Review of SIM report and next steps.
Present was Michelle Cares, Kristen Jordan, Erin Kautz, Quinn Ziegler, Teresa Williams, Erin Pehan and Randy Krastel.
Erin Kautz, grant administrator with the County, presented on Sequential Intercept Mapping (SIM). Erin defined what SIM is, it is specifically related to criminal justice and behavioral health. Something to divert people to, come in to community what resources we have, where are gaps, community identified what priorities we want for moving forward.
in 2015, they hosted their first SIM workshop, grant through SAMSA, about 30 people from Missoula from various agencies came together, identified services and gaps and came up with priorities.
Two priorities identified at end of exercise:
1. Expand their crisis care continuum, through better data collection, information sharing among agencies, expanded services to help with crisis.
2. Expand peer support services for justice involved persons
Since 2015, a lot of work done with these groups.
Jail diversion master plan, received MacArthur foundation safety and justice challenge funding, FUSE grant, and Creation of Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC).
Decided it was time to have second SIM workshop in April 2019, done with work of MacArthur, no cost to community. 35 people came together for day and half.
Erin presented a slide that shows what the 2019 map looks like for Missoula. It shows different intercepts from 0-5, what resources we currently have.
This is what was determined at SIM workshop was three priority areas.
1. Increase deflection from the criminal justice system at intercept 0.
2. Increase timely access to chemical dependency /mental health evaluation and process.
3. Communication, coordination, information sharing and data across systems.
Next steps presented by Kristen Jordan, CJCC manager. She defined what CJCC is. It is currently a new department in county, three employees, support for committee level.
MacAruthur provided tech support, MacArthur strategies and SIM report. Having first formal meeting on August 13th from 10AM-12PM in the basement conference room.
Kristen provided list of who is on CJCC, voting and non voting members. Six identified working groups, will be confirmed at meeting on the 13th.
Development to implementation incorporate recommendation of SIM, MacArthur strategies, We have got started on strategies and she defined those.
Website resources were provided for CJCC website, live by Friday, MacArthur Foundation and Safety and Justice Challenge Website.
Pairing social workers with police officers.
Randy Krastel, Missoula Police Department Business Improvement District (BID) Officer, presented on pairing social workers with police officers. Randy stated he has been the BID police officer since May 2018, he has been involved in SIM workshop, presented the idea of possibly having a social work student help him in the field. Spoke with Police Chief, he agreed, put out job description, had three people apply. Start date will be around the end of August, this will help with to better serve needs. Randy stated they will work about 15 hours/week, three five-hour sessions.
Teresa Williams, Reaching Home coordinator, wanted to add that Randy is part of the coordinating outreach team. She stated the police chief signed the MOU to coordinate entry, so now we can start tracking diversion work on street, find safe alternatives with being on street, linking people to employment, safe and secure housing options. We are hopeful the social work student can do data entry so Randy can keep doing what he does on street, he does a good job. Teresa stated there is a huge correlation with experiencing homelessness and interaction with the criminal justice system. They are hopeful by pairing social worker with Randy, that they will be resourceful in linking people to resources. Randy wont' be tied up meeting with that person, the student can make a case and collect information. We are hoping this impact shows that if this position was full time, it wouldmake an even bigger dent.
Mirtha Becerra expressed her thanks to Randy, she knows his work as she is a member of the downtown foundation, she knows how much work he does to help residence, he is doing a lot of social work, thank you, you do a lot.
Bryan von Lossberg expressed his thanks to everyone. He thought it would make sense to get back together to discuss social working, so we can assess everything. Michelle said we could check in around January after semester, Julie Merritt will cover.
Randy stated since it is a practicum condition and the fact he was was a field training officer for 5 years, his daily routine is to sit down at the end of the day and go over the good/bad and what can be worked on, so there will be written record of that.
Gwen stated there was reference to a SOAR person that was trained/hired, she asked if someone could speak on that. Teresa oversees SOAR implementation in Missoula, they do not have a dedicated person, but they do a hybrid training, which is a free online training but they combine an in person training with that. How it looks in Missoula, they have a person from VOA, that does SOARS specifically for veterans, regional, not specific to Missoula. We have 3 or 4 trained at Partnership, added to job position, not full time. Also have path program through WMH center, have to do SOAR apps throughout year, takes over 40 hours to complete application, time intensive, one area don't have full time yet, would like to have in future.
Heather Harp thanked everyone for amount of work they have done on this. She asked if there will there be representation for those that are in the system? Kristen stated there are voting and non voting member on list, she stated probably not, they are looking at agency head and policy makers to be able make decisions, member of CJCC to be direct line.
Heather asked about number of gaps in report, page of priority, what is the plan for finding funding in gaps.
Erin stated they looking at funding as much as we can, hard funding is challenging. Finding local funds, we are constantly looking at grant funding. Different and innovative ways to get funding, something we are striving for, don't have any funds allocated. One example from 2015, is that the emergency detention was identified and we were able to get grant funding to set it up. We are working on it, but its doing really well. If we know priorities in community, helps with grant applications, if goal is identified,helps in finding funding.
Kristen added to that and stated they are pooling resources, strategy, CJCC work to handle look at mental health, housing, victim needs, taking advantage of community and committees that are already running in community. We don't need to reinvent that group, it already exists. Matter of redirecting/prioritizing in something new.
Heather stated that approximately 25% of the general fund goes to the Police department, but there is still so much more we should be doing, we don't have resources, explain reality of grant writing/funding.
Erin stated when they applied for the MacArthur Grant funding, they asked for 1.1 million for 2 years, and only received $700,000. How do we balance that? What helps, one of the hardest thing, people send grant announcement, no plan, typically you have 6 week turnaround. Within the county, our grants office is doing internal needs assessment, what funding priorities are, what needs they might need looking forward not being funded. Some of that looking at what gaps currently and then that helps us know what to look for. Start looking through foundation, federal grants, state grants, know who players are, needs are, how to make reality, easier to hit the ground running with those. Typically federal grants, Criminal Justice related grants, DOJ BOJ, come out in winter/spring, go on federal fiscal year. This year there were tons of grants from DOJ, weren't plans in place yet, hope is with knowing this, now we have and know priorities, we will know which grants are attainable.
Teresa added in reference to the SOAR program, that they have a partnership with school social work and have a SOAR practicum, 2 practicum students with students dedicated to Partnership and the Poverello.
Harp asked Randy how the social worker will accompany you and why did you get in to service, how can the social worker compliment how you protect our community?
Randy stated when you are first interviewed to be a police officer, they ask why would you want to do this? It's to help people, its eye opening, hit street running, feel like you are super man or super woman, you want to save everyone, but you can only do the best you can. For 13 years, this weighed heavy on me, this is tough, learned I can't save everyone, its like a roller coaster ride. When this position came available, I thought, this is a position I wanted to do in beginning and now I would have chance to do it. The position was originally not set up to do that, BID officer was just to go out and enforce state law and city ordinances. Personally what I saw from this was there wasn't any improvement, so I decided about the 5th or 6th week in, lets try something different, something new. I joined the coordinating outreach team. Things I want to do, but didn't have a resource pool, don't know who to call. Once I started reaching our, I realized these resources are everywhere, no one took had taken the time to build a spiderweb of resources. Three to four months in, I had a large resource pool of who to call/contact with questions. What I saw with being on the street four days a week is my calls for service were going down from the BID, I saw a lot of positives, didn't see negatives, received some back lash for a while, but by September/October I was given permission to run with it, seems to be working, do whatever you need to do to make it work to the best of your ability. I continued to build spiderweb, attended meetings with community outreach, going to work, statistics to prove this, social work student with me is only going to increase contact, we will be able to handle it right away instead of tomorrow. He stated he was part of the SIM workshop.
Michelle stated Randy is doing a lot of great important work not that is not reflected in his job description and they are working to re-write that job description.