Minutes of the Meeting between OFVP and Peoria, November 9, 2022

November 9, 2022, Wednesday 2:00-3:00 pm

Via webex

Recording

Attendance

1. Antwaun Banks - LAC Member
2. Bruce Mayer - The Center for Youth and Family Solutions
3. Jeff Turnbull - The Center for Youth and Family Solutions
4. Chief Eric Echevarria - LAC Member
5. Johanna Wagner - Goodwill of Central Illinois
6. Joy Holmquist - Artists Reenvisioning Tomorrow, Inc.
7. Keith Knepp - LAC Member
8. Krista Coleman - LAC Member
9. Lindsey Gravemier - Goodwill of Central Illinois
10. Lori Johnson - Goodwill of Central Illinois
11. Marcellus Sommerville - LAC Member
12. Rita Ali - LAC Member
13. Senator Dave Koehler - legislator
14. Christopher Patterson - IDHS-OVFP, Assistant Secretary
15. Awisi Bustos - Senior Policy Advisor

1. Opening/RPSA Progress Overview
   • Assistant Secretary Christopher Patterson welcomed and thanked everyone for attending the meeting. He gave a recap on the passage of the Reimagined Public Safety Act (RPSA) which led to the creation of the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention which he is now heading up. The goal of RPSA is to address firearm violence across the State of Illinois, double down on youth investment that IDHS has been doing and give other community resources to providers.
   • With regards to the RPSA funding distribution, Assistant Secretary shared that as of to date, a little over 65 million dollars out of the 250 million dollars ARPA funding has been slated to RPSA which is broken down into violence prevention organizations in Chicago and youth development programming across the State. He also mentioned Technical Assistance will be discussed later on and high-risk youth intervention funding. Assistant Secretary also mentioned the new funding advisory for the Local Advisory Councils (LACs) that would be a coordinator position that will also be discussed. He said a lot of NOFOs have gone out and the OFVP is now in the process of reviewing applications and scoring them to determine who will be the providers for both youth development and violence prevention across the state.
2. Local Advisory Council Process
   • Ms. Awisi Bustos, IDHS Senior Policy Advisor said that in accordance with RPSA, the OFVP convened 16 LACs, with 150 members throughout the State, and discussed with them and strategize on how funding should be distributed to best addressed firearm violence. The OFVP received the LAC recommendations on how to best allocate violence prevention resources.
   • Each LAC submitted recommendations for activities most needed to reduce firearm violence and the LACs were reconvened in May. Ms. Bustos shared the website links to the results of the recommendations and the corresponding funding strategy.
3. Recommendations Primary Findings
   1. Support for comprehensive violence prevention services that includes street outreach, victim services, and case management;
   2. The need for a flexible source of youth intervention funding that would target a broad age range of youth most at risk of being involved in community violence;
   3. The need for additional trauma informed behavioral health supports that specifically target those individuals (primarily youth) most at risk of being involved in community violence; and
   4. Continued investment in traditional models of youth development that focus on engaging school involved youth and optimizing personal and educational outcomes.
4. Recommendations - Other Findings
   1. Need for resources to address racism and historical disinvestment in communities of color, financial stability and mobility, and family violence;
   2. Need for technical assistance and capacity building resources that will allow small organizations to succeed in the violence prevention space; and
   3. Support for community collaboration inclusive of schools, police, healthcare institutions, park districts, cultural partners, and non-profit advocates.
5. NOFO Service Offerings
   • Analyzing the recommendations, Ms. Bustos said that the OFVP's first priority was to build offerings that reflect the LAC feedback. These included the NOFOs on Youth Development Greater Illinois which closed on September 8th; Violence Prevention Greater Illinois which closed on September 16th wherein 20 applications were received; Youth Intervention Greater Illinois which offered a more flexible funding and targeted high-risk youth ages 11 to 24 which closed on September 19th; and the last was the Trauma Informed Behavioral Health Services Greater Illinois which included mental and behavioral health interventions that address trauma recovery and other mental health improvements and this closed October 14th.
   • IDHS also recently issued a training and technical assistance services NOFO on September 30th to fund organizations to assist grantees with implementing violence prevention services and other related services in Greater Illinois. Applications were due on noon of November 2nd.
   • IDHS also issued the Greater Illinois Violence Prevention Council Coordinator NOFO which will leverage successful collaboration efforts begun by the LACs by expanding and making permanent their role in the community. The NOFO was released October 7th and it will select one lead the agency per community that can continue convening the LACs and expand the body to include additional violence prevention expertise. Applications were due today at noon and is now closed.
   • Ms. Bustos also mentioned that OFVP also received feedback on access to social determinants resources and so IDHS is curating resources internally and with partner agencies to provide technical assistance to communities and help connect them to all existing resources that address social determinants of health.
6. Funding Strategy
   • With regards to translating the funding recommendations to a strategy, Ms. Bustos said the OFVP has to carefully balance three considerations when allocating funds - LAC input, Providers Capacity and Area Need. She mentioned that OFVP has the authority to grant up to $100 million to Greater Illinois. The first round of strategy has been centered around assessment capacity and getting eligible organizations to apply and OFVP wanted to gauge where the gaps are and build capacity.
   • Aside from utilizing the first round of funding to assess what the capacity is of service providers across Greater Illinois, IDHS is also working on building up capacity while soliciting applications. IDHS wants to ensure that all equipped organizations can begin providing services as soon as possible; for the LACs to revisit their asset map and develop recommendations for capacity building needs; and work with organizations that lack current capacity to apply to build capacity. She shared that IDHS partnered with Ernst and Young for capacity building activities and IDHS also does its own technical assistance and community organizing.
   • Assistant Secretary added that he understands that a lot of the LAC members concerns was capacity building and how to sustain things past RPSA and how to build infrastructure that has a line of communication directly with OFVP and in the community. He emphasized that they want to get the word out on the $100 million for Greater Illinois and it's going to take more than the organizations in the meeting to absorb the funding. However, they are not seeing the applications to be consistent with the size of big communities such as Peoria and so they want the word out. On the other hand, Assistant Secretary said he understands that there is some hesitancy around smaller organizations in applying but IDHS has infrastructure that addresses the barriers in applying. He is encouraging continuous dialogue between OFVP and the LACs and organizations and he doesn't want process to be a deterrent for application.
   • Ms. Bustos continued her presentation and discussed the funding approach. She said that the overall percentage allocations for each community was based on incident volume and the OFVP is pursuing a two phased funding strategy that responds to both capacity and needs throughout the 16 municipalities in Greater Illinois. The first round of funding was to ensure that funding was aligned with LAC recommendations, funding is open to assess capacity and capacity building will be done in areas of high need. For round two, funds will be escalated in areas of high need and it will be ensured that LAC funding allocation recommendations are met.
7. Spread the Word
   • Ms. Bustos said that OFVP is asking for everybody to continue spreading the word about the funding opportunities that were discussed earlier. She said that the presentation will be shared to all attendees.
8. Next Steps
   • Help spread the word about all the funding opportunities available and encourage all eligible organizations to apply;
   • Ramp up your capacity building efforts to ensure that your organizations are well equipped to successfully apply and secure these grants;
   • Revise and complete your community asset mapping if you have not already done so and be prepared to submit a report on your findings if requested;
   • Identify and encourage larger organizations in your communities to explore primary and sub recipient relationships with smaller organizations; and
   • Continue to hold LAC meetings and keep OFVP abreast of any pressing issued or needs that arise.
9. Question and Answer
   1. Peoria Mayor, Dr. Rita Ali said she is pleased to know that OFVP is setting aside funding for the capacity building. She said capacity is one of the reasons why there are not many applications coming from Peoria. There are a lot of smaller grass roots and new organizations that are very much involved in the work, but they need to build their capacity in order to apply for grants such as the IDHS grants. Mayor Ali mentioned a few organizations in Peoria such as Southside Community Center and House of Hope that have been doing violence prevention work for more than three years but are hesitant to apply because of the requirements. She asked how these organizations can tap the capacity building opportunities at IDHS.
      • Ms. Bustos said she has noted down the names of the organizations that Mayor Ali mentioned and requested that if there are any others that need capacity building to send the names to OFVP and OFVP will see how they can be included in the various capacity building tools and efforts and as well in the GATA training to assess if they are ready to apply or what pieces of the puzzle they are missing. OFVP can also connect them with Ernst and Young.
      • Assistant Secretary added that there might be organizations in Peoria that provide technical assistance that may have applied in the recently closed Technical Assistance NOFO, although he cannot be sure because he is not privy to that information until all applications have been scored and reviewed. But he is hoping that at least one of them will be from Peoria that Peoria is used to working with already and can be engaged sustainably in the long term. He also mentioned the Violence Prevention Coordination Council NOFO that is a funding opportunity for one entity that can coordinate with the OFVP for a long term. Finally, he said that if nobody applied for the Technical Assistance NOFO, it will be reopened and OFVP can go out and help Peoria do some groundworking to get organizations to apply.
   2. Mayor Ali asked about the responsibility of the Violence Prevention Coordination Council and will there be assigned for Peoria.
      • Assistant Secretary mentioned the convener position in Chicago that is funded $100,000 a year to bring RPSA funded organizations together on a monthly basis to coordinate events, activities and needs and connect with OFVP from time to time. It will be OFVP's eyes and ears in the community. After getting the recommendations from Greater Illinois LACs, the OFVP decided to offer the same position to ensure sustainability of RPSA activities in Greater Illinois, thus the creation of the Violence Prevention Coordination Council NOFO. Again, he said he doesn't know who applied yet until all applications are scored and reviewed but if there is none from Peoria, it is encouraged that organizations apply to that position. He said that there will be one coordinator position per municipality.
      • Assistant Secretary also mentioned the link provided in the presentation that will lead to the website where all the NOFOs are listed. All are closed but will be reopened soon and so he is encouraging the attendees to spread the word.
   3. Ms. Lindsey Gravemier of Goodwill Central Illinois asked if the number of applications for Greater Illinois that was presented is across Greater Illinois and not just Peoria.
      • Assistant Secretary said it is not specific to Peoria but all of Illinois and he shared that he has some reservations whether there is a good turnout because there are 16 Greater Illinois municipalities.
   4. Assistant Secretary said that the presentation will be shared to all attendees and should there be any questions that will arise later on, he will be willing to answer.
10. The meeting was adjourned at 2:35 pm.