Community Services - Regular Meeting

applications from people in the community and then of course that committee decides who gets the grants for these different all health related things and her specialty was behavior behavior health mental health it doesn't necessarily have to be that but just a health related But the other component of the position, too, is that that person would go out into the community and lead, maybe not lead in the sense of her expertise is not in the health field, but organize trainings or things for the community that are health-related all across the spectrum of health. Excellent.

So the organizations that apply for the grants, do they have to be nonprofits?

Yes, they have to be non-profits, and they have to be, I do know this for sure, they have to both be headquartered, so to speak, in Los Alamos, but also serving Los Alamos residents, because we did get applications from people that did not fulfill those things, and so those would not be granted.

How frequently are grants made?

Okay, so that I honestly cannot answer, because it's too new to the role.

I'm sorry?

I think it is quarterly. She was telling me that money is, you know, there's a certain amount of money, but then... She was showing me a graph, like the first quarter they gave two grants, but by the fourth quarter they had given many more, like maybe eight or something like that. So it does change.

No, that's okay. Perfect. Anybody have any other questions for Allison?

What's your email address if we want to connect with you? It's very easy, but it's also very close to my chamber address, so you have to be careful. It's Allison, A-L-I-S-O-N, for one L, at Los Alamos... But then you have to put the CF at the end of that. Community Foundation, CF, Los Alamos, CF.org. If you leave the CF out, it goes to the chamber.

Awesome. Oh, that won't be difficult at all.

Thank you. Thank you. We can head to a little business. Does anybody have any changes to the agenda? I'm not hearing anything, so we'll approve the agenda for today's meeting. Has everybody had a chance to look at the minutes of the last meeting in May?

April.

April.

Because we skipped May, which is why it's good we're meeting now.

Does anybody have any comments or changes on the meeting minutes from April?

Rebecca's here.

Hi, Rebecca. Welcome. Okay. Going once. Going twice. No changes to the meeting minutes. So the meeting minutes are approved. And now it's time to move into Mary Blosher's presentation. And I will let her introduce herself, even though I know a lot about her interesting background.

Before you start, for folks on Zoom, can you see the screen with Mary's presentation on it?

Yep, looks great.

If I forward to the next slide, does it change? Yes. Perfect. Thanks. We've had technical difficulties before, so I always like to check before we get into it. We've literally done the whole presentation, and then at the end, somebody was like, oh, the slides didn't advance. And I was like, oh, no, well, it doesn't help if you told me on slide 20. Goodness gracious. So, okay, we always like to check. So now, Mary, we will turn it over to you. Should we turn it to Mary?

Can we put her picture up there with the share?

We can't. No, because I have to minimize this so that it has the full screen. You'll have to imagine the face you're making while you present.

I'm so sorry. Okay. Great. Well, thank you so much for having me today. I'm super excited to give this presentation. I have lived so much of this experience. And I feel like it's a really important topic for people to be informed of because there's so many myths about gifted people. And I want to dispel some of those in a positive way. So just to let you know, I was a clinical social worker for 20 years. I got into coaching. when my daughter was little and as she got, she is gifted and she's also on the spectrum, so she is what's called twice exceptional. And as she got into the fourth grade, it became evident that I needed to think about leaving the workforce because her needs were great enough that she needed somebody 24-7 to kind of be keeping an eye on her. And so I'm really passionate about this work because I feel like, especially in girls, I feel like so much of this goes undetected and a lot of people are suffering needlessly. And so I'm kind of on a mission to help people to understand more about giftedness and divergence and to embrace it and to allow people to be themselves in this world. And so... Let's see. I will begin. Next slide. All right. All right. So giftedness and neurodivergence are complex topics. I have a much longer talk that I could be giving, but I have shortened this today for you. And so this is a general overview. There's a lot of information out there. I've got lots of resources compiled if anybody is ever interested in And what I have found that's helpful over the years. And I want to say that every gifted person is unique. So if you've seen one gifted person, you've seen one gifted person. I just want to say that. And so I've been in this community for maybe 17 years now. At every point of my daughter's development, we had to do things differently. And so I picked up on numerous resources along the way that I can share. Yeah, so this is basically just an introduction. All right, why does giftedness even matter? Why would you even be curious about it? Because gifted people are not just smarter, And other people, they are different. They are fundamentally different. And they experience life differently. And that's for good reasons and maybe some not good reasons. So there's a whole lot of myths about being gifted that absolutely don't hold up. And like one example is being gifted means that you're high achieving. The reality is that a lot of gifted people underachieve, which is a source of pain for them. And while gifted people are capable of the extraordinary, at the same time, they're an at-risk population. So they are more inclined to be bullied, and sometimes bully, to drop out of school, even in high school. And they're more likely to have mental health issues, to commit suicide, to have substance abuse issues, and even to end up in the criminal justice system. Alright, so some of the myths. Educators know how to work with gifted students. Life's easier for gifted people. Gifted people are gifted in all areas of their lives. And gifted people, they don't need extra help or accommodations. They've got it smooth sailing for them. And the truth is, and I have lived this and watched this in my loved ones, and it's painful to watch, but giftedness is a blessing and it's a curse. And it comes with factors that are internal to the person and outside of the environment. And those can make life very painful and difficult. Okay. So giftedness is a form of neurodivergence. And neurodivergence is when somebody's brain just operates differently than what is considered typical or neurotypical. So people learn differently. and process information differently. And giftedness is often accompanied, and this is important to remember, by other expressions of neurodivergence like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, including something called stealth dyslexia, which my daughter has and which is really hard to pick up. And auditory processing disorders, mental health conditions like OCD, depression, anxiety, et cetera. Learning challenges conceal giftedness. Okay? And then here's the other thing. Giftedness conceals learning challenges. Okay? So it's really important for people to get... so that they can figure out what's going on with their brains and why they may be struggling in school because they think, oh, I'm so bright. Until you get to a certain point, the giftedness kind of helps you along, and then the world gets complicated enough and school gets challenging enough where the giftedness isn't enough anymore. Those learning challenges start to make an impact. And the term, as I said, twice exceptional or 2E means that someone's gifted and neurodivergent in another way. So my daughter is gifted and we didn't find out she was autistic until she was 14 because her giftedness hid the autism. Now, I have a feeling you all might know already about Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences, but he wrote about these. There's actually eight of them. I've listed seven, and then I discovered a newer one. But some of these are going to get picked up on tests, and some are not. So people can be under-identified or unidentified as gifted because the way that they're gifted isn't going to show up on a cognitive test. So we've got linguistic intelligence, verbal facility, people being really good at reading, logical mathematical intelligence, visual spatial intelligence, which is the capacity to visualize spatial dimensions, create internal images, and arrange objects efficiently and meaningfully. These first three get picked up on tests. Okay, but there's also musical intelligence. There's, um, the next slide would be bodily kinesthetic intelligence. So our athletes, our dancers, um, interpersonal intelligence. So the ability to, um, innately work with people constructively and lead them, um, being just really good with other people. Um, intrapersonal intelligence. This one's kind of interesting, I think. Um, a strong awareness of oneself, and an ability to develop spiritual inner states of self-reflection and awareness. So who knew that was and requires modifications in parenting, teaching, and counseling in order for them to develop optimally? So this was a big change. All right, so what the heck is asynchronous development? So basically, it's a kiddo being out of step because of their giftedness. And it's expressing giftedness in a certain area of development, but then being at age level or even behind in other areas. And it's very tricky, I can say as a parent. This is really, really tricky to manage. So the example that I've seen given of asynchronous development is a seven-year-old girl who's reading at a sixth grade level, doing math at a fourth grade level, and who has the fine motor skills of a second grader of her chronological age. So this is a child with special school needs and one who needs her parents to be advocating for her to get her needs met. And I'm going to give an example of what this can look like in real life. So my daughter's talent area is acting. And when she was nine, she got into this professional regional theater production of It's a Wonderful Life. And it was a big deal. She was one of only a few kids. And acting for her was absolutely no problem at all. You know, she, I mean, she could do it with her eyes closed. She just was, knew exactly what she had to do. You know, all of that. And my husband and I thought that, oh, we can just leave her at the theater with her friends. You know, because she's so professional and all of that. Well, I started getting calls about her going in to visit her friends in the men's dressing room and how she was disrupting things. And at first, I was a little annoyed. I was like, ugh, can she just be being herself? And then I was like, wait a minute, she's not. Like, oh yeah, she's a kid. Like, you know, with these kids, you can forget. They're just kids. You know, because they don't necessarily act like kids. They're all kids. settings and so I ended up behind stage for the entirety of the run of that show and she just needed me there to feel safe so that's just one example of how that can work alright and then we get into intensity and I have handouts for you in the back on every single type of intensity but I'll describe what this means. So Bratowski was a Polish psychologist and psychiatrist who worked with gifted students and artists and psychiatric patients, and he observed common traits among them. And so he wrote about how gifted people are prone to certain intensities and passions that he termed overexcitabilities. So they can experience or respond to stimuli in a much more intense way, and it can be compared to receiving information with a satellite dish rather than a rabbit-eared antenna. So there's five different types, and just so that you guys have them, feel free to take a handout on the way out. Um, but the five types include psychomotor. So have you ever noticed how really smart people like move a lot? Like they tend to, they tend to like be, you know, they have a lot of zest.

Would they be like clicking? Like just. Oh yeah. Like with your foot, like doing your foot like that.

Yep. So needing to physically move, fidget, having trouble sitting still, rapid speech, um, fervent enthusiasm, love of movement for its own sake, need for action. And so these kids are constantly on the go. And this can look like ADHD.

That they can't sit still. And then you give them sugar and it's like...

But ADHD and giftedness are also really highly correlated. They are correlated, but at the same time with these intensities, it gets really tricky with teasing out what is what so and you don't want to put a kid on a medicine if they don't have ADHD so it's challenging one time I will share my daughter at age 4 was sick and tired of trick or treating she was bored and she said I want to have a Halloween destination house and so for 2 hours she went on what our Halloween destination house was going to be. And I was terrified because I was a therapist and I was like, this is rapid speech. She's got pressured rapid speech right now. Like, and she's four. So is she, oh my God, like I was freaked out by this. But I think she just had so many ideas to express that she just had to get them all out. And something you can do that's helpful for these kids is like write down their ideas because they're so afraid of losing all their ideas. But anyway, so imaginational overexcitability is rich imagination, imaginary friends, fantasy play, creativity. And they can even sometimes confuse reality with fantasy. So I've seen a little girl, not mine, but I've seen a little girl climb up on a pedestal at a park and jump off thinking she can fly. And she really believed that she could fly. And thank goodness her mom caught her. That's all I can say. Sensual. I'm sure you've heard a little bit more about this one because this can be like the kids who are sensitive about labels and their clothing and, like, a lot of noise, but at the same time, their senses are heightened so that they're able to derive enormous pleasure from music, art, language, you know, these are people who can look at sunset and start crying, um, that, that type of thing. And then the intellectual, uh, overexcitability is kind of the classic one, you know, asking endless questions, curiosity, um, love of problem solving and puzzles. And what I want to say about this one that's really important for this population, especially as they start getting older, is that they have often divergent thinking, independent thinking. So they're out-of-the-box thinkers. And they're not just going to go along to get along. Because if they don't agree with a rule or... norm they're just going to refuse to go along and it can be very difficult as a parent to deal with that um and like my daughter refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance in elementary school because she disagreed with the politics at the time and they had her leaving the classroom for for the pledge every day because she's she's just like i'm not doing it you know And there's no, like, amount of just telling them you have to do this. They're just set. So that can be tricky for parents and teachers.

Does that sometimes get confused with the optional or oppositional defiant disorder? Yeah. Thank you.

And if you don't know what kids get, you don't know that you might think like this. And you might just think, oh, they're just difficult. And they get a reputation, yeah. So this emotional one, the emotional overexcitability, I would say, is the most common one for gifted folks. And so these young people, they have very intense feelings, really complex, extreme emotions. passion, empathy, sensitivity, sometimes anger. They're likely to become involved with social causes, trying to help others or the environment. And they're just very keenly aware of injustice in the world. They can become preoccupied by it. They can also be vulnerable to existential depression. at a very young age. And so that's something to be aware of too. But they develop really strong connections to people, places, and things. And they're often told, you know, you're just overreacting or you're too sensitive. And so that they're hearing that, you know, as they're young. They're hearing that over and over and getting that message.

They're getting negative reinforcement for what is normal for them. Yes.

All right. And so more broadly, like some of the vulnerabilities of this population, first I'll just say, you know, intensity and asynchronous development, we just went over those. But those can lead to social rejection and alienation and loneliness. And I have to say, my daughter would say, no one wants to play with me on the playground. And it was just... That was painful. That was pretty terrible. They're just out of step with their peers. They have a really hard time connecting with them. Under-identification, I would say, is a big issue with this population. I don't think we really know what percentage of the population is actually gifted because I think a lot of these kids get missed, and it's for a whole variety of reasons, but one of the big ones is that if there's no testing that's done at school, the testing that you pay for is like $3,000. So it's really expensive to have your child assessed. Or testing might not pick up on the giftedness, Or the person might have issues like autism or a learning disability that hides the giftedness. So those are all issues that come up that lead to under-identification. Gordom and under-stimulation. Okay, so those aren't just annoyances for these kids. They need... the right amount of stimulation to literally feed their souls. It's more intense than you would think. And if they're not identified, they might not be getting what they need stimulation-wise. And all of this can lead to mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and an increased likelihood to get into trouble. I think a lot of people in our prisons... are gifted. And there's, by the way, I just want to say there's a great, free, short documentary online called the G-Word Film. And we say the G-Word because people hate the word gifted. But the G-Word Film talks a lot about under-identification and what does it mean to be gifted, like who you have to be to get identified in this country. So that's a really good film to watch. And then I spoke to Barbara Denevers about this. Do you guys know who Barbara Denevers is? She's a psychiatric nurse practitioner here in Los Alamos. And I asked her, I'm like, okay, you work with a lot of gifted kids, so what do I have to remember to say to people and the health council to be helpful? She said, you have to talk about perfectionism and how these kids... have a tendency to be very self-critical and they put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves. And then they have parents or teachers putting pressure on them. And, um, and they don't even know, like, they don't understand that they're just people and they can like, they're more than their brain or their talent. And they're allowed to just play and relax and have fun and just be flawed, God forbid. And just be themselves. And who are they, really, without their brain and their talent? It becomes their identity to a point that's not healthy. And so underachievement is a big issue with gifted. And I think that what happens is that when you're little... and you're gifted, things come super easy, easily to you. Like you don't have to practice much. You be told something once and get it. And then you're impatient with other people and with yourself and you have to wait for other people to understand what's going on. And, um, and you get annoyed and, um, like my daughter gets annoyed with me and, uh, And so, but you're used to this self-concept, like you have this self-concept of, oh, I'm somebody who's really smart. That's who I am. But then what happens is you don't even have to study, right? Like you don't, until you get to a certain point, you don't have to put in any work to learn. But eventually, the workload gets heavy enough and difficult enough where you do. You have to put in some work. but you don't know how because you've never done it. And then what can start happening is that you're like, oh my God, I'm dumb now. Like I, you know, what's happened to me? Yeah, I'm dumb now. Like what? Because remember, they're very hard on themselves. So it's like black and white. Like, oh, I'm an idiot now. And they don't know how to ask for help because they've never had to. And so they're really struggling with their self-concept when things get difficult enough. And then some additional struggles. This could be a whole talk. The stress at home. Gifted kids, neurodivergent kids come from gifted and neurodivergent parents and grandparents. And let me tell you, people have not been identifying these issues over the generations until fairly recently. So you've got a whole bunch of relatives who are neurodivergent and gifted, and maybe they've never identified as such. And they're like, let's not talk about that. And the parents can really, the parents can struggle because it's just hard to keep up with these kids. It's exhausting. They're very emotional sometimes and you've got to modify everything for them. And like other people might not understand, like my daughter's pediatrician shamed me for some of the decisions I made around raising her because they weren't traditional. And it was just tough. It's just tough being a parent of these kiddos. And so what can really help is having parent groups. So SANG is an organization, it stands for Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted. And they provide parent groups, so they train people in the community. I've actually been one of those parent group facilitators before. And so the parents can get together and share information. And they can talk about their kids honestly without bragging. I mean, without worrying that they're bragging. And then be really honest about how difficult things are at home. So those groups can be really useful. And then we covered, you know, why am I not good at everything? And then ongoing loss and grief. These people have that because the world just isn't set up for them. They have to kind of make their way, and oftentimes their path is going to be unconventional. My daughter's acting coach grew up in Alaska, had a single mom, and she left home at 16 to go to L.A. and work in film. And she did. She left home with her aunt and got into the movies. So they don't necessarily finish school, you know, they just don't look like a lot more typical.

In quotes.

And then this other one, life purpose and multi-potentiality. So multi-potentiality means that these young people are good at a lot of different things and they can really struggle with where do I want to place my focus? And it really helps them to get more in touch with their value system and what it is, like how it is that they want to be spending their time in order to kind of choose a path for themselves. And they can get pressured into doing that. what makes sense money-wise. Like, oh, you're good at science. You know, you should be a scientist, you know, because that's money right there. That's status. But maybe they, you know, maybe they want to be an artist. And so, but they get pushed into doing things that they might not want to be doing. And so my last slide is what helps these young people. So I think parent groups, like I mentioned, parent education and support, and identifying as many of these young people as possible. Because when you know why you're different, that can be a game changer for somebody. And then you can try to find your people. And then finding out if you're 2E, if you have dyslexia or something like that. So that you can figure out why you can't be at a level that you want to be with something. So what's interfering with that? Building self-awareness of oneself as a whole person. So being more than your brain. Being more than your talent area. You have a body. You're not just a brain. You have a body too. And, you know, you have an emotional life, you have a social life, and, like, let's talk about those things and let's maybe develop those things. Fostering true friendships. So these young people can be super intense. They want deep friendships. They are not interested in more surface-level friendships. that are really, like, more, I would say, age-appropriate. You know, like, these are kids who, they just want a best friend, and they want, you know, they want it all, and it's, like, it's super intense, and there aren't a lot of other kids who are willing to be that person for them.

Are they mature in a lot of ways?

Very mature. Yeah. Like, way overly mature.

So they don't get frustrated with their peers.

Oh, absolutely. And then they tend to, like, befriend adults very easily. Um, and older people like my daughter at the, at the show, like she just thought all these guys were her friends, you know? And, um, and then, but you know, you can't hang out in the dressing room, you know? So, so, you know, I mean, it's that kind of thing and it's, it's just, it's hard for them. It's hard. Plus they have these intense interests sometimes and they want to have friendships based around their interests. And so that, that gets tricky. Um, My daughter, like I'll give an example, she was interested in film. She was not interested in plays. And I had to hire a young woman in Santa Fe to help her audition for movies because that's just what she was interested in. And doing plays involved repetition that she couldn't tolerate. And then she would get so bored, and the boredom would trigger a major depression. And so, you know, we had some options up here, but, like, they just didn't work for her. And so I had to, like, go about finding, you know, what would work. And it costs money. I'm not going to lie. Parents are often paying a lot for services for their kids. Yeah, so.

We've got about $500.

Oh, I've been going and going.

No, you're doing awesome. We just always have run out of time at this meeting. Do you want me to stop share so I can put you back on the screen? Did you have more?

The only thing I'm going to say before I wrap up is that this is really important. Like if a kid's identified or a young person's identified, when you can, whenever you can, accommodate them. Find an alternative that meets their needs. Don't try to make them fit. system and then the one other thing is there's lots of specialists so mental health counselors they can be trained in how to work with gifted people so whenever you can you know have these people served by people who are specialists so we do have about five minutes for questions for Mary if anybody online have any questions for Mary

Rebecca left a comment. This is really fantastic. I unfortunately need to drop off for a work meeting, but thank you so much, Mary. Questions or comments?

I have a question for you, Mary. On the gifted and neurodiverse, have you ever seen children with neonatal abstinence syndrome, so they were born exposed in utero? I was wondering, because a lot of the things that you mentioned, they're dealing with a lot of that, like sensory issues, psychomotor skills but they're super smart you know what I mean so their IEPs are getting dropped once they get to elementary because they're getting they like meet the goals for like speech therapy and stuff but then you'll see more problems later on with like self-regulating and like even more sensory issues to lights and sound so I feel like they would kind of fall under being gifted because they're super smart but then they also have like the disability from exposed in utero which is neonatal abstinence syndrome so I was wondering and we don't see a lot of like training on it and how to help these children so they're following through the cracks so the teachers think that like they have ADHD or ADD and that's not what it is it's just they're dealing with all these other things so do you think that they would fall into this category and what would you recommend on getting these kids tested?

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's possible. I mean, remember a lot of gifted people end up abusing substances, you know? So, um, I mean, I think getting assessments whenever possible is going to tease out. We, we have a new assessor in the area, um, who just moved here and she worked at Yale. She was a professor there and she does assessments for, um, for teens and adults, and who might be neurodivergent. So maybe giving her a call and asking, because this is what she does. She teases things out.

Yeah, and share her, because they're growing up to being like, so they're dealing with this when they're babies, and then it's growing into like, they're having developmental issues, and then... they have a lot more things when they get into junior high and high school, and then we can't really prescribe these children medication either because... Risk of addiction. Yeah. So it's like, if they were prescribed something for ADHD, like medication, how is it affecting them in the long run, and how will these children get the services they need, and what if they're just gifted, you know what I mean? And we can target a different way and get them different programming to be able to help them rather than...

and then them becoming adults, like you said, in jail, gifted and not being... Yeah, well, I would check out some of the articles on over-excitabilities just to be aware of what those can look like so that those are on your radar. And then I would call Erin McCarthy-Shaw, who is the psychiatric nurse practitioner who just moved here.

We'll send that out with the slides, with the updated slides, okay? Mary, thank you for your time.

Can we just see any other questions from folks online? Karen shared, I wanted to share, I also see a delay in maturity in some of the 2E kids.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, these kids can, they say it's a long runway for them to, and especially if they're 2E, for them to launch. It can be a longer runway. Yeah.

Just an observation real quick. When you talked about the people in jail, and then you talked about how much money it can cost parents to effectively raise a child with giftedness or 2E, it makes me think for sure it's a socioeconomic thing, too, because the ones that are in the jails probably were not, for the most part, given the opportunities through finance. And then it becomes, how do we make this equitable?

Exactly. And that's exactly, Allison, with the G word film.

I'm going to look for, can you, it's just called We can send out the name of the nurse practitioner and the link to the film and Mary's slides. Thank you, Mary, so much.

Thank you, Mary. So much. This is wonderful. And I can also grab a copy of one of each of the flyers for the folks who are online? Absolutely. Yeah, I'll scan them in. Allison, to your point, we came from a school district that did not do universal testing for giftedness or learning disabilities, right? Large urban district on the East Coast. And the reason was given as like, well, we don't have enough teachers or aides or specialists. So Parents have to advocate for their kid to get tested within the district unless you go and pay $3,000. And so there is absolutely a socioeconomic that, to me, the answer was then the district needs to hire more teachers and more aides and more resources, not limit the amount of testing and making overburdened parents ask for more.

Because if you're working three jobs to put food on the table, that's probably not your main priority.

And then to come to IEP meetings over and over and over.

And they miss the whole thing.

Yep, and so it becomes a policy issue as well as a resource issue.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

So we're going to move on because I want to make sure that we get everybody's kind of report in here. So the next thing we'd like to talk about is does anybody have any reports on any activities that liaison things and projects the health council members have been working on recently. We'll just do a quick round table. I attended the gala for the Y. Can you guys hear Barbara or no? Okay, good, Karen. Thank you. It's Barbara Phelps. Anyway, the gala was very well attended and raised a lot of money for the YMCA that for the whole area, so it was fun.

The music was good.

Did we ever get a date set up for a tour of Christus St. Louis? I'm definitely interested. Yeah, all of social services wants to come.

If it says yes, then I'll get some dates set up.

Just not on Thursdays.

Could I have Jeremy connect with you from the social services side?

And then when you guys come up with one, we'll send it out to the health council as well.

Jeremy and I just both had, like, light bulbs go off over our heads. Like, wait, no.

And while we're mentioning that, we also wanted to try to get a tour of Presbyterian. Bring them home. Yes, yeah, that would be awesome.

We've talked about that internally, too, so cool, cool.

Okay, anybody else have any liaison reports? I went to the BPU meeting last night. I will not, well, actually, I will say something. Oh, my gosh. You owe me for that, David. They did have a presentation that the county is... Do you want to say what your stands were? Yeah, Department of Public Utilities, Board of Public Utilities, and they had a presentation on... a program where you can make improvements. They're just sort of looking at it. They're examining it. And I know Environmental Sustainability has as well to see if they could create a program that would allow people to get money. And it was a grant money that could be loaned to a consumer, a homeowner, to do repairs in their home and then paid back via their utility bills at a low cost. Like mini splits or upgrading in windows or insulation or some type of energy savings. And so what that would do from a health perspective and social determinants of health would allow people who don't have $10,000, $20,000 to upgrade their HVAC savings. when it's 100 degrees outside to maybe do this kind of work through the county. You know, you'd have to have approved contractors. And Angelica Gurley has all the details about it. I don't know that we want to take up time in a meeting, but I can send you the information on it at some point. It just seemed like a great idea for people who have limited incomes.

If you go to the Environmental Sustainability Board agenda, That presentation.

Okay. Yes, for sure. So we can send you the link to that. And Councilor Hand has been involved in that as well as Mr. Hampton. So I think now we'll move on unless anyone else has any reports, liaison reports or anything, projects. Okay. So I guess it's my chair report. So this is kind of a project and I'm kind of sorry that Marna isn't here today, she's tabling at the health fair, senior health fair. There is a project going on at the state level with the Alliance of Health Councils. It's a database, a resource directory for the entire state. So I'm going to pass the handouts to people in the room, and then we'll send you the link to that online. Matthew, you probably would have a ball with this, looking at this. It's actually a database that's developed by a nonprofit organization called Share New Mexico, and the people on the board are part of the Alliance of Health Councils. It has every single county as well as tribes and so forth, and they're looking to populate this database with organizations, and this is what I want to speak to you about, Allison, and we're also involving the Chamber of Commerce here, Any organization can input their information into this database. They also have an events calendar. They also have initiatives like maybe unhoused or food distributions or what have you. And so it's just a great way to get an organization in there. They have county organizations in there as well. I went on the Los Alamos one. We have law enforcement and libraries organizations. So that might be a good start. We're not there yet. So anyway, I just wanted to kind of get this on your all's radar, and it's something that we're going to be pursuing. And we're going to maybe have a separate meeting with Chamber of Commerce, maybe Community Foundation as well, to introduce it to the public and to the organizations within Los Alamos.

I'll just add a quick plug, because Lisa and I have been to the statewide health council alliance of health councils convening, That's a mouthful, sorry. But they've dedicated staff to this. One of the things that has come up over and over is, you know, like, who's going to keep a directory up to date? How is this going to work? When I have shared here at Health Council about the work that is being done regionally, partnering with Rio Riba County, Santa Fe County, all of us are now using the same all of us, the health and human services, social services, are using the same referral software, right? We know people live in Española but work up here or live up here but get their health care in Santa Fe. So having the state put major resources behind a statewide directory is really, really impactful. Each county is tasked with kind of seeding it, like getting some information on there, right? But it's great that they're maintaining the infrastructure, right? Like they're paying for the software and the images. So it takes that heavy lift off of each individual county to do this, which makes it really, really great.

So we're real excited about this.

More to come.

More to come. Just a couple more things. We'll get back to you. Yeah, we'll send that out. Events, we're not doing anything at Chamberfest. Are we doing anything at Pride?

Yes, social services will have a table at the Pride Festival in town, which is the 12th.

On a Friday, June 12th. So if you guys want to join us, just show up. Okay, it's from 4 to 7? Yeah, I think so.

At Town Square.

In Central Park Square.

I'm pointing for those in the room.

Pryfest, 3 to 7 Central Park Square.

It's 3 to 7. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's 3 to 7 Central Park Square.

So if you want a table for the health council, just show up and find us, okay? And I also have some handouts from the last two boards and commissions. Luncheon, the last one was chaired by Counselor Hand. So I'm just going to pass these around. And if anyone online wants copies, just reach out to me. Okay. That is all I have. Oh, my husband and I went to a Food Depot event on sometime this week. I think it was Wednesday night. And we got a tour of the Food Depot warehouse. And I sent Jessica a screenshot of their bulletin board. And it showed how many thousands of pounds of food they delivered last year. to all the neighboring counties and region, including Los Alamos. So we'll send that out to you as well. But I've got little buttons for the people in the room and also a little bling from social services, so I'll pass that around. Okay, I'm done. Cool, cool, cool.

I will give the social services staff report. I know some months I say I don't have a lot, but this month I actually do. so I actually had to make detailed notes so I wouldn't forget. In April, I was very fortunate to go to two different conferences. One was held here in Albuquerque and was the National Assisted Outpatient Treatment Court Conference. We usually shorten that to AOT, Assisted Outpatient Treatment. It is a model that has been in place for more than 20 years Started in Ohio, which I am from Ohio, so I feel okay saying this. I am shocked that anything progressive started in Ohio. Love to my family there, but there's a reason lots of people have left. It is also in use in Pennsylvania and New York. I was really lucky to be a part of implementing this in Pittsburgh. 18 years ago I was pregnant that kid is now finishing his freshman year of college but it is a really amazing system that uses a team approach for people experiencing mental health or substance use problems that includes courts in that team approach so it is not a if you don't go to treatment you're going to jail punitive approach but a much more collaborative problem-solving and using what has been termed the black robe effect, where people experiencing mental health or substance use and criminal justice involvement, having a judge invested in your treatment, in your recovery, makes a really big psychological difference. And if you want to look up the black robe effect, there's been lots of stuff written on it. but it's including courts in the treatment planning for people. And some folks are involved for six months and some are involved for six years. And this conference was amazing in that it brought people from counties and municipalities that have had this for 20 years and people who are just starting to look at implementing this. So New Mexico is a little bit in the middle. I've been attending meetings for the last year or so again, with counterparts from Rio Riva and Santa Fe counties, because our district, District 1, Judicial District 1, is one of the pilots for the state to do this. The district judge is Judge Lidyard, who sits out of Santa Fe. So it's not municipal. It's statewide district court. But Judge Lidyard is really, really interested the nuts and bolts aren't quite there. We're meeting with the team out of Santa Fe later in June to kind of figure out, okay, like then how do we make it work? As with everything, transportation, like how do we help somebody get to Santa Fe to meet with the judge? And not that video court doesn't work. I mean, obviously we have some of our counselors on here, right? Zoom works, but but the impact of it being in person is just apparently really, really great. So much more to come on that. Lori Padilla, our mobile homeless outreach coordinator, um, she also went and, and she and I just left with like literal drawings of like how we think it could work and, um, really encouraging people to stay in their mental health and drug treatment. So much more to come on that. It was just so energizing.

And just to add to that, the, um, Right now, Shoda, who's the vice president for Esperanza Shelter for Client Services, is very interested in working with that as well.

Like a whole comprehensive approach, right?

As opposed to incarceration.

Yep. So I literally left that conference and flew the next day to another national conference in Denver, the National Conference on Community Behavioral Health. Particularly, the National Council has done a lot of the work around the country on the 988 crisis line and building crisis response systems, whether it's community or countywide or whatever that may look like. And so I was able to go to a full day pre-conference where I'm only being slightly cheeky. What I learned was there is no one size fits all. when we were talking at the end of the day about lessons learned, see you, Karen, it was just get started. And I was like, no, that can't be the answer. There's got to be like a checklist. And there was a lot more in it, like how to look at data for what it is that you need and how to make sure you have the right people at the table and But I will say it was fascinating. There were about 200 of us in there. And I will tell you, people in Kansas City, anyone from the social services can just take their own personal vehicle to go pick up somebody who may be experiencing a crisis. to take them to wherever they need to go. And I was like, nope, that's not the right, in Kansas City. Those of us at her table were like, what? You just put them, and she was like, well, you know, we all have to make sure we have car insurance. And I was like, no, that can't be the right way. And then I spoke to somebody who's in rural Georgia, south of Atlanta, and she said their big problem is they just don't have enough staff. They always send two people out, two mental health crates, crisis counselors out to meet with police, but staffing is so hard in rural Georgia. And they also serve Northern Florida that people often end up waiting 24 hours to 48 hours for a call because they don't have enough staff to show up. And so I was like, so they've taken the other approach. It's always two people that go, but then how do you staff all the time in rural areas? And the conversations were so rich and included, um, not to be a total, you know, um, doom and gloom, but the crisis often involves suicide, suicide ideation and or homicide ideation or actuality. And we spend a good deal of time talking about, you know, the risks aren't just somebody who hasn't taken their mental health medications. but that often we are talking about somebody with weapons and intentions. And so it was just a really great conference. I've already met with our county procurement office about how we proceed with what those next steps are, how we kind of get everyone around the table to look at what is shared software between... dispatch and et cetera, et cetera. How do we, how do we proceed? And so kind of requests for services will be coming. We do have some funding for that. But it was, it was really, really great. So those are my two conferences. I have only a couple of minutes left before, so we don't run out of time. What I did want to bring up is we, we as a health council have received a requests from library staff about running another food drive event. And I wanted to throw this out there, and then I will follow up with an email tomorrow. I am in meetings from two to five today. But if there are volunteers interested, and I know some of you are new, but in November, the federal government suspended SNAP benefits for over a month, and a lot of people were affected by that. We led an effort to put a campaign out into the community. You might have seen it. It was like really nice, bold typeface. I can help or I need help, same font. And we worked with a couple of places around town, businesses and churches and others that agreed to collect food on a very set list of items. We asked for 10 items in particular, peanut butter, jelly, pasta, sauce, vegetable soup, fruit. that we could bag up. And then social services and health council packaged all of these things up. We ended up collecting over 2,000 pounds of food and then putting it back out at community locations so that people could just easily get a thing of food. So that's the history. What librarians have noticed is that kids and teens, Heather, I'll get to you in just a quick second, kids and teens have continued to ask, like that food has been exhausted. And I should make a quick asterisk, even though we said very specifically, give us only these 10 items, people still donated other stuff. And then that all went to LA Cares to bolster their food supply. So none of it got wasted. But the libraries at both locations and White Rock and Mesa have said that kids continue to And teens and maybe up to young adults, they don't ask for ages. This is anecdotal. But they said they have gotten requests daily, weekly, if not daily for that. And the worry is that with kids being out of school where they might receive free breakfast and free lunches. would the health council be interested in doing a very quick snack food drive? Here are the 10 snacks we need, right? Granola bars, fruit, leathers, juices, the easy mac and cheese that you can make in the microwave, et cetera. And so I said, I would absolutely come to the health council this week and do it. I think we would be interested. Social services has staff available to help. I am sure the churches would be willing to offer space again. So I will type this up into a paragraph, and then if you are interested in volunteering, let me know, and we can then work out the details.

We definitely would like to support social services. We don't have enough people for a vote.

Yeah, so I don't want to vote, but...

I'm just going to say, let's do it. Whoever wants to help can help. If you're not interested, fine.

And let's see what Heather... Heather, go for it. Sorry. I have a...

let me grab heather and then my thing might not help immediately but what if we did something maybe at the rodeo and the parade kind of like they do the toy drive and they have the float and you could people can bring things awesome for the toys and just boots on the ground with

I would suggest the coaches for high school athletics because a lot of those happen during the summer.

I will say, you know, that's a great idea. I promise I will get it over to Counselor Hand. But social services is going to have a teen intern this summer through the high school program. And so I think we will put this on her to-do list for parents. Figuring out how to get the word out.

That would be great. Yeah, what a great project. Thanks. That was an announcement. Our intern and their computer literate.

Just learned about it this morning.

That's exciting.

I did not know we got approved for one until this morning when I got invited to new employee orientation to meet my intern. And I was like, wait, what?

I'm here.

I asked for one, but. Just passed.

Jessica?

Heather? I'm not sure if any of the social services vehicles have a hitch, but Josh and I would like to donate a trailer if we do something in the rodeo.

Heather, I will reach out to you. Take care, Joyce. I will reach out to you to chat. We do not have a trailer hitch. But Susan, can I pause your question so I can let Counselor Hand give her report? Cool, cool, cool. And Heather, I'll follow up with you probably on Monday. I'll make a note so I don't forget

So I'm going to just go over some quick things that we discussed in our council meetings from May 6th to May 19th this past month. So some things that I thought might be of interest to this group. First of all, we had an introduction of an ordinance, number 755, which is basically pertaining to the standing boards and commissions and ad hoc advisory committees. We're trying to make it a little bit easier to retain very valuable resources that maybe have some expertise, a member that may have some expertise that We're not saying, well, your term is over. There you go. That you might be able to retain them. Also, not as rigid regarding political party, and not as rigid as the time requirements. So we're looking at ways to make it You know, I'm trying to remember which way we went. We were thinking, let's see, I'm trying to think which way we went. I can't remember offhand, and I don't have the charter with me. But basically, we were also looking at terms and staggered terms and all sorts of things we're just trying to make it easier for boards and commissions that's the message and staff yes for staff and boards and commissions so that we can keep valuable people on our boards regardless of political party but we're still having to maintain some of those things regarding majorities and all that so

So what is the timing on that? When do you think that's going to come before counts? Does it come before counts?

It's coming very soon, either at our next meeting or one of the future meetings in the next few weeks. So that, yeah, we should be seeing that very soon. Yes, it's been going through a lot of legal review, and so... I don't know if there's going to be any changes from what I've seen. I think we're listening to all the input that we got back from a lot of the boards and commissions and trying to make sure that we accommodate the needs better by changing the charter. So another thing that's kind of indirectly related is the development of a workforce housing facility on County Parcel 8A 8A, which is down DP Road and approving the execution and delivery of a MOU.

How many units are they looking at?

I don't remember how many units, but we did get $3 million of state grant funding. I think it's in the hundreds.

Is that part of the existing?

It's like 200 or 300.

Is that part of the existing development, or would it be new? Oh, this is all new. Okay.

And one thing to also keep in mind is we have, through Dave Kruger, a new website that's available that shows all the different housing projects that are going on throughout the county and what phase it's in. So we're trying to advertise this so that people are more aware of what's actually going on because, you know, when you see nothing really happening on the ground, you're thinking we're not doing anything. Well, there's a lot going on. Just nobody really understands what's going on behind the scenes. So this will hopefully help more people understand what we're doing about housing. Yeah, which seems to be, we've even talked about that in our meetings here.

And it may be worth having some kind of update later in the fall about an update from Dan or Eli about where all of this is.

Exactly. And I think even the newspapers are talking about maybe highlighting that so that the community gets that information.

And just to plug, if you want to hear more about what Eli Isaacson has to say, he's the

Community Development Director.

He will be speaking at the League of Women Voters Lunch with a Leader, which is open to everybody on next Thursday. Fantastic.

Two Thursdays, the 18th. Okay. Another topic that was discussed is traffic safety that was discussed on our May 12th Agenda, and there was a significant amount of discussion on that topic. We had some data that basically covers a seven-year period to determine what the trends were. And there were all sorts of different key points that were made in that. One fatality per year is about the average. And we have 1.4 pedestrian crashes per year, you know, something involving pedestrians and vehicles, which is about one-third the rate compared to the state.

And they also put a stop at North Road and Harbin. Yeah. And bicycle crashes were actually higher than the state average. So we are out of time here. I'm sorry.

Let's see if there's anything else that might be of interest. Safety and ADA Improvements Project had a bid awarded, $7 million for that. What was that? It will include a new bus stop by Ashley Pond. It was fully grant funded. And it's just making sure that we have the disability and accessibility improvements done along Trinity Drive.

I saw a family of three trying to cross Trinity at the pond with no crosswalk with a child. during lunch hour one Thursday. And they used the suicide lane as a medium to stop.

Cars are going both ways.

And they're looking at putting crosswalk on 20th Street.

That was one of the other things. Right. Two other things that you might be interested in. First, there was a formation of the Inclusivity Board. So it was an advisory board before, and it was sunsetted. And now we have a new inclusivity board.

How are they going to go about getting members for it? They're just going to announce it?

It'll probably be very similar to a lot of the other boards and commissions.

And it's seven members, right?

I do not remember how many members. Because I know there were a lot of other members before, and they were talking about making it much less inclusive.

So it might be easier to keep it staffed.

The other thing is demolition of three buildings on county-owned land down there in White Rock along Longview Drive. So you know those dilapidated buildings that have been down there forever? We're getting rid of them. Yeah. I'll let you know. I just thought you would want to know about that. Thank you.

Thank you, counselor.

And thank you, everybody.

Let's see if Susan, you still have one quick question, Susan? Sorry.

Actually, I was just going to add to some of the things that are being donated out to folks. There's the start of what we call a period pod at Dragonfly School where she's going to be providing period products. for folks. And then Firstborn has a diaper depot. It is open to everybody. You don't have to be a part of Firstborn. We're going in with the state on this. You just sign up for it. It's for everybody. It doesn't matter. You get a week's worth of diapers and everybody can use, you know, some free diapers. So that's out there as well.

And they can specify what size or sizes they need.

Yes. We can't necessarily guarantee brand, but we can, you know, if you're desperate and you need some diapers or whatever, we can get you your size.

You have a one-year-old and a three-year-old, right?

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a week of diapers. That helps.

Absolutely. So... Thank you. Thank you. And everyone, thanks for hanging in there until the end.

Thank you. And Jessica will be sending you out more information on topics today. And we'll see you in August. Take care, everyone.

Bye, everybody. Recording stopped.

to see you cecile a little shorter than the week we were in a different capacity last time thank you and the cards perfect i will get let's see um take your card back did you get a picture of it i did okay can i give you this jeremy real quick these are just the three new members assuming that he's going to be they're going to be appointed next week on the night. And then here are the people. It is so fun. We think the swag needs very seriously.