Santa Barbara Mental Health Association s1

September 2012 Staff Reports to the Board for the Month of August 2012

Program Staff position summaries (alphabetically):

Assistive Technology (AT) Advocates (2) Assists consumers in securing and providing information on AT resources and make referrals for services as appropriate. Provides information and referral services about AT issues to consumers, agencies and other interested persons utilizing in-house resources and consulting ATI&R Centers. Gathers and organizes information on a wide range of AT topics. Resolves inquiries of a general nature and makes referrals to community resources and agencies when appropriate. The AT Advocate also assists consumers with locating and applying for benefits programs and resources to fund their needed AT equipment. Provides community education and awareness on the benefits of Assistive Technology to the independence of persons with disabilities.

Community Living Advocates (CLA) (8) CLAs (4) conduct consumer intake procedures and needs assessments. Provide independent living skills training (ILS) in the areas of Housing Seeking/Maintenance, financial management, Transportation/Mobility awareness, Community Resource Utilization, Personal Assistant (in-home care) Management and Self-advocacy. Advocates with consumers when access rights are limited or denied in housing, employment, transportation, benefits and health care. Drafts written Independent Living Plan goals with all consumers or obtains waiver. Serves on Committees to promote Systems Advocacy In the areas of housing, transportation and Personal Assistance and keep abreast of area issues. CLA – Benefits (2) staff provide ILS as well, and have specialized training on financial benefits programs. They assist consumers in applying for all state and federal benefits for which they are eligible, assist consumers in appealing adverse benefits decisions. Discuss work incentives with consumers and the impact of other federal benefits systems on SSI/SSDI and conduct benefits analyses. Network with key agencies such as DOR, SSA, EDD. The CLA for Deaf consumers (2) provides ILS and training to consumers on communications and appropriate use of sign language interpreters. This position serves the entire tri-county area.

Bi-Lingual/Bi-Cultural Information & Referral (4) One position in each ILRC office assists the public, in person and on the phone, acting as initial point of contact with consumers, their families and community. Provides information regarding ILRC’s services and independent living focus and connect them with the staff that will provide the needed services. Provides information regarding disability related resources and services and makes referrals of consumers and community contacts to appropriate community services. Maintains and updates Information and Referral resource files. Represents ILRC at informational related community events. Conducts structured outreach activities, with emphasis on under- served population groups. Provides Spanish Language access for consumers by interpreting materials, appointments with service staff.

1 Interpreter Coordinator/Advocate (1) Position Serving Tri-County Area - based in Santa Maria Conducts consumer intake, assessment and follow-up procedures. Provides advocacy on behalf of consumers for communication access. Provides self-advocacy and community resource utilization training to consumers. Updates consumer files and case notes on a regular basis. Provides communication assistance to speech/sensory-impaired consumers/staff. Processes and schedules interpreter requests. Secures services of registry members for interpreting tasks in the community. Recruits for & maintains the Interpreter Registry. Facilitates payment of Interpreters through submission of Requests for Payment for interpreter invoices. Provides information/referral to consumers/public regarding services and resources and conducts community education presentations.

Program Manager (1), Serving Tri-County Area - based in Santa Barbara Supervise Program staff, overseeing their duties, providing training, monitoring performance and adherence to independent living philosophy, program objectives and certification standards. Monitor program performance and participate in program development. Develop and provide monitoring tools for staff and board evaluation of service data and goal attainment of service objectives and consumer satisfaction surveys. Conduct annual employee evaluations and assist staff in setting and attaining goals. Make referrals to the Employee Assistance Program when indicated or needed for staff performance. Provide program narrative input to Executive Director and Business Manager for grants and related reports. Keep current on labor laws, personnel management tools and training opportunities. Recruit, screen, interview, candidates for program positions. Provide initial orientation and training to new employees. Update program job descriptions, consumer manuals, and provide input to policies and procedures and coordinate with Business Manager. Process employee time sheets, track/monitor employee leave accounts, provide payroll information to Accountant for semi-monthly payroll, track and initiate salary step increases and submit Payroll Authorizations. Conduct or oversee community outreach, education and systems change projects/events. Serves on committees that network with other agencies and local governments to promote civil rights and increase capacity of access to consumers with disabilities in the community.

Systems Change Advocate (1) Position Serving Tri-County Area - based in Santa Barbara Through interaction with the Statewide Network for Systems Change, the Systems Change Advocate provides training and leadership to consumers with disabilities to develop a network for information exchange and advocacy at the local level. The Systems Change Advocate facilitates opportunities for consumers to develop and use the tools and skills needed to address barriers and affect systems change. The Systems Change Advocate is a Community Organizer around State and local issues, legislation and works with consumers and community partners to organize events and volunteer activities according to the State Wide plan and ILRC’s Advocacy Plan.

2 Staff Serving All 3 Counties

Jennie Morales, Interpreter Registry Coordinator –[email protected] (based in Santa Maria) I am reporting on the month of August. I always like to start with off statistics, coordinating is a huge portion of my position and I feel it gives you board members an idea of how many requests come in every month and how many are actually fulfilled. So, for the month of August, I received a total of 75 interpreting requests. Only one was canceled on time and we had 2 that canceled less than 48 hours notice. We have started to provide interpreting services for a Deaf student attending CA. State University Channel Islands so that has been keeping me pretty busy. I will be coordinating for another Deaf student who will be taking classes out at UCSB in the middle of September. I attended the Staff picnic on August 23rd, which was real nice. It is always great to get an office day outside of the office with my others peers. My focus on this month has been interpreting and helping Lu organize the Emergency Disaster Preparedness forum we plan to host on Thursday, September 27th. So far we seem to be doing really well with this event and will be glad when it is over. I am very excited about it, however, it has consumed a lot of our time. I am hopeful this will be a great event with an excellent turn out. This is for all of our consumers’, hearing or not. Since school is back in session, our interpreter pool tends to get smaller since majority of them are employed by the school systems, therefore, I have been taking a lot of the requests to get them fulfilled. I am still providing/doing a lot of advocacy for our consumers’ regarding communication access. It’s a never-ending battle it feels like.

Kathleen Riel, Program Manager – [email protected] (based in SB) After a lot of work organizing venue and conducting outreach for participants, our CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training began 8/3. We have a small class of 9 participants for this pilot project, however it works well because of the nature of the participants’ disabilities. Accommodations for access including needing extra time and space, was all part of what the training team wanted to experience as part of the pilot project of training persons with significant disabilities in community emergency response procedures. I participated in several trainings this month including the Dept. of Labor’s Drug Free Awareness Program for a drug free work place. This training was then provided to staff, per Federal Regulation, at the annual Staff Meeting/Picnic. It was a great pleasure to see everyone at the meeting and to reconvene our committee groups from the May Board/Staff retreat. In addition to the usual monthly administrative duties, I referred 8 training opportunities to staff from various sources, conducted 4 employee evaluations, provided one-on-one training/coaching per incident 12 times and soothed the ruffled feathers of 2 consumer complaints.

Jake Sanders, Veteran’s Outreach Specialist – [email protected] August was a turnover month. The beginning of the month’s agenda entailed training and education starting with getting familiar with all things VA. I spent the beginning of the month reaching out to my sphere of influence and introducing myself to as the new Veteran Specialist for ILRC, Ryan’s replacement. I attended a few of the “roundtables” that are associated with the local network base Ryan has established. The Salvation Collab was a meet and greet over lunch with a tour of the facilities. I gathered contacts and integrated them in my contacts list. I did some

3 research regarding employment and veterans and shared this with my Vet reps mailing group. I used the month to set up my contact list inside the ILRC Google application. I imported an existing list of data contacts that Ryan had created with close to 100 entries so I could reach out to my sphere of influence pragmatically. I set up and worked social media outlets via Facebook, Linkedin and Dropbox to see if exercising these avenues of communication for information and referral could be useful for future endeavors. For example I created an event for the SB Homeless Veteran Stand Down on Facebook and board casted it to our sphere of influence. I was able to tackle my first set of issues with regards to benefits, peer support, information and referral. I met with the local colleges; SBCC and UCSB as well as the EDD as Ryan indicated these were important access points for I&R and turned over business cards and program tri-folds which would introduce referrals to ILRC and Veterans Outreach. SBCC would like me to set up a table on campus weekly and UCSB has opened the doors to having me on campus for upcoming functions as well. Having met with Ziva/Petra I was able to provide them with a Section 8 landlord with several properties in which to put on their list for possible rents for ILRC consumers. I sat in on the Santa Barbara Restorative as well as Veteran’s Court to get a better understanding about what is happening with Veteran’s at the street level. In August I attended my first ILRC Quarterly Staff meeting. The meeting included a meet and greet, but also entailed NCIL Review and Drug Free Work Place Education.

Lulzim “Lu” Traga, Systems Change Advocate- [email protected] (based in SB) This past month, we have continued working on our voter education and registration and a Disaster Preparedness Forum of consumers and first responders in the Santa Maria area. We hope that this forum will be valuable in learning more about identifying the most likely disasters in our service area as well as disaster preparedness. We have invited and have received confirmations from most of our guest speakers and local organizations that might share an interest in this type of event. I have already reserved an auditorium and equipment needed for presentations. I have also sent out the press release and the flier to the local media for Public Service Announcement. I also requested a disaster preparedness kit donation from Red Cross, which they agreed to provide. We will continue with our outreach in the remaining days before the event. I also have attended several webinar trainings as well as responded to several calls to action on issues that concerns people with disabilities. Finally, we are continuing our collaboration with Pacific Pride Foundation on the implementation of FAIR ACT. We had a meeting with two school board members to discuss some of the material that we would like to use for the curriculum.

Santa Barbara County

South Santa Barbara County:

Carol Baizer, CLA-Benefits Coord. - [email protected] In addition to doing benefits work here, I have been one of a team of people helping a friend who was dying of metastatic melanoma. She has resided in Serenity House, a hospice for the past month or so. Medi-Cal completely covers the services offered, an experience that is unusual these days. I have had the good fortune to meet the volunteers on the Palliative Care

4 Team as well. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the Serenity House staff. My friend died 9/11/12. She was not in pain and not alone thanks to all of those who helped out.

Ziva Hirsch, AT Program Coord. – [email protected] August was a very busy month. I helped a consumer with her application process since she’s ready to transfer from SBCC to a university. I am also participating in CERT emergency preparedness training every Friday. I attended a Senior Fair and the Pediatric Resource Fair to do outreach. Probably one of the biggest accomplishments of the month was the approval of a grant I wrote for a consumer and we were able to buy him a transport wheelchair, so that his wife doesn’t have to physically move him into the bathroom, and quad wrist supports so that he can learn to feed himself and brush his own teeth. I also met with a consumer at cottage hospital who needs a portable suction device for his trachea. The one he has at cottage is not portable and so he’s not able to leave the hospital, even for a walk with his wife. He is able to pay half so I think we will be successful in getting him this device. Jo and I met with Pacific Pride and Just Communities to speak with the Superintendent to talk about implementation of the Fair Act and offer our support when they are deciding what to include as a part of the curriculum for disability history. We also had our staff meeting at Oak Park this month, how nice to have a meeting outside! Hope you’re all doing well!

Rosa Lopez, Bilingual Information and Referral - [email protected] I am still getting a lot of calls from people looking into housing, we have all been trying to help one of our consumers find housing before her deadline of Oct.1. It has been very upsetting for her that she sill cannot find any section 8 houses. Petra has been on vacation in August and I have helped some of our consumers find a personal care attendant, I have gone through our PA list and have tried to match up some good referrals to send them. This is not easy and I really appreciate what Petra has to do. I have gone through some of our consumer files and have tried to purge some of the old archive files to make room for most recent files to put away. I have also started to input some information into the CIL regarding the referrals. I have noticed that we do deal with a lot of organizations in the area, either they refer to us or we refer to them. I have tried to complete the documentation for some of Jeff Bass’ old files by either finishing the information or changing the status. I have spoken to Jeff and we are working together on the files. I attended a “Young at Heart Senior Fair” at Presidio Springs. There were a lot of other organizations that deal with seniors there and the Housing Authority put it on which was very nice. I also attended the Pediatric AT Fair at the County Education Office with Ziva. There were a lot of vendors of AT devices and some OT counselors and some parents. I hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather, as it should be changing soon.

Petra Lowen, Community Living Advocate- [email protected] August 2012 was a short month for me since I was on vacation for 12 working days and my statistics reflect this: I had 4 self-care intakes (personal assistant requests), 1 for a new consumer. I had 2 self-care placements, one of them for a consumer on In-Home Supportive Services. In addition one consumer hired a personal assistant not referred by our agency. I had 5 community living (housing) intakes, 4 for new consumers. I had 1 housing placement. Altogether I had 81 consumer contacts. I also had 75 community contacts. 26 non-consumers called me with housing questions, a very large number for a short month. I added 1 personal assistant to our resource pool of personal assistants.

5 The consumer, who went through housing mediation last month and was given an extension to find a new apartment by 9/30/2012 has been looking on a daily basis (15-20 apartments per week) and still has not found anything yet. The vacancy rate is very low and many landlords do not wish to rent under section 8. She is getting very frustrated but we keep assisting her in her search. Another consumer was accepted at the Hotel De Riviera, where she can continue her recovery. The Saint Cecilia Society granted her about $3,600 worth of needed dental work, she was very grateful that we referred her to that organization. The Bradley Studios, currently under construction on Bath Street by the Housing Authority, will be ready for move-in sooner than expected, most likely before the end of October. I have given many of our consumers applications; hopefully a couple of them will be selected to move in.

Cathy Martin, CCT Transition Program Coordinator - [email protected] In the month of August I visited nursing homes in the San Luis Obispo area several times. Three of the four referrals will be enrolled in the CCT program by the end of September. I also have a consumer enrolled from Sub-acute unit at Goleta Valley Hospital. That consumer will be able to use one of the Ned 2 – section 8 vouchers that the CCT Program has available. I recently found out that the section 8 housing vouchers are now portable and can be used in the surrounding counties. This was not available to our consumers in the past. This is great news and hopefully more CCT consumers will be able to use them. Kathleen and I continue to work together on finding different billing areas that can be pursued in the CCT Program. This allows the different services we provide to be billable through Medi-cal. Once the new consumers are enrolled in CCT Program, I anticipate a busy fall season getting these new consumers transitioned.

Ken McLellan, CLA- Deaf - [email protected] (based in SB) Hope you all enjoyed summertime in the sun. Since I began working here, I have met a lot of deaf people with severely limited reading and signing skills who have not been able to understand what transpires within a courtroom. These people are unable to communicate effectively with their lawyers in preparing their defense, even with the use of an interpreter. Deaf clients are frequently unable to understand the charges against them. I believe the process of thought might be carried on independent and apart from spoken language. Have a great meeting!

North Santa Barbara County

Elizabeth Houston, Community Living Advocate -Deaf – [email protected] I would like to share with you all some good news regarding the bus transportation services in our area. About a year ago, a bus stop was removed from an area just outside an apartment complex that housed several people with disabilities who relied on that bus stop for transportation services. So one of my Deaf/wheelchair consumers and myself went to a transit meeting to face the board, that included our mayor, and we asked nicely to please put the bus stop back where it was in the first place because these people with disabilities depend on it. So one year has gone by until recently one of my consumers called me and said, "The bus stop is back!" and that she wanted to say thanks to ILRC for making it happen! I am thinking about asking my consumers to please write a thank you card and send it to Transit Center for their courtesy.

6 I have been working a lot lately with my TCRC consumer that has a serious issue, and we are continuing to meet with him until things settle down. It has not been that easy, as it is my job to help make sure he understands what is happening, and also help with an interpreter. I have also set up a Deaf/Hard of Hearing Community workshop that will take place on Oct. 11th at Workforce Center from 1pm to 4pm. We will be discussing Deaf self-advocacy and what an interpreter’s role is, and how to advocate for communication access. You’re all welcome to come and join. In addition, we have reserved a meeting room at the Workforce center for National Preparedness on September 23rd. If anyone would like flyers for more information we can send you an email with an attachment.

Sandra Santana, Community Living Advocate/Bilingual Information & Referral – [email protected] During the month of August I followed up on outreach contacts focusing on organizations that focus on the Hispanic/Latino community, but also include the general population. I began working on a plan to establish relationships with other organizations that share similar goals within the community. Because I am a Bilingual Community Living Advocate, it is important for me to reach out to the Latino/ Hispanic community. Although time is limited, Networking and building strong relationships is important. I started with making contact with several organizations including Latino Business and Community Council and La Raza as well as PUEBLO. I am working on developing a relationship with several of these organizations. It will also help to reach and bring in more of the Spanish speaking community, which includes the Oaxacan community. I did have more goal completions this month than in past months. I provided a greater number of referrals to IHSS involving PA services and assistance with In- home care. I noticed a rise in cuts to hours to consumers that truly need these services to live independently. I had a large number of recipients of IHSS services calling with inquiries regarding possible options and how to deal with these cuts. Consumers with dual goals, including benefits and housing, has increased. The number of consumers coming in with very little or no income, pending benefits or homeless, seems to be on the rise. This month has been equally if not more productive than past months.

Ventura County

DeAnna Grove, Community Living Advocate- [email protected] First of all, I want to say how great it was to see the staff at our picnic! It was a reminder of what great people we have working at ILRC. In August, I was able to assist a California Community Transition (CCT) Project consumer with obtaining In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) and Meals on Wheels delivery. This consumer had previously been institutionalized for several years and had not anticipated the move back into the community to be much different. However, she quickly learned that things that used to be easy were not as easy as she remembered. This CCT experience has taught me so much about what needs to be anticipated prior to a move in order for the consumer’s change to be successful. I have been working with a consumer on issues surrounding an inheritance she was given in May. This extra money has caused her much anxiety due to having to report, spend down, keep track of monies spent, and apply for services that she previously had not been able to

7 receive. We were able to work with social security, Medi-Cal, the Area Housing Authority, and Cal Fresh to make sure she is receiving as many benefits as needed. Another consumer, who had received a lawsuit payout, was having difficulties with the Franchise Tax Board. We were able to quickly come up with a workable payment plan for the consumer to begin repayment of monies owed. I am continuing to offer ILRC services at the Samaritan Center (Homeless drop-in shelter) and the Simi Valley Senior Center on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month. Jennifer Martinez, Information & Referral – Bilingual- [email protected] August was filled with calls from consumers seeking housing and benefits information. As an outreach effort I contacted the hospital discharge nurses around the county to tell them about ILRC services and mailed them each a couple of our General Information brochure for referrals. I did the same for Clinicas del Camino Real Clinics in the county, and look forward to receiving referrals. After attending the staff meeting/picnic meeting this month, I set up an account with Good Search and Good Dining, in an effort to raise some money for ILRC. I hope to convince my friends to utilize Good Search, Good Dining and Good Shop, to contribute to ILRC fundraising efforts.

San Luis Obispo County

Paul Collagan, Community Living Advocate Benefits – [email protected] Hello everyone. August was an exciting month. I have had three consumers receive their benefits. I am excited to be seeing more consumers in the Santa Maria office. Several of my new consumers are referrals from the Department of Rehabilitation. I have been able to coordinate appointments with the consumers to coordinate times with Sandee Santana and Jennie Morales so that they can receive all of the assistance that they need. There has also been an increase in consumers in Atascadero. Jerry Mihaic assisted me in translating a consumers needs and questions. It was great to meet Jake our new Veteran’s Outreach Specialist.

Kelly Hannula, Community Living Advocate - khannula @ilrc-trico.org August was a successful month with housing placements for several consumers. Another one of my Vets was housed successfully and several consumers have received TBRA assistance and are on their way to stable living. I met with John Lewis our new Vet Vash Counselor, who just recently moved to our area. He is going to be a great asset to us in the County to get our Vets back on the road to stable housing. We have offered him our extra office if he needs to see a Vet that can’t make it down to San Luis Obispo. He currently does not have an actual office in SLO and has used various agencies’ meeting rooms to see his consumers. He was so appreciative. He has been quite impressed with the welcome he has received. I am still diligently working with the Paso Housing Authority on the development of their guiding principals. Since ILRC is the agency that has its “boots on the ground” they have listened very intently to my concerns and suggestions to make the program run successful for our consumers and agencies involved. This is a short week for me due to my oldest daughter’s wedding on the 15th. I hope I live to write another board report next month! Cheers to everyone.

8 Cary McGill, Assistive Technology (AT) Advocate- [email protected] Cary is out on leave this month.

Jerry Mihaic, Bilingual I&R - [email protected] In August our office was “tested” with things breaking down. We had the opportunity to use some emergency preparedness tactics since our power went out causing our computers, printers and phones to go down. Even our air conditioning decided to break down—not good in this part of the county, where it gets to 100 degrees this time of the year. We used our fax phone and other options of keeping in contact with our consumers and co-workers. It was a good exercise in seeing how resourceful we could be, but it’s always nice when everything is working properly. At the ASPC (Adult Services Policy Council) monthly meeting the major topic of discussion was Overcoming Hunger in San Luis Obispo County—a Paradox of Plenty. Although our county has an abundance of food, accessibility for nutritious food is always and issue, especially for seniors and people with disabilities. In California “food insecurity” has increased 45% in the last five years. It was mentioned that SLO County is at the bottom of participation for food stamps. There is a coalition that has been created to get more community involvement and education about nutrition and food availability. Our agencies were all asked to come up with ideas on how to be the most effective in getting the word out. It was a pleasure to be able to get together at the annual ILRC staff meeting/picnic and get some additional training and continue conversations about fundraising. Our office is very excited about being a “test” for upcoming fund-raising possibilities.