DCF Advisory Committee Meeting June 15, 2011 Crown Plaza Airport Hotel, Orlando, FL
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DCF Advisory Committee Meeting June 15, 2011 Crown Plaza Airport Hotel, Orlando, FL DISCLAIMER This transcript was created in real time by a Certified Real-time/CART Provider. It has been roughly edited. It is not a certified legal transcript. It is intended for use by the recipient only as notes of the proceedings. HRI CART Communication Access Real-time Translation 813.404.2488 (cell/text) www.HRICART.com P R O C E E D I N G S >>RICK KOTTLER: Could I get everyone's attention? Could we get seated? Okay, let's get started. If you haven't noticed, we don't have microphones. Somebody didn't get the memo. They're on their way, but in the meantime, we're all going to share a microphone. So I'm going to start off with the introductions, pass the microphone around, and I will go down and sit by Bob and take it back when it's done. If everybody would take a second and explain who you are and why you are here. Debbie is our newest member, and she's going to be representing the deaf on our committee. She brings a lot of experience. I have known her for many years, and I hope you all will welcome her because we really can use her right now. For the record my name is Rick Kottler, I'm the director of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Services of the Treasure Coast in Jensen Beach and the chairman. >>Good morning. My name is Chris Recinella with the Department of Children and Families Development Unit. I have been on the team that has been developing the curriculum for this training. >>My name is Denise Hunter, also from DCF on the training team with Rick and Marsha. >>MARSHA RYAN: Marsha Ryan, on the training and development team as well. >>Good morning. I'm Michelle Riske-Morris with Justice, Research and Advocacy, and we are the independent consultants. >>Good morning. My name is Carolyn Dudley, assistant staff director for the Department of Children and Families Office of Civil Rights. >>Good morning, Merlin Roulhac, Department of Children and Families. I serve in the role of project manager for the settlement agreement between DCF and HHS. >>Yasmine Gilmore. I assist Merlin on this project. >>Good morning, my name is Marc Dubin; I'm an attorney with the Center for Independent Living of South Florida and serve as director of advocacy there. >>Good morning. Lois Maroney from St. Petersburg. I'm a licensed mental health counselor in private practice. >>I'm not going to use the mic. Hello, everybody. My name is Debbie Lauricella. I know you are expecting me to speak, but I don't do that. I will be using the interpreter. And I am, of course, a deaf person. I use ASL, that's my native language, my first language. And I just love ASL. It's a beautiful language. And my mother and father are deaf. My grandmother is deaf also, so they gave me that language and I pass it on to the next generation; I have a deaf child also. We have four generations; strong language of deaf in my family. And I went to a deaf school and I have gone to different colleges. But I haven't finished quite yet. I have been to five different colleges, haven't graduated. Just haven't finished yet. And I have sat and read English, and it's quite 1 | Page different. But Sign Language and a Sign Language community, that's where I belong. And what I am doing here? I am here as a deaf advocate for the deaf community and here to support all of you, as we definitely need that out there. I was the director for a Deaf Service Center in Lakeland a while ago, until I became a mother of a deaf child. His father passed away and he couldn't be alone so I had to take care of my child and it was a very rough time for me because there was really nothing in this state that could offer something to me as a deaf mother. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. I struggled a lot with that. And my mother had Alzheimer's, so the support services here for the deaf people, my goodness, they had no idea what dementia was, Alzheimer's was. I had to live my way, go through my struggles. So I had to quit my job so I could focus on my mother. They had a deaf assistive living facility there in (city) because they had nothing here. So after my mother was there, I retired so I could just be deaf. So I am so happy to be here, honored to be working with you to improve these services for the Deaf and hard of hearing. >>Hi, my name is Susan Herring. I am from Pensacola, Florida, and I am on the committee as a deaf blind consumer, so I put in my little two cents' worth regarding that. >>Good morning, everyone. I'm Cindy Simon. I represent the audiologists here. And I would like to welcome Debbie, and we are really happy to have you. >>I'm Shana Williams, psychologist and director of social services for the Center for Hearing and Communication, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. >>Hi, I'm Terri Schisler, and I represent the Florida Registry of Interpreters. >>Hi, I'm Valerie Stafford-Mallis, I work for the Department of Health, and I do training, education and outreach on behalf of the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. And I am really, really happy to have Debbie Lauricella here to represent the culturally Deaf point of view in our deliberations. Thank you. >>Good morning. I'm Kim Gaut. I'm the executive director of the Deaf Service Center in Charlotte County. >>I'm Bob Fifer. I'm on the faculty at the University of Miami in the Department of Pediatrics, the director of audiology and speech pathology at Mountain Center for Child Development. And I wear a couple of other hats -- former president of the board of trustees for the Florida Deaf Services Bureau, and consultant for the Florida Department of Health and Children's Medical Services and also AHCA. >>RICK KOTTLER: Okay. I want to introduce Gayl Hardeman as our CART provider, and our four interpreters, Judith Britt, Shonna Magee, Jena Szikney -- did I get it right? -- and Nancy Wilbanks. Since I do have the floor, one thing we don't have, obviously, is microphones, so we are going to be passing the microphone. I'm not sure how you guys are going to do your presentations, but if you are going to take questions during it, then I'll just walk around with the microphone. Is that what you are planning on doing? >>MARSHA RYAN: That's fine. >>RICK KOTTLER: Okay. When you do use the microphone, if you put it too close to your mouth, Gayl's not going to understand what you are saying. So use it a little bit wisely. Last month when I walked out of here I thought this was wonderful. I have been in a lot of things with the Council and different commissions and different committees, and, you know, we've obviously been given an opportunity to make a difference, and this group is so diverse, and I wondered whether it was ever going to work, and everybody's pulling for the same thing. And I'm not just talking about the committees; I mean the DCF people and Michelle. I just couldn't be prouder to be part of this, and I want to thank you all very much for what you do, because it's a wonderful thing. On that note, Marsha, you have the floor. >>MARSHA RYAN: Okay. I appreciate everyone's patience in getting out these documents. It is getting so voluminous -- 2 | Page >>RICK KOTTLER: I made a faux pas. Has everyone read the minutes? They were distributed. Yasmine added some people who were left out. Does anyone have any other changes to the minutes? Could I have a motion to accept the minutes? Cindy made the motion to accept, Shana seconded. All in favor? [Motion carried.] >>RICK KOTTLER: Okay. Now you can have the floor back. Thank you very much. >>MARSHA RYAN: Okay. Again, we appreciate your patience and your getting these documents late Friday, having to review them on the weekend. We tried to think of every possible way to get them to you, so we finally gave up and gave you what we could in the print. The PowerPoints we gave you this morning. I saw Chris running around this morning with CDs, and we're hoping that those will be -- you will be able to download them to look at them, view them once you are able to get them to your home and are able to look at them. We do have them here, and all of the documents, if you want to see something specific. We are loaded and ready to go. If you want to reference anything, we have it with us. So I brought a great big thumb drive. We've got it! Okay. As far as the process for this morning, I thought what we might do is just use the document that was the comments spreadsheet to go through, and not go through the training detail over and over again but go through the comments. We tried to compile these in groups of topics.