Meeting Minutes for January 8, 2002
Division of Indian Work
Don Anderson Clarence Charles excused
David Bergquist Willie Bridges excused
Michael Allen Beyer Nick Metcalf excused
Linda Brandt Jerry Moss (Co-chair) excused
Sheila Brunelle Norma Atuesta
Megan Ellingson Jim Huber
Frank Guzman Sandra Leaver
Efran Tovar Leon Steve Moore
Judi Marshall (Co-chair) Helen Doris Reed excused
Mary May John Whalen
Tim O’Brien – via phone
Bob Olander
Sarah Rybicki
Michelle Sims
Debra Smith
Community Members Present: Guests:
Bill Seed Sarah Senseman - La Clinica
IGA Present:
Michelle McCafferty
Staff: Consultants:
Mary Doyle Juan Jackson
Wardell Thompson Barbara Simpson Epps
Mary Dwyer (minutes)
Judi Marshall called the meeting to order at 9:10 am with the lighting of the candle and introductions.
II. Public Forum
Judi shared that the Planning Council used to hold a public forum at the beginning of each meeting. We will be doing this again in future meetings. Those interested should contact Planning Council staff to get on the agenda. Tim O’Brien told members of a conference on January 16 that was in the Star Tribune.
III. Review and approval of the minutes and agenda
Linda moved Sheila seconded approval of the revised minutes. Approved unanimously.
III. Co-chair report
A. Public forum
Covered earlier in the agenda.
B. Recruitment
Judi reminded members of our new recruitment schedule. April is coming soon. Mary Doyle shared that we will be adding about nine people – MSM’s and an Asian person are specific people we will be looking for. Tim asked who should be contacted with referrals. People should keep an eye open for potential members and call Wardell with names of interested people. His phone number is 612-728-7539. Linda asked if we add nine MSM’s would we reflect the Epidemiology of the epidemic? Mary Doyle said we need about six MSM’s. Efren said we short in Minneapolis residence. Judi reminded members that this should be on everyone’s agenda this month – talk to everyone.
C. Joint co-chair meeting
Judi shared that the joint co-chair meeting that used to be quarterly will know be held every other month. This meeting includes the Planning Council co-chairs, Prevention Task Force co-chairs, IGAs and staff. Nick was going to provide a full report but he needed to be in Washington and could not attend today’s meeting. One point Judi shared from the meeting is that periodically the committees plan to meet together when getting information from the community for example, Dr. Tim Schacker’s medical update. Judi also shared that the Task Force has invited Planning Council members to attend the next Task Force meeting on Friday, January 18th.
Judi and Mary Doyle shared that the February 22nd meeting would be a good meeting for Planning Council members attend because they will be providing an overview To Commissioner Jan Malcolm of the Task Force’s activities this year. If members plan to attend and eat lunch, they should call Ruth at MDH to reserve a lunch.
IV. Title I report
A. Spending update
Jennifer passed out information on Title I and Title II spending through the second quarter. Jennifer provided background information on how the data is presented. Efren asked for clarification of a few service areas, i.e., interpretation and translation appears to be very underutilized and emergency financial assistance appears to be over utilized at this point. Jennifer clarified that there are some invoices that are still outstanding for interpretation and translation and she expects that the utilization numbers will increase when all the invoicing has been received. Emergency financial assistance is often used very early in the contract year so we expect these numbers to be higher at this point in time. Efren suggested that we need to look at reallocation very closely. Jennifer said they will be looking at the numbers over the next month and may be requesting reallocation of some funds then. The plan is to bring any reallocation requests to Planning and Priorities to examine the issue in great detail. Linda suggested that we invite the service providers for interpretation and translation to a Planning Council meeting. Sarah S. shared that medical assistance and many insurance providers cover translation services so organizations like hers are not allowed to tap into that money. Further discussion continued about coverage that’s available under certain insurance.
Judi asked if we could have another report next month. Jennifer and Michelle M. believe that third quarter numbers may be available by then.
Jennifer then provided a funding summary for the one-time RFP’s that were awarded. Bob O. asked about funding for computer systems, the issue being spending money on technology as opposed to services for individuals. His concern is that the grantee has done due diligence in selecting these agencies to receive money – he wants to make sure agencies are thinking beyond our grant activities to ways to leverage the funding for multiple agencies. Jennifer said they considered capacity building when looking at these one time funding requests. Bob O’s suggestion is that several agencies can leverage their resources by working together. Bob T. said he didn’t know of any HIV organizations, other than hospitals, that have an IT person – other than MAP. He thinks Bob O’s point is something we can transfer into the future but isn’t something that we currently have. Sarah Rybicki supported Bob T’s comments – computer support and other technology related services would be invaluable to agencies that invest in good technology but don’t have resources to train and get technical support.
B. Award update
The award is not in yet.
C. RFP update
Jennifer handed out information about the RFP Award Summary by Priority Area for December 2001. She shared information about how the process worked and who was on the review team. Award letters have gone out and they are moving forward with negotiating contracts. Efren suggested that the next round of RFP review be more diverse by race and geography. Jennifer said in the past this hasn’t been so much of an issue because there have been a lot of people interested in reviewing the RFPs. She said they reached out to many in different ways but didn’t get a lot of response this time.
Bob T. said agencies have obviously seen changes in the epidemic and that the Planning Council needs to consider this at prioritization time. Discussion continued about which areas are funded, how many agencies are continuing to be funded. For example, there were many more requests for health education funding than Ryan White typically receives. Bob T. then asked when do we have a discussion about the allocations being made and how they are affecting services defined in needs assessment? We’ve understood the emergence of new areas, not that we’re going to solve everything, but it needs to be looked at. He asked if the Executive Committee would consider this issue and see which committee could discuss this.
Agenda items were moved to accommodate for presenter’s schedules.
A. Linkage group
No report for this meeting.
Bob Tracy provided an update of the group. The co-chairs met yesterday. They are working on recruiting members who are living/working in greater Minnesota, HIV +, and/or able to contribute certain skills. The goal is to have membership that is 30% HIV+ and 30% people of color. February 15th in the morning is the date they have chosen to meet with the full group. Many conflicts with that date came up because of the PLWH conference that day too. Bob T. suggested they might try to keep the meeting close to that date. A lot of work group meetings will be done with teleconferencing.
VI. Health Education SAR
Juan Jackson and Sheila Brunelle
Juan began discussion of the Health Education SAR. He reminded the Council that this is a relatively new service area so we don’t have a lot of detail on use. Juan clarified that the total amount of allocation is much closer to $100,000 than the $63,000 reported. Health Education providers and CLEAR identified an increased knowledge of HIV and changes in life management as outcomes. Two or more years in service, not in case management, whether they have children and if they were new to the program were the target group identifiers. The information presented is baseline at this point.
Judi asked about information regarding the agencies involved in Health Education, who the target population is, who is receiving services. Juan said that this is information that they really don’t have. Bob O. asked if people who have children include people with children in their custody or not. Juan clarified the number includes both. Efren said he liked the ranking of services that is included and asked if it will be used in other reviews. Juan said it was information gathered from the needs assessment and that it would be on some reviews. Efren stated he would like to see that on other reviews – he finds it very helpful. Linda asked if Juan could provide information to Planning and Priorities about the providers and the services that they provide.
Sheila began her review of the SAR by suggesting we have someone who has received Health Education services give information on the services. She added that the committee had much discussion of the SAR information when it was provided. She also shared that there was discussion about putting the SARs on the website. The committee decided not to have complete SARs on the website because of a need to have better understanding of the information presented. She also clarified that people need to keep in mind that those filling out these surveys are impacted by how they are feeling.
Wardell shared his experience with Health Education in his outreach activities, primarily in chemical dependency settings. Linda Senes shared her experience as the Health Educator at Breaking Free. She often goes to chemical dependency agencies to present. She usually senses some resistance from agencies when she’s just talking about HIV so she usually presents on all STDs.
Bob O. asked for clarification of the 76 reported and what their gender is. Mary May shared her years of experience – HIV alone is hard to work with and when working with chemical dependency programs those affected with FAS or FAE need to be aware of the learner’s capabilities how that hinders their retention. Linda Brandt cautioned that education isn’t necessarily always based in chemical dependency programs and that in greater Minnesota, HIV only education is still appropriate. We have increased the budget for Health Education over the last year because of the need. She feels that a lot of this feels like the work of the Commissioner’s Task Force – they are spending a lot of time talking about this.
Megan clarified that it feels much of the conversation of Health Education has flip flopped between Health Education in general and Health Education for HIV+ only. Mary Doyle clarified that HRSA has directed us to put resources to educating those who are HIV+ or are considered high risk. Mary Doyle further clarified that this SAR is for HIV+ people only but that in to the future HRSA is allowing us to put Health Education money toward those who are HIV+ or at high risk of contracting HIV in the future. Much of this is the focus of the Linkage Working Group.
Wardell pointed out that a lot of people who will be benefiting from this education are not self-identifying as positive. Sarah S. shared the work of West Side CHS is educating those who are positive. David B. said he didn’t know what this Council could do to make people who are positive get more education or change their attitudes and/or behaviors.
VI. Council staff report
Mary Doyle expressed her thanks to Jennifer, Michelle and Eduardo for all of their hard work in the RFP process.
A. Conflict of Interest discussion and form update
Mary Doyle reviewed the Conflict of Interest Policy for Council members. Community members who will be voting in committees should also take this into consideration. As an example she cited an employee of a provider of services should be conflicted out if the vote in a budget decision may involve them getting a raise. In a situation like this they need to note that they have a conflict of interest and abstain from voting. Members were asked to review the policy. Don Anderson asked for clarification. When talking about funding he believes there would be a significant number of members who would not be able to vote. Mary clarified that members could still participate in the conversation but wouldn’t be able to vote on certain matters. Linda posed the question of an agency representative who applies for funding but doesn’t get funded and whether they would be conflicted out. Mary said that would not be a conflict. Jennifer provided clarification about members who sit on certain committees that may be funded who are also involved in priority setting - this is a time when other committee members should have that information. Sarah R. said this is textbook ethics and that, as educators – they ask potential speakers to identify connections to drug companies. Megan offered that there might be a way to structure voting so there can be more involvement from those who may be conflicted out. Judi suggested that the Council members who are left to vote should be taking the discussion into account when voting. Tim clarified points of Roberts Rules that would relate to voting. Linda B. shared that we should spend more time during introductions to identify agencies, etc. that are represented. She also said this was a good networking tool. ACTION: Bill Seed asked that we make copies of the signed statements to return to members so they can look at it again in the future. Staff will make sure everyone gets a copy of their statement. Other loose examples of what would be considered a conflict were reviewed. Mary asked for everyone to look at their own high standard of ethics when identifying conflicts. Don reiterated that he volunteers for a lot of organizations and feels his membership on the Planning Council is hampered by a conflict policy. Frank clarified that a lot of members are involved in many agencies and as a volunteer in a policy-making organization.
B. Public notice
Mary Doyle gave an update of the public notice publishing in newspapers both in the Metro and in greater Minnesota. We’ll also be putting small ads in the newsletters of specific communities and posting the meeting schedules at agencies.
C. Council logo
The decision was to stay with our old logo.
D. Process plans
Mary Doyle updated members on staff. She has been here for six months Wardell and Mary Dwyer have been here for three months now. She would like to get more involved in the process work of the Planning Council and Committee meetings. She is also planning to set up times to decide on processes for work norms, conflict resolution norms and additional training (i.e., Roberts Rules of Order).
VII. Task Force update
Deferred
VIII. Committee updates
A. Executive Committee
Judi provided an update of the Executive Committee – much of the report was presented in the co-chairs report. Jennifer will present the budget at the February meeting. Tim asked that the budget be distributed early so members have a chance to review the data prior to the meeting.
Sheila provided an update from the committee. The Consumer Survey will be going out very soon. We have decided to suspend all other surveying during this period.
Michelle provided the report from the last meeting. We will begin to review the Continuum of Care at the next meeting, which is tomorrow. Linda provided an overview of the Comprehensive Plan work going on in the Planning and Priorities Committee.
D. Operations Committee
Frank provided the report for Operations. The recruitment plan and public notice were discussed. The Attendance Policy went to the Executive Committee, who sent it back to the Operations Committee for final review.
The HIV+ Committee and Community Participation Committees didn’t attend the Executive Committee meeting so they are not on the agenda. Discussion continued about this policy and a reminder to all co-chairs was given.
IX. Announcements
Sarah S. announced that as a provider West Side CHS is doing a training for capacity building and networking. If you are a provider of services to women and children please attend.
Debra Smith announced space is still available for those who are HIV negative and would like people to participate in the study at the U. She passed around a flyer with information.
Bill Seed announced that MAP collaborated with Hazelden this summer to produce a video – they will be doing a screening on Wednesday, January 16th at 5:30 p.m. – all are invited to attend.
Representatives from MAP were present to talk about AIDS Action Day and asked for participation from anyone interested. February 28th is AIDS Action Day.
Michael moved Don seconded adjournment of the meeting. Passed unanimously.