Behavioral Health Board - Regular Meeting

Each of us brings to this important work. As we gather today, let us be intentional in showing up as trauma-informed, compassionate partners grounded in empathy, respect, and collaboration as we work together to strengthen behavioral health outcomes in our county. Welcome to the Behavioral Health Board meeting. We are the advisory board to the board of supervisors. We hold this meeting on the fourth Thursday of each month, and it runs from 1215 to 215. We meet in person at 507 F Street in Eureka. This is a public meeting and everyone is invited to attend. Members of the public may participate remotely. The minutes in the agenda can be found by searching Humboldt County Behavioral Health Board online. We provide time for public comments early on the agenda. Public comments are limited to three minutes and pertain to matters related to behavioral health. We ask you make your comment in a respectful manner. Please note this meeting is being recorded. Please contact myself or any behavioral health board member if you have questions about our work as the board. And with that, can we do roll call? Joan.

Sean Berger. Eric. Audrey Story-Basher. Here. Bob Doherty. Here. Draftino DiCaprio.

Laura Montaner. Present. Emily Arroyo. Here. Kevin Johnson. Here. And then.

She's exposed.

Here. Here. So. Yes, we.

Excellent. Now, staff and guests will start in the room.

Hi, good afternoon, Andy Bosler, I'm your behavioral health director, everyone.

And Jeremy Nelson, Deputy Director of the Children's Bay for Health.

Rosemary Schultz Schieffer, UTC Loop Organizer.

Leah Nagy, family liaison with Humboldt County Mental Health and current president of NAMI Humboldt. I'm glad to be here today.

Laurel Johnson, Department of Health and Human Services. I'm an analyst in DHS administration. She, her, thank you for the reminder. Then we will go online. Just popcorn somebody's start. Eddie, I see Eddie.

Hello, Eddie Morgan from Tri-County Independent Living. And I'll popcorn it to Oliver Gonzalez.

Hey, good afternoon, everybody. My name's Oliver Gonzalez. My pronouns are he, him. I'm a behavioral health program manager, and I'll popcorn over to Sharon.

Hi, Sharon Wolf, legislative analyst with DHHS. Good to see all of you, and I'll popcorn over to Manuel.

Hello, everyone. I'm Manuel, and I am with the CalVHPC, and I don't know who hasn't gone, so I can't see everyone, so popcorn to whoever hasn't gone yet.

Perfect. I think that's it. Yes. All right. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? None. We will go to public comment. Anyone in the room who would like to make a public comment?

You know, I always like to make a public comment. I know. Yeah, our support groups are going well. As you know, we have four. We have two on Monday, one for individuals with mental health challenges that uplift from three to four, and one at Humboldt Plaza for families from 430 to six. And then Thursdays, today, there's one from 12 to one. Gretchen's running it, so I could come here. And then we have one in the Southern Humboldt from three to 430. I've applied for many grants. We did receive the CIT grant. I don't know, 25,000, 40,000. I can't remember the number, but we got a CIT grant. And along with that is a program. They added another 5,000 per program called COPE, C-O-P-E, which the state is trying to start up here in California. And it's a support group for individuals who are first responders, firefighters, police. They probably need that support as much as we do as family members. Philippa, yeah, she's taken over that part of the grant, which is great. And then we got an OAC grant to start some trainings called SMARTS, which is an advocacy training with NAMI California. That was for 5,000. And then I did apply for a FLARE grant. for 5,000, which is introducing a mental health curriculum in middle-aged schools. And I have three teachers interested in already doing that if we get the grant. We won't know until the end of July. And then yesterday I applied for a California endowment grant that Matilda Grace, who's the representative for NAMI California for our region, suggested I apply for it. And it's $25,000. And that grant is only for five rural counties in California. And they're going to give out a hundred grants for $25,000 each. And thanks to my daughter-in-law who helped me get the URL number for the Facebook account. I came in number 94. They're all, they're only good, but that doesn't mean, you know, they go through them all. So. But at least I'm in the first 100 because I was a little stressed about that. It opened up 9 o'clock Tuesday morning and I was already. So that's what I've been up to. That's it? Yeah. Thanks.

Thanks. Anyone else? What comments on mine? All right. Seeing none, we'll move to action items. Approval of minutes from the 5-28-26 meeting.

Make a motion to approve those minutes.

I second. Thank you, Sean and Marguerite. All in favor of approving those minutes, say aye. Aye. Opposed?

All right, those minutes are approved.

Now for the moment we've been waiting for, our presentation on the TAE recommendations follow-up. Take it away, Kelly Johnson.

Less of a presentation and more of a conversation just to revisit. We had just, when we talked six months ago about our response to the today recommendations, we agreed we'd come back to the table and just kind of check it and see how things are going. So I want to just kind of go through some of the topics that we had previously discussed, which the first one was location and time. we decided to stay in this current location and time, but we added that we have the Zoom option for folks. So are there any questions or concerns or comments about how that's going for folks at this time? The Zoom? I mean, I know that there's been some challenges with the chat and then our Zoom hijackers. but we've been attempting to have somebody monitoring the chat during meetings so that folks are able to participate in public comment periods. Thank you. I was trying to figure it out and I was, oh, there you are. Okay. Thank you, Natalie.

Yes. That's one of the things that we have for our meetings is a specific note taker and a specific chat. Okay. I mean, Natalie's already offering

for that position that would be really awesome because consistency there is very important yeah we've been doing it the last few months i think there was the first month natalie wasn't here so i did it and then natalie's done it the last two months so we've been doing it now since uh there was the issue that came up where there was a person in the chat who was non-verbal that wanted to participate and wasn't able to uh do that verbally so uh were there any other like ideas or feedback around how we could further improve in that area?

You don't have a name tag. What is your name in the red sweater?

Oh, I'm Laurel Johnson. I'm just a staff person, so I don't, that's why I'm not named, but Laurel Johnson.

We were discussing how at least board of supervisors meetings are uploaded somewhere afterward. They happen. Is that happening for a little bit soon? Okay. That's just clarification on my end. That's all that I can really say. I haven't had the opportunity to gather consensus from my board, but yeah, that's all for now.

And then the other thing we spoke about was the materials that Laurel did help create. So we have these great little cards with the QR codes. I'll pass those around. This is a way for us to distribute to other folks that may be interested in participating in the behavioral health board meetings or eventually maybe possibly joining the board. So I carry those with me in my purse. So when I am talking to people that sound like they might want to participate, I can hand it to them. We also have larger flyers that can be posted. I've posted them on some places around that I frequent for work, such as Bayview Heights apartment building. So I think I'm curious if other folks have had an opportunity to utilize those materials and how that's going.

I also carry them in my car. I think I've passed out the three. I love that.

And I just want to highlight too, like, although this came from a place of how to be more inclusive For transition age youth folks, I think this can go for anybody. So not, you know, we want to be inclusive of everybody in our community. So we had talked about board members really making a point to distribute those materials around places that they go. Has anybody else had an opportunity to do that? putting everybody on blast right now.

We don't really have a posting board at the county courthouse, which is kind of wild. We do have four bids. If you're bidding on a project, we have a board for that. That's required by law. So I have been thinking about whether to establish a county, not like a community posting board, but a place to post county-related things inside the courthouse. we shall see how long that takes. I'm going to initiate that process. But, um, so it's kind of funny that I think because of like some of the security ways that the offices are set up and stuff, they're just certainly great places to put things like that. So I've been handing them out very sporadically, but I do have a big stack. I appreciate those being available just so it's like something you can hand to people. And it's nice when we're tabling, you know, Vernon was really, um, A big advocate for having those in for the tabling and I think that's set up. It's really nice. Materials, you know, and the, and the, to the top is really Yeah. Awesome.

Oh, yeah. I was finding that there is a place to get these or if there's Yeah. And

I'll get them to you. So you could also, I believe on the card, it has the behavioral health board email address. And so that is a place. And then Joe McManus monitors that for us and sends it to the appropriate folks. And we could also maybe make, like to bring some more to the next session. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate you very much.

Yes, Jess. That's what I was going to say is if, I don't know if there's like maybe by the agendas or something, every meeting there's a little stack. I feel like that would maybe create more regimented with like, oh, well, I'll refill them at the next meeting. And then I have some to pass out in between now and the next meeting, but just having them available for each meeting.

Okay.

That's a lot of paper, but.

Use this, you know, only take what you need. Yeah. Yeah.

And we always do this for a second. Oh, yeah, just for one second. Not somebody that's on there just about the zoom. So Eddie's got video on because he's a member of the behavioral health board. And I assume there's like a video or a speaker invitation that gets sent out. But so I actually don't know if that's the case. Are we not allowing people to turn their video on? And is there a way we can make that more clear? We are allowing it again. Okay. Because there was that period of time where we weren't.

I was feeling lucky today, so. I love it.

So that's totally back.

Is that the plan moving forward?

I had turned my video off more as a bandwidth issue.

What was that, Sharon?

I had turned the video off more as a bandwidth issue.

Ah. I was not giving y'all grief for not having your video on. I genuinely thought we had a setting not How many people that was different. And I was going to save that if we have to go back to that at any point, maybe we could explain it at the beginning of the meeting. I think we, we had supposed to be confused about it. Great. We're back.

We're back. And speaking of zoom, is there anybody on zoom that has any comments so far about to add to the discussion? I see. There's a couple of comments on the chat. Is there anything that were the chat? Sorry. Sorry. Micromanaging Kelly over here. Somebody said sorry for their delay to the meeting. Okay. They're here. Okay. Thank you. So make sure we weren't missing anything. Thanks. All right. So moving right along, we also spoke about, oh, the toolkit on outreach and best practices, tips and talking points to distribute to current and future behavioral health board members. I can't remember. Is that we did?

Yes. Yes.

Thank you. I should know that. I think I did know that, but then I couldn't.

Okay.

I was on the website.

Excellent. Okay. And then lastly, we mentorship. And so we've been making a concerted effort amongst the executive committee, but as well as other senior folks that have been on the board for a while. senior as in length of time, not as in age, mentor newer members. And so I believe that's happening. I have a mentee. I think, Peter, are you mentoring a board member?

In theory. Okay. We're going to. We're going to kick it off in August. We're going to be robust. It's okay. Well, I think about you before the meeting. So go ahead. Thinking about each other and we're starting to edit.

The resources available. I think the most important part, right? Like my mentee I've met with once on purpose. And then I check in ahead of time, like, hey, are you coming to the meeting? I can save you a seat, that kind of thing. If they're not here, they're not here today. You know, so I think as long as people know that they have a point person, I think I'm curious how others feel about that, if that's helpful. Definitely.

Good. And I could imagine. I always have my HCTC partner with me, but like if somebody were not to have that, then it would be extremely important to have like a consistent face that you feel comfortable kind of sharing your opinion. So great. Also, thank you guys.

I think Sean also has somebody that he's mentoring.

So Jess has been mentoring me.

I feel like we all kind of mentor each other. So those are kind of the main key points that we discussed last time. Is there any other thoughts or concerns or feedback, ideas?

I guess my own, I mean, this is more from a personal perspective, because like I said, I haven't had the chance to get a consensus from my board yet. So if you guys have any questions or anything, just kind of a more accessible or clearly like, okay, again, this is my perspective, but some sort of accessible document, maybe explaining our exact relationship to the board of supervisors, because I know that that's one of the most important things we can do at the meeting of the health board, but I'm still not entirely informed about like how, what that process looks like or, um, when those meetings take place. I know that board of supervisors, but, um, Just kind of, that would be extremely useful for me personally. I don't know about anybody else or any potential future board members that show up, but something that might make approaching that a little bit more understandable.

I think before I do, go ahead, Laura. Maybe one of the things that as mentors we could do is taking a portion of the bylaws and just go over it. This is, I carry this with me all the time because it's way too much to remember, right? But every time I'm like, I feel like I heard something or saw something about that. And then I go to the bylaws. Yep. It says right here, what our job is. And then it refers to a welfare institution code, which I have to say I use CalBHB all the time also because they have simplified that. It's like, it takes a little bit to like look it up and I still do it. So I can imagine it's overwhelming for somebody who's like.

As somebody less experienced with welfare codes, for example.

Right. But that's why I love CalBHB because you can just go there and say, what is the job of the secretary of the behavioral health board?

And yeah, I know that, Joe, there's a really good job of getting us connected with the ongoing regular. So that's something I should check out.

Yeah, but most things, if I can't find it in the bylaws, I know I'm going to have to go and look and read through it. Is it online somewhere? Yeah. Okay.

Right.

Yeah. I do like, though, Laura, what you said about the mentor, because we have this new behavioral health board member checklist. So I wonder if maybe we could add that as something that maybe we can look at that executive committee meeting about how we might be able to include that piece in there somewhere so that it doesn't get lost.

Yeah.

I'll make a note of that.

All right.

Excellent. Good idea. And I just I have to say, like, even a person that participated in these meetings for a very long time as a staff member, and then joining, I still don't know what's going on.

So it's just I appreciate you being being honest with me.

Yeah, there's there's nuances of things.

Yeah, like, remember, we were reading. I was doing a job and you're like, oh, that's my job. I'm supposed to do that.

Oh, yes. So that's just going to be useful because it's definitely like a nice orientation piece. So I'm personally going to re-familiarize myself with our materials that are on. So thank you.

Awesome. Can I add on to that? The advisory body role, I think, can be interpreted very broadly to you. And I think this board has the ability, if you so choose, if we all so choose, to be even more active in making recommendations to our board. And it's nice to influence staff in that. So they're going to think now that it's coming or, oh, we're already bursting on that or whatnot. So I wouldn't say it's particularly helpful to go totally rogue, just because sometimes it's due to working efforts or things like that. But I do think like that. That's all the different boards and positions that we have really like brought ability to embrace against and issues forward. So there could be more of that than there has been in the last couple of years, you know, should, should folks want to do that. And we're also in the time with sort of resource constrained and we're just, everyone's really been through some tough times. So it's a little bit of both and, but I would say that the like, The bylaws are probably like, and a lot of documents may be kind of silent on what that advised advisory role might be. Maybe we can put that in more like regular language that people would use, like sure, or give some examples of what types of advisory or advocacy type roles this board has filled in the past and some examples of like really good things that have come from this board speaking for varsity.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Well, maybe more changes, we can talk about how we prepare the annual report presented to the board each year and how, when we request letters of support for specific legislation or we have a board of supervisor representative on the behavioral health report as a liaison. Those are some pretty tangible examples, but I'm sure there's more.

I also think that it works both ways, that it's helpful for the board of supervisors to have the behavioral health board come and share about the work that you all do. And I think that that cross-education is a huge value.

Yeah, I was going to say that I was on the board a former term way back like in 2016 to 19. And at that time, we had more subcommittees than have been active recently and it's splitting up more now again. And a lot of the time, the committees, the subcommittees like the S&D Committee or the Children and Family Committee or the Older Adults Committee, all those, they came up with things to present to the Board of Supervisors. Two things I can remember just as examples is the, I remember that the SUD committee presented to the Board of Supervisors, this is like 2017 or something, what parts of the whole SUD continuum of care were still kind of missing in this county and how we might advocate for that. I remember that was one of the things we did. And another thing was that we, you know, talked about transitional living facilities for people getting out of residential facilities, but it wasn't a good idea for them to go home because their homes weren't stable and other people were using and stuff like that. And we were talking and Connie Beck was telling us about what things were happening with the state. And we were talking, we made a recommendation about what the minimum things would be for a really good functioning transitional living place for SUD clients. So that's, you know, that's the kind of thing that I've seen happen before. And a lot of it is through the committee's work. I mean, I remember that I wasn't on other committees, but I remember other committees brought things forward too.

I was thinking something similar. I was thinking that as we get our committees established further than the momentum that they build will be very in tune with our specialties. And I think that that's one which really shined for people. So advocate as one that's vibrating all over and very professional experiences too. Thank you.

I'm glad that we have, we will have as whatever the July meeting, a full board. And we've got people that have experience, which I feel like for me in my fourth and a half year, finally, I'm kind of getting how everything kind of moves. And so now I feel like, okay, yes, we're going to take our power and hoping to be able to help everybody with others. So I'm very grateful for all of you. Very natural process. Nothing is instant. Yeah.

I'll be glad to be a mentor for one of the new members, if you want. Yes.

Well, we've got three new members. One of them, I think, already has a mentor, but there's two others that we'll be looking for mentors for. So I guess we'll probably discuss the executive committee about that.

Okay. Eddie, can I be your mentor?

Please, I'd like that very much.

One last thing for you to do, Sharon.

As the chair, though, I think that I should also hang up.

It's going to help me with my Italian, right? Okay.

Okay. So I think that pretty much wraps it up. We really just wanted to make sure that after we gave our response to the recommendations that we didn't just let it die and that we kept it, you know, alive. And so I don't know, do we feel like we need further follow-up on the recommendation or do we want to wait and see if there's further recommendations down the line?

Well, I'm I can definitely bring the notes that I have from this to my next youth advocacy board mental health committee, I think might be the most appropriate. And if there's anything that gets mentioned, I can report it here, but other than that, as of right now, I think that we're doing good.

Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate everybody's participation and input that feels Feels good.

Thanks for staying on it and bringing it back. Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

All right.

Laura?

Yes. For the new members, we'll want to know for those who do want hard coffee binders.

Some will prefer not to have that, but some will. So if Joe and I could know, we can happen for those who do want the actual binders. I will let you know. Thank you. It is now time to move on for communications. This is time for when behavioral health board members can tell us what's up. Communicate. I want to start with you, Vernon. You got nothing?

I got nothing, thank you.

All right. Ms. Kelly-Johnson, do you have any communication? Gregory? Not this time. It is happening.

Bob? Nation's Finest, we're going to have a booth Friday night downtown, Friday night. Friday night market? Market. This Friday.

We'll be there. OK. Thank you. Peter?

Man, I've got a lot of time. I'm just going to tell a story. A couple things. One, we're in school year down and that's great. I'm really proud of the work that we've been doing as a county and in our partnerships with DHHS and I mentioned Jeremy and I had an opportunity to go down and do some work around integration for agencies that we do in our county to strengthen our ecosystem of behavioral health for students and children in our communities. And the state, you know, the state initiative talked about the Children's Behavioral Health Initiative and how that is the largest mental health initiative in education ever in the history of the world, in fact. And we've been engaged in multiple aspects of that. And so we've been invited, when I say we, Dr. Dixon and I, who's our program manager for behavioral health and wellness at the county office. So we're going to be presenting together at the Behavioral Health Task Force quarterly meeting of the state level and highlighting some of the work that's happening up in the whole county and the bridge between schools and community and community partners and agencies. You know, we'll be talking just about the importance of school-based mental health and giving some examples of that. And then I think also the questions that come from that audience, which is going to be a good audience, around, you know, what is the SUD in substance and other, you know, uses, you know, SUD. Substance Use Disorder. Thank you. I had a moment, senior moment. We have 61 next Thursday. But yeah, so they're going to ask questions about that. And I know public health has had some efforts there. I would be interested, and I can give you a card by the end of this meeting, but if there's anything that you see that's interfacing in the schools that would be important for us to highlight, you can email me. But I just want to make sure that we're representing well and not just from our stance. So anyway, I opened that invitation. And it's exciting because I feel that anytime that we're on the state platform talking about what we're doing here, then when we apply for grants or we do other work at the state, folks know what's going on in Humboldt County. And frankly, we have a really good reputation in the state for our collaborative work. So I think that's reflected here in this room, as well as in our other avenues and efforts.

When are you presenting?

When? When? On the 15th. So the 15th of July. The convening, and there's four entities that are presenting, 15 minutes each. It's just, you know, pretty short, but then there's a Q&A going over. And then the task force itself meets with youth, and that's sort of closed session in the afternoon. So it was over there. So I don't know if anybody, but maybe it's, yes, the state behavioral health asset groups. But I could look into that if anybody wants to ask or whatever. Sounds interesting, right? Yeah. Yeah, we'd love some plants in the audience.

Oh, you got it. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Nevin. Do you have anything?

Well, I just want to compliment the great job that Oliver did coming in presenting the plan, the multi-year VHSA plan. Twice? Twice here, and then once in the Board of Students chambers. Actually, more than twice here, different iterations. The presentation this last Tuesday was excellent, and Um, I think you didn't hear a ton from the board, but it was well received. And, um, there was all around just appreciation for staff doing the work with the vet together and for the information. So well done. Um, I wanted to speak briefly about the state budget and kind of where that landed. Um, I don't know, were you going to cover any of those things was there, but. It's not all of it is directly related to make a real house, but so actually speaking, you know, so folks might have heard and I, you know, raise this issue in a lot of meetings that I've been recently just about how tough the shift across two counties is looking to be some of that was negotiated into a better place. but it's still going to be a pretty tough couple of years. And there seems to be a general consensus that a lot of the difficult stuff was kind of kicked on the road just a little bit. So especially with the impacts of HR1 on many, many things. So one of the things we're really expecting is to see a massive increase to the costs of indigent care. So the People don't have that account because of some of the changes coming and are needing immediate emergency care. Those costs are going to be shifted to counties to cover. There's some funding in the budget for emergency care, emergency services, only county care coverage, but it's not really enough. So we're going to see how that affects us and see how the rollout of HR1 ultimately really looks. But I think everyone's bracing for that hit. There were improvements on the fronts of in-home supportive services, mobile crisis, et cetera. Some of the programs that were but to be cut significantly. So those were good changes. There was some increase in a commitment to help support county eligibility workers to address the increased workloads. But again, short of what was sort of requested. So I think our legislative experts may have more to say. But those were some of the things that I'm thinking about as highlights that we're going to be facing as cost increases and all counties around the state are sort of, those things are being shifted to us to deal with somehow. So that's one of the reasons why everybody's kind of anxious. Not only do we have, like many other levels of local government locally and around the state, have sort of a structural deficit that we're working really hard to address. And a lot of our staff are feeling the impacts of that. But we also are, you know, some of this is just unprecedented. And so I've been, I'm our board's rep to the California State Association of Counties, which has been working with the county welfare directors associations to work on getting aligned. And that was a little bit of growing pains this year. and have a common message. And there's been much better alignment and advocating for these costs to be addressed by the state. Our governor is obviously leaving office and wanting to leave a good reserve. I think there's new motivation for him right now. You know, the pushback has been, this is what reserves are for. It's for helping our most vulnerable and our kind of need. So there's a little bit of like push and pull there. My understanding is that the budget, you know, is adopted for the state by the end of June for the next fiscal year, but there's still some negotiation room until about August. And so I've continued to stay in touch with, you know, Assemblymember Rogers and Senator McGuire is also outgoing, but he's, I'm going to be there through the end of this year because he didn't win the seat. That's the, um, the new district, uh, for the short period of time. So it'll be there through the end of this, this calendar year, um, serving, right. So he's really, so anyway, there's a, there's a lot going on. I think there's still, um, some pushing and pulling happening will continue to be, um, I think that's all that's really coming to mind as an update for me. But I do see a hand up from Sharon.

You did a great job summarizing what we know so far. So I just wanted to kind of add to that. The description that you gave is the legislative proposal for the budget. So that's an agreement between the Senate and the Assembly. They didn't have any buy-in from the governor yet. So right now there's negotiations that are going on behind the scenes, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall for those, but there's a negotiation going on between the governor's office and the legislature on the budget that they are proposing that they put forward here. So we don't know what the final budget is going to be. There's a whole bunch of push and pull back on this. They did reject a number of the changes and the cuts. So we're really happy about that. You listed some of those. We are really hopeful that that stays in the final agreement. But the legislative agreement did not identify any pay-fors for all of the things that they rejected from the May revise. They didn't identify where the funding needs to come from because the state budget deficit, if you're going to add this back in, then you need to balance it and take this from somewhere else. So that's a long winded way of saying there's a whole bunch more going on. We don't know yet where it is going to settle out. But I guess the good news in the short term is they are kicking the can down the road. They are not dealing with things at all. They're calling what they're going to come up with as a balanced budget. for a very short period of time and then a big deficit hits, which I would argue that means it's not balanced, but that's okay, because they're counting on ballot initiatives to come forward to provide more revenue. So they don't want to do cuts right now if they don't have to. They want the ballot initiatives that would increase the taxes to come through. That's a major point on the budget negotiations that are going through is we think there'll be more revenue coming in, so we're going to hold on with everything we can until that point comes through. So we shall see. There also right now, today's a really interesting deadline day for getting things pulled off of the November ballot. There's a whole bunch of things that are qualified for the November ballot. A lot of things. I've got a list of them. But there's also negotiations going on behind the scenes on those because some groups will yank them off because they get some kind of agreement with the legislature or with the governor to do something or other. So it's a lot of trading back and forth. So after today, we will know more of what is on the November ballot for the ballot measures. And then we'll be able to provide updated lists to everybody on what you're actually going to see. But that again, that's the revenue that they're counting on for some of this budget stuff going on. Again, long winded way to say more to come. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you, Sharon. That's super helpful. Yeah, it's a really interesting time. I should have said this was like what a super majority of the state legislature is pushing for. That has a lot of power, but so does the governor. And so it shouldn't be treated like a done deal by anyone. It's looking a little more hopeful. And there have been some signals, apparently some bat signals from the governor's office that some of those things are aligned with his negotiation kind of ideas. So we'll see. So this is definitely a key time, and we're all bracing to see how this is going to affect us. And so I sometimes think it's helpful to talk about that bigger picture when we are thinking about the services that we wish so much that there more of um and just i know i benefit from that kind of like thinking of 10 000 for me sometimes that's all i got that's that was a lot thanks that's surprising just gonna be thank you

Just one thing, Friday Night Market is also going to be there exhibiting a photography museum and the public access hours. Rosemary knows because I don't have a phone. I sent a decision.

Off. Do you want me to, can I talk? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so currently as we're speaking, we have nine transition age youth at our photography retreats. They're learning how to use cameras and going out into nature and then they're taking their photos and we blew them up really big on multiple pieces of paper. They're going to be on cardboard as like a week piece and they will be on display tomorrow at the Schluder Gallery in Old Town Eureka. It's on 3rd Street. So our public reception where youth will be speaking about their projects and their inspiration would be from two to five. And then from five to 8, 8.30 when Bright Night Market wraps up, it'll also be available as well. Stock is going to let us keep it open for our members.

That's awesome.

Yeah, all the youth participating have systems of experience in foster care, behavioral health, all those things.

Excellent.

As far as my communications, that's it.

Can I jump in just about the Zoom? Sure. Okay.

As your friendly Zoom monitor, first of all, I put a copy of the flyer in the Zoom chat, but I don't know how to show it on my screen, but that's okay.

But Alan had mentioned the desire to have one of those binders, a hard copy binder, and then said to be mindful of the budget cuts. Well, it's not good for the greater community to ignore some reservations. I believe the question I have is now, how bad will it be in Indian country in the year to come? People are looking at these issues coming up, and people learn as we go. Can we try to get a count on how many Native people could possibly be affected? So I just wanted to appreciate that comment. I know with board reports, we don't normally have a lot of back and forth, but I think we've been a little casual today. So let's figure it out.

I know we have some extra time. You're welcome. Okay. So Eddie and Alan, you haven't been officially and saw a officially been voted on yet by board of supes but do you have anything you want to share with us kind of break you in i'll start i'm i'm eddie morgan uh uh i go by he him and um

I have a lot of background in public health. I started out as a medic in the military, and then I was medical logistics, and then I did a lot of stuff in different countries referring to healthcare and public health and Kosovo and other places. I've been here locally for a long time with Easterseals and things like that, so very excited to being part of this group. I feel that the first year, like any good board member, you kind of sit back and listen and pay attention and get good mentoring and things of that nature. So that's where I'm coming from.

Awesome. Thanks, Sydney. I guess we did hear from Alan in the chat.

Alan, if you have anything else to add to the chat, I'll make sure to mention it.

Yeah, Paul, guys, I'm out on, uh, got a bunch of clients. I'm trying to get into doctor's appointments and stuff, multitasking today.

If people don't remember, I'm Alan Miller.

I'm a WEOT tribe member, also a descendant from Berber Rancheria. My grandmother swam from the island in Humboldt Bay, you know, eight months pregnant. And so I'm blessed to be here.

So I was a foster kid.

Grew up in a pretty bad situation on a reservation. Turned that all around. Got a really awesome foster dad. He'll guide me back to becoming a foster parent. And I've always just tried to give back to our community. Went to school to become an addiction specialist. Now I have a lot of connections in Indian country working with our native people and trying to come up with solutions as I run a transitional house for Bear River Rancheria and a social worker. So, family's always been here. Just want to be part of a solution, part of a team effort. Makes an impact in a positive way.

Thank you.

Say a prayer for everybody. We have language here for creator and the ancestors. Come bring the fire, the light to our hearts and to our minds. Let that medicine grow good. And that song comes with some more prayers, but this is our jump dance song. That's my blessing.

Thank you.

Okay.

Awesome.

Moving on to reports.

behavioral health director. I mean, what's that?

Well, some stuff was already said, and I really was also thinking, no, I have nothing to say about the budget for all the reasons that we just talked about it. But I was going to flag that it's looking like mobile crisis benefit is going to remain the same, which is super good, as we've talked about that here before, but still finalizing, as Sharon said, and kicking down the road. It made me think a little bit, Natalie, about the conversation yesterday at Board of Supervisors and how you lifted up the lack of suicide funding and how we have these big sweeping changes and also on the ground these impacts of ways that we're losing funding for our community in super meaningful places. So anyway, I just was reflecting a bit on that. Um, I also thought Oliver did a fantastic job at the board yesterday, and I wanted to mark that as our first integrated plan under BHSA being finalized and moving through the process. So that's, um, really remarkable. And thank you to this board for meeting a second time and accommodating, um, the need to have another public hearing on that very much appreciated. Um, The pop-up museum is going to be fantastic. And I just wanted to do a shout out to Jamie Lee Evans because she also was at Board of Supervisors yesterday or Tuesday for just recognition. And she's just done such a great job with our local youth in that organization over the years. So anyway, she's ending her contract now. And this is kind of her final event. So anyone who can go and see it, it would be great for you to do that. And she's been really impactful. Let's see. Oh, I guess I'll just add two things. One, just administrative stuff. We're in almost to the end of June. We're doing a great job getting all of our contracts through and finalized. And I just want to appreciate Wendy Scott, who's our contract coordinator, but also all of our analysts and program managers and deputies who have just really pushed to get everything done by the deadline. A few years ago, we had so many contracts that didn't make it. And last year, we were completely compliant. We're moving in that direction again. So anyway, I'm just super grateful for the hard work of staff and Wendy's coordination. And then the last thing I'll just say, kind of as a continued update, we're doing more DMC-ODS transition. We have Cal Mesa, who's been identified as the group that we're I'm hoping we'll take over as the administrator for Partnership Health and they're working super hard with DHCS and counties to make sure that we can get everything in place by January 1, which is basically tomorrow. It's coming very quickly. But there's lots of effort because our community, people at the state level, recognize the importance of continuing SUD services. Deanna and I, on Monday, met with our local providers. And so that was super helpful just to have some conversation with Jamaica and Wes in our lab just about the work in continuing to march forward, even though it's feeling hard and it's feeling quick and it's feeling worrisome. But everyone's been on board and super supportive. And they're going to get a couple of chances coming up pretty quickly to meet with partnership health, but also with Cal Mesa to just have some conversation around how we make sure this is a successful transition. So I think that's it for me.

Thank you very much, Justice.

I just have a quick question. So I know that lots of stuff is getting implemented on, and specifically on the fiscal year on July 1st, correct?

Yeah, or yes, that's different then. So this is a little bit off. The DMC-ODS is a little bit off timeframe and that's January one, but yes, by the fiscal year.

Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Thanks for asking that. Yeah.

Can I just add a clarifying piece for people that don't know that ODS is the Organized Delivery System, right, for drug medical, but then Jamaica's from Waterfront Recovery Services, Les' is from Crossroads, and Arlette's from Humboldt Recovery Services, just in case people didn't know local life first names. Yes, we need providers. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, those three are all residential, although some of them also pass about.

Thank you for that. William, two deputy directors in the house. Jeremy, what you got?

Let's see. Paul, Jack, and I, we did some interviews yesterday with some commissioning candidates, and we had two more. We did two yesterday, two more in July. So we're excited to have some applicants, build some vacant positions. And we were just talking to several of the applicants this time of year. recent Cal Poly graduates who have been interns with us that have graduated, they're getting their numbers. And so it's exciting to see that relationship that we have with Cal Poly, the internship programs leads to new graduates really wanting to come and work with the county so that all the work that we put into having interns really does pay off. And so we're starting to see that in the applicants that we're getting. So that's exciting. We had a site visit today with the representatives from parent-child interaction therapy, which is one of the required evidence-based practices that is coming through the broad PH Connect state initiative. And so it was a nice visit. We had representatives from our Healthy Moms program, Children's Behavioral Health, and one of our contractors, Redwood Community Service, parent-child interaction therapy across the county with all those programs. This is a specific practice that's, I think it's ages two to seven, and it works with the caregiver and the child with coaching the caregiver to really improve the relationship and parenting skills that helps with behavior problems. And as we all know, early intervention and working with children at a young age has a dramatic impact on the rest of their lives and schools and all kinds of things. So it's exciting to have this opportunity to train more staff to do this practice. So we had a good visit with them, more to come as we roll out training and they have funding for upgrading our equipment because this is a practice that requires a therapist all kinds of fancy technological stuff. So that's coming our way. And then as Amy mentioned, we've really been busy with a lot of contracts right now, finalizing things. Some of the work that's continuing is bringing on new org providers so that Trinidad and Rancho Villa, their social services department is working to become officially an org provider for us and be able to build Medi-Cal for their services. So we're working with them on a contract. He a family services is also working on a contract with them to open up a short term residential treatment program and str TP so that's a. used to be called group homes, but a placement option for for child welfare or probation use if they need that level of service that'd be. Nice to have that as a local option, instead of having to send kids out so that contract is in the works. Our goal is to have their crisis residential program open in the fall, shoot it for November. Crossing our fingers we'll get there. Yes. So contracts and all the certifications and licensing, construction, all that continues with them. So we're meeting with them on a monthly basis to keep pushing that project forward. So lots of stuff still going on.

So EA services. That is a, tell me again, say again.

STRTP, short-term residential treatment program.

And so if you have that contract, how soon would that?

They have the building. They're working, also contracting with child welfare as far as being a placement facility. So that's a six-bed facility would be just for females. But that again, that we don't, I think we only have two STRTP beds currently in the county. So this will expand to now we would have six additional beds, which means you don't have to go out of the area. So these would be child welfare or probation for the place. And then we contract for the behavioral health services that happen in that placement. It's the gym. Yeah, I think the Yeah.

Yeah, I know these things. It's like, wait, what we're doing what this is amazing. Just talking about today earlier about population. So thanks for that update. Thanks, Jeremy. John, what you got?

Yeah, not much more, but Jeremy, you mentioned, I think, excited about some of those interviews that we're doing. It's about what clinicians can see. So that's been good to see applicants come in. We have been working, too, on a process to increase internship opportunities for non-Cal Poly students. online schools have proliferated. We have people that are doing some programs here remotely that in-person internships and that need has been there for a little while, but it's always been real difficult to establish that relationship with those schools because we do require a robust contract process. But we're trying to figure that out, you know, how we can streamline that to the Make it, you know, as quick as as humanly possible to me to to be that in terms of these brains school so working on that.

That's, that's good to hear that you're open to Working with others, but possibly because that is something somebody said to me. Well, they only work with Right. And now I can go back and go, will this work?

Yes. Yeah. Well, it's just the timing issue. A lot of times these students, they, you know, will come and say, oh, I need an internship next month. Yeah, you can't get it done on the link. That's a little tough, but we're trying, you know, we're going to try and make it so that the contracts are really uniform and the school's case, the goal sounds like the requirements and

I'd love to hear more about the framework they use for internships because I have had some interns and vast HR, like what do we do with interns? Choose your own adventure to some degree. I'm sure it's a little bit of a liability issue that you need to be conscious of and just, and also just like have clear expectations. And I've had some, I've just had some interns, but have I fallen through with a robust framework around that? Nope. I would like to.

Yeah. Yeah. I think for us, it is, there's, there is the liability piece and it is kind of, uh, um, in, in mental health too, they are billing Medi-Cal for some of their services. And so, uh, there's a malpractice insurance requirement that exists that schools need to, or we ask schools to have. And so ensuring that they have that and, um, And that requires kind of risk management. Okay. Right. And when we have just our own sort of contract template and we talk about, you know, somebody being on site and working with our population, that type of stuff. So, yeah.

And we do have like learning agreements. So it's pretty structured and prescribed how the work that they're expected to do when they come in.

Yeah, I think your interns is probably kind of apples and oranges. Yeah, but it's still good to know to reference that is like, well, we can do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. And yours are much more like a Thanks.

Going online. Mr. Paul. Yeah. Yeah. Anything for us.

Everybody. I'm sorry. I can't be there in person. Not too much to report. The mobile crisis benefits still humming along. Just orienting three new peer coaches into the teams. So still have two vacancies that I'm filling one peer coach and another clinician. So that's moving along. The collaboration with law enforcement has been really great. And we're also bringing on the city of Eureka's care team and getting them squared away as a provider for the mobile crisis benefit. So again, they'll be taking care of a lot of the responses within the Eureka area. That includes like Cutton and over at Myrtle Town and And they're operating from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week. And then missed is 24-7, 365. So things are going well there. And care courts also humming along. We are approaching having about 90 individuals that have petitioned since we went live with this. Currently we have 39 that are enrolled with active plans and we've discharged 24 individuals from the program so far and we've recently had about 27 new petitions that have rolled in in the last couple of months. So very active program, and we're really appreciative of our collaboration with our justice partners, and especially Megan Sheeran, who's doing an awesome job, and Meg and Patrick to support. The care team has just been remarkable. And nothing to report on SV really. Things are going well there and are planning for the crisis triage centers continuing to move forward as well as the new building for Sempervirens is also moving along. So excited about both of those projects. That's about it for me.

Thanks, Paul. Keep up the good work. Sorry, can I ask a quick question?

Yes. I know. She narrows her eyes for me. When you say living along, could you say just a little bit more about what that means? Is it like the architecture and design? What does that mean?

For the Crisis Triad Center, yes, we're doing some modifications to design ideas, working with our contractors, Boulder and Associates, so that's That is, you know, we're looking for opportunities to have some cost savings in anticipation of rising costs due to the conflicts around the world that have impacted budgets. So we're looking at that and trying to be proactive about that. No significant changes to that program design for that program up in Mad River. And then for supervirens, yeah, we're just continuing with a lot of the preliminary work with the entities that are in charge of helping us to bring these projects into reality. So those meetings are happening monthly. Is that enough info?

That's good. People ask me sometimes how those projects are going, and I'm like, they're still moving. And then I think to myself, if someone asks a follow-up question, will I be able to answer it? So thank you for How can you be more prepared?

There can be some specifics like we're talking for separate viruses. It's on such a busy corner. How do we continue to have therapeutic environment inside with the noise? So there's discussions around how to make things more soundproof so that folks on the inside don't hear horns and things on the outside of the building. So things like that we're discussing and looking into.

Those are the major location for protests. So people have bullhorns there almost every day.

Let's move that. Yeah, protest closet. Thanks, Paul. All right, SED committee, Danette's not here, nor is Raphael. I don't know if you have anything to add.

I was at the meeting, but my zoo kept going in and out, and I had to just leave the meeting after 30 minutes of struggling. So I have no idea what happened at that meeting.

I asked them.

Michelle Thomas gives us notes, and she'll be sending the notes, but they come out closer to the time of the next meeting. Right. Sorry. Great. Yeah, it was my home, Sam, and I've never had trouble with it, but it just kept going away.

Adult, older adult, I know. Want to say anything, sir?

We did meet briefly a couple weeks ago, two lawyers, Vern and I. One of our members was in the midst of a work-related crisis and was in a vehicle transporting somebody. somewhere, so I had to cut that short. But we did have brief discussion on that we're still awaiting for some meetings to take place internally so that we can see the wheel's already been invented in this older adult community. And so we just need to find out where we can fit into the spoke. And what we're supposed to do is this has never been a committee before, so we don't have a pattern to follow. We're kind of establishing what are we supposed to be doing here? And asking those kinds of questions and awaiting answers. We're still looking for community members, board members to become involved with this. Right now there's four of us. We do have a meeting room. We do have little links. We do have all that established. And I think we're just waiting for some conversation to take place so that we can move forward. We're stuck now.

Actually, there was an adult, older adult committee back when I was first on the panel. But I mean, you know, I wasn't on it, so I don't have anything helpful to tell you, but except that there was an older adult committee back then. How long ago then? 2016 to 19. So it's all pre-pandemic. Pandemic kind of fouled up a lot of committee. And you had staff participate, right?

I think the supervisor was part of it.

Yeah.

I remember I was part of the committee of staff at one point.

Try and look up some minutes because online there aren't any.

Did I miss anything, Vern? No. Oh, we're waiting on the result of a survey from the county also. But quarterly? It's semi-annual every six months. So we're still looking to find the result of that survey. So we meet again in July.

Thank you.

Vice Chair? I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate the folks on the board and the folks that come, staff and community members that attend the meetings regularly. I think sometimes we bring up things that we don't, that we come across as contentious, and I think it's a valuable space and important that we have the opportunity to do that. And I just, having been involved in these meetings in different capacities over the years, I really appreciate the diversity of the board members and like all the expertise that people bring. And it feels like it's me, this board has gotten some momentum that I've never really seen it have before. So that feels good to be part of.

I'm sticking around. We'll see.

Thanks.

Ditto. What I said. Thanks. Yep. Thanks for everyone.

All right.

Unfinished business. I don't know anything on NavCenter. Still a little, still positive.

Oh, it's still us meeting about it. That was, we're having occasional check-ins that include me and Rex. with the architect of facilities first on the city of Eureka to just make sure it's staying on track. So at our last meeting, we were able to, I don't think anyone else who's in this room was up that, it was just Connie and I. We were able to see the architect here at Sorley showed us who was selected by property owner, and is making good progress and they've completed like the 90% designs to the satisfaction of our facilities person and the contract. And so that's all good. We got to see this visualization that was like an architectural ad or something rendering, but then we were also able to like fly through walls and see like a 3D uh, version of it and, and kind of asked like, well, what's in that room? What's in that room? So it's actually really cool. We got to see like a rendering of it, um, and see some of the different, some design changes that happened. Um, one of the, one of the considerations was like maintaining privacy, but also safety and, uh, Ability to clean like shower spaces and how are those going to be accessed in bathroom spaces. And so they're just a little piece that got me based on recommendations on group. Yeah, it's coming along. Remind me where it is. It's right over kind of close to the co op and just up the block from their commercial and 3rd and Marshall.

Thank you. From where the St. Vincent de Paul dining facility is, correct? Yep.

So there's supposed to be a public comment meeting or a meeting. Was that talked about?

I don't remember it being talked about. This was a couple weeks ago. So my understanding was Um, so I'm not an architect, so they were talking architecture, speak a good amount of the time and, um, and then needing to get like not only the architect, but the license of the engineer to sign off on some things. So they were, that was, um, a fair amount of the focus and it was more like what milestones are we hitting for compliance with the engineering and design? Um, so I don't remember the public comment being part of it, but I can find out.

That would be great because I, a while ago, had told people there's going to be a time when the neighbors get to say stuff. And so I keep saying like, oh, it's going to be in May. Was that? Oh, it's going to be in June. A defined thing? Well, because nothing, if you're at 90% design completion, there's still 10%. But I would think that that comment or input would have to come before the final 10%.

Yeah, I just don't, I don't know. Was that going to be a county city joint like community meeting or was it, do you know what that was?

It was just supposed to be the surrounding area. There's supposed to be a time for people to, we're making this thing for the community and the community gets to give some input. Not that anybody would take it, but still have to have that.

I'm going to make a note to myself. Thanks. to send this email right after this to ask about that. Because I haven't heard that at all. It makes sense, but I hadn't heard that. So I can bring it up in our next meeting or get an answer sooner.

I have the old design when Hannah Ozanian presented it. I can't even remember. I think it was here, maybe. Maybe it was a different meaning. But we'd love to see what it looks wasn't proposed now. So I, yes, thank you very much for following up on that. I appreciate it. Since I'm down every day and people like to talk about things.

It was a short, pretty short meeting, but everyone sounded like genuinely like it was on the chart timing wise. So that was what I was paying the most attention to. Are we good with the grant? Okay, great. Yeah. Okay.

Well, so we already talked about care court, crisis triage, future items. Does anybody have future items for hearing none? I will say we are going to adjourn at 1.36. Thank you all for the work that you do. Thank you.

Thank you, Laura. That was a good intro, but I didn't get this.

I was inspired by you. Thank you so much.