October 5, 2023, The Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee

The Youth Homelessness Prevention Subcommittee

October 5, 2023

10:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Agenda:

1. Open & Introductions
2. Goals of Subcommittee
3. Recap of Data Conversations
4. Aligning Subcommittee Goals with Service Provision
5. Questions
6. Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness (CACH)
7. Public Comment
8. Next Steps & Closing

Meeting Information:

Meeting Recording

Presentation:

Illinois Youth Homelessness Prevention Meeting 10.5.23

Meeting Minutes:

1. Open & Introductions: By Johnna Lowe
   1. Teresa Parks, Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission
   2. Susan Reyna, Covenant House IL 
   3. Eva Moore, IL Department of Juvenile Justice
   4. Ann Baker, Midwest Youth Services
   5. Billy Lau, OPEH
   6. Chevelle Bailey, Department of Children and Family Services 
   7. Emma Bandy, IL State Board of Education 
   8. Kate Ulmer, ISBE
   9. Sandy Godinez, The Harbor
   10. Roger Seitzinger, ISBE
   11. Terrence Brewton, Cornerstone Services
   12. Niya Kelly, Chicago Collation for the Homeless
   13. Nick Johnson, Youth Representative 
   14. Johnna Lowe, CSH 
   15. Nikita Robinson, OPEH
   16. Colleen Mahoney
   17. Kylon Hooks, OPEH
       1. Deputy Chief Officer for OPEH. Come to this work with over 10 years of homelessness prevention experiences, with 9 of those years being in youth homeless prevention. 
   18. Meeting agenda review.
2. Goals of Subcommittee
   1. The committee was formed a few years ago through state legislative mandate. Our goals are to support the systems of care, IDOC, IDJJ, DCFS, and DMH, around youth being discharged from those systems and housing stability post discharge. Review of the services provisions and discharge data. Analyzing the discharge data to determine recommendations that can be provided to the state that supports housing stability.
3. Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness (CACH): Colleen Mahoney
   1. Want to have a brief conversation around a project that the Community Advisory Counsel has going on. The CACH, made up of community leaders advise the Task Force, made of state leadership and staff around homelessness issues. A new requirement comes from the IL Bill 2831 that was signed for the CACH to provide recommendations to the Task Force by November 15th and annually thereafter. We are currently working on that project right now, and I supporting writing the report. There is a lot of flexibility around the recommendations.
   2. Review of the report development timeline. Workgroup was created mid-September and we are meeting through October. We will design and turn in a final project by mid-November.
   3. Recommendation development: CACH is focusing recommendations on the following bucket areas: Developing relationships between the Interagency Task Force and the CACH, in addition to this subcommittee. Increasing interaction between people with lived experience of homelessness and the larger community. Promoting collaborations between agencies and communication with the larger community. Supporting state staff in serving people experiencing homelessness and understanding the structural forces that drive homelessness.
   4. CACH members are interested in providing recommendations related to youth homelessness and youth exiting systems of care. Are there 1 - 2 specific recommendations you would like to see to support the subcommittee's work?
   5. Discussion on recommendations:
      1. A need for legal and data systems to facilitate increased data and information sharing among subcommittee agencies specifically around youth experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
      2. A recommendation to increase funding for a specific housing model to prevent homelessness for youth at critical junctures.
      3. Increasing collaborations between the Task Force, CACH, and Subcommittee
      4. A landscape gaps analysis to understand the range of supports available to youth connect to subcommittee agencies and where investments could have the highest impact to prevent and end youth homelessness.
      5. Everyone here touches youth in different ways. Would like to know what people are seeing in other parts of the state that excite you and really making an impact? What is creative through each of the sectors. What can we learn or lift up?
      6. All of our work at the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission supports people with disabilities. We deal with a lot of clients with mental illness. I really like the fourth recommendation on a landscape analysis because it would incorporate some concerns we have around youth with disabilities and additional influencing factors.
         1. At Covenant House IL we do our own internal tracking. Over 60 to 65 percent of our youth identify that they have a disability but tends to be a disconnect on if they have or haven't been diagnosed. Unfortunately, without the evidence you can't get a lot of resources which is a barrier.
      7. As you have been working towards these goals around data, have you come across various challenges of making progress on outcomes?
         1. I have had many of the one-on-one check ins with the systems of care. The legislation that was created is amazing, but it was created in a bit of vacuum. The systems of care primary structure are for supporting the youth while they are inside the system of care. The legislation goals address post discharge. With this new goal, is there a unified discharge plan that all the systems can adhere to? A lot of the support is on the ground service, but a lot of the work that the systems do are based on the contracted relationships with community service providers they have. Are all the vendors communicating the same collective data to the agencies. If we are going to ask folks to do something different, then what does that mean? Alignment of goals with the infrastructure. New infrastructure design if we are asking systems to do something different.
         2. State level and federal level homelessness funding is different. It is a lot of focus on actively homeless but should also have a focus on those who are at risk of homelessness. Program renaming and training support for the direct line staff. Homeless programs are directed to the public as homeless programming, no one wants homeless programming. They want supportive services, and we need to work on how to deliver the services, so the services are not something that they are ashamed of to receive.
         3. That is helpful to hear. Clarifying the program requirements, which ones require literal homelessness, and which don't. Along with decreasing the stigma and way in which we are presenting resources, so that they are more appealing.
         4. These programs are so busy and serve so many people. Most of the time you are reporting quarterly but if it is more of a way to collecting more impactful data it may be more useful. A way to measure progress and making the data collection for both parties could be more useful.
         5. Was a human services case worker for 6 years. We have the basic subset of services, but they lack life skills development. If we are focusing on a landscape gap analysis then we can focus on development, technical training, resume building skills, overall fundamental skills. Youth educational programs could be impactful.
         6. ISBE, McKinney Vento program is pre-K through grade 12 which does cover those verging on homelessness, including those who are couch surfing. If a family does not want to be identified, we will still try to provide services to them. We changed the name to housing insecure and have seen an influx of people willing to accept services. Goal would be to have a better connection with the districts, CoC's, and various programs that exist. Need to know what programs exist then we can be able to provide them. Get information on where and what programs are available for these families.
      8. If you have more insight around recommendations, please email Colleen. When we have a draft of this report, we will circulate this to this group.
         1. Seeing that the focus is youth housing insecurities, DCFS is the only system of care that has connection to youth housing. They have two programs federally that public housing authorities can apply for. DCFS has been working hard to get those connections around housing to the state. Not true for the other systems. They talk to the community providers to see what's available for youth in their system but not having direct access to plug into. Housing resources that come with support services would be a tremendous help. They have to apply to receive the vouchers. Relationship building.
         2. Housing vouchers is a great program and hoping that our agency will be able to take advantage with that. A current barrier at our agency is around the landlords are limited in accepting the vouchers. Needs to be groundwork to create a list of those who would really be willing to accept the vouchers throughout different communities. Having a conversation around what is in it for those individuals you are allowing in their home. What protection and support services for landlords? Having funds or support if there are damages done in properties. Incentivized the landlords to work in the communities.
         3. Really focus this on youth existing these systems of care.
         4. IDJJ is in a process of apply for a grant that will help emerging youth with services and training before transitioning them to an independent living situation based on where they are. One of our facilities is being redesigned to assist with the emerging adult populations.
         5. May be a model to create funding for these systems vs a grant.
4. Recap of Data Conversations: Johnna Lowe, CSH
   1. The conversations we started to have will continue. Talked to each system of care around details of data collection within those systems.
      1. We connected with IDOC and learned that a lot of management is through a program called 360.
      2. IDJJ uses a variation of 360 and has a system called AMS that focuses on progress notes.
      3. DMH data collection entities Mainframe and CICS which collects their clinical inpatient data. They don't necessarily collect information around aftercare. The focus is on the youth while they are in the system of care.
      4. DCFS uses CYIS. They are currently working on a new system called IL Connect. They are hoping that the systems will be able to talk to others.
      5. Office of Community & Positive Youth Development mentioned having a goal of focusing on the intake/ first point of contact to understand if the youth is interacting with other systems of care.
      6. Staff are committed to the work of their agencies.
   2. Takeaways:
      1. IL is without a consistent data platform for all systems of care. Infrastructure and system design focuses on in-care services. Primary responsibility of discharge and aftercare is on youth. Internal data collection, inconsistent data field source, antiquated systems. New uniformed approach to meet legislative mandate goals.
      2. Questions from the subcommittee members
         1. At DCFS when we are talking about a uniform approach to meet goals, we need to look at the various legislative mandates. There are a number of different task forces, committees, councils that are addressing similar issues and for agencies like ours, with required participation. There seems to be a lot of duplication in efforts. Currently a part of another mandate that will be around addressing youth transitioning out of care which is similar to this one. We are reporting on so many things and see if we can reduce some redundancy in the mandates.
            1. I work primarily with youth in care and John Eagan works with advocating housing resources (and others) for youth out of care. There is support around job readiness, job opportunities and other resources through our family advocate centers when they exit care. Youth in care receive a lot of resources to prepare for exiting care through their case workers. Cash assistance is available based on certain eligibility requirements.
      3. Will also follow up with you around the other task force that was mentioned. It may be a lot of alignment with this subcommittee so we can connect with those folks. Any thoughts on data collection?
         1. OPEH has an initiative to support and uplift the quality of data collection. We do have some support around data collection.
         2. Our last committee meeting in December will have a focus on data. Great to hear about that initiative.
5. Aligning Subcommittee Goals with Service Provision: Johnna Lowe, CSH
   1. The creation of the legislative mandate does not necessarily align with data collection requirements of the state agencies. What are some things that can be done within the state agencies to align to meet the goals? Love the idea of a quality data cohort is a great first start. What may help you internally to collect data or support services to meet the committee's goals?
   2. These recommendations are what we want to highlight. That is the focus of our work over the last year. Questions to think about: What are some changes that need to be done internally to meet the goals? How does service provision and discharge look different? Are infrastructure/admin changes needed? Does the change happen with the vendors? Are there internal data supports required?
      1. If we are trying to make sure all of the data is aligned and being retrieved in a uniform way, partnering with one entity for data collection that is embedded within each agency.
      2. May be information collected around where youth go post discharge, but it is not all collected in the same way or at all. If it is not a part of their reporting, then the information is sometimes lost.
      3. If we were to meet that goal of using one entity what would that look like internally in your agency? Would it require more staff, administrative changes, etc.?
6. Questions
   1. N/A
7. OPEH Update from Kevin Roth
   1. OPEH is working with U of IL Chicago Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy. Looking to identify an evaluator around data collection for the systems of care. Previous conversations about building out internal systems or creating a new one.
   2. Is there an opportunity for the state to build out a data collection platform that can be used for all the systems of care. That is some of the work that we will focus on between now and December. If the youth is involved in multiple systems of care, we don't have a system that talks to each other, and it is a concern around privacy for that. We are working on that.
8. Public Comment
   1. N/A
9. Next Steps & Closing
   1. Next meeting is December 7th at 10am.
   2. Follow up on securing technical assistance in data collection. Ask of the systems of care in service provision and discharge changes. May be an opportunity to have another meeting with the systems of care before our next meeting. Or sending a form to receive insight on data quality. 
   3. Clarity on meeting frequency, legislation states that we meet 6 times a year. Will we meet in 2024 after we have provided the recommendations. 
   4. What would be better for the systems of care, to have another conversation or inputting information on a form?
      1. Our goal is to figure out the method of data collection. The data collection currently does not go beyond a year of discharge. A part of the recommendation will be around what does it mean to have the entity and the method of data collection.
      2. The specifics on what the systems would like to see moving forward is what I would like to focus on. If this committee decides we think we need another meeting or two we could recommend that to the OPEH. Or that we would like to see the recommendations being implemented.
      3. Will get that clarified with Chief Haley before the December 7 meeting.
      4. Reading through the legislation and it states that the advisory council will meet at least 4 times a year. Maybe looking at the wrong place.
         1. Link shared in the chat: https://govappointments.illinois.gov/boardsandcommissions/details/?id=1116CB5E-2007-EE11-8F6D-001DD8068008  This one states that 6 times each year. Creation of a work schedule for 2024 will take place in the December meeting.
      5. Did a gap analysis and recommendations. It would be good to align with the other committees who have focus on youth. If we provide recommendations where does that go. This committee will meet 6 times each year. Reach out to Johnna with any questions. We will follow up with the systems of care to meet the goal. 
10. Meeting adjourned at 11:31am.