Lescinski, Aidan Salmeron, Sherita Cobb, Penny Rich, Stephanie Jones, Sharron Hinton, Kysha Thompson, Nancy Lappenbusch, Georgie Gamcsik, Amy Kirshner, Gayane Chambless, Pamela Weiden, Raquelle Hawkins, Kate Giduz, Susan Worley, Val Hanson, Rebekah Rapoza, Theresa Collosso, Denise Briggs (*Members in Bold) Absent: Michelle Guarino, Jay Bryan, Nick Allen Excused: Bernard Miles, Lee Barnes Welcome The meeting opened with a welcome from Chair, Meg McGurk and introductions. Minutes Review and Approval The Council reviewed the minutes from October 2017. Peggy Rich motioned for minutes to be approved with one correction and was seconded by Sherita Cobb. Motion carried unanimously. Agency Roundtable Dispute Settlement Center – Currently accepting referrals for Family Table for next session that starts the last week in February and will be at Stanback Middle School. Freedom House – Referrals continue to be low and there has also been a decline in the attendance at Common Sense Parenting classes. Staff will be reviewing numbers, outreach efforts, advertising, etc. and is also seeking feedback to see how they can boost numbers and attendance again. Ease of transportation, providing food, and offering childcare were suggested as possible draws. Being added to community resource lists, within the schools, for example. New this year, Freedom House will now be providing mental health services within some of the schools and this may bring new opportunities to discuss the program services with parents. FAN has lost some funding recently and has had to look at budget to see where cuts could be made with the least impact on service delivery. It was mentioned that the difficulties FAN is facing with low referrals and program participation is actually being experienced by most, if not all, of the JCPC programs. Ligo Dojo – Generally serve 16 to 17 youth per program year and currently have served 7 youth to date, 5 of which have been court referred. One youth has been terminated successfully so far this year. Volunteers for Youth – Scott and Nicole attend the conference down at Carolina Beach and found it very helpful. The programs were monitored by the State and that went well. DJJ Data – October: 9 distinct juveniles, 20 complaints, 5 approved for court, 2 juveniles diverted, 0 juveniles in detention, 0 juveniles in Wrenn House, 0 juveniles on electronic monitoring, and 1 juvenile committed to YDC*. November: 7 distinct juveniles, 12 complaints, 3 approved for court, 3 juveniles diverted, 0 juveniles in detention, 0 juvenile in Wrenn House, 0 juveniles on electronic monitoring, and 0 juveniles committed to YDC. *This youth was in DSS custody and residing in Alamance County. He was committed by an Alamance County judge but since he is a legal Orange County resident, he is reflected in our stats. The jump in October complaints could be attributed to group incidents. Also, it is important to keep in mind that while it appears there has been large jump from July to October, our county’s numbers have been extremely low. The majority of complaints have been undisciplined, from both parents and law enforcement. Recently, there has been a push to hold truant youth accountable because it is their responsibility as much as the parent’s, so some of the undisciplined complaints coming from parents may be the result of this. Amanda will try to run some additional data for the next meeting – list of charges, referring agency, and if there is any prior history. Hot Topic Discussion – Sherita Cobb & Tina Sykes Looking to spark some conversation and discussion and brainstorm some possible supports for some recent issues that have been happening with OCS, and where additional law enforcement support has been needed. In school year 16-17, OCS did 93 suicide assessments. So far this school year, there have already been 67 assessments and the number is increasing. Today, for example, Tina and Sherita were late to the meeting because they had just left a school where they were dealing with a situation involving a child with mental health issues, and this was the second time this week where they had been together because of the same child. In the past two weeks, there have been about four different kids where school officials had gotten to the point where they could not handle the situation with the child and had to call law enforcement for assistance. These kids are of elementary school age, not middle or high school. Someone suggested contacting the mobile crisis team. However, when a kid is having an episode, they cannot wait an hour or two for the team to come out. One incident last week involved a child who took their clothes off outside, in front of everyone, and was running towards the highway. Tina is concerned that when law enforcement is called they have to respond. And their training is limited and not necessarily what is appropriate for the situation or the age of the student. Law enforcement can normally calm the kid down, but they aren’t always successful and have had to do restraints. In some situations, law enforcement has had to do emergency commitments, but other times, the behavior is more defiant and doesn’t meet the criteria. Someone asked if these kids are known, or if they are escalating quickly (from no incidences to full blown). And for the most part, these are kids with little to no prior incidents. Someone also asked whether bullying is a contributing factor. Sherita responded that there has been an increase in bullying complaints, but when she investigates, more often it is a situation where a child is called a name or hit, but the child responds back and by doing so it is no longer bullying. However, when the kid tells their parent they are being bullied and only gives their side, the parent will only believe their child and won’t hear/believe anything else. So when resources are offered to help the child and/or parent, the parent isn’t receptive because there is nothing wrong with their child. DBT was suggested as a longer term solution. If some of those skills were taught to the kids, they could use them to reduce classroom disruptions and problems. DBT can only be taught by trained professionals, and so the schools would need to obtain permission from the parents to allow their child to attend. It was mentioned that in Durham, Freedom House partnered up with the police department and when they were called for crisis intervention, a social worker would meet law enforcement law enforcement at the location and be there to assist. Tina asked if the response was immediate because what they are experiencing with the mobile crisis team in Orange County is too long of a response time. The social worker from Freedom House would respond immediately, often within the same time frame as law enforcement. However, it has been several years so this service may no longer be available. Cardinal still offers CIT training and all of the SROs have been trained, but the training doesn’t work for the population they are encountering (ages 4.5-11). The resource officers that have been involved in these situations have stepped up and done tremendously well. Michelle Guarino (Chapel Hill PD), Freedom House, and some other agencies have partnered up to pilot a youth CIT training and they have already conducted about three or four. This may be something to look at doing for the SROs. Currently, all school staff has attended Youth Mental Health First Aid. Tina mentioned that by the time law enforcement is called, it is beyond the training and capability of school staff, and their only options are to try and calm them down and/or restrain them. And they hate having to be in put in those situations, but they are finding they are more and more. With four calls like this in the past two weeks, Tina is concerned and has been having conversations with the Sheriff’s Office attorney. Often times there are mental health problems and the parent has been denying the problem and unwilling to accept help. FAN was offered as a resource in situations like this because they are able to work with the parent through a peer role and help them understand that there is a problem and what they are doing/not doing is no longer working. Also, if the parent constantly getting calls from the school about their child, they may begin to view the school as being against their child. Someone asked what happens after the incident. The school will set up a meeting with the parent to discuss what’s been happening, the incident, and the services they can offer to help wrap- around the child, and will change their service delivery to try to support the kid as much as possible. However, the school also needs to keep in the mind the best interests of the whole school, and find the balance between helping that one particular child but also keeping in mind the needs and safety of all the kids. Dispute Settlement offered their services to have an outside facilitator attend the parent meetings because it may help ease the “us versus them” mentality. They do often help with child and family team meetings. Additionally, someone mentioned that the behaviors some of the kids have exhibited are frequently link to trauma. So it may be beneficial to have a conversation with the parents to see if there has been any trauma they know of, and see about getting some support for that child if there has been. JCPC Business Membership Vacancies – The Council was presented with two nominations, Kristi Lescinski and Aidan Salmeron, to fill the vacant Youth Under 18 positions. Carol McClelland motioned for Kristi and Aidan to be appointed as the new youth representatives and was seconded by Penny Rich. Motion carried unanimously. Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools slot is still vacant and Meg will reach out to the new superintendent to see about getting a representative designated. Program Monitoring – Programs will be emailed soon about the annual monitoring. Board members are still needed to help go out and do the monitoring. You don’t have to attend every single one, but it’s a good, hands-on way to learn about the funded programs a little more intimately. This committee is one of the most important because they review and make sure the programs are doing what they said they were going to in their program agreements. And if there are any concerns, the committee can recommend that the State go out and do a more in-depth monitoring, and possible even recommend the funding be stopped immediately if serious concerns are found. Risk & Needs Committee – Denise will be bringing Juvenile Court data to the meeting, but it is important to have a diverse group attend because there may be other trends happening that aren’t reflected in that data. It was brought to the JCPC’s attention that the new date that was selected now conflicts with another important Orange County collaborative meeting that a significant number of JCPC members attend. Rebekah will send out a Doodle Poll to help select another date/time. Conflict of Interest Form – All board members must sign a COI for the new fiscal year. Please complete if you haven’t already for this fiscal year and giv e to Rebekah or Meg before you leave. Consultant Update Program providers need to go into NCALLIES and make sure that your client tracking data is correct and up-to-date because the state is preparing to do a data sweep and this will affect SPEP scores. After SPEP scores are run, program will then have to update their PEP (program enhancement plan). Remember, while SPEP scores do not directly affect funding decisions, if there are areas of improvement identified on your PEP and you are not making any progress, the JCPC may consider that when making funding decisions. Raise the Age bill has passed in NC and will take effect on December 1, 2019. NCDPS juvenile justice staff have been divided up and assigned to a committee to help with the roll out. CAY (Community Alternative for Youth) will be holding regional meetings that are going to be focused solely on Raise the Age and Deputy Commissioner Billy Lassiter will be attending and speaking at all the meetings. Denise has been going out to do program monitorings (Volunteers for Youth and Dispute Settlement Center) and has a couple more programs (Boomerang and Freedom House) that need to be scheduled. Governor’s Crime Commission has funding available and one of the area’s that has millions of dollar available is for youth who have experience trauma. Denise will send the information out, but believes the applications are due around the end of January. Announcements OCS, DSS, and Orange Partnership will be offering Hidden in Plain Sight on December 16-17 and volunteers are needed to help staff the room. It will be offered in conjunction with Toy Chest and held here DSS in Hillsborough. They are also in need of paraphilia to hide in the room and have asked Tina to check to see if there is any that may be able to be “loaned” out from the Sheriff’s office. On December 11 at the Whitted Building, there will be an Opioid and Methamphetamine Awareness Training for workers who go out in the community and do home visits so they know what to be aware of. Rebekah’s JCPC responsibilities will be transitioning to Theresa effective July 1, 2018. In the meantime, Theresa will be shadowing Rebekah to become familiar with the role and responsibilities of the JCPC coordinator. Freedom House has The Seven Challenges program available for adolescents with alcohol and substance abuse problems. In January they are also trying to start an EBT group for adolescents and also SAIOP for adolescents but they need enough referrals to support these services.  Next JCPC Meeting: Friday, February 2, 2018; Location: Hillsborough Commons, 113 Mayo St, Hillsborough NC