 I, with all the work that has been done, the work is really just going to be beginning to, to make this, uh, when you'll, and you'll understand the impact it's going to have on everybody involved in the system. I, I, at some point in the later today, I will just remind the committee that in looking at how far we've come with this particular proposal, this, this approach to youthful offenders, we better remember that it still has to fit within the context of a, of a juvenile system that is being impacted not only in the chin socket with filings but also the increase in youthful offender and for as much success as we've had in bringing people together with this concept of 18 year olds and 19 year olds coming in. I think in a lot of respects the work is really just beginning to understand what we have done, what, what we're doing and what we're trying to do. So, I look forward to the, to the challenge, but it, it certainly will be one. Great. And again, my name is Lail Chester. I am the director of the Emerging Adult Justice Project at Columbia University Justice Lab. And I've been leading this sort of project now for a few years. And this is a burgeoning field. This is not something I've been in this field for, for decades. And I didn't know, Emerging Adult Justice wasn't on anyone's radar. And, and so we work with jurisdictions from around the country and we've been able to observe and help and do research on different approaches. And it's really all a matter of public safety, right? If you can increase positive outcomes for young people, we all benefit. They're certainly young people, they're families and communities, but we all benefit and we also can reduce costs. So, it's really been a total pleasure to work with Vermont in the last year. A very, very thoughtful process. But I'm going to kick it off to Karen so she can describe what we were, the actual focus of this research project was, and sort of the key components that went into the report. Okay. So I think we'll go to the second slide. And this is just an overview of where we're going to go today. And just a reminder to kind of speak to the committee and in the work that's ahead is that DCS is required to submit a report. And I believe we have some extra copies for anybody who needs one, but we were required to submit a report on November 1st to explain how we would implement Act 201, which is the legislation that raised the age of criminal court jurisdiction to include 18-year-olds and then 19-year-olds starting on July 1st, 2020 and July 1st, 2022, respectively. So on the next slide, this is just to give you an idea of where we're going. And for those of you who've had a chance to read the executive summary or sections or all of the report, it's a long report. But what you'll see here on slide three is this is basically trapping almost exactly to the report. We'll walk you through the impact of raised the age. We'll talk about all the strategies that we have dug into and the recommendations that include regarding diversion, maximizing court efficiencies, close marriage options, physical custody, victims' rights. We'll talk about an operational plan, which I know was something that Representative Keeley spent a lot of time talking about when the legislation was still being debated in the House, was thinking about how DCS would absorb the caseload and what plan would we need to be in place to ensure that we are taking into account the dual roles of the family services division with respect to child protection and supervising youth who've been adjudicated to link with. We also have some statutory changes and data. So that's sort of an overview. And then just so you all have some background on the work that went into the hearing this report on slide four. What you'll see here is that we are so lucky to have retired Judge Gavin Court very much involved with the Tourism Family Council for Prevention Program. And that she's, you know, still very active as an advocate for a criminal justice reform in our state. And we were able to contract with her last summer of fall to start this process by diving into the court data. So Leo will walk you through some of the data that Judge Gavin Court helped us to put together and analyze. And that was really essential for us to get our hands around what juvenile delinquency numbers look like as well as the number of 18 year olds who were going through the adult division of court. So we also had the benefit of being able to repurpose one of our district directors for a period of time to assist us in this project. And she conducted 12 community district meetings around the state. And this was not only explaining to people what was going on, but also to hear from our partners what their reactions were and any recommendations that they wanted to make and any gaps that they were concerned about. And so those all helped to inform the work of this project. And then last fall, we issued an RFP and Columbia University, the University of Memphis Labs was the organization that we selected to help us with mapping out strategies. And they obviously put in a very strong proposal, but we really appreciated a number of things that I think you will get a chance to hear about throughout the report, including their approach to working with states and jurisdictions using action research methodology, which I think we as remandors can really appreciate that we want to include everybody in our decision making and recommendations. And I think that they did a nice job of being very inclusive and very transparent in our conversations and work. And then I think, you know, Ken touched on this, but we couldn't have done this work or even have gotten this far. It worked for the members of the Juvenile Justice stakeholder group, which includes the judiciary, State Attorney and Sheriff's Department, the Office of the Defender General, Attorney General's Office, victim advocates, the Department of Corrections, and of course DCF. And this group has been great in that even though we don't always agree and we sometimes have very energized and robust conversations, the goal with this group has always been to try to find common ground and to ensure that there are no statutory prohibitions or barriers from us being able to get this good work done that the legislature has set forth for us. So that's been great and they were involved with the recommendations in this report that are system related. And so they supported the recommendations that we're going to walk you through that are related to the system. And then finally, DCF leadership and with the help of the Justice Lab and some of our national partners, we've had a number of opportunities to do some offsite learning opportunities. And in late September, we actually had a conference at the law school that was sponsored in part by law school and then also by the Children and Family Council for Prevention Program. And at this conference included 24 judges, state attorneys, pretty much representatives across the entire spectrum of our stakeholders as well as community providers for diversion programs in the field. And what's important to note about that conference is that we were able to get a lot of feedback and input that also helped to inform the report. So to the extent that we've been able to, the goal has always been to cast as wide a net as possible to both inform people about the work and then also to ensure that people's voices and concerns as well as recommendations in close to this change will be able to be incorporated in the report. So we've done our best to be as inclusive as we possibly can be. And so from here, I'll hand it to you, Lail, on background on emerging adults. Sure. So it was interesting. It was in the about 2000s that, you know, there was a lot of money pumped into research on children. And the question was, are children different than adults? And if they are, how is that relevant in the justice system? And this was after the 90s of sort of super predator era, some of you may remember, you know, you do the crime, you do the time. And it was interesting because the research came out with yes, and the answers were yes and yes. Children are not many adults. They're inherently different. And that is relevant in terms of the justice system. That's why we have a separate justice system. That's why you have a family court and a family division. That's why you have DCF that works with youth charged with crime. But one of the things that came out was that a lot of this research happened in universities and they were trying to compare. They have a contrast group, right? They have children and then they have adults. And college students are sort of cheap for researchers, right? So they had children, then they had college students, and then they had, you know, people 30 and beyond. And what they didn't realize when they started to analyze the data was, wait a minute, the 18 to 25 year olds look a lot like the younger peers. And they're really quite inherently different from the 30 plus year olds. Whoops. It turns out that that 18 to 25 year olds is actually a distinct developmental group. And it was sort of interesting. I mean, I don't think they weren't looking for it, but they started to get the numbers and they were somewhat shocked. And so that means that they're like their younger peers. They're risk takers. They're thrill seekers. They're impulsive. They're influenced by their peers. That's both the negative influence but also positive influence. When kids go off to college and it's, you know, they're in a pro-social setting, they often flourish, right? That's being influenced by your peers. And that many of the things like not being able to think through the consequences of an action, which makes parents ask what were you thinking when you have a bright person who does a really dumb thing, can actually be very much more pronounced if you have a history of trauma or any kind of brain injury. And that's why you see so many youth who have been abused and neglected and had sort of traumatic histories end up in our juvenile justice systems, right? And it is going to take them longer to sort of develop the maturity. Now that's the difference between what we call hot cognition and cold cognition. Young people are super bright, right? They can do extremely well in school. They can think through who they want to vote for. They vote for all those things in a kind of nice quiet setting. They're great. You know, they're all in. They're probably better than any of us as we get older. But their hot cognition takes a lot longer to mature. And that's what makes them impulsive and unable to sort of think through, especially when they're with their peers. What's interesting is while you have sort of developmental psychology and neurology research, you also have this body of sociology and of research. And what it turned out is that young people are taking longer to reach the developmental milestones of adulthood. That path to adulthood has become prolonged. And we know that in the sense that anyone, I have an emerging adult, right? You know, when will they truly be independent emotionally, financially and practically? I'm not sure, but my 20-year-old is a long way off. You know, he's a gray-able college student, but he is not an adult yet. And he relies on parents or other adults all the time. And so that is important implication for the juvenile justice system, right? Is to recognize that when people say, well, my grandfather was fully employed, had their own apartment, their own car, you know, but that's simply not true today for many reasons. But I think we just have to, we have to recognize that research as we talk about this. There's really good news. Most, almost all youth will grow up and out of crime. By the time they reach 25, which interesting is when that final prefrontal lobe is fully developed, they will grow up. They will not see them in the justice system. And the other thing that's really good news is that this 18 to 25-year-old is, they're incredibly malleable, right? Really susceptible for interventions, positive interventions, and rehabilitation. They are very responsive. They're not set in their ways yet. They don't know who they are and they don't know what they want to be yet. And so there is a way in which you can take advantage of that moment in time to help steer them, right? The direction we all want them to go. The other thing I'll just mention, and you have a kind of a crazy chart that we hand out with like concentric circles like an onion. But it is worth sort of thinking about this, especially if your parents are responsible for someone this age, is that the youth justice system very much focuses on positive youth development. And that is a framework that many states have officially adopted within their justice system. And that is where you're focusing on building youth assets, right? You need, they need to reach these developmental milestones. They need to desist from crime and they need to develop into healthy and productive citizens. And so you have these, what they call these sort of five domains that you look to to sort of create that pathway into healthy adulthood. And it's really important in that journey that youth are making and the system is responding to is that responses in the justice system are youth appropriate. I think we said youth led last time. I think I'd say youth co-led. You've got to get youth buy-in and they need to be part of it. They need to see how this is going to affect their future. They need to be very concrete and it needs to be positively framed, right? These are their life goals. Where are they trying to get to? And if they're motivated, they see those goals, they will move towards those positive goals. The justice system traditionally in the adult side is punitive. And it's focused on the deficit. And I think that might be one of the many reasons why emerging adults right now in the adult system have the worst outcomes of any age group. They are overrepresented and they have the highest racism rates. And they also have the highest mortality rate, especially for drugs. So I think it's just really important to notice that by shifting in Vermont, the framework from just lumping them in with 40, 50, 6 year olds in the adult system, you are grabbing this opportunity to provide tailored, developmentally approached responses that does not mean it's a pass, does not mean you don't hold them accountable. Of course you do. You're going to be doing it in a way that hopefully you're not going to then see them again cycling in and out of your justice system. So yeah, so why is this so important? It is because of public safety. This is why we've seen this enormous activity across the country in this topic is that when you look at the data, you have to think could we do much worse with emerging adults? I'm not sure. So let's try something different. And Vermont is on the cusp. Vermont is the first state to pass, raise the age, but you have states at your heels. You have Massachusetts, Illinois, and Connecticut. And now, as of last week, you have California in play. And I think you're going to have Utah and Washington state as well. So you guys are leaders, but this really is catching on because when you look at the data, it's sort of shocking. And I think it's because we've not recognized that they are in a distinct developmental stage and we've not taken advantage of that. So you're increasing accountability and responsibility, you're improving outcomes. And ultimately, you are reducing costs because if you can get them out of the system otherwise once they're in the system, you will see them probably for the rest of their lives in one shape or other. So I'm going to quickly go just at the data. I think it's important to know, okay, so we're raising the age. Who's coming into our youth system and what's the impact going to be? And so we have this sort of quick just reminder that there is this language differences on the youth side of the fence injustice, but it's not just language. It actually has a really important significance, which is that at the end of the day, if the court is found to be committed in a delinquent act, you are adjudicated. You are not convicted. And that language is really specific to the juvenile system. We talk about dispositions. We don't talk about sentencing. Yes, you may lose your liberty. That is actually one of those dispositions you could have, but we're looking at it in terms of the youth lens. And we talk about the civil trial. We talk about merits. You have the flow chart, which is in the report and maybe was also a handout. And I think that the things that I want to point out is that when you raise the age, you still are using police state's attorneys and defenders in the same way, right? Their kids are being arrested. They are being prosecuted. You are reaching, you know, and they are receiving representation. Hopefully Zell's representation is constitutionally mandated. But one of the two biggest differences, of course, is that you're now in the family division and DCF, instead of DOC, the Department of Corrections, is the state agency that has the oversight and the responsibility. I think one of the interesting things about this flow chart is that there are a lot of what we call off-ramps. There's opportunities for diversion that's embedded in the youth justice system in a really important way. And that is to be able to take the cases that could be appropriately served outside of the system and just keep those cases that actually really require the attention and the resources of the youth justice system. And the other thing I think is interesting is that when you look at your flow chart, is that you have this what they call YASI, this risk needs assessment instrument and tool that's used in the youth side. And that includes an assessment predisposition. So you're getting a lot of information that allows you to sort through your cases and, again, to become individually tailored. Case filings, this is important. This is the last fiscal year. Remember, when you raise the age in Vermont, you're only looking at the non-big 12 cases. And unfortunately, most of your cases are non-big 12 cases, especially with youth. That's kind of typical. But the more serious cases are peeled off and will be handled separately. But even within the non-big 12, what you see is the vast majority are misdemeanors, right? You, with the 18-year-olds, you only have 47 who are not misdemeanors or felonies. So this is important just to keep in mind as you think about it. It also helps that you've staggered implementation, right? You're bringing in the 18-year-olds in July. You're giving yourself two years, and then you're bringing in the 19-year-olds. That's a very smart move and allows the state to sort of assess and adjust. This next chart shows you the different offense types. And what you're going to notice is that the darker blue is the under-18-year-olds, sort of the whole body of sort of delinquents, and then the yellow or 18, and then the kind of turquoisey kind of, I don't know, is 19. And what you notice is right, the vast majority of these cases are public order offenses. That's like trespass and disorderly conduct. That's that kind of very typical youth-driven crime. And the things that really differentiate a little bit with the 18 and 19-year-olds is you're going to see an increase in motor vehicle offenses. They have more access to cars. And you're going to see a little bit more increase in drugs. And that is because this is a time of risk-taking, right? And they're experimenting. And it's also a time where some of the major mental health disorders can manifest themselves. And there's some self-medicating involved. And so that's where you're going to sort of see some differences. But otherwise, it's not like suddenly you have a different pot. I think the group is going to say, aha, we've seen this before, because they do look a lot like their younger peers. When we looked at sort of a three-year look at the data, and this is a little confusing, the lighter green is sort of the FY, fiscal year 17 and 18 combined with fiscal year 19. But what is really encouraging news for Vermont is that you're trending in absolutely the right directions. Your diversion numbers of completions have gone up, and the convictions have gone down. And that means that you're looking at your other resources in the state, and Karen will talk about this, where it's very impressive. There's sort of justice, the diversion systems that you have in play, and you want to be accessing those so that you can, again, the court can focus on the cases they really have to focus on, and you can get good results. The other good piece of news for Vermont is just that when you look at the 18 and 19-year-olds who have been in the adult system and prosecuted in the adult system, and they end up with a conviction, almost 50% of them will get a fine only. That's the disposition, that's it. And that tells you that then there are a lot of those cases that could be very ripe for diversion, right? You don't want to go into this because of the whole court process. If you don't have to, if you can hold them accountable, you can make them understand the impact they've had. You can help them, in some cases, restore the harm through a restorative justice project, and then have them, hopefully, helpfully age out of the system. So I'm just going to say that when we looked at the court data, and again, Retired Judge Amy Davenport was super helpful with this, just collecting the data, but thinking through and analyzing it, is that we see that your numbers are going down as a state, which is great. This is particularly notable because you recently incorporated 16 and 17-year-olds in a new way in your youth side, and we have seen this in all the states who have raised the age, which is really fascinating. You know, there are these predictions that, ooh, numbers go up like New York just went from 16 to 18. Their numbers have gone way down. So this is just good news, that you're looking at a population that looks like very similar to your other population that you're used to in the juvenile system, the similar offenses, that a lot of them are low-level and therefore should be ripe for diversion, and that a lot of them did not require any supervision in the adult side, right? And so that's, again, especially as we think of like DCF and taking on this new case, to think about how are they going to use their resources in the best way possible. I'm going to just touch very quickly on the fact that all states struggle with racial and ethnic disparities. That is a societal problem. There is not a justice system. It does not. And Vermont also has the same issues, right? 3% of the population, youth population, Vermont are African-American, but they are absolutely overrepresented in the delinquency system. And one of the sort of advantages of Vermont is that there's federal law, which the Federal Jewel Justice Democracy Prevention Act, which really ties in federal funds with the provision that states will both monitor the racial and ethnic disparities in their youth system and address any disparities that they can find and try to figure out where would be the best places to kind of intervene and change that trajectory. Nationally, 18 and 19-year-olds have actually the highest rates of disparity of any age group. So African-American males are seven to nine times more likely to be incarcerated. So even though the numbers are somewhat hard to sort of accept, right, as a justice system to have these disparities, I think when you bring the 18, 19-year-olds, the disparities will actually appear even higher. But the good news is because you're now including them in the justice system, they will now be part of that cadre of population that the state is looking at, that they're tracking and that they're trying to address. And so that's a really very positive thing that would be happening in Vermont. So with that, I'm going to throw it over to Karen. She's going to walk us through one of the topic areas that we spent a lot of time looking at, which is diversion. Okay, thank you, Leo. And just take a little second to let you all know where I am right now is actually the Coalition for Juvenile Justice every year puts on a conference on addressing racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system. And I'm very proud to report that I'm here with a strong cohort from Vermont, which includes a school official, a school resource officer, a number of community advocates and community members, as well as members of the Children and Family Council for Prevention programs. And it's been an invigorating conference. And again, we're all now thinking about these strategies to address structural racism through the lens of also raising the age. So it's a really, really exciting moment in time. But to pick up where Leo left off, based on the data, what we realized that we needed to dig into fairly quickly as part of this work was the use of diversion. I think that, you know, this committee, who's very aware of the Family Services Division and the workload, I'm sure would appreciate that. We want to make sure that we're controlling the resources or we're controlling the valve and the number of youth and emerging adults who get our assistance so that we're reserving the resources of DCF for those youth who are highest risk and highest need. And so, further ado, if we are on slide 19, Leo, with respect to diversion, I think it's just important to note that, you know, throughout the country there is greater attention to increasing diversion opportunities and building a strong network of providers. And so, especially at conferences like where I am right now, I'm continually impressed with the fact that Vermont actually already has in place a very strong diversion network throughout the state with many off-ramps, which I think gets back to that handout that you all have in front of you on the youth of the flowchart. So just so that you all have this in your mind as we're going through this part of the discussion, we have strong diversion practices before a youth has ever even cited a court or charged. We also have diversion practices post-charge and then also post-adjudication. So then moving to the next slide, the current state of the Community-Based Historic Justice Program just wanted to make sure that we all know who these players are. We have the Community Justice Center, the CDCs that are funded through the Department of Corruption. We have the Balanced Immersory Justice Program, which is the funder for those programs. And then also we have court diversion through the Attorney General's Office and I should really call that the court diversion program as I'm talking about it. So as I indicated, we have an incredibly robust network of these programs and that restorative justice is a well-established and trusted approach to both victim support, which is important for us to note, as well as youth accountability. And in preparing for this report, we can share with you that the programs have some similarities and key differences and it is our observation and the stakeholder group supported this observation that the county is where the programs are housed under one organization, that with our observation that the referrals and stakeholder communication is stronger in those places and that also it's important to note that there is variability in how the programs are utilized and that has a lot to do with the players and school involvement and local practice, such as school referrals can really make a difference in how these programs are used. As well as having a presence of a strong pre-charge program and I think it's also important to note there is a prosecutorial discretion of using a community-based program in lieu of charging. I do need to say that while we did not do an in-depth analysis of all the differences in what was driving those, we do want you to have in mind that there are differences. So moving to the next slide, these are our recommendations that we seek opportunities to collaborate with schools and also doing outreach to members of law enforcement and those two bullets actually really directly delved pale into the third bullet, which is a goal and this is a goal that we want to strive for. It's to increase the use of pre-charge diversion to 50 to 60% of cases even from hitting any formal system involvement and with respect to the formal court diversion program, which would be the cases that are accepted post-charge that we would like to increase and in many counties this is really a matter of maintaining 25 to 30% of cases sorry, lost my thought here, 25 to 30% of cases being referred to court diversion. And also, and this is all of these were supported by the stakeholder group but there's acknowledgement that we need to evaluate and address barriers for youth participation and an easy one is that, you know, when a youth has a meeting knowing some of the realities that they all already presented to you that it's really important that we use different strategies to remind them of their meetings and to make it really possible and concrete for them to participate. And I think I just also want to acknowledge that over the last couple of years we've seen some changes in our statute that has allowed for a really strong foundation in place to expand the commitment of, you know, expanding diversion and that already we're seeing that state attorneys are making more referrals and I think that they've made and I think this is worth noting for the group that they've made considerable progress in making more referrals over the last couple of years so we believe that the numbers are going in the right direction and with that I'd like to hand the floor to Judge Greerston regarding the Family Division of the Superior Court. Thanks Karen. I guess I would start by reminding committee that the juvenile docket, if you will, encompasses Chin's cases, it encompasses abuse and neglect cases the delinquency, youthful offender, and truancy. There is only one court in the state, Chin's and County where a juvenile court has had the docket every single day and it has been like that for as long as certainly I've been on the bench. The other courts over the time I've been on the bench most of them were one day a week, sometimes two. The increase in the Chin's filing, the abuse and neglect docket is a result of the opiate epidemic. Courts that normally would be one day a week when I last sat and buried for example before I took this position it was one day a week they're now expanding, have expanded to two and that's similar in most counties and I will tell you that even now before this influx of cases the judge you're saying we need more time in the juvenile court. The juvenile cases of course have a priority over every other five criminal, civil, domestic but the problem is that the courts at least from my perspective the courts the juvenile docket has been expanded really to the extent that it can be without seriously impacting the other dockets in other words if I were to expand a juvenile court docket by even one day or half day that means another day or half day missing from another docket and so the pressures are impacting all of the dockets and I think what's important to remember as we go forward as I said this is a challenge if you look at slide 11 that's the one that talked about the filing that we can anticipate with 18-year-olds it would amount to if you take all the 18-year-olds that are now in criminal court filings and bring them into the juvenile docket that would increase the caseload alone in the juvenile docket by about a third and clearly the court nor the parties can absorb that kind of increase so this what Karen was just talking about the need to divert cases free charge, free merit I think is key to making this workable and the state's attorneys have done a good job in the last few years of increasing the number of cases they have diverted but remember that they've always had the authority to divert and it wasn't until the legislature gives them a nudge with the presumption on certain cases that these numbers have gone up the number of cases the other slide that I think is important so we have a potential of a one-third increase in filings the one that is also I think significant in terms of what we do with these cases is on slide 14 where we're talking about the cases that were disposed of in a criminal docket with fines only because that was about 42% of the cases if I'm reading this chart right when those cases come into juvenile court we have no ability to impose fines in a juvenile context and as far as I know no one involved in this discussion is urging the legislature to go in that direction which means you've got a large number of cases coming in that we have to find another disposition that historically in the criminal docket did not involve any supervision by the Department of Corrections it was simply pay a fine and you're done and so we have to look at alternatives available in the juvenile docket to do that same thing and not involve people in services that they don't otherwise need and so we have to be wary of that I think and I will say that and I think most of the committee members have probably heard me make this argument before for as much work and that the state's attorneys have done with respect to diversion and they should be commended for this project as I said you can't be viewed in isolation and as another example I was at a sentencing commission meeting the other day and I think one of the recommendations coming out of the sentencing commission although it deals with the criminal docket is going to be for the legislature to consider giving the court meaning the judge the authority to divert cases over the objection of the state's attorneys it's not one of the recommendations that's in front of you but going forward I think it's something that is at least worth considering so moving ahead on the slide and Karen or Leo did point out the timeframe for the juveniles of case on slide 23 the sentencing is 60 days from filing to disposition meaning the case comes in first appearance in court and then the case is supposed to be resolved with a disposition in 60 days I will be the first to say that those timelines are very rarely met and we have to do and I think the judiciary has to do a better job of making parties and attorneys adhere to those timelines particularly with this influx of cases coming into the system we have to be more conscious of those timelines and enforce them these cases can't nobody benefits by these cases not being resolved because the individuals who are charged with the delinquency are facing delinquency or the victim and so one of the things we have found in a number of documents that oftentimes the attorneys don't get a chance to talk about cases and resolve them until they actually come to the court and the court hearing if you will call it a status conference the court hearing is not the best place for the parties to discuss the case in other words there has to be a discussion an opportunity for the state and the defense to talk about these cases essentially outside of the court but sometimes they need the importer of the court to make sure they do talk and since they're not frequently talking outside of court one of the proposals that I've made and there are others involved in this discussion would be to schedule essentially conferences on a regular court day but do it in such a way that the attorneys don't have to come into the courtroom unless they have a resolution in other words it gives them an opportunity to discuss these cases and hopefully reach settlement right now under the current system 15 days after the initial appearance in court the party there are required to come to court for what's called a pre-trial or a status conference I don't find that those conferences really accomplish much so we would use that same time frame but allow the attorneys to come to the courthouse that day and give them the opportunity to try to resolve these cases if not what we're going to try to do with this docket with this influx of the 18-year-old is create a docket that says okay if you don't resolve it at the 15-day mark you will get a final hearing date and there will be no continuance from that date and hold people's feet to those timelines and it's going to be it's not going to be easy from the judiciary's perspective or from the attorneys it's really a cultural change if you will because these cases need to be heard and one way of doing it is to change the focus of the hearings when they come to court and when I say cases can't be continued obviously there are circumstances of which no one has control the unavailability of a witness of sickness those types of issues there may be some cases that are more complicated but I think for a vast majority of the types of cases coming in if they're not resolved through diversion they would be the equivalent of misdemeanor offenses in the criminal docket and they are generally speaking one or two witness cases and there's no reason why those types of cases can't be put on a strict calendar and it is up to the court to hold the parties to that calendar and that's one of the recommendations that we're making we talked about briefly at the Vermont Law School conference that Karen mentioned and I have heard comments since that time about folks involved in the process thinking that that may be beneficial in other words they're willing to change their thinking so what we hope to do between now and July is perhaps to highlight this concept with the current cases in one or two counties to see if it can make a difference so that when the cases start coming in in July maybe we have a frame of reference to see what's working I guess it's a long way of me saying that we're facing a significant increase in the case load and both in converting cases out of the system and the way we handle these cases in the system need to change because there's just no more hearing time available and we have to maximize that hearing time or the opportunities for hearing time So I'm going to take on sort of the next topic which is after the court process is sort of complete or most of it merits have been found the issue of probation so it is the most common disposition nationally at the end of any case both a juvenile case or an adult case that there be some kind of probationary supervision and this has become very much a hot topic nationally and a lot more research has been devoted to it I think in the past we sort of just let that slide and didn't think too much of it and I think what's interesting is that that there's turned out that there's ironically if you you have sort of intense supervision for a low risk youth or an individual you actually could increase recidivates I mean I guess we kind of know that is a parenting or looking after young people but turns out science has proven that's true and so you want to really reserve just like you want the court to focus on the cases that can't be resolved outside getting the parties together similarly you want DCF to be focusing on their sort of interventions and supervision for not the low risk youth want the low risk youth to have another option and it's what research says is being shorter and more focused is good for kids when you drag stuff on they can't even remember sometimes life's changed so much in a year right in their life for us it's a blink of the eye but you know you want to hold them accountable you want to do it and you want to do it again link towards their personal goals this is the positive youth development framework what we have found is looking in the Vermont is that as Judge Gerson pointed out we have this group of 18-19 year olds now we're currently just getting a fine on them moving on there's no equivalent there's no fine in the family court and for good reasons that kind of contravenes the values and the goals of the juvenile court and in fact many states that do allow fines in a juvenile court are abolishing them and there's also a question of who pays the fine anyway it's going to be burdened to the family and so it's going to be important for Vermont to find alternatives and those alternatives need to be immediate and short term and not rely on increased supervision and that staff time from DCF and one of the things that some states are really looking at might define some targeted programs so if your issue is shotlifting or if your issue is whatever that you can have a targeted program on that and we don't have to always do such a deep dive we can tailor it the recommendations are to continue to not use fines and I think that the task the stakeholders group was certainly on board on that to again to expand these immediate short term targeted options to increase some direct referrals to the community ultimately at the end of the day you don't want young people relying on the justice system for services that they need right you want them to be connected to the groups in their own towns and areas where they are going to when the case is long gone they're going to still have access to them develop relationships and mentorships etc and so instead of just sort of the blanket sort of standard probationary period you want to think about there's some cases that can go directly you know not that there's some supervision but they're going to be served by those community groups so you want to end that sort of routine use of probation just the default whatever else does you just do that the other issue is proportionality right we looked at sort of the length in which young people are on that kind of the probation period again short sweet and targeted is what you're looking for right so misdemeanor really beyond six months unless it's an extraordinary case they really need to have moved on and similarly for a felony 12 months it's a long time in a youth's life and of course you want to incorporate positive youth development you want youth involvement always do better if they feel like they're part of the process then just digging in their heels and resisting and that's going to require some training and support for the family service division who are you know are taking on a bigger group of youth somewhat older group of youth some of the course same issues but there are different stages of life and just as Judge Grissom was saying for the courts they need to be able to sift through those cases well and focus on the cases that really need the intervention Karen throwing it to you to cover physical custody okay thank you so I'm going to skip to 531 I think especially the folks in this room appreciate that when DCF has legal custody of a youth that it means that we are their parent and that we can make and do make decisions on their behalf and that this is a puzzle for us to work through with respect to raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction because I'm sure everybody appreciates that the age of majority is 18 and that that means that emerging adults are their own legal entities and so we will need to define what this means for DCF and that courts will actually need to grant physical custody to DCF in cases where that's appropriate much in the same way that the adult court grants that authority to the Department of Correction so DCF will need to consider where it will place use including secure and non-secure settings and the DOC currently I think it's worth noting the DOC currently holds very few 18 to 19 year olds in its physical custody and at the time of drafting the report the point in time count was two detained and four sentenced 18 and 19 year olds so going to the next slide for our recommendations that DCF should continue its aim of operating a continuum of care for residential treatment and out of home placements for all youth in the delinquency system and that you'll see when we get to the statutory changes that we will actually need to modify our statute so that if DCF has custody of an 18 or 19 year old that we're seen through the physical custody and not legal custody and that you know as sometimes happens in our world but DCF is also working on a simultaneous report that is due to the legislature in January regarding the placement and treatment option that will actually delve into this a lot deeper so moving along to Victor's right I just want to note here that as we were preparing for all of the conversations and analysis that we would need to have that the first big topic that we tackled was victims right in part because I think that there could be confusion around this and also in response to what we were hearing from victim advocates and others in the field that this was a concern that they wanted to make sure that we gave priority to so on page sorry on slide 34 I think a great place for us to start is just to note for the committee here that we have strong victim rights in place already we have incredibly strong statutory scheme that supports their right to a victim advocate, the right to be informed they also have the right for notification of release of documents from secure a secure setting and so that applies to the utorian our legal custody now and I also should note it's interesting in title 33 we don't usually refer to listed crimes or non-listed crimes but with the respect to this piece around victim rights that victims of a listed crime even though we don't usually use that language in the juvenile context but a victim of a listed crime requested can receive notification of this release of the youth from a secure setting and then finally that victims have the right to both prostitution and compensation so in our findings I will share with you that DPS rarely receives a request for notification from a victim also that it's worth noting that DPS does have a domestic and sexual violence unit that can assist with juvenile cases involving those types of crimes and that while there is a process in place for requesting for prostitution it's frankly very confusing and goes underutilized and finally in all things I think we can always strengthen our communication and especially in this area with respect to the communication between victim advocates the family division and DPS so our recommendations are that we want to clarify that victim advocates should be provided in all cases and strive for a consistent dissemination of information we're recommending evaluating the process for requesting and receiving restitution and I'd like to note that the Center for Victim Services is willing and will be taking a lead on that particular bullet point and finally that we need to formally create regular opportunities for strong coordination between DPS family services workers and victim advocates and I'm really proud to report under Lindy Boudre's leadership that we are actually already making a significant headway with both the first and third bullet points I want to point out that she is in the room yes, hi Lindy so then we'll be trying to launch the operational plan for DPS so just some background we've already touched on that we have this broad mandate in the family services division of both child protection and supervision of U.S. and U.D. cases in Lincolnt I think we are really proud and I'm sure representative to you have some comments about this as well but we are really proud of the fact that we apply the principles of social work to our case work and really to how we run the division so that means that we whenever possible we are looking at the whole family structure as well as the way that we communicate I think it's deeply undergirded by the values of social work and we're very proud of that the family services division as you all know it seems significant caseload pressures from both child protection as well as Judge Gerrison noticed this for you as well as youth educated as youthful offenders and just as a sidebar because I'm not sure that all of you live in the same realm that we do all the time and fully understanding the different statuses but what we mean here is this data set allows for emerging adults to be supervised by both departments for children and families and the department of corrections so it's a much more labor intensive approach than just a straight juvenile delinquency and then finally and now that you all have met there's only one person in the family services division central office who is in a dedicated role of supporting field staff as well as policy on juvenile delinquency at-risk youth and adolescent all are really important in terms of thinking through what are the important pieces that we needed to consider in our findings so it's worth noting that GCF staff work very closely with their local barge provider which we talked about earlier on in this presentation and the barge provider is key for supporting youth and successful completion and observation and that's also where we are seeing restorative justice processes and outreach to victims and just additional support and case management for the youth so we really work standing glove with the local barge providers there are many GCF staff who handle both juvenile cases as well as child protection cases the family services division deputy commissioner Christine Johnson does not have any direct reports focused on juvenile delinquency or juvenile justice so what I mean by that is there's nobody reporting to her in the leadership level who is exclusively focused on juvenile justice I'm sorry Karen I'm sorry I'm breaking all my rules then who does Lindsay report to who does Lindsay report to if it's not Lindsay you report to as the director if he's a director of on policy and planning for the record is Lady Boudreau DCF I report to Suzanne Shibley who's a policy and practice manager and she reports to Christine sorry it gets a little bit confusing in terms of considering our system but I think the main takeaway here is that the family services division in terms of child they have structured the support that goes out to the field staff that understandably because of our case load percentages it's more heavily weighted on child protection and I think in sharing these findings with you I think it really helps to illustrate that point for you but I think it's also worth noting that we're seeing these increases already with the youthful funder case load and then also we will be anticipating some increases with the rate the age effort so this is all that helps kind of get us to really end up with the recommendations I just wanted to note two more things and that is that victim advocates have requested that DCF have a point or a point of contact to work through case questions and that sort of thing and finally that currently we do have a staff person in the commissioner's office a juvenile justice coordinator whose role it is to staff the children and family council for prevention I can't say that for prevention programs and it's important this is actually a federally funded role and also that this is a staff person who can support some of the system work with respect to implementation of Act 201 so here are our recommendations we want to clearly differentiate the case work policy training and leadership structure within that best between child protection and juvenile justice slash at-risk use and I think here when we talked about this in our internal conversations some of the language that we were using is the way to protect both caseloads and the work that's required is to have this differentiation and we are recommending at the writing of this report two phases to this phase one is to address central office infrastructure by allowing more than just Lindy to hold all of this for the entire field staff that we need additional support to do all of this work and so what we've been thinking about is a way to have better more coordinated oversight of juvenile delinquency and ensuring that we have all the systems that we need in place for staff that that needs a little more we need more people to be working on that and then finally with phase two reassessing the needs of direct service staff and as noted with Barge being a community provider who works hand in glove with us and is our very trusted partner that we need to increase sources to community providers to support diversion from the system and that is a role that they play so if you look at slide 40 you can see here what we're thinking about so all of the yellow squares or rectangles are existing positions and then the blue one and I need to note this is actually I should have changed this in the fight but the first blue one the juvenile justice coordinator that's Elizabeth Morris who I was describing earlier that her role was federally funded to support the work of the council but part of our federal funds actually require as Lail touched on earlier not only are we monitoring racial and ethnic disparities but we also have to monitor any place that holds youth to ensure that there is fight and sound separation from adults in the system and so we actually have a compliance monitor this is not a position, this is a contract it shouldn't appear as if it's actually a position so that's an error on that slide apology for that and so what we're recommending here is that we repurpose positions so that we can actually have a juvenile justice director of operations at the same level of the director of operations that we have in place currently many of you may know Brenda Gulley and so the idea here is that it would allow Brenda's position to be more focused on the child protection side of the house and that this role would be more focused on juvenile justice and then we're looking to add a juvenile justice victim liaison policy and practice specialist and I just want to mention here that it may be that we add somebody to the existing a victim advocate unit for domestic violence and sexual violence or maybe that we actually have a dedicated person we're still working through the details that will work best within the existing infrastructure but we are looking to repurpose a position to be focused on that and then of course the administrative piece as well I'm going to keep going not being able to read the room unless anybody has a question that I need to clarify good to go okay thank you so the next slide is focused on the changes needed to implement Act 201 and so what we mean here is that when we were analyzing Act 201 when it was still being discussed in the legislature there were a number of things that we just hadn't had a chance yet to imagine would need to be changed and so this process which I think was really smart on the legislature's part this process of giving us the time to plan ensure that we could also do this deep analysis to ensure that there would be no barriers in statute to successful implementation of the law so there are five statutory changes that the Juvenile Justice stakeholder group recommended and as I understand it from the Joint Justice Oversight Committee meeting last week Senator Sears shared with the group that she has already put in a request with respect to these changes so they include clarifying and setting the age of supervision for the department for children and families so we basically need to make sure that we're raising that age to ensure that we would have ample time to work with folks adjudicated in Manly Court and so the idea there is that we would extend it a year and a half beyond the birthday of jurisdiction and which is what it is currently we just have to raise that to be commensurate with 18 and 19 year olds coming into the system as I noted for you already we need to clarify and adjust custody to include that physical custody piece for 18 and 19 year olds we also want to make sure that the TAMRAC program which is currently available for adults would be available to 18 and 19 year olds regardless of the court handling their case and then we just put in a big bucket for Port Brynn that we're calling technical corrections to address any references to age so we'll just have to do a deep dive to make sure that we haven't missed any other references to age that would need to be adjusted to make sure that the law goes when the law goes into effect on the citation of emerging adults by law enforcement we'll need to clarify that as well okay and then I think it's you Layl it's me okay data a really sexist topic but I'm going to dive right in and say that the report which I know is long but it also includes a pre-detailed analysis of data in Vermont and gives you a list of available what relevant is readily available what relevant data sets are available but not readily available that they're out there but someone have to bring them together to be able to monitor and then potentially what what pieces are missing and the two key findings we bring to the table is that the data varies tremendously in terms of coverage and reliability again nothing you need to this is the case for all states just putting that out there but good to recognize and you know it's always good to know and to be working on that a lot of the data points are not connected to those positive youth outcomes right so when you're studying this you want to make sure that you're collecting the data to know if you're moving youth along to reaching these important milestones because that's what's going to get them out of your justice system we have some recommendations which is really important you have data you need to you want to be compiling in aggregate way nothing personal you know confidentiality breaches or anything and you want to be looking at a regular basis you want to identify somebody in the state to to look at that and generate an annual report that somebody needs to sort of take on that responsibility they can help identify again ongoing what's missing so that that can get filled in and fixed and I think this is a really wonderful opportunity to actually do some research on outcomes and it's not just it'd be nice for the nation right because this is where the country is moving but you have two years before you're going to bring in another cadre of youth you are going to want to know how it's going and so take advantage of that and you know one of the nice things about the way you've done it in such a thoughtful process in generating this report is you know how baselines and so you know that was a lot of work but it's been done take advantage of it build on it and keep planning out those are my words of wisdom if that's what it is and that really comes to the conclusion I know we're going to have time for Q&A so but Karen do you want to kick us off and then Judge Gerson and then if there's anything left I'll say a word yeah last words by Lail yeah you know looking forward here just a quick recap that the key to successful invitation will be Vermont's use of robust and effective diversion streamlining the court process as Judge Gerson described which also I should note has a full support immediately from the entire juvenile justice stakeholder group just in terms of thinking that through for better outcomes for both victims and the juvenile and I thought that was just something worth sharing with you all and then also frankening the interagency communications and then ensuring a full continuum of dispositional options so I think in conclusion the stakeholders have given an opportunity to collectively examine the current system identify critical areas to improve on and find ways to better serve all youth will be able to tap into this incredible expertise that we have in our state and it's just incredibly exciting I know that we have work ahead of us but it is still incredibly exciting to be a part of the state that's leading the nation in urging adult justice reform thank you thank you Lail and Karen and we have I want to say to be respectful of the person who's actually in the room who I imagine is driving back to Manhattan tonight she said as long as I'm on the road by 130 she gave us a legislative time so we have about 15 minutes at this point to have questions and clarifications from folks so take it away I asked you to wait I'm waiting, no go ahead no I mean no before my question is for Judge Greerson to start off so I want to wait until you've had a chance to talk with Lail and I will have other questions I want to say thank you thank you on behalf of the legislature for the support of the Justice Center the emerging adult program for doing this and I want to say for your recommendations that we continue to evaluate because if we do not if we don't put resources into evaluation then we won't know whether it makes sense to move or how to move on or what changes that we need to make I'm not quite sure who some of my questions are for, so go ahead okay well let's go to data and are there recommendations for how we might expand our data collection so that we know we're moving in the right direction based on what we've already done so yeah there are and there's some particular sets that we identify in the report that would be helpful to know and just remember that one of the reasons why it's tricky is that you had the 1819 was the adult side and you had the under 18 and the family division so they're being collected in different ways or in different agencies each agency has their own way of collecting data and so that just was a natural challenge but now you know the 19 year olds are coming too and so trying to align and make sure you're collecting data on the 19 year olds before they come in and get incorporated in your juvenile system would be really important the stakeholder group has been marvelous and some of the folks in that room and just Chris can talk more about it but you know the folks in the judiciary that know about this data and do all that are part of that group and so that's an amazing resource for all of you if that group continues in such a thoughtful way I think that you can fill in the gaps and make sure it's all there but it would take a conscious effort and that's where I think the recommendation is to designate some entity to be the lead because I think it's easy to let everyone so busy it would be easy to let that slip and I think it's worth making that really a prominent feature of your roll out of RISDH to ask the question was there any discussion within the stakeholder group about who might take that lead I'm thinking about the technology and the communication systems that might need to be in place for this all to happen I mean it's like Karen and Judge Gerson who are members say I would say that I could see a couple of different opportunities within Vermont to do it but I do think there is value to have sort of asking that question to the stakeholders because you got everybody in a room maybe a little bit of a hot potato you take it, you take it but I don't think so Judge Gerson and Karen you want to forge ahead on that from my perspective I would certainly need someone who's more technology savvy than I am to respond from the judiciary again I'll remind the committee and folks that we're in the process now of going from our old system to a new system the wind is there an orange region is just starting that process so we've got a lot of technology issues of already going forward but I'm certainly willing to talk with folks about who should take the lead on yeah okay we have a little oh sorry Karen yeah I was just going to say Senator Lyonson I appreciate the question there's a lot more discussion but one thing I really really appreciated is that we have very reliable court data and that John Sanborn who's a member of the legal justice stakeholder group has been working on creating a new dashboard that would allow us to get our hands around the data and understand it a little bit more easily and she and Lindy Boudreau have been working very closely so just to say it we're making some good inroads but to answer your question this is a recommendation in the report that we will need to continue to work through not the first thing that's going to happen obviously but a real quick question I don't need a long answer but the supervision piece obviously becomes interesting because there'd be some supervision based within DCF within the restorative justice programs how do we see the supervision being carried out and allocated seems like a huge job to me so I think the idea here is that we would overlay on the existing structure for how we delineate our case flow that's said per a number of the recommendations in the report and Lail and I both touched on that we will continue to need to train our staff and actually there are some differences for 18 and 19 year olds especially when looking at their community supports and their goals are going to be changing you may not be looking to support an 18 or 19 year old with completing high school but you've done that it's likely to be transitioning to thinking about employment and career readiness and those sorts of adjustments and so again the division is already taking steps to bring in the training and to make more robust training available through both foundations as well as for the existing staff so I would say that's an ongoing part of this but this is what is nice it's not that we have to build the system anew that we have an existing system that we just need to make sure that that can absorb these cases as well and I'm wondering if there's you know is there any way there's a look see at those cases you know I know that's a very challenging question but now that kind of the light bulb has gone on and we realize this is kind of the trajectory of an emerging adult is there any way we look at those cases again so the cases have already been adjudicated yes yes and Representative Redmond I want to make sure I understand your question is it about the types of supervision they currently have in the Department of Corrections with or something else I should address it's more than a question an idealistic question of the fact and that's usually where I come from I like that those individuals you know it's a very small number but there are two detain for sentenced and does any of this new approach inform those cases yes so I did do a deep dive with Cullen Ballard from the Department of Corrections to is in charge of population management I think it's part of his title but I'm sure I messed that up in some way and so we just we did it we did a deep dive on those six particular cases and both of us agreed and and conferring with Lindy about this a few of those cases would be very appropriate for the type of supervision that DCF provides but what's interesting though is that we were more focused frankly on the rest of the body of cases not the ones that have ended up in physical custody because I think that gives us an even better sense for who's going to be hitting our system and the fact of the matter is that most of them are mix and meaners you know as we've described most of them are getting a very light touch if anything by correction and so that's where with respect to Wales overview of our pulse merits options we were really talking through those because we really just have one option in you know in juveniles for juvenile delinquency and that's probation and so we want to expand the types of options that are available so that we also can have commensurate light touches similar to what you see in the department of questions and still age appropriate. Great I appreciate that. Thank you. Sure. This is and I will fully admit I'm coming from the perspective of human services more than the court system and I may have misunderstood some things that were being said so I'm trying to get some clarity on one of the slides it says convictions resulting in fines only for 18 and 19 year olds it looks like that number is you know good I mean it's increasing then one of the recommendations is that if they're not that fines aren't a good thing so how do we marry that? How do we yeah this is what is happening in the courts and the recommendation that I thought I heard was that fines was not an effective strategy because who's paying them so I don't know I'm just noting what I see is a challenge. So I think I'm going to speak a little bit about this is sort of a pattern around the country is that in the adult side the collateral consequences of getting an actual conviction is enormous right and it's housing employment mortgages for life and so sometimes it's judges this is not just Vermont I'm talking just nationally you know they're convicted that's a huge deal and then they just throw in a fine at the sort of to say something whether 1890s are paying fines we don't know we know if they are it's really not them it's other people so but when you when we were thinking about this 1819 you know looking at those numbers and think okay we're going to cooperate it in the family division one thought was should we allow should the recommendation be that the family division is allowed to assess fines right now it's not you just can't assess fines this is clearly saying they shouldn't have that exactly so we're saying let's not change that I mean they still can restitution can be paid to victims all those kind of things but let's not make that let's not inherit that from the adult system let's think about it in the development appropriate perspective and say okay if we're not going to use fines let's also not do 12 months of supervision let's think of you know some targeted approach does that help no it does it does I mean some of this is I'm just learning so trying to understand what I'm hearing and the other was I think it was you who said who reiterated the point that sometimes for certain juveniles more is less that you want to have a light touch right in terms of supervision or supports right and then later on we hear about how that there are a group of emerging adults who are not just supervised but one but supervised by two in terms of both DOC and family services and maybe they're different youth but if they are the same maybe we need to look at this concept of dual supervision the youths full of understanding is that what that is I mean I don't know youths full of understanding could be dual supervision but of all these cases between the juvenile court it would be DCF right and I think that especially once the radiation effort goes into effect I think that we will naturally see that youthful center will be used less and to your point I think that it would be reserved for cases that are much higher risk where you want to be having more resources used to ensure that that youth does not re-offend and then my last sort of question of curiosity if we're talking about risky young adults and you were talking about also domestic violence and sexual assault, sexual abuse what about human trafficking especially as it relates to labor, drug and sex I mean I'm not seeing that population or the work the groups that I guess maybe I'm just highlighting it that no one needs to answer but I don't see that in any of this material but my understanding is this is increasing this is something that we are noticing that is actually happening in Vermont I mean I think you raise a very good point I think one of the sort of the advantages of incorporating 18 and 19 year old on your youth side and being the first state to do that is that you're going to then you're bringing the resources and expertise and adolescent development to that age group and they're asking questions at the adult side and they just don't ask I'll give an example I've been to court many times where I've seen a 20 year old come in and they click in say do you have an address yeah they write down an address they really have an address there's an address they can remember but on your side there's more questions about how long have you lived there who are you with what you find with this age group is a huge amount of couch surfing and in fact they're homeless for young women in particular who are couch surfing that puts them in a very vulnerable position where they feel they owe somebody something and I think the more research we are doing on emerging adults the more we realize that they were being under represented and under identified for all the things that you just mentioned I think they would hold on judge gerson I'm looking at the clock and it's 10 of the person who's in the room needs to get on the road so I want to ask the people around the table if there's anything that they want to ask her and then I want to highlight that we did have someone on the phone at 130 and we have someone then at quarter of two we're running legislative time but just to to keep our comments and questions to the thing but I want to say thank you I'm happy to do it thank you so much it's been a great pleasure it's been a wonderful group you have so many dedicated people in this state working on this issue it's really so wonderful to see and I would just say this is challenging but I do think it's eminently doable you are on the right track and so I'm really thrilled thank you Karen or judge gerson do you have a one minute comment that you want to make or are we finished so I think everything is good from our side and I'm appreciating your questions I'm also appreciating that this is a huge body of work for you guys to fit through in an hour and a half and so I did just want to share with you all that I'm happy to answer questions until December 13 and so feel free to send anything along to me if you think that there's something else that we need to consider especially ahead of the next legislative session we would love your thoughts on that and thank you thank you very much bye bye thank you bye thank you hello Dean Thomas yes this is representative Van Pugh how are you fine thank you nice to hear your voice this morning thank you and I apologize for our legislative time lateness and appreciate your being able to still communicate with us well you bet these things happen I understand that I do have a plight that I need to catch and I'm going to need to leave here by 15 after the hour then that's very helpful okay we asked you to testify in terms of giving the Child Protection Oversight Committee which is a joint committee of the House and Senate of six members but to give an update on the scope of work that UVM is going to be doing for us related to sort of discovering what's going on with the entrance of children in custody sure would you like me to just jump in yes please great well thank you very much for your time and thank you also very much for your interest in this very important project as you know I am Scott Thomas I'm the Dean of the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont I am in interim capacity also serving as the Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Vermont this project is an outgrowth of a series of convenings to explore the drivers of Vermont's child custody rates over time and different groups have come together over the last year say eight months to a year to really try to understand the different dimensions that drive child custody rates in Vermont and there is a perception based in empirical fact actually that Vermont has an unusually high rate of custody relative to other states across the US the project was designed to focus on more than just what are the one or two drivers that are influencing these higher custody rates and we decided that the best way to examine this was to focus on individuals children in the context of their environments and in the context of policy domains in which VCF and other service agencies operate I'll talk a little bit about how we've arranged the study and organized it let me first introduce the team I'm here with me I'm going to tell you who's on this team driving this I am joined by three very talented colleagues a social worker she is in her Department of Education at the University of Vermont in College of Education and Social Services some of you might be familiar with Professor Strollman's work through the Child Welfare Training Partnership and one of her more recent projects has been the placement stability project which is a trauma informed adoption component response to improving well-being for youth and foster care she's very talented and brings a very unique set of skills to the problems that we're addressing second we have Professor Tammy Colby who is a professor in her educational leadership and policy program Professor Colby is a state policy expert on social service policy and education policy some of you may be familiar with Professor Colby's work recently in the special education study that was a prominent feature in the last legislative session and she's also involved in the school waiting study that will be coming up during this legislative session finally we have Dr. Hannah Holbrook who is a recent graduate from the University of Vermont Educational Psychology doctoral program and Dr. Holbrook's dissertation will give you the short title was Referral Patterns in Service Provision Protective Services she's one of the most talented students and doctoral graduates that I have seen across my career and her work speaks very powerfully to the problems that we've been charged with addressing through this study my own background is rooted in sociology my work is focused more on the research side of this my work focuses on modeling the effects of environmental context and behavioral behavior so for example how does school climate affect teacher behavior and learning how does family structure shape children's opportunities or how does state policy environment shape individual well-being these are the types of problems that I study from a modeling perspective to be able to say how different factors relate to outcomes that we might be interested in so the four of us are engaged in a phase study scope of work we have three pieces in two phases the first is a review of what we know from other research that's been conducted over the last 20 years the second is a case study of students where we had proposed following individual cases to examine the different points of contact that these children have had with different service agencies and let's say healthcare education these types of things that might be formed in assessment of a child's condition at any given point in time the third component in this phase study is a longitudinal analysis where we have proposed to go back 20 years or so and look at the actual records of cases that have come through and try to capture why there's variance in custody intake across time what are some of the factors that are driving intake decisions is there recidivism in intake repeat occurrences recidivism is absolutely the wrong word there I apologize for using that different context entirely and really putting those decisions in the context of families the context of communities the context of other service provisions and in the context of policy changes that have occurred over time to try to understand what might be driving the variance in custody decisions across a time period so those are the three phases let me stop there for a moment I want to go into those three phases a little bit more to talk with you about how we've conceptualized that are going to be important to us but I want to stop and see if there are any questions I'm a body language reader and obviously I'm seeing no body language here it's all good it's all good and I'm sort of a taskmaster I've already told that we now only have 15 minutes before you lose your plane so go ahead alright so let's go with how we're what we call framing the problem what are the things we think are important for a real understanding of this problem and if you kind of envision a circle in your mind and you draw a line down the middle of it and line across it you can come up with four quadrants pretty easy so in that top left quadrant in your mind's eye think about a label that might say community factors what are the community factors or might affect the probability of child custody rates in any given town or any given district or any given region of the state move over to the top right quadrant and think about what the individual factors might be rates, substance abuse and the family, the age of the child the type of abuse SDM risk scores those types of things so those would be individual factors if you're going clockwise now move down to the bottom right quadrant there could be other factors like interprofessional collaboration that's going on in different periods of time there could be legal considerations that we might want to account for there could be fluctuations in workhorse characteristics worker case load sizes media pressures there could be high-profile cases that bring attention to to the environment that shape the way decisions are made so those would be other factors in that bottom right quadrant move all the way around now to the bottom left quadrant and there are policy factors so there are statutes policies legislative changes that occur that influence the decision-making frameworks for people who are really evaluating and making decisions about a child's status at any given point in time so those four factors again community factors individual case factors other factors about the environment and then policy factors are four areas in which we're organizing our work and we have a whole series of questions in each one of those areas that's what we'll do is we're examining the literature and the work that's been done over the last 10, 15 years 20 years perhaps what we're doing is we're examining the existing data within the state of Vermont to really get at this periodically so the data pieces are what are going to present a challenge for us at some level data are going to be drawn from what others have done across the country over time that one's fairly easy because that's in the public domain data will also be drawn from DCF and then we're going to supplement those data from to other agencies where that's possible that sounds like a great study plan maybe some of you may have a difference of opinion and you're sure that would be perhaps but the the challenge is then actually getting those data in a timely way and ensuring that the data are actually of the quality that will allow for the best study that we can conduct now the latter parts out of our control like the quality of the data we need to get in and actually have a look at that DCF and UVM have an existing data sharing agreement as part of Professor Strollin's placement stability project in that agreement DCF and UVM have contracted with a third party called vertical change and this third party effectively takes data from DCF and anonymizes it and then passes it along to UVM so there are brokers kind of a blind third party to this arrangement that ensures that the privacy of the records is protected now we were hoping that we would be able to use that as a starting point to just add additional data that we need to conduct the study that I've been describing to you over the last 10 minutes it looks like as DCF has looked at this and the federal state agreement folks have taken a look at this that it will probably be easier to actually come up with a new data sharing contract but in either event these things take a fair amount of time and right now it's looking like the earliest we're going to have these data according to the last round of emails that I saw would be March so that puts us in a jam in terms of being able to address the components where we really need the Vermont specific data and it's going to back us up further into the spring into the legislative session at that point now we're still working on the exact timeline but I've already got a yellow flag planted right there that that might hold us up on some pieces of this there's still a lot of things that we can be doing to help inform the legislature early in the session but you've asked for an update I'm telling you that I'm seeing a little yellow flag waving right here about our access to some of these data in a timely way and our partners at DCF have been fantastic this is not anyone dragging their feet this is the web of regulation that's guiding the sharing of this type of very sensitive information and these are important and valid regulations that preserve the privacy and protect the individuals so we're aware of all that but I do want to stress that this is not an agency at all holding us up this is the reality of us having to navigate the regulatory environment so let me stop right there and I'm happy to talk with you about your ideas or concerns and respond to the best of my ability I'm looking to see if there are any questions or comments Dean Thomas I guess two questions one does it make a difference if I mean the recommendation or the feedback is that you need a new data sharing contract so the old one doesn't work at all no the old one does work it will be renewed but the belief is that that renewal will be more onerous and time consuming creating a new data sharing agreement around this project without the restrictions of another data sharing agreement because that was for a different purpose okay in the thank you in the appropriations bill that was passed that sourced the money to UVM it says there will be some sort of report by January 30 now clearly that's not going to happen and you're not alone I've just signed about three different things from state agencies saying we need some more time but my question is do you think to you and maybe to the committee does it make sense for any kind of report versus a email that says we need more time on January 30 Representative Pugh I would affirm that we will have a report to the legislature by January 30 on some piece of that first phase we'll certainly have a substantial set of information to report it's the second part that may take a little bit longer that's fine and I wanted to see whether folks thought that was feasible and I appreciate that I think it will be helpful to us helpful to the various parties who were interested and want to ensure that this money was in place to help us frame our future directions I see that you have exactly five minutes before you can catch your plane according to our clock are there other questions no I think the timing question will probably become more apparent with your January 30 report so I don't have anything for you at this point okay thank you thank you Dean and this was very Dean Thomas this was very helpful in outlining and especially setting clear the framing of the problem and it's exciting that three people that you have including yourself the three people that you have involved in this project well thank you all for your interest and support and I look forward to working with you and others who are committed to understanding these problems and finding viable solutions so let's go forward thank you all thank you goodbye okay we are totally changing we're talking about people but the reach up case management review and community engagement report was to come to us as well as other yearbook tests and I'm learning about passing papers we have a lot of time in the case classroom okay I thought I would just kind of go through some of the main points of the report and as you know this was requested oh my name sorry my name is Erin Ollican and I am the director of the reach up program so thanks for having me today here to talk to you about the reach up case management and community engagement report that was requested that we submit to the committee so I wanted to start with the vision and the mission of the reach up program this is a vision and mission that we've developed over the last couple of years to really reflect where we hope to be and where we are right now so our vision is that families will be empowered connected and thriving and our mission the work that we do here and now every day is that reach up joins families on their journey to overcome obstacles explore opportunities improve their finances and reach their goals and it's really important to us that the word families is in there and that was very deliberate because we do work with families and the needs and the needs of the entire family are really carefully considered and we look to the well-being of the children and the parents or caregivers as really inextricably tied so I'll just kind of go through an outline of what I'm going to talk about today in the areas of this report the first is I'll outline the current components of the family development plan and that's the plan that every adult who's receiving reach up puts together to plan for their goals and to eventually attain employment the second is to identify what modifications may be required to make sure that there is a intensive assessment of the family strengths and needs and so that the family development plan addresses those strengths and needs and the care of the children the third is I'm going to review how families who are at risk of involvement in the child welfare system or family services division how we identify those families and how we work to prevent involvement if at all possible and then continue to work with family services division if family services does take custody of those children and then the fourth is to examine current practices of serving reach up families and some of these practices include home visiting and numerous referrals and engagement with community partners and on community teams various community teams and that's to ensure and enhance family stability so the first part is the family development plan this is something that is statutorily required that every adult either parent or caregiver has a family development plan and this is a plan that outlines employment and other goals and the steps that are necessary to achieve those goals it's developed by the participant so it's really a participant driven and then the case manager is there to help and support guide that process and to use what we know in science and evidence to help people to be motivated and to reach their goals so there are five main components in the FDP we call it the FDP for short one is the employment goal the second is the responsibilities and the required activities that both the case manager and the participant have so it's really a legal document it's something that both parties agree to third is the number of hours that the participant is going to take part in any activities the fourth is the participants and the family's strengths and in any areas where they need additional support and finally we identify resources such as support services so that may be additional help that the program can offer the family to help them meet their goals so it's really a living document it frequently changes and it also contains elements of our references to other plans that the family may have so families often have plans with family services division with Head Start with the Vermont State Housing Family Self-Sufficiency Program Children's Integrated Services and we really try to incorporate those things in the plan or to at least reference them so that it's acknowledged that the family is often working on many different things with many different service providers and we don't want to duplicate efforts we do want to support them and offer them whatever kind of help they need to meet their goals in other areas as well and it really does reflect a holistic approach to family well-being because it does address the needs of both parents and children so sometimes a family development plan will have things on there that are specifically related to their children so it could be that the family is working with the Children's Integrated Services or with Early Head Start is just a couple of examples so in section 2 any modifications that may be required to the program I did want to start with what we are doing well and what we do right now to address the nurturing and care of children because the program really does quite a lot in October 2017 our independent contractor Leslie Black Plumo and Rob McIntyre produced a report for us that examined the indicators of child well-being they looked at a cohort of families who began receiving reach up in 2013 and 2014 and those families had stayed on reach up for at least 24 months which incidentally is typically about the average amount of time that families do stay on reach up cumulatively throughout a lifetime so in this case these were families that stayed on for 24 months and what they found was that the families who had participated in the reach up program showed marked improvement in things like housing stability access to high quality child care early education mental health and substance use of the parents and the families and parenting skills two years later and so all of these things as we know the importance of housing stability for the healthy brain development of children and the mental health and of the parents is critical for children's health and well-being and of course access to high quality care has predictors for children's future success and this is all based on research and so it was very encouraging to see that reach up has had such positive outcomes on families with children young children so reach up case managers use a strength based coaching model of case management so it's really focused on building a mutually trusting and respectful relationship we recently transitioned to a new assessment process and the tool that we're using now is called stepping stones in the past we used the self-sufficiency outcomes matrix and this new tool asks about family and child well-being it's this whole process has been guided by a nationally renowned experts from Mathematica Policy Research and Dr. Ladonna Pavetti who's been an expert in TANF policy and change for the last 20 years and she's from the center for budget and policy priorities so we've been really fortunate to work with these nationally renowned experts in helping us transition the program and continue to work in evidence based ways and using research and science as our basis for what truly works and so this coaching model is a science based approach to helping participants achieve their goals so one of the things so you might ask what does goal achievement have to do with children's well-being well one of the interesting things about setting and achieving goals is that it strengthens critical core capabilities and this has been very well researched by the Harvard Center on the developing child that when adults develop these core capabilities that they're more able to effectively parent their children and have responsive relationships with their children and so additionally the case managers and participants are modeling those responsive relationships of give and take and trusting relationships that are necessary within a family and so it really builds those responsive relationships not only between the participant and the case manager but also within the families who are working who are participating in the reach-up program so one example I just wanted to give of somebody who found some success with this new goal oriented approach and this is a shift from the previous previously it was very regulation driven and pretty much somebody came in and a case manager would say here are the requirements this is what you must do you know and kind of would outline it for someone so in this particular example there was a young man who had wanted to do something in I believe it was the music industry and in the past what we probably would have said was well that doesn't fit into the requirements of the program and so you can't do that but you could do this on paid work experience this time what we did with this new approach is the case manager talked to him using motivational interviewing asking him what is it that you're really drawn to in this and said ok if that's what you want to do let's figure out how to do it so what happened was fascinating he spent the next week or so researching everything that needed to be done in order to reach his goal his kind of dream job and realized he really need to get a job in the meantime and within about two months he had a very well paid job well paying job and he stayed off of reach up and through setting those goals on his own and discovering that on his own this was somebody who had been on reach up for multiple years and so it's really fascinating to see the shift when we you know give people the dignity and the structure around helping people to identify what are their goals and within those skills needed to achieve our goals that it can happen so that was just one example that I wanted to share with you but we have many many more that I'd be happy to come back at some point I'm sure I will at some point somewhere to share with you but some of the other activities that may be found on the FDP the family development plan are things like working with Head Start attending therapy appointments working with family services attending parenting classes housing search child care search so all of these things really support and again just that the parent or caregiver and the child being so inextricably tied that the well being of one is going to affect the well being of the other and I think our case managers really understand that in all of our training we kind of reinforce that um so um some improvements that we we know that we can make and that we're working on right now one of the things that we're doing and this is an ongoing process is assessing the program through a trauma informed lens so we have we are receiving peer peer support through the administration for children and families and have been working with a trauma Rutgers University to assess the program and to make changes to the program as we go along incremental changes to become more and more trauma informed um and we we estimate that probably at least 90 percent of the families we work with have experienced trauma in their lifetime so it really is important to understand that in order to help people be successful and we're also working really closely with Auburn Water Song who you may already have met who is the AHS director of resiliency development and trauma prevention so she's working closely with us as well to make sure that we are really coordinating with other trauma efforts in the state um we're also increasing home visiting when it's appropriate and desired by the family uh so that has been and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit um and we are continuing to work in collaboration with Head Start and Family Services, CIS, and parent child centers so that is always something that we can improve upon and continue to build on those collaborations um to work together and the third area that I'm going to talk about is child welfare and reach ups role in prevention so reach ups families as I mentioned they develop really those trusting and responsive relationships with participants they're working with they're often the first to hear about struggles within that family so that they either the participant may share that with them and that in the combination with going with going into the home when um a participant invites them into their home is a really effective way um to be able to prevent um children from going into custody because they can work with them on the front end um the other thing is just having some basic needs met through the reach up program is just a critical component to preventing um children entering into um the welfare system the child welfare system um case managers also regularly coordinate team meetings with family services and with other services that the families are involved in so they they are often kind of the main coordinator of those meetings and um will very regularly have teaming meetings, child protection meetings and the reach up case manager will be um there with to support the the family in those meetings um case managers are also participating in ongoing professional development to increase their skills and that's something that when I came on board as the director about four years ago um has been really important um to me and to our team as we move forward is to ensure that people have the training that they need to be able to do their jobs well um feel confident in their jobs so our latest training was our our day long professional development day and the theme of that was working with families with complex needs and so some of the topics for that day included mental health trauma and resiliency child and maternal health employment for adults with mental health needs and domestic violence and uh additionally um the reach up team and family services division staff work together to coordinate services when a child is in custody and so we've um each of the districts has local teams that that work together to identify those families and to make sure they're surrounded with the support that they need and family and finally uh current practices that we use to support family stability and healthy parenting we've already heard some of them there's some certainly some overlap between these areas um but um but we really uh you know recognize that in order for families to thrive and improve their finances which is part of our mission all members of the family need to be healthy and safe um and again that goes back to our mission and vision as that family is in that mission and vision it is about the family um so recently we put a protocol in place to offer home visits to every family when it's safe and appropriate and um in back in 2017 we've recognized the need to provide training to reach up case managers in order for them to have the skills and the confidence they needed to go into homes um they were already doing home visiting at that point but we really recognize that they needed some more training in that area so we started then and since then there have been multiple trainings to address safety needs um and kind of home visiting uh best practices or providing services in the home um so we started then in July to track um the number to really be mindful of tracking how many home visits are happening so we can get a good idea of what's happening on the ground um and in July of 2019 31% of face to face appointments were home visits so by September so just a couple months later that had increased the 34% so it's been gradually going up and um when families are not being met in their homes they're either being met in the office um at ESD or in community outposting area and so we do have case managers who outpost in some of the more rural areas especially so that they can provide a little more efficient service and serve people um in those areas uh so they're outposting um currently at north some examples are at NACA Northeast Kingdom Community Action the Orange County Parent Child Center the Family Place um Parent Child Center in Norwich Parks Place in Bellows Falls and Notch Partnering Project in Richford so those are all areas where they're in the community um and then I also just wanted to share when um they're not when meetings are not happen or when they are happening in the office um versus in the home that some of the reasons that people cite for that are um just plain preference because we ask them and um we won't go into their home if they don't want us there um and also just um it may be the very first meeting between the case manager and the participant um sometimes they drop in because they're there for other reasons so they just dropped in and so they're obviously already at the office um if a family is homeless they may not have a home to visit in um and then one of the biggest reasons is that they're accessing other resources wherever it is that they happen to be so they may be going to Department of Labor with an employment specialist or WIC and so they're already in the area so it makes sense for them to combine appointments um and then another piece is that connections with community partners is really a critical piece in supporting families so we are connected um with multiple community partners to designated agencies that provide mental health services, preferred providers that provide substance use disorder treatment um voc rehab family services, CIS parent child centers um you know the list kind of goes on and on um our case managers locally and our local reach up teams are very well connected in their communities and um often sit on many of the kind of teams that are happening in the area in that local area to support families so some of the examples of that are home stat or kids stat, charm um child protection teams some of the housing review teams and continuum of care so really um whatever they can do to support the families is where they are in the community and I did want to note also that in 2017 Mathematica Policy Research did an independent evaluation or assessment of the reach up program and one of the things that they noted was that teaming and service coordination occur frequently between reach up program staff and community partners reach up program staff and community partners reported regular teaming arrangements within and across agency to coordinate services for clients we found this is Mathematica speaking a strong commitment to holding regular service coordination meetings involving the parent and a full array of community partners including child welfare staff so reach up program really is well poised to coordinate with community partners and address the needs of both parents and children we're always looking for ways to do things better um through training through building more partnerships and more collaborations um and are really committed to continuous quality improvement you're welcome questions is this what folks wanted in terms of what was in appropriations built in terms of a report I mean it covers but I'm looking to remember the appropriations committee if you remember that there was anything in particular in addition you know I um I think um it's a good overview of what they did I think you know with the drop off of the numbers that was a piece of the why that's happening is um is a piece that I'm not sure um that this gets at what the population looks like and I actually just pulled I did not excuse me a little help from my friends because I don't have that ability and we didn't really ask right right but that would I think quick it you know as we did it at the end but I think the piece of what the population looks like not exactly what we're doing is a piece of what um was contemplated right in that um so are you looking for there's been a significant drop off in population we're in um in the nature of what the population looks like is very different than what it was even just a few years ago so in um serving that population and figuring out what we're doing it isn't just about what um structurally it looks like it's what do they look like and so I think that was a piece of what we were interested in to talk about that if you'd like to hear a little bit about that I don't have all my statistics in front of me but I can tell and you know I can talk in kind of general terms about um in particular how it has the demographic has shifted in the last five years or so and I'm happy to have you talk about that I will say for me it would be better if it was down in a form where I can look at it um digest it and ask questions it's hard without having it have been in and Bill is it itself but right we didn't ask for it but that was a piece of what was in the back of it so um fair warning between now and January now that you've given this we're like oh this is good now we want more please this man we'd like some more so I think some of that might be that I think we might have some add-ons to that but we could we could ask for the change in demographic I think that's a really good place to begin if that's easily put into some format that we could look at a formal report presentation that we could have in our committees that would be really helpful yeah I can definitely do that I mean some of the things that we see which I'm sure is no surprise is an increase in some of the mental health barrier substance use disorder some of that is very hard to track because it is self reported and we don't have a system that's good for collecting that data in five years in five years yeah usually we say in three years but in next year it's three years and then in the next year it's three years right but that is also a trend that nationally that TANF programs are seeing nationally is that the folks who are left on TANF pretty much everyone who can get a job easily has gotten a job and so we of course still have people that are on reach of for a month or two and then they're off and they're employed and the folks who are remaining do tend to have much greater needs homelessness you know what all those needs are I'm sure so yeah do you have a category for us so that we know because that will inform where we need to put other energies yeah that's good so interestingly like some of the areas are very nuanced which is why I would love to kind of be able to explain some of of that better like for example homelessness data we have folks who are I heard one of the previous speakers talking about couch surfing so no one can afford housing on a reach of grant unless you have subsidized housing and even then it's a stretch and so so families are doubling up for their sharing space with and all of that you know as we know is incredibly difficult it's very damaging to children in those families to be so insecure in their housing so yeah this came on this came on the backside of the increase because it's been so long and we are still so far behind so a piece of this came out of that and then concern about the population and it was all done at the end of the process so it was but that's where the concerns were what would be helpful I think for us is to know when you might have some of that information in a form that can be presented to our committees can it be like a power point yeah that's what I'm thinking about a simple power point so I'm out the first two weeks of December but January okay okay gotcha meeting yeah anytime January or after I certainly could my problem is right now I don't have an administrative assistant to say remind you know please contact someone so the email along you thank you thank you yeah that's good I thought generally we were all over staffed oh we are over Mary Beth um a question I was very heartened by this transition from a regulation driven approach and I'm curious where you think you are at as far as all of your family service workers in that kind of full transition like where are you at like are you in the early stages of that I know that there are family service workers who have been with you for years and years and that's not easy it's almost like a culture shift that's exactly it and I'm just curious you know do you feel positive about that where you are at and I think the approach the team approach I think that's a really worthwhile thing to help that happen yeah such a great question so it kind of depends on the case manager you know like any culture change some people are on board right away and others are kind of well wait and see and then there are others who are kind of like no this is not but I would say for the most part we are on our way but we still have work to do so it's a matter of constantly reiterating you know why we're doing this and the science behind it and that it really truly does work if we do it the right way and that we assume the best about people and that people have the best intentions and want the best for themselves and their families and if we do that and we work with intrinsic motivation and all that we know about responsive relationships that we'll get there and so I think the more you know the more we talk about it the more training we do the closer we're getting I would say we're somewhere between kind of like probably like intermediate to advanced intermediate right now so yeah we're getting there it's very exciting I will say that we recently hired a case manager who had been a reach of case manager a number of years ago went to do something else and then when there was an opening in that district she decided to come back and she was hired on again and she said on a training phone call that we had on the goal oriented approach she said I have to say that I love this new reach up and she said I feel like it's actually working it's actually doing what we want to do with families and that families are finding it to be so respectful and you know families say nobody really has ever asked me that and when you hear things like that you think about oh my you know how how how much families have been told what to do in so many different realms and so many different services that they've received and to be the simple question of being asked what do you want to do what's meaningful to you how far you can get with that question is pretty astounding it's exciting very exciting good work that's great and as you're coming back at some point in time she loved hearing this kind of stuff Mary Beth just talked about how this shift in practice and you said is working my question will be even though I like to get into the weeds what trying not to get into the weeds is anything statutorily preventing you from doing that great question and if there is then will change or not I don't know but let us know I'll be happy to let you know yeah thank you very much really appreciate it so we have a little bit of time for committee updates because some folks have been engaged in other kinds of activities related to this work and as Erin's walking out the door I'm just going to say I'm part of the two generation group which is community someone from community a participant and really trying to focus on doing work differently and connecting with folks and I'm actually going to a meeting next week I missed one yesterday that was in Vermont but going to another meeting in Rhode Island for a day this is spearheaded by NCSL and the federal whoever they are and families in terms of underwriting it and trying to get the community involved in theory from some of the other states there is a philanthropist involved so trying to get the whole community involved around supporting families and ensuring that families are in poverty and that really is what Reach Up is all about these are families you are in deep poverty me next yes I talked about this a little bit for the last time we met spending two days in Ohio talking about the foster care system we were supposed to come back with a few action steps and I couldn't remember all of them the last time but the first test to do with the fact that and I know this is like a broken record thing that the IT system is just old and outdated and maybe a five year joke isn't going to be acceptable for too much longer and what struck me about hearing about the research that's going to be done is that there's a chance that they may not be able to get the information that they're going to need to evaluate the system and that's pretty telling so maybe it's time to have a serious discussion about that the second thing was hearing about the foster care advisory board and it seems that Vermont has something akin to that and I don't maybe Amy can remind me what it's actually called but I don't remember it doesn't have official name anymore it was formed out of the foster care rights and you asked us to form a committee with court DCF and foster parents and we met for a year and presented back and then we just continued to meet ever since so it's a work group that meets quarterly and then there's subgroups that so given that it seems like it's sort of an informal thing maybe looking to formalize that and that came out of some discussion from foster families that said that having that kind of voice they found to be really really helpful for themselves and for the system at large and along with that went a sense of their support built into the system in a more formal way and what I've heard from some people who are involved in foster care is that they tend to do that in a more informal fashion and they kind of support each other but it's not kind of baked in and it might be something could be helpful all around and maybe be done in conjunction with the advisory board maybe not and then my fourth well there were sort of fourth and fifth thoughts was looking at co-parenting between foster families and birth families and when appropriate and able asking them if they can participate together in forming goals towards reunification with birth families and maybe trying to knock down some of the whether they're perceived or actual but like adversarial situations between foster and birth families and making birth families feel like they're not important and again that's an actual part of a spoken goal and not just left to being informal potentially helpful not in all cases and then a fourth little thing that came up is that if the goal is reunification but you're also hoping to provide permanency for a child if you're dealing with a family that has a substance use disorder of any kind as we know that treatment and recovery are a continuum and an ongoing process and are there sort of artificial barriers to reunification because there can be a lot of stop and start and maybe how to work into the system different timelines where that's a factor and yeah and Pierre's right and that you know sort of larger than just the Kelly a lot of this looks really good I know that we've talked about some of this in the past but it gets to be more and more important going forward are you thinking about putting a bill in legislation and to begin the conversation I would certainly be willing to there are the other thing that came along with my little hand scratch list is some examples from some other states that are doing similar things or have done similar things so there's some good jumping off places and so I don't know who want to pick in or if I want to in discussion with you or all of us or whatever pick and choose one or two things I know the IT system is a much bigger lower the physical load the better off we are it's very true but I don't you know yes I'm completely willing to do that I think you should I mean you've done a lot of work it's up to your chair though whether it goes anywhere but I'll also put in a plug for the Office of Child Advocate Bill that's happened on our which we have heard about is something that came up at this conference as well and I had some discussions with the representatives from Maine and New Hampshire about their programs and something that we talked about you know and then after listening to the report earlier becomes more and more apparent that that conversation has to happen well and there's a part of me just even hearing some of what was said and just as we're beginning to refocus on foster care what I just came to realize and embarrassed because it is out of my other life hearts out of my other life in terms of training in terms of training of family service workers in terms of recruiting and let's say recruiting foster parent retention that's through the child welfare partnership that is not through I mean it's through a contract but I mean that is not done by and so it probably is and they've done some research and they're also doing things and we probably should hear what they're doing some of this has been Dean Thomas talked about Dr. Stolen Professor Stolen and her work which was funded through a federal grant and so what is the outcome of it and is this one of another example of a fabulous federal thing that's now disappeared or is it ongoing and so I mean there's a part of me that thinks that along with everything else along with seniors but we need to focus I mean I think I'm going to blame it all on you and the senate appropriations you sort of put some things in the budget that I think to highlight areas that maybe we need to look at more closely one of which was reach up and the other is our child custody and how do we support families good but the child advocate I know that there will be the money issue is always a problem but defining that as something that fits Vermont and may not be the full-blown everything might help move us along agreed it's in your hands come wait a second I think there is energy in our committee though that's the sense I get but you don't want to have the energy bubbling over and you don't want to stop it yeah yeah yeah needs to be clever I got it we'll be happy to look at something again it's money although you know what senator yeah I know one other thing it's a little thing it's a small thing there was a great program last evening in Winooski a film that was brought to us by let's grow kids and it was really I felt a celebration of all the work that we have done with early child care last session we did a huge amount of work but the movie itself is very compelling it's about an hour long maybe a little bit longer and I really think it would be great to expose our colleagues to the film so I'm just throwing it out on the table it's called a small thing and it's about childhood development it goes through the whole system of child care early child care so from brain development to families in need and everything that we know and have talked about but I thought it would be I have talked with Mada was there last night she's interested I've talked to another chair this whole concept about brain development is of interest to a lot of people and then as we're talking about adolescence it's longer than it used to be I'm part of it and I'm seeing what does that mean for things that we've done that say at 21 you can do them do we need to anyway I wonder how we share that information and do it in a way that people can if they want to this one is more about early child development so the first three to five years of life but also about the system of care or early care that exists or doesn't exist pretty generic film even though it wasn't made in and about Vermont but it does relate very much thank you so immediately Senator Westman do you have anything you've covered it so thank you all I think that we met whatever four or five times four times and we got a lot I think we have heard and we we've got a jump start on things that we want to pursue and what I would suggest to those to you and Dick isn't here but as to how it makes sense if you want or me or you to come to your respective committees to give an update because if you think as it is appropriate in terms of what we did I think it's really clear today's early first report we'll start with judiciary and for appropriations will clearly have a role in that but what is the role of health care health and welfare and human services will need to see whether just to pay attention right I do think that the first report is really important to go both of our committees we have to hear it as that bill develops in judiciary and or appropriation well thank you all very much it's been a pleasure thank you good work good work all of us thank you for your work on this and for three o'clock