Public Safety & Criminal Justice Reform Committee - Regular Meeting

Yes, I'm about to start here. I'll wait for you a few seconds.

I got a health department. Health department's first Mary. Looks like it's on. Yeah, you can come on up. We're about to start in a second. Just let Mary get her stuff to situate it. Was she there, Jim? It works? They didn't fire me? Okay. My badge work. Oh, this mic is on. Mary's recording me.

I

call to order the Toledo City Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee. Please call the one person rolled. Hobbs, James, Claire, Hartman, McPherson, Morris, Sorantu, one present. Alright. I am the most important one present. I'm vice chair, councilwoman, Vanice Williams. It's June, June 18, and we have something so important on here, so hopefully our other colleagues will come. But we're recording, so whoever needs to hear what they hear will be what it is. So right now, we have the health department. Please introduce yourself and thank you for being here.

No, push the button right here.

Okay, now we're good. Hi, my name is Maj Berryman. I'm the supervisor of injury prevention at the Toledo Lucas County Health Department. Am I ready to just start? Okay.

So first, just thank you so much for this opportunity to present to the Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee. I absolutely love getting to share the work that's being done to prevent overdose and address substance use in Lucas County by our team at the health department. Like I said, I'm the supervisor of injury prevention. I've been with the health department for eleven years, and I've been working in overdose prevention for the last five and a half. I oversee a team of five who contribute to this work, some of which have lived experience and are in recovery, and all of which who have been personally impacted by the opioid epidemic.

So I just want to start our time together by taking a moment to acknowledge how fatal drug overdose, and particularly opioids, have impacted Lucas County. And as you may know, overdoses did peak at the height of COVID nineteen where Lucas County saw its highest recorded number of overdose related fatalities. But since then, massive impact in the community has been made from public health and mental and behavioral health partners, treatment and recovery services, first responders and public safety, primary prevention providers, and other community supports resulting in a downward trend over the last four years. And this leads us to the most recent year in 2024 where Lucas County saw one hundred and fifty nine opioid related fatalities. This is a thirty five percent decrease from 2023 and nearly fifty percent decrease from 2020.

But don't let these numbers trick you into thinking that the problem has been solved because even one death is too many. Reviewing fatal overdoses is one of the harder but most important parts of my job. The health department partners with the Lucas County coroner's office to collect and analyze this data, as well as prepare and facilitate a process called the Overdose Fatality Review, also known as OFR. And an OFR is a meeting where key leaders in overdose prevention, substance use, public safety, and health systems come together to complete an in-depth review of several fatal overdose cases. And the goal is to review trends and identify gaps in the comprehensive system of care as a community, recognizing that there's no one solution for addressing the drug epidemic.

And while we've had to put a pause on the OFR, a data request form is available on the health department's website for anyone who needs access to data. And while we've seen that data shows encouraging reductions in substances like cocaine, alcohol, and the illicitly made fentanyl, there are still threats that emerge every day. From strong large animal sedatives and tranquilizers like xylazine and now metatimidine to substances such as amphetamine and methamphetamine, which shows that fatalities involving the stimulant drug have increased by forty six percent, the street drug landscape is always changing and evolving and therefore, it's vital that these community partners that I previously mentioned have open communication, collaboration, and the opportunity to share meaningful data. So using data to influence our strategies is a large part of what creates successful outcomes. Our team follows trends like where overdoses are happening and uses aggregate demographic data to ensure health equity is a consideration in all of our overdose prevention strategies.

So here, I've highlighted some of these statistics to further demonstrate the concern locally, displaying ZIP codes where you can see higher fatality burden and fatalities by race, where you can see that black or African American fatalities are higher than the percentage of Lucas County residents that identify as black or African American. And this signals to us that there's further work to be done. This data comes from strong partnerships with first responder agencies like Toledo Fire and Rescue, hospital systems, and, of course, the coroner's office. So data also shows us that there are times when an individual is more likely to experience an overdose after a period of abstinence or reduced use where tolerance is lower, such as leaving an inpatient treatment program or jail, following an overdose event, or when there is a change in the drug supply or source. And all of this is considered when we're evaluating strategies and determining our next steps.

So, in 2015, the Lucas County Opiate Coalition was formed by a group of concerned community partners, and this is led by the Toledo Lucas County Health Department. The coalition has evolved to engage over 300 Lucas County partners, concerned citizens, and people with lived and living experience. Recently, changing the coalition name to the Lucas County Substance Use Response Coalition was a step towards being more inclusive of the drug epidemic and those concerning trends in substance use. The coalition meets quarterly to share data and resources, And the next coalition meeting will be August 6 from 01:30 to three at the Lucas County EMS Building, and anyone is welcome to attend. And I also want to highlight an event that you're familiar with because you were a speaker last year, but the coalition does come together to host for the community annually.

And this is Chalk the Walk and it's in honor of international and Ohio's Overdose Awareness Day. So while Overdose Awareness Day is observed on August 31, Chalk the Walk will be held on September 13 this year at Promenade Park. And during this event, the community will come together to hold a public art memorial, chalking names and drawings and remembering those that we've lost to fatal drug overdose. With over 300 in attendance last year, community partners will provide vendor booths with unique family fun activities and food trucks are available. There's also an opportunity to submit photos and memories of loved ones to be shown on the Promenade screen at the park or ProMedica screen at the park, I'm sorry.

And their names are read in a short ceremony to conclude the event. It's an incredible day to be a part of. Again, anyone is welcome and absolutely encouraged to attend. One of the most impactful roles that the health department has in the community is to be a pillar of harm reduction. The health department partners with Project DAWN, which stands for deaths avoided with naloxone, to receive naloxone directly from the state and distribute freely to the community.

And for anyone not familiar with naloxone, it is a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose. Naloxone is simple, safe, and legal. The only job that naloxone has is blocking opioids from attaching receptors on the brain to reverse an overdose and restore breathing, making it incredibly safe to use even in event even in events where an overdose is not occurring. Last year, the health department's team distributed over 18,000 naloxone kits to the community. And in addition to naloxone, we also distribute supplies like fentanyl test strips and Deterra bags, which are used for at home medication disposal.

Through the data collected on naloxone distribution, we can gain insight to data points like self reported overdose reversals. And in 2024, we documented just shy of two thousand successful overdose reversals. So that's nearly two thousand lives saved and that's only the ones that we actually know about. Our team uses multiple avenues to accomplish these incredible statistics. In the upper left hand corner, you can see our mobile naloxone unit, which we use for targeted naloxone distribution events in the community as well as other program outreach.

We currently have eight harm reduction vending machines in Lucas County and plans to install three more before the end of the year. These free to use low barrier machines are available in high traffic locations targeting those key populations. So places like treatment providers, including Team Recovery, Harbor, Zeph Center, Talbot Clinical Services, and Toledo Treatment, the Health Department, UTMC's Emergency Department, and the Lucas County Correctional Center. We also offer a smaller option for emergency access, these are called Naloxone boxes, that we provide to community partners and local businesses. We also have over 25 community partners that we call service entities.

These partners partner with us to distribute naloxone to their clients and communities on our behalf, providing data insights back to us on basic demographics. We partner with public safety groups, including the Lucas County Sheriff's DART Office, which is our county's post overdose response and deflection team, Toledo Fire, Maumee Fire, Springfield Township Fire, Sylvania Township Fire and Police, Washington Township Fire and the Toledo Police Department to implement what is called a leave it behind program. And this is when these public safety partners are leaving naloxone kits on-site following an overdose event. Our team completed over 300 organized overdose education and naloxone trainings to Lucas County businesses, agencies, community coalitions, student groups, and more in 2024. And this is something that we offer for free that's completely customizable to the agency's needs.

We've also had great success having a mail order naloxone program. It's accessible on our website where we actually mail out free naloxone to not just Lucas County, but all of Ohio and Southeast Michigan as well. There's no demographic requirement. Last, I want to highlight the work of the Northwest Ohio Safe Services, also known as NOS. And NOS is a syringe service program, and it was the first program of its kind in Northwest Ohio, opening in August 2017.

NOS is a judgment free, needs based anonymous program where people who use drugs can access the services and supplies that they need to reduce the spread of disease through sharing syringes with others, reduce infection through never having to use the same syringe twice, prevent fatal overdoses, safely dispose of syringes to improve community wellness, and access services like linkage to care and community resources, HIV, hep C, and syphilis testing, as well as other crucial medical referrals to improve health outcomes and reduce the negative impacts of substance use. Staffed with a linkage to care coordinator, harm reduction health educator and public health nurse, NOS operates multiple times a week, helping hundreds of individuals monthly. This program offers help to the most vulnerable people in our community, people who often have no other connection to the comprehensive system of care and are not ready to make the decision to enter pathways like treatment and recovery resources. These services contribute to health, wellness and life. NOS communicates with program participants through a text alert system where we offer educational information and also warnings on increased overdose activity to encourage harm reduction practices and keep people safe.

To save time, I did provide everyone with a report on naloxone distribution and NOS as well as information on syringe service programs, their evidence of practice and our community impact. So to wrap this up, I want to point out that this is just a snapshot of our team and the efforts of a collaborative community. It doesn't include overviews of our regional funding, linkage to care initiatives, innovative approaches to improving access to care through STI testing, incredible community events and other unique collaborations or several other overdose related prevention strategies. All of this work is supported by state and local funding, which includes partners like the Ohio Department of Health, Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services, Lucas County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board, and the University of Toledo Medical Center Ryan White Program. The health department is dedicated to continuing to bring evidence based and innovative strategies to addressing the drug epidemic as evidenced by the inclusion of support within the health department's current strategic plan to work on engaging all people who use drugs, increase naloxone accessibility, and improve data sharing through reestablishing our OFR, which unfortunately has been on hiatus while there were shifts in funding and we've had to redistribute priorities and our current capacity does not allow for this regularly facilitated meeting.

And the truth is, while all of this incredible work is absolutely necessary, as is our growth, funding is always a concern. Access and transparency regarding opioid settlement funds is vital to supporting the community in continuing these dedicated efforts. Having a supportive and non stigmatizing influential layer of high level decision makers is of utmost importance, especially with current administration and funding concerns related to the future of overdose prevention and harm reduction. This team is something to be proud of and absolutely deserves to be on the radar of public safety committees like this one, so thank you so much for allowing me to come present on this work. It was an honor.

Thank you so much. I want to recognize my colleagues, Councilman George Sorantu and Councilwoman Cassandra McPherson. Thank you for being here and thank you so much for your presentation. It's interesting to me when we go back to slide three, how the trends the trends are is interesting. So I definitely appreciate all the information and data and all the work that you do because it is needed. Just a question, did you guys get some of the opiate money for any of your projects? I couldn't remember if you guys were on the list or not. It's not standing out to me right now. No. We did not.

I didn't think you did. Did you did you have to apply or what what happened there? Like, why wouldn't this program get it?

Well, because of the way that the opioid one Ohio program is set up, our region, which is Region 4 and only is Lucas County

Mhmm.

Was able to determine priority areas, and the work that we do did not fall into any of the priority areas. There were only four priority areas that I watched.

I knew it wasn't on there, and I was like yeah. That didn't make any sense to me. I mean, fire, police, they were able to get some money, but not the people preventing the opioid overdoses. Helping with that. That's crazy. And to to be clear, we absolutely support all those people

who who did get funding. They're

doing really great work.

Yeah. You have to say that. No. And they do. They do great work. I mean, needed it, but why would never mind. Councilman Sorantu.

Thank you, madam chair. I just had a quick question. First of all, thank you very much. You're doing wonderful work at the health department, and this so vital. How much time do we have when you come across somebody that's unconscious and giving them that NARCON? When is it non effective?

Honestly, it's so critical to give naloxone the minute you see someone who is unconscious. And it really just depends on a lot of factors when someone is overdosing. So if you come across someone who's unconscious and not breathing, it's always important to definitely give them naloxone, especially not knowing when when that might have happened. But the quicker you're able to initiate it, the the likelihood that there is a successful reversal. When given in time, naloxone is a medication that works 100% of the time. But that's when given in time.

So it's not like ten minutes or twenty minutes or something

like that?

You know, Toledo Fire has been able to do a lot of work on scene of people who might have had quite a bit of time in between an overdose, but I I don't know the science of that. Yeah.

I was just wondering. Yeah. Okay. Well, again, thank you very much for your very valuable work. Thank you, madam chair.

We have any questions from the audience, is this Stefan? Is your last name Stefan? My last name well, it's Berriman. I got married. It's Berriman. Okay. Okay. Alright. If we have any questions for miss Berryman from the audience, we definitely appreciate it. And I just wanna acknowledge the commissioner from the health department. Thank you for being here, Kareem. We definitely appreciate you and congratulations on the new building. Turn up. Listen, I am always loving the health department, really does good work. I'm glad you can come to the public safety committee.

If we don't have anything else, thank you so much. I so appreciate the work that you're doing. As I said at Chalk the Walk, I had two uncles that passed away from opioid overdoses and you know my mother was is a recovering addict herself so it surrounds my life and I'm appreciative to anyone that actually supports the work so thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Uh-huh. Alright. Next up we have Lucas County Children's Services programs and con conglomerations. Please come up. Thank you so much for coming.

I'm so excited to have you guys here and I need a card because I have some people that's been emailing me so passing them right along. Mary, I don't know if do you have a presentation? I I did not. Oh, okay.

I'm sorry. I did not. I did pass out a pink binder with some information that I'm gonna talk about today and then two yes. And then two flyers of the programs that we are wanting to share with you today.

Well, definitely appreciate the work that you guys have been doing in the community for forever. Honestly, just just being a part of a family that that has needed the services from you guys, I just wanna say thank you and thank you for the work that you do. I know you guys have been getting a bad rap lately, but, I think people educating people more on what you do will help help mitigate that issue and and understanding how you work. So the floor is yours. Yes.

Well, appreciate that and I do agree with you that educating people on the work that the hard work that we do every day is critical because it is such appreciate the opportunity today to be able to speak to everyone. My name is Chanda Beal and I am the director of social services at Lucas County. I've been at the agency around twenty two years. I've been in, most of the departments in which I, oversee at this time. And, while we have numerous programs and initiative efforts, I wanted to focus today specifically on some prevention, initiatives rather than our court involved interventions Mhmm.

With the goal of keeping children safely within their own homes. Oftentimes when people think of children's services, they think of removals or placing children in foster care. However, many of the families that we work with, children reside in their own home. In twenty twenty four, forty four percent of the children that we worked with resided with their own, in their own homes. So we work very diligently to ensure children can remain with their family systems whenever possible.

And to achieve this, we have established several programs and initiatives. Under our previous director Robin Reese, we, established the Parent Empowerment Institute. And this was a creation also known as PEI to go into the community.

Is it this one miss Bill?

Yes. Okay. That's what it is. Thank you. This initiative involves our staff going into the community and educating families on various parenting skills and helping them build and establish supports. We have a wide range of groups that we offer including teen mother groups, father groups, just parents together, and then how to co parent. The idea is that we can help train people in the community similar to what we do with foster parents. We can provide education and support to the community. PEI believes that parents love their children and want the best for them. It's basis of their program.

Parents want their children to reach their fullest potential. They believe this. That parenting is hard and it's important to have support when raising children. Parenting often calls for moments of healing and reflection of their own childhood. And mothers and fathers play essential roles in the lives of children.

So many of the families that we work with through children's services, we refer them to this, program, this PEI program. But also over half of the participants that attend this program are from the community and they're just families who want more support. They want some more information. We have initiatives to go to various community centers to be present within the community, to be at, local, we've gone to the green belts. We have done various community centers and, just locations all over.

So we're excited about our PEI program and, continually encourage people before they have involvement with engage in these types of activities and supports in the community. The next, program that I wanted to talk about is our prevention specialist. And we have prevention services. Prevention meaning before any kind of increased involvement with us or court involvement, we have a prevention specialist that's assigned to all families when a referral is received by our agency due to marijuana positive births. As an investigation is conducted by one of our staff, a prevention specialist is simultaneously assigned to build what's called a plan of safe care around families and children.

The prevention worker at Lucas County plays a vital role in supporting families with newborns who have been prenatally exposed to marijuana. The primary responsibilities include educating parents about potential impacts of substance use on a child's development, promoting family stability, and preventing future involvement with child protective services. Central to this role is the development and implementation of a plan of safe care to ensure child safety and well-being of each infant. As you will see in that pink folder, that folder is provided to every family that works with our prevention specialist. And that's just the start of the resources that we provide, to families.

Currently, we receive this specialist receives 40 to 50 referrals every month involving families or infants exposed to THC in utero. Upon receiving a referral, she schedules a home visit with families. She initiates the implementation of this plan of safe care. This plan emphasizes harm reduction strategies, particularly around safe sleep practices, substance use awareness, and parenting capacities. She engages with families and discusses the effects of THC on parenting abilities.

She educates parents on safety practices if they continue to use THC. That includes safe safely storing marijuana and out of the reach of children and ensuring that one caregiver remains sober when supervising children. And a major issue that occurs within our community which is, the co sleeping and infant mortality that we have. So she discusses avoiding co sleeping to reduce risk of injury and death. She focuses on building family strengths and encouraging the use of natural supports around families to keep them keep children safe and to create a nurturing environment.

She thoroughly assesses the family's sleep practices. She provides hands on education regarding safe sleep guidelines. We provide pack in place to any family that doesn't have safe sleep options for children. And we also provide safe sleep kits, which includes informational material, practice tools to promote promote infant safety during sleep. In addition, she also connects to a wide range of community resources, various substance treatment programs, mental health programs, parenting programs, jobs and family services, women, infants, and children programming, brothers and sisters united, and also we link with Toledo Lucas County health department.

She also introduces and refers Help Me Grow, a key early intervention and family support program once her involvement in the case is complete. Throughout her visit, she talks about the THC THC use and its impact on child safety, shaken baby syndrome, signs of postpartum depression, and positive parenting techniques, and once again, safe sleep. She distributes this, this packet along with diapers, clothing, and baby care items. She often is, receiving these donations from bags of love four one nine, which includes bite diapers, bottles, diaper rash, creams, pacifiers, and other baby items. So her work is so important with families as we understand the risks associated with THC while parenting.

And her goal is to create safe and protective home environments for the children. And lastly, I have a handout on Ohio Star. That is the statewide handout flyer. We don't specifically have one for just our county. Lucas County Children's Services collaborates with Ohio Start, which is sobriety treatment and reducing trauma program to support families affected by parental substance use and child welfare involvement.

While Ohio Start does not provide treatment directly, it offers a structured framework for coordinating treatment, case management, and supportive services in consistent and family centered ways. We accept families into the program within the first four days of receiving a referral to the agency for substance abuse. This short time frame allows us to jump in quickly, begin to wrap support services around families, and ensure child safety. A key element of this approach is the use of a dyad. That's a team consisting of a caseworker and a family peer mentor with distinct roles in supporting families.

Lucas County Children's Services partners with task to hire and support our family peer mentors and they have been an essential part of our team since the inception. Currently, we have two dyads and plan to expand a third dyad within the next year. Our family peer mentors bring valuable lived experience to both recovery and child welfare systems offering parents critical emotional encouragement and practical guidance. Working together, the dyads build a strong trusting relationship with families, helping them stay engaged in services and making meaningful progress towards their goals. Through this model, we are trying to embrace different ways of supporting families in our community.

One that we hope emphasizes healing, trust, and coordinated care. And the goal is to support the family stability and well-being while creating conditions that help children remain safely in their homes and reducing the need for out of home placements. So just some interesting facts of our Ohio Start program. We've worked just in first quarter as of first quarter, since implementation, we've worked with 46 families, 82 children. Over 50% of those children remain in their home, never have to leave.

And by building all of these supports around them, we are able to keep more children in the home. The highest zip code in which we are involved with families through the program by referrals is our 43605. And we work mainly in our numbers. We're about forty percent of the children that we work with are infants in this program. Our Ohio Start supervisor was named Ohio Start supervisor of the year in 2024 for all of her hard work being involved on not only a local but statewide, level.

She mentors and assists other counties in implementation of the this program. And we also had our Ohio Start program, certified this year, meaning that we have met and exceeded all fidelity standards to meet the framework for delivering this service to families. Again, when we can be at the table on a state level to advocate for any services that can help parents keep their children safely in their home and create more stability, we are there. And so I appreciate the time to be able to come and explain these three programs. Definitely open and available for any questions.

Thank you. I I have a question. So the peer is miss Sherry Dunn.

Sherry Dunn. Yes.

So She was when I worked at the high school, she's amazing, always willing to come. Is this kinda a bigger version of what she did?

It it's kind of a bigger version. Mhmm. It really is centered around why do we spend so much like, we spend a lot of effort training and our foster parents, why not offer that to everybody before you become involved? But yes, it's educating, it's healing, it's building those relationships with families in the community. This is actually conducted Andrea I I think it's Sims?

Card Cardena.

Oh, Cardena. Right. Cardena does it. But Sherry does a great job. She's part of our recruitment efforts and she is one of our community presenters, does an amazing job. But it is an extension of that.

Well, her know I shouted her out because she always showed up for us when we had kids, our our parents, kids that were parents, always wanna gave education wherever it was needed and she she was like part of our school so she she she was dope. I'm glad to see this. This is amazing. I know a few people that need this. My sister and I, both our kinship to me, my great niece and my sister, her grandson, and she had to work a case plan with children's services.

I did not, I just opted to take legal custody of the child and she had to actually work a case plan. So I appreciate the efforts that you, like I said, I

think

that recent things that have gone on is just the lack of education in the community. I did have a question specifically, how many positions do you have open right now? Let's put that out there in

the public.

Did you say how many positions? Yes. Right. So, at our height we had less than 20 positions that were open. And over the last several we've had two training units since that point and have brought on approximately when this training unit graduates '22. Oh. We do have movement. We have retirements. We have things that happen. We will we will always have vacancies. I I, you know, I I feel like that's gonna continue through retirements and things of that nature. People choosing that this work is just not for them.

Mhmm.

We have had a lot of people over the last, you know, period of time say this just isn't for them. And and it's a hard job. It's the hardest job you will ever love and you have to be dedicated to this. So I would say that, you know, today I did a a news interview on it and we're excited to have 15 people ready to come work and do this hard work. We're excited for that. And, we're training them, we're getting them ready, we do ten weeks of training for staff and, vacancies are okay for us. I mean, we always need people, qualified good people.

And we see that throughout the city with departments like yours, like the police department, there's always a retirement. Fire, there's always a retirement. So we definitely see that a lot and you guys have to accommodate. Then ten weeks of training, that's a long time of training that has to be done and I think that it's crucial to the work that you do so definitely appreciate all that you do for the community and the efforts that you know the county has taken to educate the community more and I just definitely wanna give you a shout out about that Green Belt. Thank you, Tina Butts, is an amazing person and works with you guys as well and going over to the Greenbelt and helping the parents where they are Yes.

Is just dope to me so I appreciate that. I wanna recognize the chair of the committee, we have councilman John Hobbs, he's here, yay. If you guys I wanna open it up to the audience if the council members don't have any questions, councilman Hobbs.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Williams. And this will also be for the Lucas County Health Department as well. A couple of questions I have. One, with everything that is happening federally, how do both agencies do you think this is going to affect you as far as monies that you've received from federal to help in your different areas of expertise?

And congratulations to the Lucas County Health Department on your new building. Again, congratulations. But if you both want to address that, you can come to the table, either one, but you want Ms. Bill, how does that Director Bill, how does

Well, we received funding from federal, state, and local. And we are holding our breath to see right now how the implementation of some of the budgets are going to roll out for us. We know that there's some potential of some federal dollars that could be impacted. We're really worried about where the state is going to come in. And as always our community supports the work that we do and so that local money is always critical for the work that we do.

So I can't tell you the figures on it, but I can tell you we are we're nervous and we're really holding our breath to see what's going to happen.

Yes. Well,

pretty much the same with us here. It's been a nail biter here watching the, you know, legislators working down in Columbus and in Washington. So there's few cuts here in the state budget that we're watching and hoping that the concurrent committee of the House and the Senate will bring back and put them in the budget as originally envisioned by our Governor. And at the federal level, it's kind of the same story here. I don't believe Ana Mwamaj to help me is that we've been really impacted right now at debt level with the harm reduction.

But to that extent, we're worried about it. We're worried about future funding. I think we had, know, we communicated to Councilman Hobbs. That was your question, Councilwoman Williams earlier. Did we kind of did we get out some share of the money that's coming from the Ohio one settlement?

And Maj correctly said no, because the priorities were not aligned with people alive until we get them to treatment. And that's our role. But I think we're hoping that that 30% cut that's coming for city and county to spend the way they see fit, we will be considered for that funding as well to supplement some of the cuts and for us to do more. For as much as we're doing, there's a lot more work to do. Do you have any ideas or you heard anything from the state as far as budget cuts for your programs? Our

state partners assure us that the money is coming, but I don't know, you know, what all they can tell us. So that gets really scary for us. And, unfortunately, there's this idea across The United States that these settlement dollars are, you know, are being spent in these ways so that they can cut these fundings because there are these settlement dollars. So that is really where it becomes really complex. I do know, you know, according to future budgets that we've been able to see, White House budgets, things like that.

Substance use will still be addressed, especially treatment and recovery services, but they're leaving out keywords like overdose prevention or harm reduction. And that is, you know, a massive piece of why we've been able to see overdose rates come down. Naloxone as a medication is still costly. The state of Ohio has what's called Project On, which I mentioned, where we're able to get naloxone directly from the state of Ohio. They have funding set aside for that.

You know, that's something that I always fear could be on the table for removal. And I don't know what we would do if we were responsible for paying for, you know, the sheer amount of kits that we get out to the public, but that is something that directly save lives. One thing I didn't mention in my presentation is we also 100% support the Toledo Fire and Rescue Department providing them the naloxone that they're taking out into the community through Project Dawn as well. So that's something that our community is very highly dependent on. Thank you.

My next question is, I was reading an article a couple weeks ago, and the governor has put out money and it's probably in about 44 counties, but I guess they're hoping to get it to a lot more counties. It's mobile response team money is gonna kind of be people that are dealing with mental health issues. If they get into a situation, it's gonna be a team, someone that they can talk to on the phone, someone that I think can actually go to where they are, maybe a person from the fire department, but it's going to be a team where they're gonna and these monies are gonna go to these mobile response teams to deal with mental health issues, a parent that might be in some type of crisis. Have you all heard anything about this? Is any of this hope maybe coming your way and going to help?

I'm not sure who I don't know if it that is all Scott Silek. I don't know if you're getting any of this, these mobile response teams, but any information on that?

We at Children's Services have been asked to be on a committee to talk about how the the MRSS and rapid responses would happen. So we are going to be at the table to talk about some critical issues on and how it is needed and in the support that families could utilize just through experience. MRSS and response is so needed in our community. It is something that is truly not always available and it is so critical for families in this community to have someone to call, to have somebody to respond right away and to get them into immediate treatment or resolution. So I would advocate for that and hope that us being at the table can be a part of that conversation.

I haven't heard anything about that initiative, but I don't won't doubt that the governor's coming up with those initiatives. He's big on intervention in that respect. And we do support and advocate for that. One thing for our harm reduction, we do have a cross functional team, you know, and it's been in existence for a long time. It's a DART team for the Sheriff's Office that we learned a couple of weeks ago that there's major cuts to that team.

I think my staff, the team and the team that's working with the Sheriff's Office as well were really concerned about that cut. That's kind of an intervention team. They do team up a lot with our programs and services as well. So I hope that could be some kind of replacement for that cut. But it didn't look good for that team.

Okay. My next question is, I think a lot of people are familiar with this on the news. And the police did nothing wrong. They did what they had to do. I don't think it's the answer, but their hands are kind of tied as to how they can handle this, and I want to see how we can do it.

There was a mom who was homeless. She had four children, and she went into a home that basically had been condemned, and she was, you know, living there trying to I mean, I can't even imagine how that mother felt to have to take her children into an unsafe space, a building that's been condemned, and she's trying to for babies there. I think she was arrested in certain charges. I don't know if she has her children back or what, but, you know, this is a real concern for, you know, our counsel, and this is one of the reasons counsel woman Williams, myself, counsel woman McPherson, we have these kind of conversations when we're not here because we see it in a lot of the communities that and not that it doesn't exist other places, but some of the communities are not as likely to talk about it because they don't want you to think it exists. So what do we do?

The health department, children's services, it's not your answer, it's not your problem solved. But what do we do when a mom is homeless with four children and she gets arrested for not having any other alternative? And now I'm sure I wasn't there, but I'm thinking the kids are probably just the children are are they love their mom. You know, I can't imagine seeing my mom and then that mother. I mean, she has to be devastated that her children are now going to some type of other care.

She's got to figure out how to get out of jail. I don't have an answer, but how is there any approach, any suggestions? What is this whole process like? Could you help at least I want to understand better.

I wish I had an answer for that. I would love to find the solution to how we address that type of a situation because it reminds me of so many times in which we just in in within our system have tried diligently to find housing and even just in emergency housing, it is a problem in this community. We don't have enough emergency sheltering housing for families in this situation. Oftentimes you're left with calling multiple agencies hours on the phone working with the families to try to get them in somewhere, trying to build off of relationships you've built with landlords or different service providers to say could you help us here, could you work with this. Sometimes being very creative to put families up in hotels until we can find it and we know that's not an option, it keeps families together until we can find a solution.

It's an issue in this community, it's definitely something I wish we could not have a problem anymore. You know, I wish we could deal with that.

What is the process for this mother now? Does she has she lost custody? Does she have to do

Right.

I don't

I mean, I don't know poverty is poverty and we just don't have any worse because my first question is, respectfully, is and it's the way I was raised, is where is the father? Where is the man? And I'm, you know, I'm old school about women and children because that's the way my dad raised me. You protect women and children at all costs. You go without so that your wife and children have and they and and and so Yeah. I I believe in that. I'm wondering where this dad is, but then from there, what happens to this mom and these children now?

Yeah. And I hope if housing was that very issue that that we have, you know, that the community is wrapped around. I I don't know the current status of the situation, but I hope that if that was, which is my understanding was that primary issue, I would hope that people worked very diligently to try to work. I mean, don't know what the status of it is, but just trying to find ways to reduce that barrier. But the things that you said are very real, you're arrested now you deal with that, you coming out, you're just creating this wall that will not that is so hard to overcome for families.

How you break that down, I don't know what the status of her situation is right now, I am unaware of that. But I hope that there were people that could wrap around her to be able to help her through that situation and it's going to be a hard one, she's got some stuff piled up just by what I read in the news. Engaging fathers is critical for us, We have had a lot of initiatives and that's when I said in our parent empowerment is that it's a mom and a dad, we have celebrated fathers to engage dads to make them feel as though they can come to the table. Oftentimes, I believe that fathers believe that you only work with moms and we have really tried to change that in our system, but we need fathers. Children need fathers, absolutely.

Thank you. Thank

you. Councilwoman McPherson.

Thank you. I just have a a follow-up on what he was just is there is there any way that you could do a follow-up on that? I I'm I'm interested in knowing too where that mother is, that case that would if we could get I mean, they don't I mean, whether or not she is safe, whether or not you can't give. I'm not asking for details, but just a follow-up on, you know, because when I saw that, I had just watched that movie. What was it?

No. I just watched a movie with Taraji. Taraji be his Straw. Straw. I just watched that and then saw her. Mhmm. And I thought, she's living it, and it's right here in Toledo. And I know that's she's just one case of it. There are many other cases.

I don't even think she could tell us if they're working with her. That would be a violation of privacy for that young woman. They can't tell us nothing.

Okay.

Okay. Okay.

Do what you can. I know your heart is in it. Do what you can.

Thank you.

We thank you. We thank you for your work.

Thank you.

Yeah. We we can find out. We'll find out in our ways. Counselor Monserrantou.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I was you have a very difficult job. The agency has a very difficult job. But I'm just curious when of the child abuse complaints that you get, what percent of those children are actually removed from the house? Do you have any idea? I know it's important to keep families together, but I'm just curious in abuse cases that turn out to be truthful, what percent of those kids are are removed?

It's so interesting that you just said that. I honestly don't have the figure in front of me, but forty four percent of the children in which we work with remain in their own homes. Other that other percentage of children then would be in kinship or out of home placements that we actually work with. The number the actual hard number of what that is, right now, I'm we have approximately five eighty three children in agency custody and 46% of those children are with kinship placements, but that's five eighty kids that are currently custody. What percentage that, rolls out to in regards to how many remove or we we don't or how many we accept a case or don't.

I don't have the annual report in front of me right now for those stats, but that's where we're landing as far as some of those numbers currently.

What's the definition of kinship?

Me? Yep. So kinship could be a relative or a family who has connection to the family or child and so kin has been really expanded which has been great. Sometimes you think of a god parent or maybe somebody very close, a pastor, somebody who in your family has a strong presence within your family that the child has that relationship with. But again, relatives and that that range of familiar to children, to the And

then are some placed in foster homes?

Some are placed in foster homes, yes.

So the majority or

About 46 are placed with kin, and then the rest would be placed in foster, treatment foster care, group home, residential settings.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilman Hobbs.

My last question for the health department and for Lucas County Children's Services. Again, thank you both for being here. You talked about marijuana studies, Ms. Bill, on the effects of the baby before it's born and that type of thing. My question is is do we have studies from either department or is there help or something that goes out to parents after the children are born?

It just seems like I am seeing so many parents that are just openly smoking marijuana. You pull up to a traffic light, and you have to roll your window up so you don't get a contact high because and they got kids in the back seat, and they're just while they're driving, and and this stuff they smoking now is oh my god. It's the smell is just oh. And so it's gotta be having an effect on these kids. It's I was at a funeral the other day, and from the from the funeral home to the graveyard, which couldn't have been about three miles, it was just like god.

Yeah. And these kids are in the car with all the do we know how this is affecting those kids and is it causing them problems in school, behavior?

A lot of those preliminary studies told us that, you know, child's children could experience things like problems towards school, attention towards school, developmental towards school. That's a lot of what we have heard whether the health department has those additional things. I'll tell you one thing that we really are looking at within cases and fatalities across our county is often times when you have your co sleeping and child infant fatalities, there's two things that are occurring with that co sleeping and marijuana usage usage that is occurring and whether that's always or not, we're just kind of seeing one of those cause and effect type pieces that are occurring. It's something we're really watching. So I don't know if the health department has anything additional in regards to it, but it's

Councilman, I think it's still a little bit early to kind of do come up with conclusions exactly what's happening. I think your thoughts are in the right place. We know secondhand smoking cause problems as well. So it's safe to assume that they will they are affected somehow. In what ways? I think that's still to be remained studied and seen. It's unfortunate. I think the least we can do is messaging and say, you know what, if you're in an enclosed area, now I know it's legal, but be careful if you have children in the car or something. That's a good point.

Thank you. Thank you.

I will say too, this is to add on to that, is that we looked at Colorado studies when marijuana was legalized and the impacts on children. And something that we found in some of the research and studies that we did is that children's access to marijuana went up in that state by 70% to 80% and they had over children who got into it, were exposed to it and had over, you know, impact by that. So we have tried with the legislation for it to be legalized to really push the effort of making sure that you are storing it properly and keeping it out of the access because we know that's a problem in other states that have gone before us that have legalized. So why not try to impact that before we get to those figures? So that's something we as an agency have really tried to provide lock boxes and everything that we can do to say store it, keep it away, so we don't have those same impactful numbers.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right. At this time, I'll ask if anyone from the audience has any questions.

Richard Arnold. Thank you for your comments, councilman Hobbs. I was really touched by that. I was thinking about this. This is the Detroit Free Press on February 21. For anybody who doesn't remember this, they had two children freeze to death in a van. Their mother was driving around from one place to the other to try and find it. On the night they froze to death, there were shelter beds a short distance away, but the referral process completely broke down. After this happened, the the community said, what are we gonna do about this? And mayor Dugan in Detroit put together a task force, and they found out severe lack of communication between the agencies.

Now we have great agencies here in Lucas County, but what about the communication between them? I learned this from Jack Ford. If you remember before, he was mayor and council person. He ran sassy. He ran it during the crack cocaine epidemic of the eighties, and he noticed this proliferation of agencies, And it seemed like they spent all their time striving for funding, almost to the point where they forgot their original mission. So can we get in the future, can we get two eleven in here? Can we get some representatives from the I believe he called it the homeless I got it mixed up in my brain homeless coalition. Can we get some mental health and substance abuse? And can we find out, do we have proper communication between our agencies? Because anybody who assumes that a desperate person, if they don't get help at this agency, is going find it somewhere you assume wrong.

And sometimes we see tragedies that are preventable. So we've got great agencies, wonderful agencies, but are they communicating with each other? So can we do that in the future? Maybe take a look at the communication between our many human service agencies.

Yes. Thank you. Can't even get departments to talk to each other. I know it's communication issues at other places, but that's a great idea. Two zero one is always a good resource and we have a great relationship with two zero one. I know you do and you do as well, so if there's nothing else, Chair, you have something? All right, well thank you guys for being here today. Thank you for all your work. These meetings are very important because we need know what you're doing and how we can help. And if there's anything you need, you can always reach out to us. We are so reachable and we are always willing to help. Don't forget to tell Ms. Sherry, I said, I love her. Thank you so much. Have a great day. This meeting is adjourned.