Behavioral Health Board - Regular Meeting

Sweet.

If you have any particular board story, there you are. So you're part of the group.

Yeah.

I saw McKinley. Well, I'm absolutely nothing when I was doing my thing. I'm a nurse at UK, but yeah.

So I go where I go and do what I need to do. Oh, that makes sense. Oh, I'm pretty busy right now. I'm tired. I couldn't sit when I had a team meeting. Exactly. And nobody could afford me.

Okay. I was full-blown. I was full-blown.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I've got a bullet for the kinetic race. High fives out of you. Yeah. It's been a while since I've had short hair.

Carol Farmer.

Oh, yes. Secretary of my church for three years. I belong. Yeah. So I am. Well, it's not they got to hear about last time you see your guy.

It's hard to verify also. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they got the 32 year.

I had my my daughter and I didn't invest in there either. But you're right. Well, here that means that we used to live long and they're not actually there. I don't know if she's in her position. Or if she attends the two of us. I was like, how are you? But I also wasn't. I was supposed to go.

I was supposed to go. I was supposed to go. I was supposed to go.

How are you? Yeah. Okay, so

Yeah, I don't have. Any of that engineer. Oh. So, you know, we go back.

I was out there Sunday going through the water. Which one? Drag strip divas. Okay. It's like a black, looks like a dragster car.

Okay. All right.

Enjoy, y'all. It was fun. It was a blast. It was fun. I took Tuesday off to sleep, and I went to work yesterday, and about halfway through the day, I was like, nope, I never slept the other day.

Oh, yeah, I'm old. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

I'm not.

Oh, yeah. Answer of Stephanie and Emily.

So far, all the spots. I've got the caramel grist. I've got sugar. I've got sugar. I love sugar.

Turn it on. I love it. I love it. Oh, I guess I should. Yeah, that would be good. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

And I knew I was going to be back when the end of the fall and some when you're checking out, you know, guys, you're going to get a credit card, maybe.

Yeah, but I don't have it, but I did want to say, of course, this hasn't been my president.

Well, I mean, he's on the board of presidents.

I'm pretty sure.

I was glad to read that, because I hadn't seen it anywhere, and I never read it. Yeah, it's happening. You know, I haven't adopted it. It's issued the first time. Not here. No, I came in. Oh, is that right? And then I put it on your phone. Oh, yeah. I'll be right back. Well, it's something that I do to honor myself.

I don't drink a lot of coffee.

That's not healthy for you.

That is right.

Now, that's not just about the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, maybe. But yeah, our ability to control too much. Sign and shape said April. So I have the date next to where I signed it. I don't know if it's April.

No worry, I do want to let you know station one thing I said right there. Oh, you guys turn up a felony or a meeting.

So you're not going to want to do this. Correct. Thank you. Yeah, no worries.

No worries. I just didn't know if it was going to be honest here or whether it's a go again.

Thank you. Oh my God. Great. That's cute. Thank you. I like it. Yes, yes. Thank you. Oh, so they see they're like, maybe I don't want to do anything. That's great. I got to remember the things that we get already had sensitive. You really want to try for stuff. Jesse, red hair.

And you see a rock number. I like it. So kidding.

There are very good.

I know I took a little hour nap on my lunch break, but I was like, that's bad, that's bad.

And usually people, this was Yeah, no, I'm saying most people on this is about this. This is not true. Our people do have places in one way or another. Yeah, if you put next to my Yeah, same way. Break up stuff that happens. All right. Welcome, everyone, to the Behavioral Health Board meeting.

I am calling this meeting to order at 1216. We'll start with our intention. Before we begin, we take a moment to acknowledge the time, energy, and commitment each of you bring and to set the intention that we show up as trauma-informed, compassionate partners in the shared work to improve behavioral health and our community. Thank you, Justin.

I was going to say, from a medical standpoint,

Welcome to the monthly 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 the Hope 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 to make your comments in a respectful manner. Please note this meeting is being recorded. Please contact myself or any Behavioral Health Board members if you have any questions about our work as a board. With that, you will take the roll.

Sean Berger, here. Marjorie Sorg, here. I'm not going there. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I don't know what I'm going to do here.

Wonderful. Is there anything you want me to say about the chat?

Just if it's like a quick question that you can respond to, or if it's during public comment to make sure that we hear what they have to say. Gotcha. Thank you.

Now, introduction of staff and guests. Hi, I'm Amy Boston Rogers, the Hero Health Director. Is this everybody? Yeah.

Everybody, my name is Oliver Gonzalez, Behavioral Health Program Manager.

Yes. Amy Scott, Change Case Manager.

I'm Cheryl Sturdivant. I'm a nurse in the community. I also work with adults with mental health disorders.

Laurel Johnson, I'm an analyst in the . Alan, do you want to introduce yourself?

I'm Alan Miller from Berrywood Rancheria. I run a transitional house and I'm a social worker for Berrywood Ranch.

Hi, I'm Lorraine Zeller and I'm new, still new to Humboldt County. I've been working on a project in Santa Clara County to improve living conditions for behavioral health clients living in unlicensed board care or room and door. Thank you.

I'm Saul Lopez. I'm the site director.

I'm Paul McNerney, deputy director of behavioral health. Awesome. No, we'll go online.

Hi, I'm Jack Rizzo, deputy director for behavioral health.

Hi, I'm Jeremy Nelson, also deputy director over Children's Bay of Ralph.

Sharon Wolf Legislative Analyst for DHHS.

Alex Oliveira, BHSA and Quality Improvement Admin Analyst.

I'm Juliana Nelson and I'm Supervisor Natalie Arroyo's intern.

Is there anyone else online? would like to introduce themselves.

Alexis, I'm an HUTC YAB member.

All righty. There's no one else. Are there any adjustments to the agenda? Seeing hearing none, we will go to public comments. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make a public comment?

I could just say I'm impressed with the amount of turnout. So, yay, humbled.

Oh, I'd like to say something. Well, I don't want to just, but the County of Santa Clara has only the special people at the table. And regular people like me get to sit at the table. So, I mean, I'm special too. So, I really enjoy this opportunity. smaller town kind of ambiance.

Any public comments online? Alrighty. Okay. So with that, we'll move to action items. Need to approve the minutes from the 4-23-26 meeting.

Make a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you, Sean. Second the motion.

Thank you, Peter. All in favor of approving the minutes, say aye. Aye. Opposed? We approve those minutes. Next up, we have approval to send membership applications to the Board of Supervisors for Alan Miller, Eddie Morgan, and Saul Lopez. We'd love for each of you to just briefly indicate who you are and say a few words.

Sure. So first, a couple of years ago, I met Laura. She helps out with some issues we're having at our facility. And then she invited us to join the board to help. At the time, I couldn't personally apply. Bob here is new to our company back then, and he's seen these qualifications, and so we sent Bob in and accepted it. About a year ago, I started attending these meetings in my schedule change, and I just want to get more involved with our community. So that's why I applied this year, and luckily I'm up for an application. So yeah, thank you, everybody, and I look forward to working with all the community here. So it'll be great. Thank you. So good.

A few words. Sir.

My first name is Leonard, but I go by Alan. I grew up in Scotia. Watched our towns, what it is, what it's not. Eventually went to a foster home. And really looked at my options in life and just started working. And I remember walking over here from Pacific Choice working 13 to Manila where I was living in the bushes. So if anybody says you can't do it, you can't do it. And, you know, that whole fishing scene was over. I got a job in McKinnonville. Still living in the bushes. Got a bike. Rode every day to McKinnonville. And a big member of Grand Auto. Both bought a bike. Well, went to work for them. Then the buyout happened for CSK. But I rode a bike every day to McKinnonville for that too. And so eventually I became the manager. Then got on travel council and started doing foster care. Bought our kids Advocate orders for kids. We're like setting on child counseling for 15 years, but of course you've got some dogs fighting. So I figured out that I needed to go to school and that's what I meant. A legend in this room. Well, we got to talk about that. I was going to court trying to advocate for our native people. Somebody was always there trying to make space for us to be outside. I'm a WIAT child member. Also along the barrier where I come from, New York. Oh, well, we made it. but I'm also Swedish and Italian, called Morandi, right? My family's almost extinct. So the whole mix went to school. That's how I met the legend, right? Because I had to do something different with addiction. Felt, you know, felt inspired. All right. Then started doing foster care again. Got called up down from the Bear River. So same time, you know, it's like, I appreciate everybody that's followed this work because, uh, Us as Native people are always been like the third, fourth, fifth class people. And it would have been a whole huge movement for the WIAT. But to remind people, there's just as many WIATs at Bear River Ranch over here. This is a table block. And we're all related. Almost every one of us. So at the same time, it's like how can we work together because of our federal funds out there. And that is because the nation came together, how much we can really achieve. And it's about communication. And that's me. I love to hunt fish. I take my kids for a ride. They don't drink smoke cigarettes and Starbucks. I drink Starbucks. Thank you, Alan.

Thank you, Alan.

Hey, boy, I guess that has done so much beautiful things for people. Thank you for identifying. Awesome. Everybody else, I recognize you. Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. And don't, Eddie, are you online? I don't see Eddie. Okay.

That same Mr. Morgan that used to be on the phone.

I'm not sure, but maybe. I don't know. It runs now, Eddie?

Yeah, and he's been attending playing right now. So with that, can we do everyone together or do you want to do simple? To approve. I need a motion. To approve.

We make a motion to approve three applicants.

Is that it? Oh, yeah. All right.

So if I will then ask for the... Kelly has something to say. Vernon had his hand up. I don't know. Do we do that afterwards?

No, no. It's been a press.

Okay. Thank you.

So everyone approving, say aye. Aye. Opposed?

With that, we will send those three members to the board of students.

And with that, we will be a full 15-member board. Nobody quit. That's awesome. I know. Yes. Yes.

Thanks to the legend, Laura. All right.

So now the moment we've all been waiting for. Oliver, are you ready?

THSA public meeting update. Thank you, Oliver.

Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for having me over in your meetings today. My name is Oliver Gonzalez. I am a program manager at Behavioral Health Branch, and I oversee our local Behavioral Health Services Act dollars. In today's presentation, it's part of our closing, our public hearing, right, over 30-day public comment period, specifically on the 2026-2029 BHSA integrated plan. So in today's meeting, I have three really core objectives I really want to address with you all today. The first one is I plan to discuss our BHSA requirements, which are pretty new, along with our planning behind the scenes. Today's presentation also I want to highlight is not really going to be focused on comparing VHSA to the MHSA. It's really just going to be specific to the VHSA and what it entails and what programs we're planning to fund in this upcoming fiscal year. However, I also want to highlight that we do have some packets up front if you pick one up. there is some additional information there and it does contain some comparison charts at the NHSA and to the BHSF. So I just wanted to highlight that resource there for you as well. Additionally, another core objective that we have here is I want to go over some data with you. More specifically, how their community meetings go, right? We also launched a community survey. So there's a couple of charts and graphs that I would like to share with you and just sharing what what the community members said when we met with them. And then last but not least, the most important part I feel is an area for comments, questions, and overall input from you as a body or from the community as a whole. While we're on that subject, as far as input goes, we do have a demographic survey that can actually be found at the end of your package. You can just rip it out when you fill it out at the end of the meeting if you'd like. There is a section for comments as well in the end too. So if there's something that you want to really highlight as far as that goes, that's another area for you to do so. For our friends who are joining online, we also have this in a virtual format and my colleague Alex Oliveira will be putting a link along with a digital version of this packet in the chat for you guys as well. This survey is absolutely voluntary and anonymous. And as I mentioned, the end of the survey has a section for comments. And this is just a snippet of the online version so that, again, our friends joining us have that ability to see where that's located. Additionally, we have an email address, vhsacommons.co.humboldt.ca. That's an email address that's monitored by both me and Alex. And any additional comments that you may have, recommendations, or pieces of input can be sent there. We will also be taking notes of any verbal comments made in today's meeting. One thing that we would like to ask of you though is to please keep comments specific to the integrated plan. So with that information out of the way, let's kind of get started talking about the HSA, what it entails, what it does, and what we'll be funding with. So a little background. The VHSA originally was called the Mental Health Services Act. This was done through Proposition 63, which was approved in 2004 through California voters. Fun fact, in 2004, I think I was in the third or fourth grade. So, tell us about it. So... So... Proposition 63 went live in 2004. It created something that's very unique to the U.S. actually, and it's only seen in part in two other states, such as Washington. And it created a 1% tax on income exceeding a million dollars with the intent of funding behavioral health services that would otherwise not rely on medical reimbursement. So that was Proposition 63. Proposition 1, though, came into play back in 2024 and then passed officially 2025. Proposition 1, what it ended up doing is it restructured the Mental Health Services Act into what we now see as the Behavioral Health Services Act. It's a pretty substantive reform with a lot of different regulations for counties to follow. However, the intent of that 1% income tax on income exceeding a million dollars is still very much the soul and spirit of the VHSN. As we see here in this infographic, we have that collection of that 1% income tax funneled through the taxes in terms of with the California State Treasurer, and then they subdivide it into two separate buckets. So we have one bucket that's a little bit smaller, that's 10%. and that's allocated to statewide agencies to operate their own internal processes, such as the Department of Healthcare Services, the California Behavioral Health Planning Commission, the California Department of Healthcare Access and Information, the Behavioral Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, and the California Department of Public Health. So all of those get part of that 10% allocation. And the other bubble here that we see on the right here is a 90% allocation, and that's what gets debited up to all 58 counties and two city jurisdictions using some fancy popular formula. So just wanted to kind of see, show you kind of like the big picture of how these dollars get allocated to counties. So as far as these dollars go and what we plan to do, right, we intend to expand best practices and recovery-focused mental health programs. We reduce long-term negative impacts resulting from untreated mental illness and we prevent mental illness from becoming severe and disabled. Additionally, we have some pretty important county requirements that we must follow. The first one is we need to do an integrated plan every three years. This is very reminiscent of MHSA, actually, where in MHSA, we call it a three-year plan, which that actually happened back in June 27, 2023. And fun fact, that was the first plan I was involved in, so it's just kind of crazy how fast time flies. Secondly, we also need to be doing annual updates in between years. So we're going to be doing two annual updates after this integrated plan passes for those in between years. And last but not least, we also have something fancy called the community program planning process. And that is really like that part of the heart and soul of the VHSA, which is soliciting feedback and input from community members to make sure that whatever we're planning is responsive to local needs. So Here I have a breakdown chart of what the BHSA entails. And I want to say, too, that this chart is showing two separate things at once. One is showing that 90% allocation going to counties in general. And then it's showing the three, four components that the BHSA really is made out of, right? And that adds up to 100%. that's 100% of the dollars that we get as counties. We just wanted to make that distinction as to why the number on top doesn't add up to 100%. So here we have three core components. We have the housing interventions, which is really intended for rental subsidies, operating subsidies, shared housing, family and housing for eligible children and youth. Then we also have our full-service partnership services, which I'll get in detail for all these three buckets. And then we have our Behavioral Health Services and Supports, VHSS, which is 35%. And that accounts for a plethora of different services that I'll also be addressing in today's presentation as well. And these percentages and how they're broken down, that is per state regulation as well. I just wanted to give you a heads up as to why those percentages are the way they are. So here we have a breakdown globally and I want to say too that your packet in front of you also has these figures as well of what each bucket under the BHSA for us will have as far as funding goes for this upcoming fiscal year. So housing interventions, about 3.3 million. Full service partnership is 3.9 million. And again, behavioral health services and support is also 3.9 million. So that's accounting a total of $11,273,841. I also want to emphasize that this is very much just draft numbers. Any budget that's drafted is not incredibly super accurate, so I just wanted to give you guys that heads up in case maybe once you see the plan finalized, there's a couple of differences and changes. So now I'm going to kind of give you a breakdown of each individual bucket within the VHSA. So the first bucket that we have here is called the Housing Interventions, HI. That's accounting 35% of overall VHSA dollars. And this is ultimately the newest bucket or newest change that happened when the VHSA passed. The intended purpose of this bucket is to reduce homelessness amongst VHSA eligible individuals. It emphasizes permanent support for housing and housing first principles. And there is a lot of coordination that we need to be doing through managed care plans. For us, that's partnership of Humboldt County, specifically because there is an offering through this system of transitional rent, which our home program, their social services is doing a tremendous job assisting us in navigating. And additionally, this bucket can fund rental subsidies, operating subsidies, support development of new housing units and outreach. For us, or in general for this bucket, in terms of eligible populations, we have several here. So we have privately homeless, experiencing homelessness, or at risk of homelessness, individuals exiting institutions or carceral settings, or those transitioning for Medi-Cal transitional rent, which again, is kind of a new dynamic that we're currently navigating with our own program. Priority groups. So we have children, youth in the juvenile justice system, child welfare, or at risk of institutionalization. Adults or older adults in or at risk of justice system, conservatorship, or institutionalization. And one note that the state really wants us to emphasize here is that housing intervention dollars originally were used by our full service partnership under MHSA. The expectation now is that these dollars are now going to be made more broadly available to a broader population described above, which presents some challenges, which I'll be addressing later in this presentation. But I just wanted to emphasize that this category and practice, it may look new. The dollars, however, are not. So just really wanted to emphasize that as a challenge and as a clarification. So as far as allowable housing settings for that housing intervention section, right, we have two core components. We have interim settings, examples including hotels, motels, non-congregate shelters, recuperative care, peer respite, to name a few. One point that I've kind of mentioned a couple times already too is that coordination with managed care plans. The idea is to have a system or a process in place where Eligible individuals can go and get a six-month transitional rent benefit first, and then after six months, on month seven, they transition to PHSA funding under this category. That's kind of the system that DHCS is wanting us to implement, and that's what the HOME program is assisting us in doing behind the scenes. So just wanted to really highlight that mechanism. Ultimately, what our ending is, transitioning people to permanent settings. And that's why we have here in the second category. Permanent settings transition is required after the six or 12 month HSA interim funds are used, right? And then examples of these permanent settings include permanent supportive housing, apartments, accessory dwelling units, shared housing, recovery slash sober living, assisted living, and even tiny homes. So again, just wanted to highlight that section just because it's so new and there's a lot of moving pieces in it. Bern, do you have a question?

Yes, I do. Can you elaborate what you mean by shared housing?

Yeah, so there are several settings, right, where... they could actually have multiple units in one location as an example, right? So that's kind of speaking on that, that even if there's multiple units in one specific location, that still counts as an only set. Okay, thank you. There's one other.

Yes. So does this include trailer parks?

I'm not aware of that. So there's trailer parks. Oh, trailer parks. Sorry, yeah. I don't, I believe it could. The thing about trailer parks is that I know that parks have like agreements, right, and all that too. So I would imagine it would include them. We just have to confirm with our home program and our housing team over at Gage's just had them. Unless anybody else kind of knows that information.

No, I just had two questions. I mean, I know home has used funds in the past to pay for space rental and mobile home or trailer parks.

Yeah. And although I haven't seen it explicitly mentioned in regs, I would imagine functionally it would. But I can double check and follow up with you. I had two questions.

One, when you're talking about the transitioning from the six month on to the other, the MCP transitional,

Does that individual transfer or just the way you do it on the paperwork?

Yeah, great question. So it's a mixed bag. It's technically both ways. So what would happen here is they will go from an interim setting to a permanent setting, right? So there will be a transfer in that capacity. And also the funding source would shift from managed care plan partnership to us here at the county through the HSA dollars.

Okay, so the person does have to transfer as well with that. Second question I have is, when you're doing that shared housing at a location somewhere, do you have oversight that someone's going to be monitoring and helping those that are in that shared living spaces?

Yeah, my understanding is that oversight does happen, whether it is through case management, as an example, or it is some type of layer of oversight.

A question? Yes.

I also am concerned about the oversight

I'm wondering if there's enough case managers to really, you know, look after what's going on. Also, room and board, is room and board qualified into that permanent housing, shared housing?

We don't really have a lot of room and board houses here currently, do we? We had some in the past that have all since closed down. I don't know.

We have a board and board. We don't have a room and board. But that's licensed? Only licensed cells are tiered together.

Yeah, and I would imagine room and board would fall more under the room setting as well, I would imagine, depending on the setting of the reports, but I would believe that was part of the rules.

Yeah, so in Santa Clara County, they're getting that transitional grant back.

I just was going to say, My understanding, just based on having worked in housing services for a long time and reading this, that I don't think they have to go through interim setting first if they have a permanent setting to go into. Is that correct? Because that would be counterintuitive with the housing first model, which is what it says it's promoting. they can go immediately into a permanent supportive housing setting. They don't have to do the six months of interim.

You're absolutely correct on that. And that's a really important distinction. I think functionally, right, and applying it, whether or not there will be more permanent settings available from the get-go versus interim settings, where we would see that maybe as an outlier potentially. But you're right. That's 100% a very fair distinction to make.

So you said the first six months of funding is for the managed care. Does that still have the kind of same flexible entrance at point? So the expanded definite right now, like just made it difficult when you have to be homeless, right? Very strict definition. So for those first six months, does that expand the definition of like almost homeless or currently homeless count for managed care?

I would believe so. Yeah. It's a very broad definition. I'll just,

Just add, so what Oliver's presenting is kind of how the funding's used, but he's not necessarily the one with all the details around programming. And so that could be another conversation with program staff that actually do this work, whereas he's just kind of sharing how the funding is being used to support our system.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Oliver. So a reliable source, I haven't seen it yet, but a reliable source told me a couple of weeks ago that published an article that they no longer support founding first. So how does that impact on the first model?

Yeah, that's a great question. And honestly, that's news to me. Honestly, I would need to touch base with a kind of like I mentioned with the programs kind of leading the way in terms of making these arrangements. but it is concerning that there are other initiatives or other changes happening behind the scenes that may or may not contradict with each other. So.

And any kind of change to this practice would come from Department of Health Care Services, like an informational risk to initiate that change in attendance. So right now we're not aware of it. changed from the original one.

This is state, not federal. That's federal. And yes, there is some topic of some of the changes, but that's how our vouchers are handled too, but it hasn't been implemented yet that I'm aware of.

And that's a really important distinction, federal versus state funding, right? But you just say being strictly state funding, same with the, where the managed care plans are going to be the same.

In the chat, I think it's Jack Brazil. He actually did have this last name, but So tell us correct. We don't have any non LPS board and terrible.

So, and you just heard you. Thank you. Just have one more good question. Exactly. This is the fiscal year that this is Yeah, so this is effective July 1.

That's in the fiscal year. So literally in like a month.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Good question. Any other questions? Okay, so now let's pivot to our next bucket here, and that's called the Behavioral Health Services and Support, which accounts 35% of overall funding. This section is really intended to serve children, youth, adults, and older adults. It focuses on early access, stabilization, and preventing worsening conditions, and also preventing escalation to crisis, homelessness, or injustice involvement. What BHSS funds is, a pretty broad blanket, actually. So we have outpatient mental health and substance use disorder services that we have flexibility on. We have outreach and engagement, workforce education and training for internal behavioral health staff, early intervention programs, and also innovation pilots are included all in this section as well. With this in mind, one really important distinction I want to make here is that at least 51% of overall VHSS need to be allocated to early intervention. And then out of these funds, a minimum of 51% must be allocated to people of age 25 years and younger. So it's taking that 51% and it's dividing it to another 51%. So half, essentially. Another important distinction that I really want to highlight here that's also different from our MHSA days, right, is that we have different type of prevention works that we can engage on as counties. And what I mean by that is that moving forward, counties can only really engage on something the state's calling as indicated prevention, which is the main focus of early intervention. In other words, it's really targeted at-risk prevention services, right? So we need to have some type of pathway to identify people. It can't be The other type of prevention we will do under MHSA, which I've described here below, as we call universal prevention. So, which is no longer allowable as a standalone method under the MHSA. For us, right, a universal prevention program would be, as an example, our suicide prevention program, which has been a joint partnership with our public health, right? That would be one of those programs that we will be able to support through MHSA dollars moving forward. since it's classified as a universal prevention system. So here, we have a lot that lives under VHSS. And again, page two and three of your post-its, as opposed to like those dollar figures and where these programs did. And I'm just listening here as well, so that way you are aware as well. So we have our early intervention programs, which range from the Hope Center all the way to our HEPI program to our Latinx liaison program. We also have programs that were under MHSA community services and supports and now live under here, such as our regional services, older adults program, and crisis residential treatment, also known as Hyperion. Yes, Kim. Come on, Terry.

And so since REST was an innovation program, does it still have the five-year limit like it used to under MHSA?

Yes. So that's a great question. So I'll get on that in a moment. It's actually a great time. We're about to get into innovation anyways, right? So one of the things about innovation is that innovation very much is still alive within the VHSS category. The only problem here is that it cramps a lot into one section, right? So for us, REST, as an example, is scheduled to sunset in October of this year, as far as innovation dollars go. However, we are still planning on supporting this program through BHSS dollars after it sunsets. Interestingly, it just worked out that everything got redesigned and changed, so then we can continue supporting REST moving forward. Additionally, we have our bucket known as workforce education and training, which, again, is limited to our workforce staffing. And we essentially use something called the Reliance e-learning platform, which is an online platform for trainings. And also we intend to utilize these dollars for equity trainings as well, such as consultants, to name an example. Additionally, I also want to share with you a couple of things that are not necessarily reflected in the information that I've already shared with you. And that is that throughout this process, we've gotten two proposals from community members. One of them is from, it's called the Early Childhood Treatment Certification. This is actually an initiative that we have supported in the past through MHSA. And it's a proposal that we got through the Nurture Center and one of the directors, her name, Beth Haviland. And this proposal is one that, both proposals were actively considering for funding at this time. We just haven't been able to come up with a program description that fits new guidelines and regulations. So right now, we're in communication with both of these parties on identifying how it can be formulated to fit current regulations. So again, the first one is the Early Childhood Treatment Certification, which is really intended to provide a certification program describing local early childhood behavioral health capacities. by training providers to better identify, screen, refer and link children ages zero to five and their families to appropriate supports. So that's one. And then the other one is a proposal we got from the Humboldt County Office of Education. And this proposal is a three-year pilot program meant to provide targeted early childhood mental health support for children under six who are experiencing significant social, emotional or behavioral health risks. And they're using something called the pyramid model, training, patient coaching and family engagement and improved referral data tracking. So this program is really aiming to strengthen early intervention capacity, support providers and caregivers and help young children remain successfully engaged in early learning settings. So those are two, four proposals that we have received in the past couple of weeks that I wanted to share with you as ones that were actively considering for funding. So last but not least, now we're getting into our full service partnership bucket. That's 35% of overall BHSA dollars. And for us here in Humboldt County, we have one program that we call our full service partnership program called our Comprehensive Community Treatment Program, also known as CCT. They are our highest intensity BHSA service for people with severe behavioral health problems And they are seen as the whatever it takes service delivery. It focuses on individuals of at risk of homelessness, hospitalization, or justice involvement. And then I have like a little caveat here about how it differs under HSA as compared to MHSA. And really the biggest couple of takeaway points here is that any housing intervention dollars that they've utilized in the past is now going to be done through the housing bucket that we described in the beginning. Additionally, there are a couple of SUD mechanisms that are now integrated within the service delivery. More specifically, it incorporates a need to have low-barrier access to medication-assisted treatment services. And this is going to be accomplished through leveraging local organizations such as Aegis, I believe that's the name. I always mispronounce it. Aegis, thank you. So that's just one of the multiple entities, I believe, that exists. There is going to be some channels that they're going to be leveraging for that requirement. And also, there's a couple of requirements for evidence-based practices. Thankfully, Humboldt County, due to capacity issues, right, we were able to get an exemption on some of these. However, the biggest one that we still need to uplift is something called high-fidelity wraparound services. And that is a really big initiative that really is only focused on youth, in essence. So just wanted to kind of highlight it. that one. So this slide, before we get into like a data piece of our community meetings, really kind of talks about on some of the challenges that I sort of mentioned throughout this presentation. So you just say, as you've probably seen, it's a massive system redesign, right? And it comes with a lot of different changes. One thing that I highlighted is that that housing bucket is not necessarily new one, right? It's just a different channel or different way in which counties are now required to use those dollars. In fact, rather than expanding dollars available to counties, the state actually took an additional 5% from counties to fund their own internal processes. So under MHSA, we were at 95% allocation to counties. Under BHSA, we are at 90% allocation. So I just wanted to highlight that it's not new money. And quite literally, it's a reduction of funds in some ways. New requirements do exceed current local capacity, especially for small rural counties. Hence why we had to pursue some exemptions for some of the evidence-based practices that I mentioned for our FSP section. Housing availability, staffing levels, and required services models are all dependent on one another, right? So I know, Bob, you mentioned those changes right at the federal level. So Could that have an impact? Not necessarily at the state level, but again, there's intersectionality that could potentially shift or push the state to make an adjustment.

Yes. Just to clarify, is one of the exemptions not to have to follow the assertive community treatment model to fidelity?

So it's a twofold exemption. The first exemption is not having to follow it to fidelity. The other exemption is not... not incorporating it in general. Our CCT program though, one thing I really want to emphasize is our CCT program was adapted out of the ACT model, with the exception of the 24-7 on-call dynamic that ACT requires as part of the fidelity requirements. So, great question. And again, counties must balance compliance and maintaining essential local services, right? So that's a callback to that early intervention indicator prevention pivot where we can't fund certain programs like our suicide prevention program because they fall under the universal prevention paradigm. And also timelines and evolving state guidelines increase implementation challenges. I mean, one of the things that just came up, right, is that this plan is slated to be approved and finalized like July 1st of this year, right? And we're actively still getting guidance and certain elements from the state to this day. So again, I'm gonna now be pivoting to data now regarding our community engagement meetings. During our engagement, which started from December and went all the way to the end of February, we hosted a total of 17 meetings with a total of 159 in-person or just into 159 participants attending. Out of those 159 participants, 48, which is roughly 30% completed a demographic survey. And we also ran a community survey of which only 148 respondents were received. So as far as our community meeting data goes, So for this fiscal year, our attendee regional residents, 38% reported being from the Eureka area, 17% from the Southern Humboldt area, Northern Humboldt constituted 27%, the Old River Valley was 8%, and 10% did not answer the question in the survey. So this is a comparison of who submitted a demographic survey as compared to the general population of Humboldt County. As you will see here for African-American slash Black and Asian Pacific Islander, we didn't have people who identified as either during the demographic survey. However, when it came to multiracial slash other, we have 16% that checked that box. Additionally, for Native American populations, we have 9% as compared to 5% of the general population. And then for Hispanic slash Latino, we had 19% as compared to 14% of the general population. So as far as attendee gender, 67% identified as female, 27% identified as male, 2% identified as two-spirit, and then 4% prefer not to answer the question. As for attendee age, we had 11% be from the age range of 16 to 25. 60% is from 26 to 59. 27% were 16 plus, and 2% preferred not to answer. As for community members with lived experience, 29% reported being diagnosed with an SMI, 67% reported being a family member who has an SMI, and 71% reported respond as being a friend of somebody who has a SMI. Yes, Vernon. Can you back up one?

Yeah, of course. Yes, sir. You're saying that 27% are 60 and plus years of age. Are you finding that age range are growing? Yeah, great question.

I feel like just comparing other numbers and seeing how we've engaged with other populations, that's a fairly consistent rate that we've been noticing is usually ranging between 20 and 30%. We've been noticing. Thank you. Yeah, great question. So then as far as percentage of community members who identify as a member of a special population, 27% identify as LGBTQ, 4% as veteran, 29% as involved with CWS, 40% experience homelessness, and 43% as justice involvement. And one of the things that we brought up as well is that we received a lot of comments through our process, either verbally or by phone and by email. So what we did is we took a ranking of themes that came up with comments, with the top three really being comments regarding PHSA implementation, increased support for youth, and in addition, expanding or increasing access to services. So again, those are like the top three things that kind of came up as we met with people through our community. Now, as far as our community survey data goes, we have a total of 148 responses. Out of the respondents, 15% reported that it was not their first time responding to the survey. 84% responded that it was their first time responding to our community survey. So one of the things that we've noticed is that over time, we've actually been seeing a steady decline of respondents we get from our community survey. And we feel that largely is because people who are new to the survey are the ones who are more prone to respond to it, it seems. At least it's kind of what I'm thinking might be the case given the data or this metric that we see this year. So from the people who responded to the survey, two were out of county, Five prefer not to answer. Nine were from the eastern region of Humboldt. Ten were from the southern region. 18 from the Ill River Valley. 44 from the northern region. And 60 were from the Eureka area.

I noticed in the previous data, I think it was the in-person meetings, there wasn't any from eastern region. Did I?

There were a couple of meetings that we hosted, but we did not get people that joined that meeting space. So if you have any recommendations in terms of like who I can reach out to moving forward and such, I'm more than happy to coordinate that one with you. But yeah, we were not lucky. There were years where we have gotten some engagement from the region, but this year we did not.

I would love to work with you.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll definitely reach out to both of you afterwards too and thank Courtney for this upcoming year's input as well. Have some ideas to just add me to that list.

Oh, thanks. Definitely. I mean, that's not right now. Relationship is sure. You mean when you know them?

Wow.

Perfect.

Okay.

Did we use any social media? Did we use any?

Yeah, yeah. Our DHHS media team helped me do several news blasts across the county, including social media. So as far as respondent age range goals for our community survey. We had about 1% in the 0 to 15. I always kind of chuckle when I see 0 to 15 because I just picture a baby filling in our survey. 9% were 16 to 25. 72% were from 26 to 59. 14% were 60 plus. And then 1% were 75 plus, with 3% preferring not to answer the question. As far as gender identity goes, 1% identify as being another gender identity. 78% ended up being identified as female. 1% as genderqueer. 13% as male. In the purple here, 6% people who have heard not to answer. And then 1% is transgender. So as far as race and ethnicity goes, here we have a breakdown. 3% identified as African-American slash Black. There's 16% as American Indian, that's like an Alaskan native, 3% as Asian Pacific Islander, 47% as white, 13% as Hispanic or Latinx, 5% as multiracial, and then 11% prefer not to answer, and then 2% as other. So as far as additional comments, we asked on our survey for additional comments. And what we see here is a ranking of themes that we received through these comments. with the top three being increased behavioral health services in general, and improvement of access to services, and increased staffing and recruitment. So as far as these top things go, I wanted to also give you descriptors of them as well, just to kind of add a little bit of additional context. So as far as comments regarding VHS implementation, Many meetings included questions, frustrations, and concerns regarding VHSA implementation, including prevention changes, kind of last week mentioned that from universal to indicated, funding restructuring, increased state requirements. Some folks expressed a concern of a loss in local flexibility due to these new requirements, housing mandates, evidence-based practice requirements, and confusion around timelines and guidance just because Some participants were really savvy, were hearing contradicting information from other avenues across the state. The other thing that we had was an increased support for youth. So many meetings emphasized the need for expanded youth-focused behavioral health services, especially for vulnerable and underserved populations. Community partners discussed increased support for children, adolescents, and their virgin youth. We support services and youth-centered prevention and intervention programs. I mean, two of the proposals that I shared with you today go really largely centered around youth services as well, as an example.

Yes. What is neurodivergent youth?

Yeah, so those are people who, for instance, have, are like in the autism spectrum, as an example, have a brain injury as well. That's just to name a few.

Thank you.

And I believe that people that I did that in our last meeting too, right? So yeah, so that's one of those comments that we received. The other one is an expand or increase to access to services. So community members consistently expressed concerns regarding difficulty accessing behavioral health services, including long wait times, delayed response times, limited Regional availability, so that's where the services are located, right? Because a lot of them, as they express, were located in the Eureka area. Insufficient coordination, such as not enough warm handoffs, as an example. And barriers navigating systems of care. Participants recommended expanding service capacity, outreach, navigation support, and regional service availability. Additionally, there was a theme of workforce support that came up a few times. Multiple groups highlighted staffing shortages, recruitment and retention challenges, and the need for better compensation and training. Requests included additional peer support, bilingual clinicians, enhanced care managers, crisis intervention training, and specialized workforce development. And then I believe this is actually the last one, and this is housing and services for those experiencing homelessness. So that's housing and stability and homelessness were major themes across regional meetings. Community partners discussed limited housing availability, lack of interim housing, difficulties navigating housing systems, coordination barriers, and the need for strong long-term housing solutions and supportive services. So again, those were really like the five core themes. I just wanted to kind of give you a breakdown off just because we got a lot of substantive comments around them. As far as next steps go for our planning, So input from today's meeting will be added to our report for 2026-2029 integrated plan. Based on that reporting and those comments that may come up in today's meeting, we may make additional changes to it. And then lastly, our plan is later to go to the Board of Supervisors June 16th, which is like right around the corner. So once we do that and we get finalized approval, it will be submitted to the Department of Healthcare Services and to the Behavioral Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission for full implementation of the plan and its budget. So, and then here's just kind of like, I call it like our UGFA journey, right? The series of steps and dates that we went through to really get the plan to where it is today. With again, us being in our main public health, hearing meeting and then June 2026 having that plan go to the US for approval. So again, that that concludes my presentation for today. And I'll open the floor for any comments or any other input you guys may have in mind. Thank you for today. Thank you.

I guess I just had a pretty general question. I'm not sure if you But it is somewhere, unfortunately, but I saw the State Treasury was going to be responsible for allocating funds to each individual county corrective. And is there going to be any sort of oversight or new organization that are going to be like distributing and using the funds responsibly for humble because. A lot of the times, like right now, with some of the HUD grants that we received, it's not directly through the county services, like County Behavioral Health, that we're able to implement the funding, but through like our local nonprofits, like Raven Project, we'll be able to take on some of the funding to build the housing units that are in the process. But yeah, that's, it is just how our funds are going to be distributed and used responsibly.

Yeah, great question. So for us here, the Funds that I talked about specifically are funds that get distributed directly to Humboldt County, right? And those are managed by our fiscal community here at the VHHS. Essentially though, one really important distinction that I really want to make about this plan is that the plan itself talks more about how we intend to use the pool than the dollars, right? This is us communicating to the state. This is how we're going to be using dollars moving forward. However, it doesn't talk about outcomes or anything of that nature, right? And there is going to be future reporting that's going to go live that we're going to have to be managing behind the scenes that talks on what happened to those dollars ultimately. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the point that you were kind of thinking that, about, again, reporting what happens to these dollars, how were they used, and what were the outcomes?

Thank you. Alfred, being that the big change was that it wasn't just going to fund mental health stuff, but also substance use disorder stuff, Did you feel in general as you went around to the community meetings that there was pretty good representation of people expressing their substance use disorder concerns?

Yeah, good question. And yes, we actually, that was something that came up not as frequently as other themes that I mentioned in the conversation, but it did come up in several settings. I know We did attend a meeting where the SUD work group meeting as an example, but that did also come up by other members of the public and even in the community survey as well. Okay.

When you have a three-year plan, what is the department's fidelity to the plan or as needs shift going along, what is the possibility of changing the desired allocations?

Yeah, that's a good question. So there is some kind of flexibility to change the allocations. So like, for instance, those buckets like that 30%, 35, and 35, counties do have the flexibility of adjusting some of that if they even can or want to. The issue here is that once this integrated plan passes, it becomes locked for three years. So those buckets absolutely become locked and we can't touch them until the next integrated number of times. And that will be three years from July 1st.

Right.

How does this plan impact the availability of peer support?

Yeah, good question. So it doesn't change the availability per se of peer support. What it changes though is the focus, right? So for instance, we've had programs within early intervention or under MHSA, where some of the peer support was seen more as universal, right? So more like widespread. And now we have to pivot to more of indicated prevention at risk, right? So in that sense of like the scope, right, it's going to be a little bit more narrow. But as far as our actual peer support staffing and all of that, and budgetarily, that's not necessarily the case.

So do you mean that it would be more clinical or more like case management?

That's a good way to describe it. I think that it'd be more focused or more targeted. So.

Individualized.

Yeah. More individualized. Exactly. Which honestly, our peer support for the most part has been already, I feel. It's just more about certain activities, certain programs may or may not have been doing in the past. I just couldn't give you wide advances in that.

And whether or not we have peer support as a service available isn't contingent on this funding, but we have that service anyway. And this is something that in some places can supplement or support that work.

Thank you. Any other questions?

One more about the language. It was universal framework versus implemented framework. Indicated. Indicated. Okay. Thank you.

Or how I like to say, unrest. Okay.

Can I just ask, because I go to the PAL BHP meetings, we seem like we're meeting our deadlines, fulfilling all the requirements. There are many counties that it appears are not doing that. Is there, what happens if you don't?

So ultimately what would happen is we wouldn't be able to touch dollars until we have an approved plan. So that would be the biggest consequence of not having a timely approved plan.

So once again, I'm going to say Humboldt County is rocking it. Go team. All right.

And I do want to say before we end, this plan has taken the effort and a lot of different people are now present today, ranging from our board leadership team, Emmy, the deputies, Connie Bagg, Some people who honestly are new to my team or communications such as our DHHS housing experts, right? Public health, child welfare services, travel tours from the home department. It's been a huge lift to our finances team, our fiscal team, like I had Soto as an example. That budget is an absolute beast. And the fact that she's able to do what she does is nothing short of magical. Honestly, it really is, I mean, So I just wanted to give them a special shout out because, again, a lot has been happening behind the scenes to get this to the finish line.

I just want to congratulate you, Oliver, in the years you've been in this role. I think you've done an excellent job at really trying to get as much input from the community and building it in. I appreciated you having the summarized biggest concerns. That's hard to hear sometimes, especially when we don't have the capacity to do the things that the community wants. And I just want to, I wrote it on my form and I already asked about it. I just want to say, I really think it's important that administration looks into why Eastern Humboldt's not showing up to meetings and how we can do better at building relationships, especially with tribes, not just in Eastern Humboldt, but throughout the county. We have programs that serve Eastern Humboldt and and wondering why their managers aren't, you know, building relationships or attending community meetings and having that buy-in. I just wanted to name that. It's nothing to do with you, but yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. And I wanted to say that at the beginning of this whole thing, when it, you know, went from MHSA to VHSA, I thought, oh gosh, look what's happening. We're going to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. We're going to, you know, Yay, because I'm a SUD person. We can't have more for SUD, but what a crummy way to have to do it. But I really see that through all the work and all the feedback and everything, we haven't had to lose too much and things are reworked. And there will be a really positive gain and some recognition that both sides of the coin are going to be further helped than they were before. You know, I'm quite frankly relieved about that because the initial way it was all presented sounded kind of dismal. And because there is an additional funding. So, you know, unless we get more millionaires, let's have everybody make more money. It's a great job that you and the whole team have done.

And I got to take on to what Laura kind of mentioned a moment ago is that People's other counties have had different experiences, right? Certain counties have had to terminate programs. Some of them had severe budget cuts as well, right? And here in Humboldt County, we didn't experience as much of it, although we did experience it to some degree, such as our suicide prevention. So, yeah, thank you for the comment. That's really kind.

And we submitted or looked at the other comments that were written. Yeah, submitted a

a proposal of a vendor's office for it? Yeah, actually, I saw it this morning, actually, and I'll do admit, I haven't seen it fully thoroughly just yet. However, there were a couple of elements that I would like to talk to you about, actually. Predominantly, the proposal that we received, right, it seemed that it focused on the staffing of four attorneys and four social workers, correct? And we're flagging that right now just because it's not necessarily tied to behavioral health services as it's intended for VHSA. VHSA, at one point, I really want to emphasize here is that VHSA can prioritize justice-involved individuals, but that does not make legal representation for advocacy or public defense operations necessarily allowable under VHSA costs. So I just wanted to really highlight that distinction.

I think other, helpful other counties have done the exact same thing and abuse is fun for that.

Yeah, and I would, like to talk to you more about that, for sure. Just based on what I've seen, right, and what I read, maybe that's, in speaking to you, maybe that's going to be something different, right, or in my interpretation. Yeah. But yeah, absolutely. I did receive it, and I do have it. And I actually made a couple of notes about it, too, here, too, as well. So yeah. And if you have questions about it, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I will definitely be reaching out to you today with more questions around it.

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you all.

All righty. Moving on communications. Let's start with you.

Thank you. Um, I pulled disclosure. I did ask her first because I had to go through a written cutting for something. Unfortunately, I'm about to leave in a few minutes, but, um, I, uh, I did have a chance to go to Sacramento for a conference, a legislative conference really focused on the state budget revised, governor put forward and some of the ongoing negotiations that the assembly and Senate will be engaging in. And as the county's representative to this like state association, I got to go and meet with legislators who are the chairs of the budget committees. And the governor's executive secretary really has the governor's ear. So it was good to have the chance to advocate for some of the requests that the California County Supervisors Association and the Welfare Directors Association are jointly putting forward around a response to H.R.1 or the big beautiful bill. and the impact that it's going to have on health and human services and behavioral health services. So our deputy CAO, Sean Fincy, who I think looks like is on the Zoom, put together a really great letter. And I reached out to our assembly member and senator respectively to just emphasize how important this is and It is a just under $2 billion ask, which in the scale of the state budget is actually like a pretty small amount. It's a huge amount to counties who are, you know, the frontline service providers to so many folks in our communities. So I wanted to see, it's not on the agenda, but I wanted to see if there was interest in having this sent out with some talking points about what those asks are and if anyone as the interest and willingness to reach out to, I can include, you know, Senator McGuire and Assemblymember Rogers' email addresses in there. It doesn't hurt to, now is kind of the time, like this next couple of weeks is when they're really doing a lot of the negotiation around the budget. And it's been a little bit of like playing hardball, sounds like. So the things that are really high, kind of highlights of that are, that there's going to be a huge drop in, a lot of people dropping off Medi-Cal because of this, and then a huge increase in the cost for indigent care, which counties are required to provide, and there's not really a good framework on how we're going to do that. And then quite a bit of additional eligibility work, so additional funding for eligibility workers to make sure people can get Medi-Cal and HealthRush and essential resources, which we all know affects people's Mental and behavioral health outcomes and some funding directly for county behavioral health departments to increase services outside of what's out here in the HSA and so it fits nicely with what we just talked about. And then funding for public hospital systems in California. So it's a pretty big need and really hopeful that over the next couple weeks, we'll get to a better place with, you know, some meeting in the middle around this, but I think it's safe to say that, you know, it was a very, it was a pretty hard conference to be at where we're all talking about, you know, especially the counties that are more rural than us are in deep doo-doo and we're all really struggling to keep people, you know, even recognizing that our systems aren't perfect as they are and they're going to be severely impacted this next year. So it was honestly, it's kind of a hard time for, you know, I think all of the, I imagine all of the staff and those of us in all of these kind of leadership roles and trying to figure out how to just stretch the dollars even further. And there shouldn't be just this huge kind of amount of funding that is needed. So I'm happy to send that to Laura, and then maybe we can send that out to you all I know Sean's on here. Sean, I assume that's okay with you. We just go ahead and invite who would like to kind of echo those asks to be part of it. I apologize for not asking to put this on the agenda, but I just sort of came back from the conference last week. It was like really motivated to ask for community voices to kind of step up on this. So that's all I have and I'll make sure to send it to you Right after this and sorry for having to leave a little bit early.

Thank you. Thanks for going through that meeting. It's really a dark time.

But we're all really are all in it together. So thanks.

Thank you. Vernon, do you have any communication?

No.

He actually does, but he'll ship in one where I thought so. Brennan and I have been on a ad hoc committee of the Board looking at legislation. So first thing I wanted to thank the Board last month, you put out to pass on to the Board of Supervisors the thing about nitrous oxide where which basically was endorsing the bill that was put forward to include the fact that online sales for mining should not be able to happen. And I appreciate that the Board voted on that to put it forward to the Board of Supervisors. So we have one other meeting that Vernon and I went to with Nancy Stark and Sharon. And at that one, the one I'll talk about is I think it's SB 490. Basically, that's a weird little piece of legislation that applies much more to Southern California than to us up here, but it's in terms of why they did it. But evidently, particularly in what they called the rehab Riviera of Southern California, which is kind of Orange County, Malibu, all that. there've been a number of transitional, uh, living programs and sober living programs who had the audacity without being licensed to offer treatment, which is a big no-no. So the state obviously has to investigate that. And, um, and we'll be investigating that, that the bill had one sentence in it that, um, counties don't like. And that was that the, uh, If the state, there were some deadlines so that when these investigations have to happen and all that, how quickly. And there was one line that said, if the state feels that they can't, you know, meet the timeframes, they can ask the counties to do it. Well, all 58 county Alvon Drake administrators said, no, no, no, no, no. Mostly because they don't have jurisdiction over any of those programs because counties don't. contract with them. But the interesting thing is the entire legislature has said, yes, let's do this, not really thinking about what that line of sentence says. So when we went to the meeting, Nancy and Sharon said, well, maybe this doesn't really have to go forward to our board of supervisors and that it isn't so applicable to us right now. But at least we wanted to raise consciousness that things like this are happening in the state. And we wouldn't want a Humboldt County either. So that's kind of how that one went. And then Vernon, who said he had nothing to report, really does because he's been looking at peer support and peer employment kind of bills that are coming forward. So I'm going to hand it back to him.

Thank you. I am looking at the assembly bill 2138, which is the California Assembly Bill introduced by Assemblymember Maggie Curl. The 25-26 legislation session seeks to expand the role of peer support specialists in Medi-Cal Enhanced Care Management Program. I have made a copy of 15 copies that are sitting here. that the date of the hearing was May 13th, 2026 at the Policy Committee of Health. There was 15 for one vote in approval of it. I am going to be asking this board to take a closer look at this. I am asking all of our peer coaches and peer support specialists to So let's take a look at this. I'm getting letters of support from our staff of peer support specialists and peer coaches that they are in approval of this. So hopefully at the next board meeting, I will be presenting those letters and my asking this board to go to the board of supervisors and ask for a letter of support.

Bernie, feel free to reach out to me. Follow that form.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

We have one more meeting to come and talk to many different things that be the date has been said yet I think it will be in July really after you know I just passed. We host.

I'm getting things.

I'm the voice of the veteran. That's my wheelhouse. And last month, I reported that I did a good orientation and a live scan for wild souls. I volunteered my services for an upcoming equine program for the veteran. In this last month, they bought another ranch in Arcata. So That will be upcoming. That program is through the Vet Center, a collaboration between Wild Souls Vet Center. So that will be upcoming. So the other thing, just for a reminder, in Nation of Finance, we have a transitional housing program for 30 beds. We offer SSVF, supporting food for veterans, families, services that includes rent. for people who are experiencing, who are both out and are out. And we have also under our umbrella, we have CalAID. So we have a plethora, Oliver used that word, I don't like it, services available to, you know, the different aspects of the community, not only just veterans, but we also serve the non-veteran community. here at Nation's Finest. So if you know a vet who's fallen on hard times and needs to know, get a hold of me or Saul. Thank you.

Thank you for serving our veterans. Danette.

I went to an event at California a couple weeks ago. And they're quite interesting. interested in coming and doing it for our community, the board or whatever. And I was quite overwhelmed with watching it because it made me realize how much we set our people up a lot of times for failure because we have unrealistic expectations for them to do it in our timeline and not in the timeline that our clients have or our people have. Anyways, they would like to, I talked to the teacher that put it on. It basically, has anyone been to the? It is breaking the cycle. It is breaking the cycle. And so I've already, I've already got them. They want to do it. I believe we may have a place to do it at. And so I want to talk to you guys about doing it. I think it's important for our community, probation, parole, people that work for mental health, people that are case managers, social workers, whatever, to watch or to be a part of this to see how we have these other, we have expectations that are not measurable to the client's behavior or client's lifestyle. And so, I'm hoping we can talk a little bit about that. Can you send me an email? Absolutely. Awesome. Absolutely.

Miss Perkins is the best professor I've ever had. So any work we can do with her. Yeah.

It was, it was overwhelming to watch because they set up all in a big room. They set up all the tables of, you know, like first certificates and DMV and probation and, um, food stamps and all that stuff. And then they have files for each person. First of all, you don't get your name, which I was like, no, I'm not doing that. Cause you know, you can go to jail for not using your name anyways. And so they have files for everybody that comes to the event with anonymous names on it. And you get this file and it gives you a little bit of money fake money, of course, monopoly money. And you have all these things that you have to do in a certain amount of time. And if you don't get it done, you got to go to jail and there's no jail. Anyways, it's really a beautiful event. And I think as people that work in a community with people that have a lot of barriers themselves for thought processing and stuff, I think that it was overwhelming and it could benefit many of us who work in the field that have unrealistic expectations when people get things done in the amount of time that it takes us, basically. And so, yeah. I have the card. Have they sent you any? I think. Thank you. Other than that, I'm sorry, one more thing. The Recovery Happens is going to be September 19th. We are voting this next, yep, it would be next Wednesday. We are voting on whether it's going to be at Bear River or Sequoia Park this year. We have two spots. And then we're thinking if we have it at Sequoia, we might have have it two different times. So I just want to share that if you want to be a part of the decision-making for Recovery Happens in Humboldt, I believe this is our 10th year of doing it. Last year, there was over 700 people there. And so please send me your email so I can put you on that soon. Thank you.

Before I go to Sean, did you have a quick question?

I just want to say thank you to this board and the county staff for making my dream come true of tabling at events over the last couple of years. I will not be able to do that this year because of the fact of moving to McKinleyville, but I do want to especially thank Connie Beck, Emmy Rogers, and this board specifically of backing and supporting me in that and obtain the materials. So I just want to say thank you County staff and thank you to this board.

Thank you. Sean, you don't have anything?

But if I passed over you, it would be sad. Jess, do you have anything? Communication?

Yeah, I just have two little events that I want to get out there that goes put on by Queer Humble. The first one is Queer Relationship Skills Group. It's happening July 6th through July 27th. It's on Zoom. You can find it on their Instagram or you can email Michaela at spiritbubble.org. And then there's also the Fit Annual Redwood Coach Two-Spirit Confirm. October 17th, 2026 is a little bit down the line, but it's an extremely important and sacred moment for people to come together and everybody could use an opportunity.

Thank you.

Keep it short. I got a couple of things. Jeremy's on the line as well, but what Danette was talking about, we were doing some integration work and we were down in Inland Empire, being your folks from agency folks, and we did something similar called In Their Shoes. was profound. And to build that empathy and to have that experience and to draw those parallels, I think is really wonderful. So we've been talking about, we'd love to connect on what you did and what we did, but we think that'd be really good to offer that in Humboldt County. Humboldt County Office of Education is putting on a Cultivating Belonging conference, which is happening on June 15th and 16th. and which is an exciting third annual. A lot of the materials are based in improvement science and compassionate systems awareness. So that will be happening. And then there's a youth track that's part of that experience that happens on the 15th. And currently there are still seats available for youth and ages. I mean, the target age is really students from 9th to 12th grade. But anybody in the county who's interested in doing that could do that. You can register on the Humboldt County Office of Education's website. So if you need that information, feel free to contact me or just contact HCOE. That'd be great to get some more youth. My daughter's going to... But anyway, so that's exciting. The other thing is that we are moving forward to replace two positions for our certified wellness coaches, one who will be working specifically with our team around foster and homeless, and then another who will be serving Eel River Valley in partnership with Humboldt Bridges to Wellness. So I'm excited that we're able to hire him. Natalie had highlighted such a challenging time financially, but we are working towards sustainability of those positions through the state multi-payor fee schedule. So hoping to move forward with that vision. So anyway, just those things.

Thanks, Peter.

Yeah.

Well, Johnson, two things. I just want to piggyback on what Jess was saying about Queer Humboldt. They have a lot of really amazing culturally responsive behavioral health groups, individual counseling, and community events that serve folks from the LGBTQIA plus community. I probably botched the acronym because that's always changing. And they have a mailing list. So I just sign up because I have several veterans, not several, a few veterans I work with that are part of the queer community. So I'm always trying to link them to things that are maybe a little more culturally responsive than what's available through veteran services. But they send you a monthly newsletter with all the different groups and activities. So just putting that out there for service providers or folks that are interested. So thanks, Jess, for mentioning that. And then Laura Montagna, she led on behalf of Eureka Police Department a crisis intervention team training last week. And she had an auditor from POST auditing her course All week long, which you never had. I never had all the years I did it. Nor did the county. And she passed. And so I just want to give her a big thought.

The legends.

Thank you, Kelly.

I have a report on our CIT 40-hour training, which just happened, crisis intervention team training, which I'm so grateful for Nami Humboldt. EPD, Blue Lake Tribal, Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, EHHS. Every, what I love about it is that all these different groups come together and it's what I love about Humboldt. We, when we work together, we do better. So it was an awesome training with half of the attendees, 27 were law enforcement officers and half were social workers. And we had a big group come from Hoopa, which is, legendary. So when people, this is what I've learned, keep showing up and asking because you never know when that one person is going to go, Oh, Hey, yeah. And trying to reach out to different agencies. So that's, that's my lesson from it. I'm so proud of our County. I'm so proud of all of us who are doing this work and just keep it up.

That's it from me. Thank you all.

Director or Deputy Behavioral Health Director. You're up. All right.

Sounds good. Thanks, everybody. I do think you're a rock star, Laura.

Thank you.

Let's see. I have a couple things. I was glad that Natalie was talking about some of the HR1 challenges and efforts around that. And it is impactful to behavioral health. obviously, and still a bit to be determined just because that will get a better sense of where we're really having shortfalls or where we're really having impacts to the clients and eligibility on medical and other things. But one of the things I wanted to mention kind of related to that is that we're right now working public health and behavioral health branch together are working on coordinating some community reinvestment funding use through Partnership Health. So counties, Partnership Health health plans throughout the state are being required to reinvest money into the communities based on their own revenue that they're generating. And so for Humboldt and all the counties throughout the state, we're just looking at the categories that we're allowed to use that reinvestment that aligns with both behavioral health initiatives, but also very specifically with some of the public health initiatives that Chip and Cha and some of the things that are flagged in there for community priorities.

No, I can't say what those are.

Somebody else is going to say that.

Community Health Improvement Plan and the Community Health Assessment.

Yes. Thank you. That's right. Thank you. I do know them, but not on the phone. Sorry about that. It was her fault. She asked me. That's OK. That's OK. Thank you for asking. Thank you for answering. But so we're just at a kind of preliminary state where we kind of decided the areas that we want to propose that we reinvest locally. it will have to be approved. But two of the places that we're thinking about doing this is related to Medi-Cal eligibility. So funding local organizations or groups, including we're asking HCTC for a proposal to look at how can we support our community eligible and on Medi-Cal because that's so critical to be able to continue to get services. And the other area we're looking at is investing some of the funds into continuing the DMC-ODS model, which is in transition and also a super critical area for our community to be able to continue SUD services. So none of that has been finalized or approved, but it is, those are kind of the areas that we're talking at this point about wanting to, to be able to use resources to continue access and care in our community. So more to come on that. I'll definitely update this group. The other, let's see. One of the other things I was just going to mention, and I can't remember if I already shared with this group, and maybe I did, so sorry if I'm repeating myself, but starting July 1, within behavioral health, we're having some shifts to just what falls within behavioral health branch so aps ihss and veterans services which have historically for the past several years been under the purview of behavioral health are now moving back under social services which i think is a really good thing the budget has remained under social services but it just in some ways kind of cleans it up our effort will be around continuing to have good coordination of care and integration between those adult system of care programs and behavioral health, because often many people cross over. The one area that is going to remain under behavioral health is public guardian. And so that will continue under behavioral health and will actually be moved more fully underneath us in terms of budget as well. So just kind of cleaning up a little bit and A broader piece that maybe is less pertinent to this group, but I'll just say because it's a change within DHHS, is that several years back, the social services director was separated out and placed only under child welfare. So having a child welfare services director and then Connie took the role of social services director, they're undoing that. And so that position will not move back. to social services director. And that's part of the movement of some of those other programs. The social services.

APS and what?

IHSS and veteran services. Yeah. So anyway, I know that's maybe a bit in the weeds, but I just wanted to share. And then the last thing I'll just say, kind of in response to your comment, Kelly, about relationships with tribes, I appreciate you lifting that. I think maybe you're not aware of all the things we're doing. And I'd happily have more conversation about that. But it is certainly an important area that we focus on and talk a lot about internally. And so I just want to acknowledge the importance of it and just say I think there is some good work we're doing and would be happy to have more conversation about that at some point.

That's it. Thank you. Paul? Yes, the new made revises out.

Can you tell me as a whole what that looks like here in Humboldt County? And as programs, can you tell me if?

That's a huge question. Okay. But we should definitely get some support in maybe giving some bite-sized information about it. I don't think I could do a good job right now. All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

Oh, you're on. Yeah, CIT was this past week, and I'm really happy that Megan Sheeran was awarded the CIT Responder of the Year Award. So that is a big accomplishment for her, and I think that was well-deserved. And thank you for doing such a great job on that, Petrie. So thank you for that. All right. Our counties continues to get a lot of attention related to the care act implementation. County has been asked to participate in a grand in-depth review. So the Department of Health Care Services awarded brand this. Hope for more to do a qualitative review of their throughout the states. They're picking 12 counties and Humboldt's one of those. So that's happening. Mr. Brownfield will be a part of that as well as our other justice partners and our care team. So that's happening. We have over 50 petitions filed with care so far. So things are with no signs of Those petitions easing up at all. They're just continuing to come in. A lot of them from our justice partners. WellPath has taken over the behavioral health services in their correctional facility as of May 1st. So we've been doing a lot of collaboration with them on making that transition go smoothly. And we're continuing to meet on a weekly basis to ensure that that transition is going smoothly. And it is going smoothly. So we're happy about that. And I'm glad that they're almost fully staffed now to provide services in the jail. So really happy for them to provide those important services to folks that are incarcerated. Our MIS team is continuing to grow. We are starting two new peer coaches this week and I've got another one, two more in the hiring process. So we're excited about that. Our collaborations with Humboldt County Sheriff's Office have been going wonderfully. We have officers, deputies that come and join our meeting monthly, as well as Arcata PD. So Arcata PD join our meetings as well. We're doing a lot of collaboration with the city up there. So that's been going nice. And also the collaboration with the care team, City of Eureka's care team, they're up and running with their team as a contractor for us to provide local crisis benefit services in the Eureka area. So that's going really well. And I did want to mention, we do have a few collaborations with our tribal partners happening coming up next month. We're partnering with Kamau to provide some mobile crisis training up in Hoopla and that'll be the end of June. So we're excited about that collaboration and we're also collaborating with UIHS and tribal convenings happening this next month as well, beginning of the month. So that is going to be about crisis services. So a lot happening. Like Emi has mentioned, we're really focusing in a lot there and a lot of activities happening. So we're really good. That's it for my programs.

Thank you. Jeremy, got anything for us?

Let's see, on the children's side, I was talking with some staff, and right now it's kind of the busy season for a lot of things that aren't necessarily super exciting, but they're really important. We're in the middle of updating a lot of our contracts and getting those finalized for the new fiscal year. We have some site certifications going on for the Humboldt Plaza site and for our Fortuna site, so we're updating a lot of policies and procedures and site manuals and Again, things that are kind of in the background but are important to kind of keep our day-to-day services going. So we have staff busy with those things. Let's see. Continuing work around some of the mandated evidence-based practices. Oliver mentioned earlier high-fidelity wraparound. So that's a pretty large project for us to try to understand some new billing rates and guidance that the state is still forthcoming. and working with our contracted providers on their certification process to get ready for the rollout of this high-fidelity wraparound service. Let's see. And then I think one other thing that was on my radar is that every year the state does require us to have a couple of different performance improvement projects going. Usually it's a clinical one and then a non-clinical one. And so we're in the intervention stages of those projects. The first one is where we're focused on ensuring that we are following up with both adults and children that present at emergency departments with a mental health crisis and making sure that they get mental health follow-up within seven days of being discharged from the hospital. So that's a project we're working with Providence to make sure that we're being notified of all those patients and that they get a timely follow-up. And then for our non-clinical PIP, what we're working on is expanding our certified peer support services. And so a couple of different things that we're doing to try to increase the number of peers that we have employed and as well as increasing the billable services that they're offering so that we can expand continue to expand peer support services so those are a couple of the improvement projects that are um right now they're in the middle stages of implementation and evaluation so we're excited that both of those things are are moving forward so i think those are the big things on on on the children's side

Excellent. Sounds like great work, Jeremy. Thank you. So, Jack, are you there?

Yes, I am. Hi.

Hi.

Hi. Yeah, thanks. I just maybe have a couple things. First, I just want to acknowledge we're in the waning days here. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I want to give a very positive feedback to one of our peers over there at the Hope Center, Rhonda Oath, who really stepped up in light of some staffing challenges there this month and really coordinated everything. And I think we had a successful you know, walk there to the courthouse and our barbecue on Friday. Unfortunately, because of my schedule and some of the commitments with mobile response team, I wasn't as hands-on as I've been the last few years. And she really did a phenomenal job for us there. And so that was great to see and appreciate her and the whole team over there at Hope Center, who really, I think, you know, the folks there kind of knew this is their first go around with You know, all of the festivities and they really put their heart and soul into making this effort worthwhile and noticeable. And so I really appreciate them over there. In terms of stuff that's going on, we're getting close to graduation or we're there. All of our interns from Cal Poly have wrapped up their time and we're looking forward to seeing some of the fruit of those efforts to give them a valuable internship and get them excited about working for the county. And so we're hopeful that that will translate into some some applications, some submitted applications for a clinician for us. And then, you know, contract season is here. I've been spending time on a lot of our long-term care facilities, those contracts, making sure they are either amended or going to the board of supervisors. And that, you know, is a pretty heavy lift. We have a lot of those facilities, you know, some here locally, Crestwood and Lighthouse and TRTF and then Just a whole slew of them, you know, out of county, which I know I've talked to this board about on a few occasions. So we need to, those are all sort of July 1st deadlines. And so we're working hard to make sure that's happening. And there's no disruption in those placements for our folks who need long-term care. So those are my updates.

That's it, huh? That's all you're doing, Janet? Good job. That was a joke. All right. Well, we are getting close to our time. SUD committee, do you have a? So, yeah, I do.

Awesome. So we had this past committee meeting. We had recovery connection. Sorry, recovery connections, which is the ECM service that's in this area and presents. You know, as much as we'd like to think that it's all inclusive, there's also, there's these wonderful people that step in and they have some services that are sometimes easier or another way to get to our people that need help. Sorry, I had too much Starbucks. That didn't come out right. But anyways, I usually let people know before I drink it. Anyways. So anyways, they came out, they did a presentation. They have a little program over here on Third Street. They have a different ability to meet with some of our people out on the streets and in communities. And so they were pretty awesome. If you guys want information, I can send out the phone number. You guys can call and enhance care management is what they do. So what else? We seem to be short on a chair, a co-chair for that meeting. So I'm just going to say it out loud because I have some, in July, I have some, an outing to go to. And so if we could have somebody be there for that day, I would appreciate this. All right. And hopefully cover.

Thank you about that.

Once again, send me an email. Okay. Okay, please. Thank you.

Sorry. I just need to say that I'm going on vacation. All right. Good for you.

Quickly, Bob, do you want to say anything about adults?

Very briefly, we did meet yesterday. We have The legend cannot be there. It's a new committee, and we're fumbling along as we can to form it. So we had a number of questions. I'll just read it to you. We discussed, do we need a statement of purpose for that? We got one. Okay, great. Well, no, we don't need one. Okay. We wanted to tie into the older adult population within behavioral health. We had some conversations there. The MHSIP consumer survey for older adults is a firm wants the results of that survey. So we'll have to learn how to get those. And the behavior health supervisor program and their staff, we want to be able to, so that we don't duplicate services and step on toes and stuff, we want to find that role and fit. Again, it's a new committee. It's never been done, so we need to, person. So we also need to discuss potential members of the committee in the future from the community. All of this needs to be discussed. So we have another meeting after June 10th at 317 3rd Street. And I have the minutes that I need.

Your secretary nicely coordinates.

And yes, we have a pair of Laura's and we designated one on Laura Lynn so we know the difference between who we're talking to. Thank you.

Good job for getting that off the ground. I don't know, but it is. Okay. That's all. That's pretty good. Yep. All right. I think there's, we already heard from legislative committees, so I don't think there's anything else on that. Chair, Vice Chair, Kelly's gone. I don't have anything, any updates on NAV Center. I don't think we have anything new. You've heard a little bit about CARE for crisis triage. Anything new?

No?

All righty. Future items. I actually have a list. So I think we're good through the end of the year for our meeting topics. But again, I will encourage anyone who has any thoughts or questions to send me an email because I will respond. And with that, two questions. Legendary quick. Two ten. I adjourn this meeting. Thank you for coming. Appreciate it.

Let's start here.