Mental Health Board 2018

Similar to the Developmental Disabilities Board (description and meeting example here), this board deals with Mental Health services of the County government and its interaction with various agencies that provide services throughout the county in cooperation with government programs and/or funding. From their working website:and the county website:

To promote a system of supports and services for Champaign County residents, the Boards make other investments: 211 information and referral through PATH; program evaluation support by researchers at UIUC; clinical supervision support for Parenting with Love and Limits programs; Cultural and Linguistic Competence training and technical assistance, anti-stigma awareness and support for artists with lived experience or a disability; and a disABILITY Resource Expo.

And the county's:

The CCMHB and the CCDDB are the local mental health and developmental disabilities authorities for Champaign County. The CCMHB is responsible for planning, coordinating, evaluating and allocating funds for the comprehensive local system of mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services for Champaign County. The CCDDB has essentially the same functions, but is limited to developmental disabilities.

Today's meeting (agenda packet here) elected a new chair and vice-chair for the year, which continues to be Susan Fowler and Elaine Palencia, respectively. They were solely nominated and unanimously voted for without controversy. The agenda order was rearranged due to a member needing to leave early, but the meeting went quickly and adjourned at roughly 6:40PM (early it would seem from the commentary).

The bulk of the meeting addressed three motions involved in merging Parents with Love and Limits front end program with its extended care program with discussions involving the patient load, staff vacancies, and budget nuances involved with changing the contract. After some questions about funding all three passed with a roll call vote, all in the affirmative and passing.

A series of voice votes followed without controversy: the election of officers described above. Personnel policy changes in line with the new EEOC/ADA and other technicalities the Champaign government in general has implemented. Accepting previous meeting minutes and also a list of expenditures.

They made a change to make their liaison assignments to agency boards more flexible as needed and helpful to stay up to date and effective with those agencies. There has been a trend away from the traditional liaison system by other boards. A more intermittent as-needed attendance to be determined at initial meetings to assess was resolved.

As with the Developmental Disabilities Board, the agencies covered have an opportunity to make reports to the board, but tonight's meeting had low attendance and no takers.

The upcoming schedules were discussed with an expectation of being busy going into the new year with lots of study sessions coming up. Members looked it over and were asked to check back if there are any conflicts with their personal schedules.

Kyle Patterson reserved his commentary for the study session next week due to the low attendance after the board cruised through the remaining items on the agenda.

One ominous aside as they were discussing the upcoming Development Disabilities Board meeting was some cross talk about medicaid "as we know it" perhaps being gone soon for serving the most vulnerable in our community. While nothing is certain, it appeared folks were keeping a watchful eye on changes unfolding throughout the system that could make all of their jobs harder.

A reminder that "starve the beast" politics at the State and Federal level makes a good rallying cry until one sees the "beast" is an awesome family with an awesome kid with special needs.