Minutes of the Meeting with IDHS-OFVP and Kankakee Municipality, October 20, 2022

Thursday, October 20, 2022

2:00 - 3:00pm

Recording

Attendees

1. Brian LaRoche - LAC Member
2. Robin Passwater - LAC Lead
3. David Guzman - LAC Member
4. Rhonda Currie - LAC Member
5. Johnnie Graham Wicks - Kankakee City
6. Camille Rose - LAC Member
7. Frank Petkunas - Regional Superintendent, Iroquois Kankakee Regional Office of Education
8. Dr. Wanda Parker - Aunt Martha's Health and Wellness, Inc.
9. Representative Jackie Haas
10. Assistant Secretary Christopher Patterson
11. Chief Policy Officer Dana Kelly
12. Senior Policy Advisor LaTanya Law

Minutes

1. Opening
   • The meeting began with the introduction of IDHS personnel starting with Assistant Secretary Christopher Patterson of the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention (OFVP), Senior Policy Advisor LaTanya Law, Chief Policy Officer Dana Kelly, and Len Conant as the Admin Support for OFVP.
2. RPSA Progress Overview
   • Assistant Secretary gave a recap about the passing of the Reimagine Public Safety Act (RPSA) which called for the creation of the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention; a historic creation that set a precedence with 250 million dollars dedicated towards reducing firearm violence across the State of Illinois. According to RPSA, this will be done by creating Local Advisory Councils (LACs) with the intent of having and hearing from LAC members as to how municipalities, such as Kankakee should be funded. He said that OFVP did not want to dictate as to what strategy will work in Kankakee. What happened was OFVP heard and received feedback from the municipality from which recommendations were formulated. IDHS wants to deepen relationship, strengthen its commitment to development funding towards reduction of firearm violence and to address trauma for those impacted by firearm violence.
   • Assistant Secretary also gave an update on the funding distribution wherein a little bit over 65 million dollars out of the 250 million dollars original ARPA allocation has been committed to RPSA programs including Violence Prevention in Chicago, Youth Development statewide, Technical Assistance statewide, High Risk Youth Intervention in Chicago and the Convener position in Chicago communities. Approximately seven million dollars in amendment requests were received from current grantees so they can provide additional services. He mentioned that what OFVP did was asked providers who were already doing violence prevention and youth development work, what services could be expanded or enhanced if there were additional dollars. For Greater Illinois, 19 applications are under review for Violence Prevention services, 28 for Youth Intervention and 18 for Trauma Informed Behavioral Health Services. Most applications have closed but Assistant Secretary said they anticipate opening up the NOFOs again once they have an idea of the funding projections from each community.
3. Local Advisory Council Process
   • Ms. Kelly thanked everyone for attending and said that she will talk about how OFVP received recommendations for Greater Illinois including Kankakee. She said that the goal of the meeting is actually to cultivate a conversation with Kankakee folks about capacity and how OFVP can help uncover organizations that may not have applied in the first round and may be prepare them for the second round. She added that they really want to make sure that the community is covered to the greatest degree possible.
   • Ms. Kelly discussed the strategy for Greater Illinois which was dictated by the legislation that asked to create local advisory councils (LACs) in each of the 16 communities that are covered under RPSA and bring them together to assess how to allocate violence prevention resources across the state. The OFVP provided information and different data to the LACs which started to convene in March this year. In May, the OFVP solicited from LACs a set of recommended activities and services that are most needed to reduce firearm violence in their local communities. The recommendations were summarized and compiled as funding strategies for Greater Illinois. These are strategies can be found in the IDHS website and Ms. Kelly provided the links to it.
   • Among the primary findings from the recommendations were - first, the need to support comprehensive violence prevention services that include street outreach, victim services and case management. A NOFO was made available for Greater Illinois early in March which was for Youth Development Services that used a model similar to the Teen Reach model, a program that's also been distributed across the State. However, Ms. Kelly said that the recommendation is asking for something a little more flexible that allows for different types of interventions that would serve youth to be funded. The second finding is a strong need for additional trauma informed behavioral health supports that specifically target those individuals most at risk of being involved in community violence, and the consequences of community violence. The next recommendation is to continue to invest in traditional models of youth development, like the NOFO in Greater Illinois that focuses on engaging school involved youth.
   • Ms. Kelly also discussed other findings from the recommendations including the need for resources to address root causes of violence, including racism and historical disinvestment in communities of color, financial stability and mobility and family violence; the need for technical assistance and capacity building resources that will allow for small organizations to succeed in the violence prevention space; and support for community collaboration inclusive of schools, police, healthcare institutions, park districts, cultural partners and nonprofit advocates.
4. Funding Strategy
   • Ms. Kelly presented the set of service offerings that were built from the recommendations from the LACs and are offered to Greater Illinois organizations. The first NOFO is Youth Development Greater Illinois which has been available and released in February and re-released in May. This provides youth development services to school-engaged youth. Also from the recommendations, OFVP developed three new opportunities for Greater Illinois and the first one is Violence Prevention including street intervention, victim services and case management. The application was released in August and closed in September.
   • The second is Youth Intervention Greater Illinois which Ms. Kelly said is the more flexible model of youth development that includes mentoring, employment skills, life skills development and can target youth that are either engaged or unengaged in school as well as youth that are up to 24 years old.
   • The third NOFO is the trauma informed behavioral health services which includes mental health and behavioral health interventions that address trauma recovery related to violence and subsequent involvement in gun-related activity. Those applications have all been released and the most recent one closes October 14th. Ms. Kelly mentioned that IDHS is in the process of reviewing all the applications.
   • Ms. Kelly also shared that they also developed two other opportunities per the LAC recommendations which are the Technical Assistance, Training and Capacity Building and the Continued Support to LACs which were both have been released and are still open and available. The first one was developed so that every grantee will have access to technical assistance training with a qualified provider. She also mentioned that they already have some that are available to provide violence prevention and youth development technical assistance and so they are looking to fund organizations that are specifically catered to providing technical assistance in the areas of trauma informed behavioral health as well. The other opportunity, the continued support to the LACs was done to support an organization that can bring the LACs together and follow up on incidents of violence and involve other members of the community and organizations that play a role in serving those that are at risk of firearm violence or have been involved in firearm violence. It is a coordinating role that will allow for the continued growth and continuation of the LAC which will be renamed as the Violence Prevention Council. Ms. Kelly said that the NOFO is still open and due November 9th.
   • In terms of access to social determinants resources that were previously mentioned and the need to address the root causes of violence, Ms. Kelly said that IDHS offers a wide variety of services across its six divisions that address a lot of these issues. However, IDHS still feels that there are always a lot of barriers to both participants and providers in being able to understand what is available and communicate that to the people who are eligible and get them involved in those services. Thus, IDHS is working to make a concerted effort to educate all of providers about what's available and give the technical assistance that would allow for organizations to help people enroll in those services and really make ensure that they're getting kind of the whole full scale of what DHS has to offer.
   • Ms. Kelly also discussed the layered strategy that OFVP developed based on the recommendations from the LACs. The OFVP has 100 million dollars to fund Greater Illinois activities for FY 2023 and 2024. Ms. Kelly said that what OFVP is doing it put everything in few stages starting from the LAC inputs which basically serve as the groundwork for what OFVP is doing. The second stage is to look at the provider capacity. Ms. Kelly said that, as everyone knows, communities have varying levels of readiness in terms of the number of organizations doing violence prevention work and are able or interested in applying to this work. She explained that what OFVP wanted to do was release all the opportunities on a time limited basis and see who's ready to get going right away, get them going and then revisit each community and look where the gaps are and then hopefully re-release the NOFOs. The third stage is to look at area need. For the second round, certain communities have greater levels of firearm violence than others and OFVP wants the funding to reflect that need. During the first round, there was not any restrictions on any community to a certain amount of money that's available to them so that anybody interested across Greater Illinois can apply. She said however, that at the end of the day, looking at the service mix that are available through funding over time, these should really reflect the area need.
   • Ms. Kelly also shared that IDHS is also building capacity for folks to apply for the second round of funding which is actually what OFVP is trying to do through the virtual meetings. They are revisiting capacity needs in each community trying to see how OFVP can support that. Ms. Kelly also shared that IDHS is working in partnership with firms like Ernst and Young in providing capacity building training and some coaching to organizations interested in applying for grants at IDHS. She added that IDHS itself is doing community organizing, providing training and making sure that organizations are able to access the fundings.
   • Ms. Kelly said that the second round of funding will be more focused on the real areas of high need in each community and continuing to ensure that LAC recommendations are met next.
5. Spreading the Word
   • Ms. Kelly reiterated what OFVP wanted from the attendees aside from discussing capacity needs in the area, OFVP wants the help of folks to spread the word about the NOFOs especially the two remaining ones which are the Technical Assistance and Support and the Violence Prevention Council Coordinator. Some NOFOs will also be re-released and so OFVP wants to get the word out and make sure that organizations particularly those that IDHS are cultivating will be prepared to apply.
6. Next Steps
   • Aside from spreading the word on the funding opportunities, the OFVP also wants communities to continue ramping up capacity building efforts and outreach to organizations and ensure that they are well-equipped to apply and secure grants. The OFVP is also asking the LAC to revise and complete their community asset mapping and report findings as requested so that OFVP can understand what those gaps are as the second round of funding approaches. Ms. Kelly also said that the OFVP would like folks to identify and encourage larger organizations in the communities to explore primary and sub-recipient relationships with smaller organizations. Finally, she said that the OFVP would like the LACs to keep convening and keep the office abreast of any issues that may arise.
7. Question and Answer
   1. Johnnie Graham-Wicks of the City of Kankakee asked what the turnaround time is as far as notification if an organization is awarded the grant.
      • Ms. Kelly said that applications are currently under review but most of the NOFOs are slated for December 1st. She added that the award letters called NOSAs will begin to come out in November.
   2. Ms. Graham-Wicks asked that if the program is supposed to start for example, November 1st, do they wait and start the program or do they try and start it and find funding somewhere else?
      • Ms. Kelly recommended not to start anything until the organization get the NOSA from IDHS, unless the organization is able to find other funding. She added that for NOFOs slated for November 1st, the NOSAs should come out before November.
      • Assistant Secretary added that for those organizations who were not able to get fundings during the first round, the OFVP is encouraging them to re-apply and the office will work with them to identify what they need to do in order to have a successful application.
   3. Representative Jackie Hass asked if there are providers from their county that have applied or can they be informed at least if there's going to be adequate coverage for some of the programming in their area.
      • Ms. Kelly said they don't have that information yet as all applications are still being reviewed but they can share the information before the awards are made.
   4. Mr. Frank Petkunas of Iroquois Regional Office of Education asked how the participants of the meeting was determined.
      • Ms. Kelly explained that they wanted to invite members and local elected officials as well as organizations in the area that IDHS might be aware of that might have been a DHS grantee. She added that what they really need is for organizations like those in the meeting to uncover the folks that we're not talking to, or who may not have been included and we can include because they don't really have a full sense of who needs to be at the table. They are happy to include anyone who needs to be included not only in this kind of conversation in other future conversations. Ms. Kelly also said that for the LAC, there is not a limit on membership and there are a couple of positions that are statutorily required and they want folks to let them know who should be part of the council.
   5. Mr. Petkunas asked how do they find out who is on the LAC.
      • Ms. Kelly shared the website link where the Kankakee members are listed.
      • Assistant Secretary added that there is also a list of providers that have been previously selected for funding as IDHS wants to make everything as transparent as possible.
8. As there was no other questions raised, Assistant Secretary said the office is always open for questions should they come in a later time and then adjourned the meeting.