Month: July 2020

The National Council for Behavioral Health is pleased to announce the results of its recent Board elections.  

• Region 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT)
  Tomasz Jankowski, Ph.D., President and CEO, Northeast Kingdom Human Services [VT]

• Region 2 (NJ, NY, PR, VI)
  Yaberci Perez-Cubillan, LCSW-R, SIFI, Senior Vice President-Behavioral Health & Service Integration, Acacia Network [NY]

• Region 3 (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV)
  Richard Edley, Ph.D., President and CEO, Rehabilitation and Community Providers Association [PA]

• Region 5 (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI)
  Shauna Reitmeier, MSW, LGSW, CEO, Northwestern Mental Health Center [MN]

• Region 6 (AR, LA, NM, OK, TX)
  Lee Johnson, MPA, Deputy Director, Texas Council of Community Centers [TX]

• Region 8 (AZ, CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY)
  Joseph (JC) Carrica III, Ed.D., MA, CAC, CEO, Southeast Health Group [CO]

• Region 9 (CA, Guam, HI, NV)
  Camille Schraeder, MA, Director of Public Policy, Redwood Community Services [CA]

• Region 10 (AK, ID, OR, WA)
  Jodi Daly, Ph.D., President/CEO, Comprehensive Healthcare [WA]

 The Board elected the following Officers:

• Second Vice Chair
  Susie Huhn, MA, CEO, Casa de los Niños [AZ]

• Secretary-Treasurer
  Ed Woods, Board member, LifeWays Community Mental Health [MI]

The Board is composed of elected volunteers from the staff and community boards of National Council member organizations. They are elected by National Council member organizations representing 10 regions covering the entire U.S. The Board of Directors represents the membership and is committed to diversity, leadership and promoting excellence in mental health and addictions treatment.

“I look forward to working with our new Board members in the months ahead,” Board Chair Jeff Richardson, vice president and chief operating officer of Sheppard Pratt Health System said. “Community behavioral health clinics face incredible challenges. Their experience and enthusiasm will be a wonderful asset to all National Council members as we navigate the road ahead.”

The Council is grateful to the following individuals for their service as they depart the Board on June 30, 2020: 

• Vic Armstrong, MSW, Director of the North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, Substance Abuse Services [NC]
• Kevin Campbell, former CEO, Greater Oregon Behavioral Health [OR]
• Danette Castle, MPA, Chief Executive Officer, Texas Council of Community Centers [TX]
• Daniel Darting, Chief Executive Officer, Signal Behavioral Health Network [CO]
• Alan Hartl, Executive Consultant, Lenape Valley Foundation [PA]
• John Kastan, Ph.D., Interim CEO, Chief Program Officer, Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services [NY]
• Rich Leclerc, MS, MSW, Consultant, Substance Use and Mental Health Leadership Council of Rhode Island [RI]
• Chris Stoner-Mertz, MSW, CEO, California Alliance of Child & Family Services [CA]

“I want to thank each of our outgoing Board members for the many hours they devoted to the National Council since their election,” Chuck Ingoglia, president and CEO of the National Council said. “I will miss their expertise, determination and professionalism. But I also know I can rely on their guidance even after their departure as our organization continues its important work on behalf of members.”

The newly elected Board members assumed their duties on July 1, 2020.

On Wednesday, Polk County reported two new cases of COVID-19 for a total of three new cases in the past week.  Of the previous 81 cases, 69 were out of isolation, and there had been two deaths in the county.

Polk County Public Health Director Sarah Reese said she is curious to see if there will be an increase in positive cases following the Fourth of July. “We currently have 84 lab-confirmed cases in Polk County,” said Reese. “We are seeing this trickle effect of cases, and I will be curious to see how our case count goes over the next couple of weeks being we are just coming a holiday weekend. There are many instances and reasons why people were spending time together or outside of their household unit, so it will be interesting to see if we have an increase in cases. I’m hopeful we don’t see an increase, but I will be watching that closely.”

Reese said she thinks it’s vital that people continue to be diligent about personal precautions for COVID-19. “I think it’s really important during this time that we continue to be diligent about those personal precautions we can each be responsible for,” said Reese. “The good old handwashing is still really important, use of hand sanitizer, keeping that social distancing. That six feet of social distancing is really important because what we know about how COVID-19 is spread from droplets from one person to the next that is very helpful to be intentional about that. And, certainly, there has been much conversation about wearing cloth face coverings when indoors in a public setting. Last but not least, I would say if you are sick to contact your local health care provider to determine if you should be evaluated for COVID.”

Reese said the impact COVID-19 has had on different people’s lives varies. “Every person has had different experiences as it relates to COVID,” said Reese. “Some people have been very minimally impacted. Haven’t had much change in their day-to-day life, and others have been drastically impacted whether its death of a family member, they themselves are sick, or they’ve had changes to their work because of COVID. Every person has had such a diverse experience as it relates to the pandemic, so one thing I’d like to highlight is that I appreciate our businesses having creative solutions around keeping their workers safe and bringing visitors into their business. I also want to thank those that have been purposeful about social distancing, are cleaning and disinfecting, so that when people come to their establishment, the patrons understand how the business is going to operate when they come to visit them.”

She added she’d encourage businesses to share how they are responding to COVID-19. “I would encourage businesses or other types of facilities to share with the public what are they doing in relation to COVID,” said Reese. “How are they responding? Are they doing delivery or still doing curbside pickup? How are they doing things differently, or how have they had to pivot I think is critical information for the public to know rather than making assumptions or having hearsay about how a business is going to operate.”

Reese is also releasing a weekly or bi-weekly video update on COVID-19 on Thursdays. “If listeners aren’t aware, I’ve been doing a weekly or every other week update on Thursdays on the Polk County website,” said Reese. “We have COVID hub or COVID specific site. I’ve been doing a short video, and we’ve also been providing some data and links to critical pieces of guidance for safely reopening businesses or other types of functions that are happening.”

The updates can be view both on the Polk County COVID HUB here or on Public Health’s Facebook page here.

On Tuesday, Governor Tim Walz visited a child care center in St. Paul and Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan visited a family child care provider in Rochester to announce their $56.6 million Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) proposal to help support Minnesota child care providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal provides grants to family child care providers, child care centers, and certain eligible certified centers to support the increased costs and decreased revenue due to COVID-19.  

“Child care providers have stepped up to serve emergency workers and ensure families across Minnesota have a safe and reliable place to send their children,” said Governor Walz. “We will continue to support the critical work they do to educate our next generation, support families, and strengthen our economy.”

The pandemic has led to significant costs for child care providers due to smaller group sizes, cleaning, and other staffing and workflow changes to keep children healthy and safe. Additionally, child care access, especially for health care and other emergency workers, continues to be critical to the state’s public health response. It is estimated that 420,000 children are in households with one or two working parents in tier one and two critical sectors.

“Minnesota child care providers have gone above and beyond to support children and families during these unprecedented months,” said Lieutenant Governor Flanagan. “To meet the great need, and despite great challenges, providers have stayed open, including 90% of family providers. Our response to COVID-19 could not have happened without their support. They care for our littlest Minnesotans, and we should support them in return.”

Eligible providers will receive a grant paid out over three months to help address the cost of adhering to public health guidance during a time of decreased revenue. Family providers will receive up to $1,200 per month and licensed centers will receive up to $8,500 per month, scaled based on the number of eligible applicants. Eligibility requires:

• Providers to have been open and caring for children as of June 15 and through the duration of the three-month grant period
• Revenue losses or increased costs associated with COVID-19
• Providing financial incentives for working staff
• Having a license in good standing

These emergency grants follow a $40 million, with $30 million from the legislature, Peacetime Emergency Child Care Grants program that provided 5,400 awards over three months to ensure emergency worker access to child care during business closures. Child care provider needs have outpaced the dollars appropriated by more than three times. The Governor also advanced an additional $10 million from the Child Care and Development Block Grant into the third round of these grants. Additionally, Minnesota worked to allocate other resources from the $48.1 million from the Child Care and Development Block Grant fund at the Department of Human Services (DHS) to help increase access to support to reduce child care costs and provide flexibility for child care providers.

In addition to this proposal and the Peacetime Emergency Child Care Grants, the Walz-Flanagan Administration continues to support providers through ongoing communication with state and federal agency partners; tailored information on available financial supports; distribution of cleaning supplies, masks, and other critical care supplies needed for public health response; and support accessing food and other supplies.

The request for $56.6 million was submitted to the Legislative Advisory Commission for approval on July 1. Once funding is approved, DHS and the Children’s Cabinet will provide information about how childcare providers can apply for the grants. Families seeking care can call the Child Care Aware parent line at 1.888.291.9811 or visit mn.gov/childcare for a map of open providers.

The Minnesota Department of Health is reporting 463 new cases of COVID-19 and 8 deaths. The new cases include two in Polk County and one in Norman County.  Polk County has now had 84 cases, while Norman’s positive case was the county’s 21st. All the numbers are below.

Updated July 8, 2020
Updated daily at 11 a.m., with data current as of 4 p.m. the previous day.

Data is for cases that were tested and returned positive. All data is preliminary and may change as cases are investigated. Many data points are collected during case interviews. Data presented below is for all cases, regardless of interview status. Data for cases pending interview may be listed as “unknown/missing.”

Not all suspected cases of COVID-19 are tested, so this data is not representative of the total number of people in Minnesota who have or had COVID-19. Cumulative numbers are since Jan. 20, 2020.

• Minnesota COVID-19 Public Dashboard
• Minnesota’s COVID-19 Response and Preparation Capacity
• CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Cases in the U.S.
• Minnesota COVID-19 Modeling

Data in the data tables is correct as of 11 a.m. daily. Dynamic images and maps for case demographics, likely exposure, residence, and residence type will update shortly after 11 a.m. daily and will not work if your browser is in compatibility mode.

The Crookston School Board held a special meeting on Wednesday morning where they voted to shorten the 2020-2021 school day by two days ending the year for all students on Friday, May 28. The two days will be used as staff training for technology and preparation for its expanded use during the school year.  The change will also need to be approved by the Crookston Education Association (CEA), which is the teacher’s union, and their vote in scheduled for later Wednesday.

Superintendent Jeremy Olson said the two additional days of staff training would be August 11-12, allowing staff time to digest and implement the training before the year starts. “A couple of years ago we worked with CEA to develop a calendar that we felt met our needs at the time,” said Olson. “Obviously, with COVID-19, there is a desire to really prepare our staff for what is coming this fall. Going from 172 contact days to 170, and then, taking those two days and moving them to August 11-12 is the proposal to front-load our staff, so they have the preparation they need. We’re looking at some technology training, safety training, and talk through the mode of operation we’ll be in this fall.”

The Department of Education is expected to provide schools with a fall operation plan during the last week of July which will determine whether classes are held in-person, through distance learning, or a hybrid of both. “The week of July 27th the districts will be notified of the mode of operation they’re going to be in whether it’s distance, hybrid, or face-to-face,” said Olson. “We want to then use that time to train for the different scenarios – what are we doing for lunches – all those different pieces, the million different that we’re going to have to make. We want to walk through some of those decisions with our staff so that they know what to prepare for.”

The district would then have their traditional workshop days to answer additional questions from the earlier training and do the regular preparation for the year scheduled for September 1-3 with the first day of school scheduled on Tuesday, September 8.

CARES ACT
Olson presented the board with a budget for the $328,422 Crookston schools received from the CARES Act. A portion of those funds will go to Cathedral and Our Savior’s Lutheran Schools through the Title 1 process while the rest will be used for technology, protective equipment, and academic achievement by hiring a third Title I teacher at the elementary schools explained Olson. “We tried to look at two issues,” said Olson. “One is to hold the district harmless from a technology standpoint. Whether that’s tech loss or increase in technology, looking at protective equipment, cleaning supplies. All of those different expenses we know have already come to us or will be coming. The other side of the funding was how do we make kids whole. Obviously, this was not a great time for kids that were maybe struggling. We know some groups of kids fell backward this spring even though we tried our very best. We know that not all students were moving forward. To fight that, my proposal is to add a third Title I teacher to help give kids a boost. So, for the next two years, the district is committed to a Title I teacher to boost our students and give them the help they need to try to close that achievement gap especially at the lower elementary end.”

The Title I program serves younger students in K-8 and Olson said closing the achievement gap at the higher grades will fall under the Intervention and Success Coach hired by the district last year. “We have a safety net in place there,” said Olson. “We added an Interventionist last year so that interventionist is going to have to really focus on that gap. Most research says when you have limited funds, and concern about achievement gap the best place to put that is in the elementary. So, from a strategy perspective we’re going to utilize the safety net we put in place last year with the Interventionist and Success Coach at the high school and add that third Title teacher at the elementary level.”

Olson also said he doesn’t anticipate that the widespread free internet service that was available this spring will be available in the fall if part or all the classes are distance learning. So, on the technology side, the district is buying and paying the monthly service subscription for 10 hot spot devices that can be checked out from the school. Additionally, there as of a week and a half ago, there was $37,000 worth of technology that was missing and had not been returned to the school from spring distance learning. “About a week and a half ago we were at $37,000 in missing devices,” said Olson. “People have been returning those devices. We are in step two of recovering those devices and we are asking our families that if they still have a school device to bring that in. There are a couple of exceptions; we’ve talked with a couple of families that are working with another organization that we very much support that will need those devices over the summer. They’ve been given special permission, but for the majority of t devices we need to get those back into the school.”

NEW DISTRICT NURSE HIRED
The School Board also approved the employment of Laurie Wagner as the Licensed School Nurse for the district following the retirement of Laurie Coauette this spring. Olson said that while Wagner is currently otherwise employed and not scheduled to begin until the fall she has agreed to help as much as possible with preparing the district’s COVID-19 plans. “While her employment starts this fall, I’ve already talked to her that she’s going to have to be a part of the planning process this July, and she’s agreed to do that where she can,” said Olson. “Obviously, with her current employer, she’s focused on wanting to leave them well and we want to make sure that we are honoring that. But wherever she can, she’s going to popping in to help us develop our COVID-19 plan, our back-to-school plan, and all those pieces we’re going to have to make sure we adjust to whatever form we’re in to operate safely.”

ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL
The board approved the resignation of Deb Myrold as a title aide at Highland Elementary and approved a three-year contract extension of the Superintendent’s contract through 2024.  The contract will include raises of 1.6, 2.74, and 3 percent respectively each year of the contract explained School Board and Negotiations committee member Tim Dufault. “It went very smooth, basically everything was unchanged except his salary and B3 retirement benefits,” said Dufault. “We’re in the last year of the current contract. In the new contract, his salary will be going up on an average of 2.5 percent over the three years and his retirement will go up similarly. We were able to lock him in for another three years. Like we discussed, if something comes along that he wants to look at, another district, he’s welcomed to do that. But at least we’ve got the details signed for the next three years, and it looks really good.”

Dufault said the board has been pleased with Olson’s reviews and the work Olson has done toward reaching district goals. “Ever since he got here, he’s had nothing but great reviews from the board, staff, public, and kids,” said Dufault. “And when we did his review again this spring, he is right on task, watching the budget well, and academic success is going up. We brought more kids back into the district which is a good thing. So, all the goals we set for him he’s been working at, chipping away, and improving. It was a very good review.”

On Tuesday, July 7 at approximately 6:44 p.m., the Polk County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a residential structure fire in Section 3 of Woodside Township in rural Mentor. The Mentor Fire Department also responded.

The homeowners reported that the fire originated from a propane grill next to the residence and spread to the siding. They were able to extinguish the fire prior to the arrival of law enforcement. The fire department then conducted additional checks to ensure the fire was completely extinguished. There were no injuries reported.

No further information will be released.

The City of Crookston will spray for mosquitoes tonight, Wednesday, July 8, beginning at 6 p.m. The entire town will be sprayed weather permitting.