Community Resources for Justice

COMMUNITY RESOURCES FOR JUSTICE Quality Council January 20, 2010 10:30am-12:30pm 500 Harrison Avenue

Meeting Minutes

Members Present: Jessica Castro, Bill Coughlin, Kate Florio, Howard Jardine, Andy LeClair, Michelle McCormick, Adrienne Methot, Scott Perrin, Susan Jenness Phillips, Gabriella Priest, and Deb Williams Members Absent: Heriberto Crespo, Leslie Nelson

 Check-ins o Howard- New AD Leonard Andrews “Andy”; long hiring process mainly because 10 were called for interviews only 3 came in; utilization up recently; teacher position vacant o Scott- month end numbers in by Friday- preliminary numbers don’t look good right now, need further scrutiny; budgets coming soon o Bill- Sargent opening in a couple of weeks with 2 clients, different program for CRJ as it is dedicated to 18-22 year olds too old for DCF and too young for DDS; Department Directors discussed inappropriate sexual behavior and due to its critical nature are planning an event (training) for all staff from executives to line-staff; ACA conference coming up; 2/20 meeting kicks off budget; the Board of Directors is looking at an internal whistleblower policy, looking into an 800 number with an outside agency o Deb- Opening 21st house tomorrow at Pleasant St, Leominster; working on Medway program opening March 1st; now over 100 consumers (approximately 113); looking for a new location in Milford as there are licensing issues with the condition of the residence o Michelle- Deb did a great job with Pleasant St; adding Assistant Director Janet Szlyk on 2/1 o Andy- Many meetings with Program Directors; working on McGrath accreditation; working on inspectional services division responsibilities and obtaining certificates of inspection o Adrienne- Rollout of 1st management training program- interview and selection process; budget and benefits review beginning; whistle blower policy should be posted with legal notices, if not let HR know so they can give you a copy o Jessica- BH utilization at 55, Parole contract doubled so now 4 in parole program; getting ready for ACA; looking for an Assistant Director o Kate- Many grant proposals and about 27 projects happening; working on strategic planning for marketing services; preparing budget; 2 interns- 1 returning and 1 new o Gabriella- Working on helping open Sargent (maintenance requests, inspections, walk-throughs, policies and procedures); helping facilities with Capitol Expenditures Guidelines; analyzed youth satisfaction survey for STS (blurber is on staff section of website) o Susan- Made vacancy request for part-time administrative support coordinator; administrative policy & procedure manual revision should be out this year; McGrath coming up for accreditation; new Coolidge Director has been a good fit; Brooke House hearing 1/24 for formal awarding of accreditation; working on hybrid regulations for Sargent with Gabriella ; boundaries- whistleblower policy to be put into more detailed policy

 Property Maintenance . Recommendations on Improving Property Maintenance o Ellen and Sally will be here next meeting . Donation needs: toiletries for McGrath women, furniture for staff, furniture for programs o What is the responsibility/role of Development? What should lie with programs/admin? . Ellen previously presented to Ops on donations and gave lists to programs, can we get a refresher? Can we institutionalize this process? . Restrictions: Furniture and fabrics have to be fire retardant, have to be special ordered (from Bob Barker Company) . Sally collects toiletries (desk outside of John’s office), STS got stuff for Christmas, could this be expanded and knowledge of this more widespread? 1 . Past donations have been turned down as it is hard to find time/means to get new furniture and discard old furniture . Bill suggests when we have free stuff, we spend some money to get them moved/discarded as it would still save money . Andy suggests using local businesses and individual programs to tap into those businesses (e.g., AJ Wright, Market Basket, Marshalls, Shaws, Trader Joe) . Bill suggests the CRJ event auction have more options to donate to programs . CSMA- issues with storage for donations, have discussed fencing in basement areas with locks for storage o Wish lists by program- have in one place online on Staff Area menu, programs able to add to it, able to trade . “What do you have and what do you need” (like a CRJ craigslist) . Release a blurber about this once in place . S&QA may be able to facilitate bartering during their walk-throughs

 Hiring Process o Adrienne- HR is putting together best practices for interviewing and selection, would like to centralize the process along with documentation and form partnerships with hiring managers so that HR has all paperwork . Offer letter (not a contract!) done by HR after program management makes offer (just putting information into paperwork), thinks this will improve employee morale/treatment/values . Looking into web orientation/remote possibilities . Possibility of orientation every Monday but issue is still unresolved . Concern over start dates being pushed back: STS DYS training . Strict guidelines about I-9 forms being signed within 3 days, not in compliance . Process will be added to manual as management policy, looking to have policy out by mid- February

 Next QC Project o Boundaries- something to be included in orientation standard curriculum, also need site specific . Need trainers other than Marcy and Molly, haven’t determined where/with whom this would sit . Can this be incorporated into philosophy and treatment principles? (Shannon Mountain-Ray used to train treatment philosophies for youth) . Sexual harassment, boundaries, cultural diversity, HIPAA should be occurring annually- how can this be institutionalized and tailored to specific programs? . DOC offered training materials for boundaries and PREA . Important to train on special relationships and pre-cursors which may lead to sex with clients . Many staff members are aware of incidents occurring and are not saying anything (stress whistleblower policy?) o Orientation- . How do we roll this boundaries training out while building it into supervision and daily work? . Develop checklist of what issues should be covered and when, bringing together CRJ programs . Look at current orientation and mandatory trainings (Adrienne will send), go over next meeting to discuss where to start with this project o Changing Culture . Starting with expanded New Employee Orientation (NEO), building out orientation over time, include supervision. We can develop a checklist with issues to be corrected (and checked off when completed); with supervision as a follow-up on issues covered . Include discussion of programs in expanded NEO

 Next Meeting o The next meeting will be Wednesday, February 10th at 500 Harrison Ave, 10 am – 12pm. Ellen and Sally will be at the meeting to discuss Development, and we will be discussing the next QC project regarding HR orientation and including treatment philosophies and boundaries among other items.

Respectfully Submitted: Gabriella Priest 1/20/10 2