CESSA - Region 10 Committee Meeting Approved Minutes 02/08/2024

Community Emergency Services and Support Act (CESSA) Region 10 Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes- February 08, 2024 - 9-10:30 AM via Zoom

Meeting Minutes - Approved by Members 03/21/2024

• Welcome/Call to Order/Roll Call
  • Meeting called to order at 9:06 am by Co-Chair Sam Johnson
  • Attendees:
    • Via Zoom: Dr. Ben Feinzimer, Sam Johnson, Jenique Dean, Miriam Smith, Jeremy Gaughan, Jason Seeley, Nancy Vaccaro, Christopher Voss, Candance Gunby

• Approval of Minutes
  • No comment/corrections to the 01/11/24 meeting minutes.
  • Minutes approved by all members present.

• State Updates
  • The SAC will be meeting on 02/13/24 @ 10:00 am at Village of Glenview Village Hall; 2500 East Lake Ave; Glenview, IL. There will also be a tour of the PSAP. They plan to do visioning work and there will be a presentation by the City of Chicago and Dr. Eddie Markul, who is the co-chair for RAC 11.
  • Legislators are working on an amendment to extend the CESSA deadline to July 1, 2025.
  • The Crisis Hub is working on creating an acronyms and definitions list. It will be posted on the new Crisis Hub website.
  • New UIC Behavioral Health Crisis Hub website - https://bhch.uic.edu/

• RAC 10 Activity
  • Chair Feinzimer can authorize the use of certain cards the dispatchers use when a call comes in.
  • What we are going to do with Gurnee and Mundelein dispatch specifically, see if we can simulate what would happen in the real world where someone calls in and does not require police, fire, or EMS. Instead, that call can be delivered to 988. With the police dispatch component, it's a little more difficult as he does not have authority over those facilities. That will require several more steps to be implemented but the principle still holds. We do not want to send unnecessary resources to a person who does not need them. Working through those processes and if it works, we will collect some data and assess. We will see what we need to address and if there are any gaps.
  • Evanston is already working on a response team, not just for mental health calls but for diverting non-police related events to a community responder model. Pilot program will most likely be done by the end of the year. Two teams of two. They will be working with the 911 center and dispatch. Will be outfitted with police radios, giving them access to the CAD system. They will be dispatched to events as they occur. Meets some of the needs of CESSA while waiting for final CESSA launch.
  • We don't have to wait for CESSA for communities to decide to move forward addressing some of these needs. A ground swell of communities wanting this and it's not just top down from the State.
  • Gurnee is going to send Chair Feinzimer the mental health card that they use for calls. We will go through it and make sure the questions align with tier 1 would be. The dispatchers will need to train and practice. Once it is live, the hope is that 100% of callers that call in and meet this criteria on the card will be appropriately sent to 988 and have their needs met without sending a police car, fire truck, or EMT. Will gather data and report back to the RAC.
  • The Mundelein PSAP also includes North Chicago and Winthrop Harbor in addition to Mundelein.
  • For the Gurnee PSAP, which includes Newport, Beach Park, and Zion, the Fire chiefs met and had some concerns over the liability portion that they want to talk to Chair Feinzimer about. Chair Feinzimer plans to go to the SAC meeting on 02/13 to talk to Dr. Markul about the liability question since they have already been doing this in Chicago. Asantewaa will email Chair Feinzimer Dr. Markul's email address.

• Questions from RAC 10 Members
  • Member Vaccaro asked if the questions on the cards unique to our region, will each region piloting this type of program and coming up with their own mental health cards? Is there coordination on that or are we just doing it on our own? Co-chair Johnson answered that the state is working on pilots for PSAPs that use PowerPhone. Region 10 didn't have any departments in our region that use PowerPhone so we did not have anyone qualify for the pilot. We decided that we didn't want to sit and wait on the sidelines, so we are doing our own pilot. There will be more universal questions, everyone that use a certain type of software will have their own questions but for now we are moving forward with questions that will be specific to our region. Question and protocol scripts will be standardized by vendor.

• Next Meeting Date
  • Next meeting will be March 14th, 2024, at 9:00-10:30 am via Zoom.

• Open for Public Comment
  • Jessica Gimeno - Asked if anyone can come to the SAC meeting next week and also go on the tour of the PSAP? Asantewaa stated that yes, the SAC meeting is open to the public and anyone can attend but she was not sure about the tour. Asantewaa stated she will find out and email Jessica the answer.

• Adjournment
  • Motion to adjourn by Member Jeremy Gaughan second by Member Jason Seeley. Meeting adjourned at 9:30 am.