CESSA - Region 2 Committee Meeting Approved Minutes 09/11/2024

Community Emergency Services and Support Act (CESSA) Region 2 Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes- September 11, 2024 - 1:00 pm via Teams

Meeting Minutes - Approved by Members 01/08/2024

• Call to Order/Introductions
  • Call meeting to Order by Dennis Duke at 1:02 PM
  • Attendees:
  • Via MS Teams: Dennis Duke, Brian Murphy, Zachary Gittrich, Jamal Simington, Rhonda Flegel, Jodi Mahoney, Matthew Jackson, Darren Gault, Travis Noyd, Latricia Seye, Donald Miskowiec, Imad Khan, Matthew Jackson
  • Absences
  • Michael Barr, Sarah Scruggs, Meghan Moser, Sarah Stasik, Brandon Miller-Gus, Christopher Watkins, Allen Haeffner, Steve Delis, Luke Tomsha, Anthony Walraven, Michael Daley, Ryan Beck, Julie Lewis
  • Guests:
  • Brenda Hampton, Bobby Leebold, Samantha Herrell, Marita Landreth, Jessica Smith, Bernard Butler, Susan Schafer

? Open Meetings Act - Read and notified meeting is being recorded.

• Approval of Minutes
  • April 10, 2024 Minutes - were approved as submitted.
    • Motion by Member Jodi Mahoney, second by Zachary Gittrich
    • Motion Approved by all members present
  • Next RAC Region 2 meeting will be October 9, 2024 at 1:00 PM

• State Updates - Brenda Hampton
  • Brenda Hampton shared state updates as follows:
    • Forum June 11th held in Chicago "The Crisis Continuum in Illinois - Knowledge Innovation and Action" - information from that Forum is posted on the UIC Website.
    • CESSA has been extended until July 2025.
    • EMS Medical Director to serve as Chair - there is language in the amendment that indicates EMS Medical Directors no longer have to assume responsibility as the Chair. The allowance in the language gives DMH authority to identify another person to sit in that position. Currently working through that process. Further encourages members to stay energized and working with the RAC as more initiatives start to come out. More to come in October after we fine line processes and procedures.

• RAC Resurgence 2024/2025
  • Dennis Duke commented there is going to be some more information that comes out later, probably in the month of October that will provide some new agenda items and discussion to move us forward with the resurgence of RACs and CESSA. Further shared to take a moment to recognize the state, RAC members and all of our peers across the state for the work we have done. We've had quorum at every meeting and extended kudos to members for staying engaged with the work that's in front of us. The legislation was completed and we now have formed and sustained structure of both the SAC and the RACs. We have some of the work started with our vendors that will talk briefly on today. Lastly recognized the fact that we've been able to bring together EMS, Law Enforcement, Behavioral Health and other community key stakeholders.
  • Dennis Duke shared Sarah Scruggs from Arukah and Brandon Miller-Gus from Mississippi Valley Dispatch hosted a very successful Hyperlocal meeting. A lot of good feedback was provided from their meeting. We'll talk later how we transition from hyperlocal to another structure. Further shared RAC 2 has reviewed and filtered our rosters to make sure we have people who are engaged and active in our committees. Also made note of things happening in our local region. In discussion with Chief Gault learned Quad City local area law enforcement and EMS are working through dispatch protocols and asked Chief Gault if he'd like to report out about it.
  • Chief Gault provided a brief report in preparation for what we anticipate the state will roll out eventually for dispatch centers. We're trying to work towards culture change in our area and trying to plant the seed which was the theme of our hyperlocal meeting to plant the seed to do things a little bit different. We are on a different priority dispatch platform then has been chosen to roll out with some different protocols in there. Protocol 41, which is psych, we're starting to use to try to move a little closer to changing the response and how you know we see the state risk matrix playing a part of that. We're taking baby steps in preparing our staff on handling calls a little differently, getting fire and EMS to handle some of the lower-level risk calls (that are really just medical calls) and trying to build some buy in before we start with major changes.
  • Jodi Mahoney shared the McDonough, Schuyler EMS Committee held a hyperlocal meeting in the Macomb area during the month of July. It wasn't real well attended, was a little chaotic as a lot of the invitations that went out was stuck in emails, etc. They are planning on holding another hyperlocal meeting at some point so that did occur in July in the McDonough County area. Also North Central was part of the Illinois Valley Regional Dispatch hyperlocal meeting. We had local fire and various community fire chiefs, fire departments, EMS from various communities that are represented and covered by Illinois Valley Regional Dispatch. Don Miskowiec from our 708 Board, and representatives from OSF Healthcare system who also provided behavioral health services within these communities as well. Overall, it was a very good turn out and well organized.
  • Rhonda Flegel shared she, Jamal Simington and Megan Moser all from the Clayne County area held a hyperlocal meeting back in July. They had representation from 590 providers, 988, hospitals, police, fire, EMS as well as about 26 different agencies. Noted a very good turn out and she and Megan spoke at their local Justice committee, Board meeting and a Health Committee Board meeting in August. So things are going along in McLean County and look to host another hyperlocal meeting sometime before the end of the year.
  • Bobby Leebold reported that Mercer County technically held their first hyperlocal meeting. Chief Gold and he were asked to speak to that group which was very well attended by law enforcement, hospital personnel and EMS. It's a very good experience and they plan on scheduling some future meetings relatively soon.
  • Zachary Gittrich requested to be included in on any meetings for McLean County.

• Pre-test Updates
  • Dennis Duke provided information after consulting with Brenda Hampton of how to differentiate the difference between the three tests and the pilots that we all know about. The difference between the tests and pilots the test is essentially where there's no exchange of information and there's no connection to 988. It's just ensuring that the changes in the protocols are actually identifying people who are experiencing the behavioral health crisis. Secondly it'll evaluate whether or not the response are consistent with what is being presented, what is being identified and then ultimately referred to the services that are available into that hyperlocal area that's happening right now. There's 3 pretests occurring. More information to come on how these pretest sites are going and what they're learning.
  • Brenda Hampton shared it's important to note that the pretest does not generate a mobile crisis response action. It is only to look at this protocol changes and whether they make sense with the transfer of information to 988. Further explained what that transfer looks like and we're only talking in both the pretest and the pilot level one. Further shared the low-level risk in the interim risk level matrix these are individuals who may be in crisis that community mental health agencies would have seen.
  • Dennis Duke commented Brenda provided the summary of the pretest in terms of what it accomplishes, again making sure that the protocols are able to identify the individuals and that the projected dispatch referrals are aligned with the services in those regions and then again, a reminder that this is one of the stumbling block for everybody to get their hands around in the beginning. Further inquired when we would move beyond risk level 1.
  • Brenda Hampton responded let's evaluate the effectiveness of this pilot. The pilot with power phone but also, we have to look at priority dispatch app code and the independent vendors.
  • Dennis Duke inquired if anybody else from Skylar McDonough County that would like to comment on the pilot. None noted. Dennis noted a couple of questions that we're looking for the pilot to answer.
    • How do we know if the recommended dispatch decisions are being followed?
    • How many referrals to 988 are not able to be completed or what are the number of referrals that aren't able to be responded to appropriately by the 590 resources so that we can understand?
    • How the flow of information is occurring and what the resource availability is in our pilot areas?
    • Identify data that should be collected and monitored for us to make continuous improvement in our response in a crisis system.
  • Dennis Duke inquired of any questions regarding the pilot(s). None noted. Dennis inquired if there were any updates regarding the pilots.
  • Brenda Hampton shared the pilots won't start until the pretest concludes. The pretest started on September 3rd and will go between 30-45 days. Further shared anticipate the pilots starting around mid to late October. We have met with Centerstone, which is a statewide 988 vendor and all of the pilots will filter through Centerstone. The 911 telecommunicators will be contacting Centerstone (the 988 vendor) as a pass through because the technology does not exist for them to get directly to mobile crisis response team. Therefore, Centerstone will serve as a conduit and the 911 telecommunicators will do a warm transfer with Centerstone and Centerstone will reach one of the respective mobile crisis response teams for the pilot. Dennis inquired if Centerstone will be the primary call center or will there still be multiple call centers.
  • Brenda Hampton responded just for the pilot since Centerstone is identified because they have a different contract with DMH than the other 988 vendors. Because they have a statewide contract with DMH, they can be used for the pilot. Invariably though as this rolls out statewide and it's going to be incremental statewide, clearly because we must get the resources up and running…all the 98 vendors will be folded in before the pilots. Right now, it's just Centerstone. As we roll this out statewide, it will be inclusive of all the other seven 988 vendors. The only other comment is that we met with Centerstone, and we also met with all the mobile crisis response teams that correspond to the pilot PSAPs. We wanted to make sure that all of them were on the same page, that we have a common frame of mind in terms of how these transitions should occur when the pilot is finally implemented. To ensure there are no hiccups.
• Subregional Structure & Implementation Update
  • Dennis Duke shared we have a change in how our groups are recognized and how they're structured, not a change in the deliverables or how they operate, but just a name change. We've been referencing the hyperlocal meetings and so a decision was made to change the name from hyperlocal to subregional as there was some confusion around what hyperlocal meant. Going forward we will address as subregional for future meetings. Going forward we will plan our meetings with this structure of subregional meetings. We'll have the same attendance rosters that we've had in the past. The main difference will be the name change. The second difference we will have a PSAP as the Chair of the subregional committee that reports up through the RAC.
    • Brenda Hampton responded yes, this is information that we will need to fine tune so that we could get the structure very clear and be able to articulate a very clear message. The subregional groups and the reason the name is called subregional as that is how it was written in the legislation amendment. We're anticipating 4 statewide that would represent each of the four vendors, power phone, priority dispatch, app code and independence. Those groups will have to be OMA compliant, so they will have to have a structure similar to the RACs where there are certain categories of individuals who would be membership. They would have to go through the OMA training, and they would have to have recordings etc. It would be the same structure that the RACs have.
    • Dennis Duke responded more information will be forthcoming in October and we'll be planning our subregional meeting in the month of November. Further noted the requirements will be the same in terms of OMA with an agenda sent in specified time frame, meeting schedules posted accordingly, meeting recordings submitted, need to have a quorum and minutes taken and opportunity for public comment. Attendance roster will be same with law enforcement, mental health providers, EMS, the advocates, PSAP will be the Chair and any other local community representative that we think can be helpful to the process. Any questions regarding the transition from hyperlocal to subregional.
    • Zachary Gittrich based upon what was said earlier in the meeting, we already have 2-3 hyperlocal that are now going to become subregional committees correct.
    • Dennis Duke responded yes. Our Quad Cities hyperlocal will eventually transition from being recognized as a hyperlocal to a subregional committee. Same would go for Jodi Mahoney's and Rhonda Flegel's hyperlocal to transition to subregional.
    • Brenda Hampton shared let us write the structure and outline it so it's very clear. We have the concept and need to fine-tune it. Just need to wait for us to get back with more substantive details on what this will look like.
    • Brian Murphy inquired are we expecting these to be sort of in the outline of the 590 providers? But I'm okay with waiting to get a clear idea of how it's going to be structured.
    • Brenda Hampton responded yes.
    • Dennis Duke responded to ask the question again about the 590 provider - what were you referencing.
    • Brian Murphy responded were looking to have PSAPs Chair these subregional committees. My 911 authority boundary is a county I share my 590 provider with the neighboring county. For me it makes sense for us to have a subregion together, Woodford and Tazwell. I didn't know if that was the intent because for a place like Woodford County it would probably be too small to really have a subregional committee of just my county. I didn't know if the idea would be to take advantage of the footprint of a 590 provider which might be multiple counties, but sharing some of the same infrastructure.
    • Dennis Duke responded I do think it's an opportunity to do what you're describing.
    • Brenda Hampton responded we will get back to you soon.
    • Dennis Duke inquired we're the ones that are defining what used to be hyperlocal and now subregional right. It's not defined specifically by a RAC number like the RACs are the subregions are going to be defined by the people who are operating in those areas.
    • Brenda Hampton suggested this discussion be paused for right now and wait to get the materials out to you so we don't offer any confusion. The benefit now is to say that we're looking at how we can do planning closer to the communities where people are that regions are so large. You have like 17 counties in your region we have to figure out how to get planning at a more local grassroots level.
    • Dennis Duke agreed to pause for the time being.
    • Zachary Gittrich commented is the hub going to be the one that decides how the region is broken up into the subregion and when can we expect that to be done. Is this something the hub is going to be doing? Are they going to figure out the rest of what the subregions are in the county and when can we expect that? And then how's it going to work for members on those subregions that are not members of the full regional RAC?
    • Brenda Hampton responded you will get information once it is fine tuned to minimize any confusion or any ambiguities. We don't anticipate having anything ready until we meet with our Co Chairs again in October. I ask while I know you have questions, we can't get any more specifics right now that will clarify what these structures look like cause it's just not subregional structures. There will be groups under this, so we want to make sure that it is as clear as possible for everyone to digest.
    • Dennis Duke responded we'll wait as you previously mentioned it will be some other groups under that including the vendors to assist in our work moving forward. My only ask is as we go through the planning and the final decision making of how this work is determined, I do think there is value in the providers or the entities within a region to decide who's going to comprise the subregion committees. We are paused for now with more information coming in October and will keep the group apprised of the information as it is gathered.
• Next Steps:
  • Next meeting: Dennis Duke asked members knowing what we know and the current state of the work in what is pending…do we want to go ahead and continue to have a meeting that's already on the schedule for October or do we want to pause/skip until November meeting?
  • Zachary Gittrich responded is hesitant with pausing/skipping meetings because of all the extensions from CESSA but is also hesitant having a meeting with not clear of meeting information.
  • Brian Murphy responded if not expecting to have information back from the state and the RAC Co-chair meeting, would prefer to skip the meeting.
  • Dennis Duke responded with having a two-month hiatus of meetings we could send out a communication of possibly the meeting only being between 15 - 60 minutes depending on information received.
  • Zachary Gittrich suggested developing a newsletter or information about what is actively occurring like hyperlocal meetings that he was unaware of.
  • Dennis Duke responded understanding the logic of the request just not sure how to develop this. For now, we'll keep the October 9th meeting.
  • Brenda Hampton commented that some of the other RACs have elected to have the September meeting and then move to every other month RAC meeting schedule (a proposal put on the table by DMH).
  • Dennis Duke responded if we met every other month, we would get our information probably by October by the time we had a meeting in November we'd have a clearer picture of what's happening. Further noted to stay with the October 9th meeting that is already scheduled.

• Questions from the Committee
  • None were noted.
• Next Meeting Date
  • Next Scheduled RAC 2 Meeting Date: October 9, 2024 at 1:00 PM.

? Open for Public Comment - No Comments Noted.

? Motion to Adjourn the meeting by Brian Murphy and seconded by Rhonda Flegel.

? Meeting was Adjourned at 1:53 PM.