Meeting Minutes

Attendance

Deirdre Dunn Tierney, Audrey Gerkin, Pamela Becker, Kristin Bonny, Karen Livernois, Tim Guidish, Sylvia Pelletier, Latha Mangipudi, Sashi Shashidhar, Regan Lamphier
Absent: Deodonne Bhattarai, Annmarie Van De Water, Destinee Diprima

Secretary Report

The Secretary’s Report was approved with 2 corrections.

1. In-Home Nursing Shortage: 1st Paragraph, 3rd sentence, change “25%” to “25% or less.”
2. PPE needs: 1st sentence, change “the distribution is not equitable” to “vendors are not receiving enough to distribute.”

Treasurer’s Report

Tim Guidish and Pamela Becker met with Brian Collins.

1. Brian said that CYCC is able to retain money from 2019 and 2020.
2. Pam will be provided with codes to help keep track of how time is spent. Currently doing by hand.
3. Per Brian, CYCC will be reimbursed for time spent on other than CYCC business.

Discussion continued about time spent on CYCC seems to be less than 20hrs/week. Currently the job description does not list the number of hours needed. We may need to add that going forward. Also need to consider that there is currently no travel due to Covid so that is a factor in the decrease in hours. Deirdre recommended that CYCC needs to articulate what it is that we want from Pam’s position and that that needs to be in the contract and job description going forward with legislation requirements considered.

According to Pam the initial understanding was that her time would be split into thirds for each council when the other 2 dropped out Community Partners took 20 and CYCC kept 20 hrs. Now the other councils will be using Pam for admin. They have more meetings and are needing more than 10 hrs apiece.

Audrey responded that during the hiring process the understanding was that Autism and Quality would split 20 hrs and CYCC would have the other 20.
According to Pam the State told Brian that they need to find someone to do admin support for the other 2 councils and he said he was not going to hire another person. Pam will be their admin person. She has been logging each day who she has been working for and in general it has been Community Partners.

Audrey stated that now that the other councils are back, duties with Community Partners should be wrapping up so that those 20 hours can be returned to the other 2 councils and are not coming out of the CYCC budget.

Deirdre suggested that Brian should manage and credit CYCC based on Pam’s log.
Karen asked about crediting the Salary and Benefit portion that makes up more than half of the budget. According to Tim the budget doesn’t clarify how to divide salary and benefits between the 3 councils.

Audrey and Tim will schedule another meeting with Brian to discuss the above topics.
Deirdre reiterated the need to clarify the contract before it is done for us. The council needs to think about what we want our admin person to do and justify the money that would be spent. According to Tim he asked Brian for a strategic plan on how to divide the money. Audrey said she has a rough draft of a strategic plan.

Karen reminded the council that Pam spent many hours “cleaning up” when she started which may have added up to more than 20. Should we consider hours per week or month as weeks may vary. Latha reminded the council that hours look very different with no travel due to covid.

According to Pam

1. Sue will meet with us and talk about where we want the money to be spent.
2. The council needs to look at 20hrs and decide which duties we want included in those hours. For example, going to meetings, working on bylaws, writing letters to representatives, Social Media and website, researching and educating/informing legislation.

Audrey will task to time the duty list and tighten up the job description before the next meeting with Brian.

Looking at the spring meeting to develop a strategic plan. Pam will send out some brainstorming activities in advance to help us prepare.

Membership

1. Pam sent a letter to the Governor regarding Karen’s appointment as the parent liaison. She has not heard back.
2. Other outstanding appointments and recruitment possibilities.
   Pam has written drafts of letters to the Education and Insurance Departments will send in the new year.
3. According to Latha the New Speaker may choose not appoint the same legislative reps and suggested that Sen. Rebecca Boca would be a wonderful candidate for the council. Pam will draft a letter for legislators too.
4. Recruit new members.
5. Pam will reach out to Destiny to tell her that we taking her off the council.

Bylaw revision final vote

Pam will send out the final revision of bylaws tomorrow and we will vote via email.

CYCC Annual Report (Laurie Fleming and Pam Becker)

Pam will follow up with Laurie, she had not yet received the Annual Report from Laurie.
Pam and Audrey were invited to attend the NH Association of Special Educators meeting on February 11th. This connection was made during their previous meeting with SAU 16. They would like to share the annual report at that meeting. Audrey sent RFP to them as well.

Latha shared that Mask Up contacted the Governor about their PSA and was able to get a lot of positive feedback. Focus was on how it is not about personal freedom but protecting those around you. Having this information helped her give concrete feedback to the governor.

RFP submissions. Deadline for CYCC committee approval 1-15-20

There were 3 submissions. Pam has sent out to the subcommittee. The subcommittee will meet and give final approval.

NH Covid Vaccinations and Distribution Priorities

Discussion revolved around what the council should be doing in terms of educating legislation regarding needs of our families to receive the vaccine. Topics discussed were the fact that the vaccine is only available to those that are 16 or older so the majority of the children we represent are not eligible. Should we focus instead on the parents/caregivers of children with chronic conditions. Pam shared that this was discussed at the last MCAC meeting. There is a misconception that parents are in the bubble with their at risk children. Pam clarified at that meeting that parents need the vaccine, they are performing nursing duties, especially with the nursing shortage, they should be considered frontline workers. They are not in a bubble, they are going to work and the store and are exposed and therefore exposing their children.
Karen pointed out that in Massachusetts parents of children who have comorbidities and are too young for the vaccine are able to receive the vaccine. She also shared that there are medical conditions that would not benefit from the vaccine so should we attach ourselves to vaccine advocacy.

Latha further pointed out that there is no vaccine registry and asked who is in charge of deciding who gets the vaccine.

Deirdre will find out who at DHHS is in charge of determining who gets the vaccine and who is interfacing with the federal delegation. Latha will reach out to Dr. Ballard. Pam will follow up with Latha and Deirdre and cc Audrey to produce letters to the appropriate people in addition to the governor and both Senators and Representatives. Our message should be positive and focus on the need for parents/caregivers to receive the vaccine not only to protect their children with comorbidities that can’t receive the vaccine but also the fact that they need to stay healthy to care for their children. The increased cost of hospitalization if either the parent contracts Covid and cannot care for their child or if the child were to contract Covid should also be included.

Nursing Shortage Solutions and MCAC meeting update

The Parent Payment Program has been approved and letters have been sent out to 41 families who qualify. Audrey was able to talk with Deodonne and Stephanie at the DRC and they are up to date. Granite State Independent Living (GSIL) is helping to administer the program because they were already doing that for clients in the DD community.
Some of the guidelines for this program are, you can only be paid for half of the hours that you did not have nursing coverage, at a rate of pay of 15 dollars/hour. It was pointed out that other states pay 100% of the uncovered hours. According to DRC and the Federal delegation there is no regulation that says that they can’t pay for skilled nursing if you are not a nurse. State is saying CMS requires that.

1. They are working to make this permanent. It is only temporary due to Covid’s effect on the nursing shortage.
2. They are going to continue to put pressure on the state for 100% of uncovered hours to be paid.
3. Henry and Jane are meeting with the federal delegation to address families hiring their own nurses. According to Audrey this was off the table at first. Now they are saying that it may be possible. They are not letting the state off of the hook with just the payment to parents.
4. Only 41 families were offered the program. The state has the data and is supposed to provide it to us.

Next steps

1. Subcommittee needs to add to the google doc that Audrey sent out.
2. Heather and Audrey met with Little Lobbiests- will help us get connected to other families in other states.

Champion Awards for school nurses and teachers

Audrey- would like to announce the Champion Awards at the NH Association of Special Education Administrators meeting in February. Subcommittee should meet prior to this to develop a more concrete plan for an award ceremony.

Next meeting is February 3rd at 5:30

We will have elections and discuss Champion Awards. We will then go to every other month with meetings scheduled in advance. Laurie is taking the school nursing spot and will no longer be the Secretary. We will need a new secretary.