 Okay, welcome back folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Wednesday, February 2nd. We have with us, we've shifted gears from buildings and general services to an area that we deal with in terms of facilities for folks who are in a mental health crisis and need some therapeutic situations. And that that's where we look with our committee in terms of the construction and some of those facilities. This is Mental Health Advocacy Day and week and we have some folks who have some lived experiences within the world of mental health with us today. We have three folks. And I will start with Kirk McVeigh and Kirk, if you could identify yourself for the record. Presentation questions. So my name is Kirk McVeigh. I'm the president of the Vermont Mental Health Counselors Association. I'm also co-chair of the American Mental Health Counselors Association Ethics Committee, and I have been working in Bennington as a mental health counselor for over 30 years. I have a lot of experience with corrections. I've seen the clients I work with go in and out of the system, and I have a lot to contribute to things that need to be changed in terms of mental health. This started for me when our Bennington County State Senator Dick Sears, some time ago went into the corrections system and asked people what they need. One of the themes that came up was counseling. And I sent him an email and explained that I have had people go into the system, and once they are in there, I am cut off from providing counseling services to them. So he then got me in contact by email with then interim director Jim Baker. He sent me to someone in mental health in the system who didn't seem to understand what I was talking about, but simply told me, well, we don't screen who the inmates can talk to. So they would say to me, well, you can talk to them. But, you know, I mean, I'm a professional. I get paid for these services. And I can't just afford to give my time for, you know, for free services. So anyways, I went, I went back to Jim Baker, and his last thing session to me was, well, where would the funding come from. Well, that's not my job. My job is to explain what I need at my end to provide my services, especially to those inmates who have whom I was seeing. And then I go in, they go in to become incarcerated. And as I said, I'm cut off from seeing them. So something needs to be put into place to, I mean, this is kind of a no brainer, I should be allowed to continue my work with people given the report that just came out, explaining how bad the situation is with mental health in corrections. And to say, well, you know, sorry, just isn't good enough, I should be allowed to continue. And what I need at my end is, is pretty simple. I need a place so I can, so I can send preferably a HICFA form, or even an invoice if I have to write one up so I can get paid for my services, and have a session. And on the other end, the inmate needs to be able to sit in front of a computer and have face to face contact me in a reasonably confidential setting. I believe they can already do that with their attorneys. So something needs to be set up to allow this to happen. I mean, it is, it is pretty simple. And this may not be at your end of things. Oh, I was going to say the other thing that when the scandal hit regarding the previous medical services provider, I wrote to Jim and Paker when they were changing and says, Well, now's the time to set this up. I got no response. I understand we now have a new commissioner of corrections. I am hoping that this person will do better. Okay, I am a little low on time. I just want to say that one of the reasons I've seen people go into corrections who probably didn't need to be there is lack of adequate defense legal defense is extremely poor the public defenders are terribly overwhelmed. I've had people go in who didn't I have one guy in three and a half years, three and a half years in marble Valley, waiting for trial. He couldn't get a public defender to even look at his case. All they wanted to do is is ask for a plea. And nobody wanted to take it to trial. Finally, they hired a private attorney who once he looked at the case said this is very weak and told the prosecution if you go to trial, you're going to lose. They agreed to a plea bargain for much lesser charge for time served and let them out after three and a half years. Now this is an embarrassment to me as a member of the state that the state is doing this to people and the lack of legal representation and this is not an isolated story. Unfortunately, from my own personal experience. Okay, I'm ready for questions. I'm going to open it up to questions. I'm sure members have some her how how many clients would you have in the correction system. Can you give me some idea of how much of a need there is. I'd say I've seen maybe a half dozen people go go in and come out in my time. Over how many years is this then. 20. Okay. Okay, Karen and then sir. Yeah, Kirk thank you for coming and sharing and for the work that you're doing with folks. I certainly agree mental health is necessary for a lot of folks and is important resource. I guess I'm trying to understand. What are the gaps in it because I think it would be great if folks could have access to their mental health provider that they're familiar with. But I guess for me there's a lot of questions around, like, how does it work for for Bill and can can, you know, Medicare insurance cover that if they're under the supervision of DS. So these are like bigger things than us I think just saying this can happen so I'm wondering what kind of research and stuff is needed for that because it seems like it's a bigger nut to crack. So Dick Sears told me that once you're incarcerated you're cut off from Medicaid. So the funding has to come from somewhere else and again that's not my job to figure that out. But something needs to be set up for this to happen and you may have to work with the commissioner of corrections the new one to figure this out I need a place to send a bill or claim form to get paid for my services. I can sit here, you know, in my right now I'm in my home office and talk to an inmate who needs to be in a place where they can have some confidential conversation with me. And I believe those do exist for talking to their attorneys. So this this is what needs to happen but I can't tell you any more than that about what has to happen at the other end. So thank you Mr. McBae for coming in and speak to us we we've definitely heard you know the there there's so much overlap in connection between mental health needs and folks who are justice involved. So if you're with with the state of Vermont folks when they become incarcerated Medicaid and Medicare does no longer covers them it is picked up by the state but it's also we have a meant we have a health contract with a provider and I'm just wondering maybe you can help us figure this out a little bit because I think it would have to be like a relationship that you could be a subcontractor of this provider in some way and that that I don't I don't know how that gets worked out or it's really recently re entered a new contract. And so I don't know when that contract is up, but and I know that we provide mental health services in our facilities so I think, anyway it's good to hear that you're to hear your perspective. I spoke with the access to therapy and also representation representation is a little bit outside of our committee's jurisdiction it's the judiciary committee that would probably have deeper insights on how people could be better represented. Have you have you ever I understand that you want us to figure this out but have you. What is the name of our provider. It's not of course civic. No, that's gone. I can never remember do you know it's an icon. It's a vibe. No, similar to Viacom. I can't remember. I, it's a small one with a B. Yeah, I can't remember. I'm sorry. So, when, when you're seeing someone in your private practice, and then they become incarcerated, the person that you were seeing prior to being incarcerated. Were they covered by private insurance were they covered by Medicaid, Medicaid know everybody who's I've ever seen go into corrections was covered by Medicaid. And that whenever anyone is incarcerated, all of their insurance goes away. Correct. Yeah, I mean it sounds like you know something needs to be negotiated with your contractor and yes, you know I'd be willing to sign to sign a subcontractor. You know it, even if I get paid the Medicaid rates, I mean that would be satisfactory since that's what I was getting paid before the person went in. In your experience of seeing folks that were your clients, and then we're incarcerated. Have they been requesting the DOC in the medical contractor they've been requesting that they want to continue. And the other thing that comes up is, you know, some people have some pretty bad ADHD one of the things that lands them in corrections, and they can't get their medications that they were being prescribed on the outside, while they're on the inside. The corrections just doesn't allow it. I got it. It's vital core. I knew it started with a V. I mean part of part of the insurance issue it's not driven by the state, it's driven by the fence. And Sarah's copy representative copies point as well taken that it's a conversation with our medical provider and the contract that they've negotiated with the state, in terms of what is covered and maybe you could be a subcontractor with vital port. I don't know that maybe a conversation that needs to occur. Karen. I feel like this conversation for me is also reinforcing the idea of really working to prevent folks from entering into incarceration where you can so that again they're not losing connection to these services so I see that it's kind of two fold one. Let's work on having folks be as successful as they can once they're incarcerated but how can we really be like thinking critical about is it necessary for somebody to be incarcerated I think as you're sharing folks get cut off from some really important services. It's a plus continuity of care. I mean, they should have somebody. If you're if you're seeing someone within corrections that person then won't be available to you once you're out of corrections. So again, setting up, whether it's with the Community Mental Health Center, or private practitioners in their community so when they come out, they're already connected with someone and can get some help navigating life after incarceration, which can be very difficult to set up but you know thank goodness for pathways. They've done a great job with some of the people I've seen that come out. Well when you're doing in a therapeutic setting. It's, it's really a relationship of trust. Exactly. Once that person that you've really as a patient that you've really put your trust in and once that person's not available to you. A lot of your life starts to fall apart. So I'm going to move on here because I'm looking at our time and we are a little limited so Danielle. I'm going to shift it over to you and if you could just identify yourself for the record. My name is Danielle Caten and I am the program director of substance use and criminal justice services at Claire Martin Center, a designated agency in that serves orange and Windsor counties. So thanks for the invitation to be here today. My hope was to end the ask for me joining was to talk about the importance of the ability to deliver substance use counseling therapy treatment support via telemedicine throughout the pandemic, and really the crucial role that that flex those flexibilities have played throughout the past two years and supporting people with substance use issues. Here we work with people who have intersection between substance use criminal justice and mental health disorders that they're receiving treatment for, and we, we could not have supported folks. We were not actively without the flexibility of telemedicine that was available to us throughout the pandemic. So, I'm also reflecting on the amount of fatal opiate overdoses within the year of 2021 and those numbers came out a few weeks ago, and just wanting to acknowledge that by October of last year, we had already surpassed the amount of fatal overdoses. That was the entire year of 2020. And to mention that those, those numbers are rising at a scary rate within our state and specifically within Windsor County, which is where I'm based. So, there were a lot of benefits to being able to provide SUD substance use disorder treatment throughout the pandemic, the most obvious one being to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID, and help keep staff healthy and also support clients and staying healthy. But there are really some longer term benefits of this flexibility to do telemedicine with this demographic that are important to look at. One being just access to care, people's access to receiving support with telemedicine improved dramatically with this population. The other one would be the convenience that telemedicine offers to clients who have work demands. There's a lot more convenience to be able to do your therapy remotely and to not have to sacrifice an hour at work or an entire day at work in order to get treatment that people need. Obviously, it's reduced barriers around childcare issues, which is another crisis within our state. So it's supported people with children who could not leave their home to come on site to do services to getting access to treatment. And then I would say that specifically telemedicine with our substance use population increased access to life-saving medications, specifically buprenorphine throughout the pandemic and made the difference between people being able to receive that life-saving medication. So I also want to mention that it is clear and our treatment providers within the state acknowledge that telemedicine cannot and should not replace in-person service delivery. It is important to look at how we can develop a hybrid system within our agencies to offer a mix of telemedicine and in-person services. We still need to be able to support people who just based on patient preference prefer in-person services for their treatment. We need to be able to see higher risk folks who really need that in-person support as well for access to harm reduction materials like Narcan and sterile needles, etc. We need to support people who don't have privacy within their homes and telemedicine. That can be a limitation for some patients that they don't have the private space. And then the other barrier that we face is working with people who have limited to no access to cell phone service or broadband service. And that is an issue that that continues to affect people statewide in terms of their access. So lastly, I'll just mention that in terms of studies and research, there have been a lot of studies that have been done on the efficacy of treating mental health disorders via telemedicine. And they indicate really positive outcomes overall. As far as studies and research on implementing telemedicine with a substance disorder population, there have been a lot fewer studies done to look at what those outcomes are. So that's a missing piece. And I'm hopeful that there's plenty of data throughout COVID to be able to look at the effectiveness of using telemedicine with all people who are engaging in treatment. But it is really, really important for providers to have flexibility to continue offering telemedicine and then to continue getting reimbursed for those services so that we can, we can continue offering them and keep our staff and retain our staff to be able to provide those. So a hybrid approach where we're reimbursed for services that are more accessible to clients would be the hope post pandemic and ongoing because there is a very, very high need for this type of treatment and support within our communities to keep people healthy. So with that, I think I'm at time or maybe close to it. So that's all I have. Thanks for inviting me and thanks for facilitating this conversation. It's really important. Thank you, Danielle. And I think there is a lot of support for telemedicine, telemed across the spectrum. I think it's really important. I think the pandemic has really shown how vital tool it is for everyone. Questions? Yeah, Danielle, you mentioned that you've worked with people with the doc population and I'm just wondering it sounds like there would very likely be the same problem that Kirk has encountered where if somebody becomes incarcerated you then can no longer work with them is is that true or has there been a way you've been able to use telemedicine in conjunction with people who are incarcerated. So I would say that we face the same challenges that Kirk described. There was a point before I was at Clara Martin Center but we were able to support clients and assessing them while they're incarcerated for reentry needs before exiting corrections and we were able to do that and get paid for that. I believe it was the same subcontractor situation, but that was crucial. The funding went away for that, sadly, but really trying to support people in reentry after they've exited corrections or the facility is it's already too late. You're already behind the game in being able to help them, reacclimate into their communities again. So I would echo a lot of what Kirk shared today. Alice, can I ask a question? Mary? Thank you. Okay. For any of you, I know the new commissioner is fairly new but have you set up a time to speak with him and the appropriate folks within corrections at this point? Mary, is your question to me? I think it's probably to all of you in the request for meetings or for some kind of resolve to come out of this. Have you had the opportunity to reach out yet? And I would say probably all of you because you're from different areas can probably respond to it. So what I would tell you is I didn't even know that there was a new commissioner of corrections until like about two days ago. So I was assuming that it was still Jim Baker and I got nowhere with him. So if someone wants to introduce me, get me in touch by email, I'm willing to give it another try. Okay, can you look to send your email to our clerk or our assistant in our room so that, you know, we can at least provide the information that you can reach out to them. The new commissioner and whoever else can look at this. Sure. I think the way to do it. Phil, do you have their emails? Yes, I do. Okay. So the person that Mary is referring to is our committee assistant is Phil Petty. So you would have received notification from his email about our meeting today. And he can send you the email contact for commissioner Demo. Our time with this is the last name, commissioner Nick. And Phil can send all you folks the contact information for the commissioner department corrections. So that's a good point that Mary brings up if you could connect with the commissioner directly. Yeah, it would be appreciated. Thank you. Services and concerns. Any further care. Yes, I'm going to share definitely supportive of the idea of telehealth mental services like I think that is important. I guess my question is, I feel like it's also a little bit out of our jurisdiction in kind of addressing any of the barriers with it seems like that probably would be more for the health care committee. And also my understanding is that I think we just passed legislation that extended allowing telehealth for I think another year or so. So I'm wondering kind of what the question of the ask is and this might be Danielle directed toward you is, it's allowed now to be able to provide substance abuse counseling via telehealth is, are you asking for it to be a permanent thing and have you had a chance to talk with the health care committee. I can speak for myself I'm supportive of it but I also feel like I don't have a way I can help you through this committee. I would say that we've had great conversations with ADAP at the Vermont Department of Health who's there doing a lot of advocacy to support the state preferred providers and having, you know, being allowed to continue providing telemedicine services as long as we can. I just think that the important piece is to look at permanency around telemedicine and really speaking about allowances in a permanent way. And I know that's a, even just permanent is a, you know, that's a word that we could toss around in different ways but I think in the broader picture within our state specific to workforce, specific to obviously healthcare, specific to our aging population, telemedicine and treatment just impacts a ton of different populations, and a lot of different committees in terms of what their interests are. So however we can work together with, whether it's the health care committee or your committee, any committee to support that goal, we just like to see it extended. I'll say that that it's great that the telemedicine piece has been extended for the next year. But in terms of working with private insurers, even last July we already began to see limitations start to be put back into place around what sort of support we could provide and who's eligible for telemedicine and which provider can do it but this provider can't. So those limitations have already started phasing back in to our service delivery, which is concerning. We all understand that that some of the flexibility is going to go away, for example, providing audio only services. So of course that's not on parity on on par with in person or even telehealth. So there are some that we expect to not have that flexibility around ongoing, but it makes a lot of treatment providers nervous to already have begun to see payers begin to draw back their support of us being able to provide the amount of services we've been able to deliver. The whole issue of telemed is really a little bit beyond our committee. It's good to understand what you're experiencing particularly in the substance use disorder world and I'm sure some of that is also with co occurring mental health issues as well. It's really driven by what insurances would reimburse the provider for. I know our healthcare committee has been looking at this, and also it's dealing with regulation with insurance companies, which also involves our commerce committee to deal with this so we can share this concern with our colleagues in those committees. But I need to move this along because we have Megan that we want to hear from and we only have about 10 more minutes, want to offer some time here. Thank you, Daniel. Megan, if you could just introduce yourself for the record and finish us up here. I'll try. I'm Megan Holmston. I am from Washington County Mental Health. I am the director of our Children Youth and Family Service residential treatment programs. I'm going to introduce myself then I'm going to ignore I think so and get right to it, because I know we're out of time. Washington County currently has 20 licensed beds spread among six different programs or locations we serve youth from five up to 20. Many of the kids that we serve are involved in the justice system. Additionally, that system does not work for our kids and has failed their kids greatly. About two years ago, maybe three years now, because of Woodside and what was happening the state came to Washington County, and asked us to start a program that was really specialized towards serving youth that would typically be in a detention type but with more of a mental health high acuity. Those beds have been full for the past three years. We have never had a day without a kid in that bed. We have found that the kids have been incredibly have done incredibly well within that environment. We are able to and I think what kids that are involved in the justice system need are the ability for folks to look at them as who they are and not the crimes. And unfortunately, when the kids are in the system we see them as purely their crimes. You know, I unfortunately sometimes that that comes across my desk where we have kids that already at 17 have 35 different charges. They have a pretty significant charges. And this program allows us to be able just to provide them safety, calmness, and friendly faces where they have the chance to really take the time to think about what they need, why they've been struggling, and to put together a plan so that they can be successful when they are out of our program or out of the system. And I will say that I understand that the EDs are having a hard time we have a lot of kids boarding there for for weeks, sometimes months, and I will say that we do have a program that was built to help with that and because of workforce issues, as I think everyone can talk about that program has literally shut down. And so we're not able to provide that service to EDs and so we are looking for some support so that we can increase workforce so that we can have our programs running at full capacity so we can serve as many kids as possible in the system. I think, is there any questions. No, that's fine. The, the program that you're offering justice involved to when I was in Washington County, how many beds are being used and is it. Is it for two beds. Pardon, two beds. Very small. Is it for the kids from just Washington County or is it statewide. This is it's a statewide program in DCF or is the placing agency so they come to our door through DCF. And then a no refusal option at all for some of the kids or and or some of the juveniles that are coming in. They're not able to stay in the bed for a variety of reasons that maybe it's too hard to handle. And then where did they go. So sort of a two to prompt approach. So our contract with the state is a no eject reject program we do have a 72 hour emergency clause in that contract, and I will say that we have not needed to invoke that that contract. Part of the contract where I will say is that what we have heard about the kids that come to us is that they've had an incredibly hard time stabilizing their behaviors have been they've been aggressive or a lot of self injury. And when they come in land in our program. Again, we've had a great success with the youth and have not had any behavioral concerns for the most part. That's not when kids are with us. So you have two beds that would address the state issue. In your perfect world, how many beds should be out there. To obviously is not. In a perfect world. I think that this is, you know, I've been doing this for 23 years I've worked with Woodside for a very long time. And again, I think we can't go back to a model where we're trying to create, you know, this adult model which really doesn't work for adults and put kids in it. And so ideally we would have more beds, you know, I think three would be the top. And they would be located around the state because again, kids, kids need an opportunity to grow and to show their strengths. And if you have a smaller setting with a smaller ratio with staff they have that opportunity to make some real growth to not enter the system as adults, again. So are you saying three beds wide or three beds per region, per region, per region. Okay, that's a differentiation. And that those beds are flexible in terms of the structure in the programming. Correct. Questions. I have an idea of how long one of your clients might be in your facility. Sure. Sure. In the facility that we're just discussing which is T rock. I think some folks know it as turtle rock. Our contract is up to 45 days so we've had youth that have been in the bed maybe one week up to 30 days to 45 days. There's such placement crisis in the state. I don't think the state's able to utilize the bed as much as for the population that they were looking at, you know, we've had to be very diverse with the kids that we work with that license is five to 16 or 17. We've had a lot of kids from the DS world to come into our beds to utilize that bed because there's nothing else for them currently. Next question I was wondering where they where they go from your facility or and how backed up those are. Okay, so I think the one thing I've heard from the state. A lot of these youth are still in court. And I think that they're fighting, you know the state's plan is to send a lot of these youth out of state because again there's not facilities open in Vermont, or they're closing because of lack of workforce. And so they're making the argument to send these youth out of state. They do so well in our program I think that argument gets harder for the state to make for those youth. And I will say that it's not I think about us as individuals I think it's really about the program and the environment that they're in and they're not in a in that doc type would side environment. They're institutionalized. Correct. The questions. And we're right on time. That's pretty good. I want to thank all three of you I think you touch on all different angles in terms of corrections. Now how do we know justice. And medical care in terms of telehealth. So I think this has been a well rounded presentation and discussion. And I really want to thank all three of you for this and we may be reaching out to a few of you as we proceed who knows but I know that two of you definitely curtain Danielle will be receiving but particularly Kurt will be receiving an email from Phil about connections with the commissioner of DOC. And then you folks can then take it from there and Megan I think your testimony on that. I think what's involved juveniles have been very appropriate as we try to figure out how we go forward and replacing the bed needs. Now that Woodside has been closed and what's the best model for us to pursue your comments have been very helpful in that arena as well. So anything else before we. I have one quick question for Megan I'm wondering you said that you know the perfect world model would would be like up to three beds. I'm wondering. Do you feel like it right regionally but I'm just saying like do you think it would be possible to have that more intimate and nurturing environment if we did have a slightly bigger place. So for example five to seven beds. So really if you get beyond that you're not going to be able to have the intimacy that you need to impact the positive outcomes. I think it's doable. You know I think in our long term treatment programs will have kids that pop in and out. We have up to four beds. I'm sorry there's some but we got some technical issues with the microphone here. Again and I'll try. Yeah, I think I would ideally keep it to four to five beds and it's really going to be about the environment that in the people in that environment and if and some flexibility within that own know you I think is when you get larger, you need to think about who is with who and what makes the most sense for that for that know you at that time. Thank you. Great. So much. Any other questions before we shift gears here. So thank you folks we really appreciate you taking time out of your day to zoom in with us. It's been very helpful and feel free to reach out to your legislative body at any time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we have some technical issues happening here so before we move on I don't know. Welcome folks. We are still live on YouTube. We do have a document on our web page under Rachel Feldman. And we are going to hear the survey results of what is from the print project which is prison prison research innovative network network is the right word. And they've been working along with folks that you have working within our correctional facilities and they they're working out of the Springfield facility in particular, working with both inmates and staff and trying to get a basis in terms of what the needs are for offenders and the needs of staff and also sort of the morale issues and issues around how supported inmates feel issues around how supported our staff feel. So this has been ongoing for a couple of years now of course the COVID issue has impacted that a little bit we're really limited the person to person contacts and interviews. But they were very successful in achieving some of their goals. So I'm going to turn it over to the commissioner to introduce the folks who are with us. Thank you folks can take it from there so whenever anyone first starts to speak, please just identify yourself for the record. So Commissioner. Morning, hopefully you can still hear us okay. Pleasure to be here again today. Sorry that I had to dip out a little early yesterday but I know you were in good hands with Matt digistino. We have some folks from the Department of Corrections here with me today. And we also have our partners from the Urban Institute and from the University of Vermont. So, I'm Nick Demmel, I'm the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections. I'll pass it to my colleagues from the DOC and then we can go through and just do quick introductions and then I'd be happy to come back and begin our presentation. So, let's see if Monica, do you want to go next. Good morning, everyone. I'm Monica Weaver. I'm the administrative services director for the Department of Corrections. I'm Brad Goodhill I am the prim the prison research innovation network manager based out of Springfield, and the project manager for Prem. Rachel, are you on here. Rachel's way at the bottom here on our screen. There she goes. I am Rachel Feldman I am the principal assistant and public information officer for the Department of Corrections. And then if our partners from the University of Vermont would like to go next to can hand it to them. I am Abby Crocker I'm a professor of statistics at the University of Vermont. I'm Kathy Fox, I'm a professor of sociology at the University of Vermont. And then finally our friend from the Urban Institute Jesse. Hi everyone I'm Jesse Janetta my senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute Justice Policy Center we're a social policy research organization based in DC and among other things I do there I am leading our, our work with Vermont on the print project good to see everyone today. So, you'll get to hear a little bit more from all of our partners here in just a moment but I just wanted to provide some framing for the conversation. To make the Vermont Department of Corrections, the University of Vermont and the Urban Institute released the initial findings of the prison research and innovation network in Vermont. These were the first initial findings of this project nationwide and so we're excited that Vermont was on the front end of this effort. We have five states participating in this five year effort to build evidence and spear innovation to make prisons more humane, safe and rehabilitative. There are a couple of primary goals of the network, and they are to understand prison environments and the safety and well being for those who live and work there to help prisons collect data to promote transparency and accountability, and to support evidence to improve prisons, such as ensuring the safe and humane treatment for all. In pursuit of these goals, the project enlisted the input of staff and incarcerated individuals at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield in the research study design and the initial review of the findings, and will continue to do so toward the development of recommendations for improvement. From my perspective, I couldn't be prouder that our state, the Vermont Department of Corrections and our staff was willing to pursue this effort and evaluate our system and innovate new solutions with the goal of making really meaningful improvements. I view this truly as an act of courage, and I think it sends the message to all who are watching that we care about our future as a state and as a department and corrections professionals and we want to get it right. I firmly believe that until we understand the challenges we're facing we can't begin to design and implement effective transformational changes. And this effort provides us that unique opportunity to understand, to innovate, and to improve. I think it's worth noting that these results capture the feelings pressures, the positives and negatives of a point in time in June of 2021. And we're in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, and since that time, the pandemic has continued to impact everything that we do. So we can't talk about these results without considering the pandemic context surrounding them. And unfortunately we don't have a pre pandemic version of this study to compare notes to. So as we digest these findings we know that the pandemic played an outside role, and has had an outside impact on many of the issues that we will discuss today. But in furtherance of our abiding commitment to transparency, we wanted to share these results with you. Last week we were able to share them with our own staff. We've shared them with those in the care and custody of the department. And today we look forward to discussing them with you in this forum. So from here, we will move into the next phase of the project and that's the beginning of the innovation period. So we look forward to sharing those results with you as well. But today we're here to discuss the current progress we've made on this effort in the research that we've revealed so far. I wanted to take a moment though before I hand it off to thank our team at the Department of Corrections for their support and their participation in this project to the incarcerated population at southern state for their contributions to our effort. We have our partners here at the University of Vermont and the Urban Institute for courageously collaborating with us on this effort. I am extremely proud of the progress we've made and I look forward to the innovations that we're able to take on together in this next phase. So to talk a little more about the project itself, I'll hand it over to my colleagues from the department, Brad and Monica, and then we can hand it to our partners from there. Thank you commissioner. Good morning everyone again I'm Monica Weber the administrative services director for the department and I thought I'd just take a few moments to give you a little bit of background about you know how and why we started the project. Before we kind of get into the, the discussion of the climate survey results. Some of you may remember in 2019. We had some conversations around prison reform prison transformation and at the time, Commissioner to shed had really made that a priority for his time period as commissioner and had been working with our partners at UVM on a variety of projects are just around prison reform. And during these conversations, the opportunity to apply for this program through the Urban Institute became available. And so we worked together in August to submit an application based on the requirements of the RP that are urban put out. And we were awarded, thankfully, and we were one of the five states across the country who was who was awarded the grant. And took a little bit of time to do some administrative work but in February of 2020 I think it was actually one of the last things that we did in person before COVID. We all went down to Southern state correctional facility and had a really successful and nice launch with the staff and the incarcerated population at the facility. So that is being a very nice event. I'm sure other people will probably chime in about that too. And the reason we selected Southern there's a number of reasons we selected and I don't want to just say that the only reason we did it is because it met the criteria that were in the RP that urban put out. We have a requirement and Jesse can speak a little bit to this that the size of the facility be at least 300 incarcerated population so as you all know and in Vermont. There aren't many options that meet those criteria. However, Southern really did provide us with a great opportunity for a lot of reasons. One we had a very good leadership team there, and we knew that that leadership team would be, you know, sort of all in on this project it really does require the team to participate very, very much. And we had also acknowledged that Southern had some limitations as you were all aware. We know that it lacks the industry and career and work readiness opportunities for people. And so we wanted to, you know, sort of focus on on that. And it also just provides us with just about anything that you could possibly imagine in the correctional facility so it was a good test pilot site. So that that's one of the reasons why the Southern facility was selected for this project. We're happy that it's there. So, as we started to move through 2020 as commissioner mentioned, the pandemic put it is pretty hard and we worked with our collaborators partners at UVM and urban to get some of the sort of nuts in both things in shape contracts, sending administrative data, and also hiring and in the fall of 2020 we did hire Brad Goodvale who introduced himself to you as the principal research innovation manager. And he's the on the grounds person he is there at the facility working in the facility talking to the folks, the staff and the incarcerated population there. And we'll also be moving forward on managing the innovation process as we move into the into phase two. So I'll just leave it there just so you have a little bit of that context. And I'm not sure who is going to go next I think, unless Brad you had anything you wanted to add there. No, I think Jesse would be next in the lineup. So, hand it over to Jesse and urban. Okay, so what I'd like to do from the position of being part of the urban Institute which is the national coordinator of this print work with with the support and funding from Arnold ventures is to give a little bit of what I think might be some helpful contextual things about the national nature of the project and where some of this came from from our perspective that may be helpful to the committee and everyone watching in understanding why we did what we did and what we're sharing here and what we're doing. So, the idea of the print was to create a community of practice for states that were interested in leveraging research data and evidence to inspire improvements in their prison environments, in addition to Vermont, the other four states that are participating in in the project right now are Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, and Missouri I'd also note Vermont is as I know you're aware as one of the few unified correction systems in the United States Delaware is also a unified system so we do have one that at least has that similarity to Vermont system. As the commissioner said one of the key things in the overall arc of the project in each of the states is to design and implement and evaluate data driven operational and programmatic innovations and changes to improve prison conditions and the climate survey that we're here talking about today is one of the foundational pieces of data that is going to drive that work. When we invited all the jurisdictions to apply and throw their hat in the ring in the competitive process from which we selected Vermont and the other states. One of the things that we asked at the front end and if continue to emphasize is to try as much as possible to do the research in a participatory manner and what participatory research methods mean is in contrast to what has been a more traditional way of doing research where people who are the subject of research can be treated as subjects of the source of data to really push as much as possible to have the communities the populations being research be partners in the research meaning they have a say in what the issues are that are going to be investigated what that looks like that they have sort of the first opportunity to see results of that research to be ones to provide feedback. On interpretation on that and what they think it means and what's most important to them and then going outside of the research but one thing that we've been working on a commitment to and to really operationalize is also have them have that participatory engagement in what changes are going to be made in response to this research and one thing I would say is this is closely tied the desire to do the work in that way is closely tied to the way we set up the structure to have a single pilot facility in each of the states to be the focus of the work feeling that in order to really do that kind of methods and to do that kind of deep engagement work. It was unlikely that we were going to be able to successfully as partners do that across an entire system that to really do that the work in that way and for other reasons would probably require focusing in a single place. By and large the survey that was done in Vermont was developed locally here by the University of Vermont in partnership with staff and incarcerated people at Southern State. But I say by and large there were drawing from research that already existed on doing surveys in correctional environments. We at Urban looked through all of that use that to provide some guidance and we also asked each of the states to include some common items in all the surveys we felt that we would be missing a real opportunity to build knowledge about prison environments in the United States if we didn't ask to have at least some consistency across the surveys but we really wanted to keep that tight into a minimum so that we could really hold the space for the work the survey instruments to be locally developed and really reflect the interests of the people who would be taking the surveys. So if I may make just a few observations from my perspective in the national project one is I do want to say that from my perspective everyone in the partnership really stayed committed to this process throughout under tremendously trying circumstances certainly Vermont none of the states that applied to be part of this project thought that it would be easy that was very clear that was stated you know very directly in Vermont application but nobody expected they were going to be doing this work in the context of a global pandemic that was causing all sorts of damage and harm and social disruption generally and hit correctional facilities particularly hard that offered a lot of reasons to not do the work at all or to really pull back on some of the participatory and other envelope pushing and challenging methods but that's not what happened if anything I think everybody really showed how committed they were to doing that way and figuring it out and certainly there were things we would have done if we could have been in person that we weren't able to do and that we may do in the future but really I from my perspective everybody really showed up to figure out how to do the work consistent with these principles to the greatest degree possible I think getting this rich data with around a little over 70% response rate from both the staff and incarcerated populations is a tremendous accomplishment getting 70% responses from surveys of anyone anywhere at any time is good under the circumstances that we were dealing I really think it's tremendously impressive and I also want to commend all the partners who respected the independence of the research team at UVM, which I think really maintained the integrity of the research process without. I just want to second transparency has been a core value of this project and this is really you know the release of this information is as challenging as much of it is really represents a critical milestone in that transparency component of the project. And finally, one of my hopes and I think one of the projects hopes is that this survey so now we're in this position where we only have the one time snapshot of what it is and when you've got baseline even though you're going to do it again. That's sort of the most limited time that you have to sit with the data, but one of the things that I think this survey in its existence will allow Vermont to do going forward is not just to understand what issues are there and I think many of them that are in the survey are just to people, although I think seeing them quantitatively in this way may have it hit a little different, but really part of what this is doing is creating new capacity to start to answer questions about some of these things like is it different next year than it is Nick. This year, what about five years from now are these things going in a positive direction to really measure and sort of manage to improvement of them so I'll just conclude by saying that. Now it's our collective responsibility to use this data to make meaningful changes meaningful meaning that they are meaningful to the staff at SSCF and the people incarcerated at SSCF we know that's the people, that's what the people at Southern who helped develop the survey and the many who made the time to complete it and provide the data we're able to talk about it that's what they expect from us, and that's, you know what we owe to them for what they've already given to the project so with that national framing which I appreciate the opportunity to provide to I want to pass it to our partners at the University of Vermont. Thank you. I think I can get us kicked off Kathy and then I'll pass it over to you. So I'm Abby Crocker at the University of Vermont and you know I really appreciate the framing set up by our partners at DoC and Urban there's like a lot said that part of me is like, what do we have to add. But I just want to highlight a few things specifically, like why Kathy and I were really interested in this project. You know we are very committed to using applied research and data for meaningful social systems change and, and this seemed like a like the perfect opportunity for that. And we were really interested and prioritize the participatory approach, understanding that, you know a lot of times systems change has been tried from top down or sort of outside at. And this participatory nature really ensures that the voices of those inside the facility the folks who sort of know the system best are the ones who are identifying issues and actually, you know, part of that process and highlighting those voices. So, I just wanted to give a little bit of background about how we use that process to develop the survey. Essentially what we did was we did interviews and focus groups over 30 of them with staff and incarcerated at Southern in late fall of 2020 and sort of early 2021. And basically in those interviews and focus groups, we're really looking to see like what mattered to everyone inside if we were to describe the prison climate. If we were to identify opportunities for change, what was important to the folks inside. That's how we wanted to ground what the survey questions we're going to be. So, we went in with that sort of framing. And, and we got a lot of really rich information and we were able to then identify you know what were the priority domains what are the questions we should be asking. We partnered with community research councils and these were folks we identified in the facility staff and incarcerated to really help us take that information and develop actual surveys. And so when you see the surveys themselves, the questions come from those inside it wasn't like we decided what domains to explore. They did, and that's how we developed the survey. And you know we were able to incorporate those questions that Jesse mentioned from urban to make sure that the surveys that only were helpful for local change but also were contributing to sort of the national conversation about corrections reforms. We actually administered the survey that was done in in June of 2021. We then really made sure we were trying to prioritize getting that the survey results back to the folks inside the facility so we were able to do that, you know, few months ago, and, and then get some input from them, moving forward. And, and we're sort of collecting that information now about the feedback from the folks inside and really exploring that a little bit more deeply. You know, I would highlight like I don't want to go through the whole survey because it's huge. You know I would highlight some of the key findings that stood out to us, really around the domains of sort of relationships, decision making, idle time in the facility, and around mental health impacts and I know that we anticipate doing this survey again in June of 2021 and then annually thereafter it as part of the project, and we will also be complimenting it with more qualitative focus groups and interviews as well so really helping to measure longitudinally the impact over time of any changes that are made. So, Kathy, anything else we should add. Well, you covered it pretty well. I guess the only thing I would add that I think is important for the committee to know is that our survey was really long it was more than 150 questions for both staff and incarcerated. And, you know, we were a little concerned about people's bandwidth for completing it, but people mentioned to us that they felt respected by that by the fact that it was so detailed and wasn't just a cursory, you know, to ask about prisons that we really got into the nitty gritty and so we were really gratified by that, especially with such a high response rate and such a, you know, high number of responses that we could use. And then the other thing I just want to point out is that we were given autonomy by DOC in terms of the questions we asked they didn't try to interfere or influence what we asked or didn't ask. You know, to maintain this arms length independence, which is really important for both validity and also credibility and everything else. And, and we just wanted to call that out that we appreciated that because, you know, it's a challenging process for any system to go through. So that's all I wanted to say. Thanks. I think it's really time to start going through the survey because I think the committee wants to get into the nitty gritty as well. So I don't know who's going to be walking us through the survey. But I know that there is probably going to be a lot of questions as we proceed here. So I don't know who will present the survey. Are you looking for the survey results specifically or the survey question document in front of us. And I think it would be good if someone could sort of go through the survey somewhat so we can ask questions and process it. Karen. This is maybe a context question with it because I have previewed the survey results already so I think I have an understanding I'm curious if you could help give context so we have these survey results, and how they connect to the next phase like I'm curious, what's going to be done with these results. And how that's going to turn into innovation like who is the group that's going to be reviewing this how is that going to be made what's the timeline. So that's, that's for me. So I don't know if you can just give that contact before we decide where we're going to go with the results. I can start if you'd, if you'd like. So there, there are a couple of different bodies that we've created around this project so most of the people that you're talking to right now are on a steering committee right so we, we have been meeting, I think, you know, twice a month, as we've gone through the project to just the logistics of everything. And then there is an executive steering committee and representative Emmons indicated, you know that she's been part of that committee. And that's a group of stakeholders who we've also been engaging through the course of the project on, I think about a quarterly basis. So I'm going to turn to Southern, and this is where Brad's position is really pivotal is we're creating innovation councils. And the innovation councils will be made up of incarcerated population and staff at the facility, and those councils are going to and they have already been engaging as Abby said you know the, you know, the people who live and work in these, you know, amongst the first to see the survey results and have already started to respond back to us with, you know, ideas for for innovations, but we'll be launching, you know, our continuing to launch these efforts of the innovation councils where we'll be gathering ideas and input from them. What are the ideas that they have and then, you know, working through those innovations and trying as many as we can given the conditions that we're in and testing them out and this is where also our partners at UVM are going to be really helpful because they are going to be with us along the way to assess, you know, the impact of those results. And so I feel like it's, it's an iterative process, you know, and some of the things that we're going to start could be, you know, some small simple things that could have a really big impact. And some things may be much larger and require a lot more effort and planning and training and resources to complete. And one thing that we're committed to doing is is tracking all of those being clear about those and having a really commitment to the participatory process that I that you know Jesse explained, you know, so well. And that's going to be happening over the course of the next few years of the project, and we'll also be informed by the re administration of the climate survey. And I'm happy to have others from the department chime in there. I think the committee would really like to go through the survey. And I've got a question. And hold on, Mary. And then I think that we were really appreciative of all this background information but the rubber hits the road when you did the survey. And there's some disturbing results here that I think the committee would like to vet. Through some of this survey, because that's what this testimony is for is to go through the survey. It's not the high level view is to get into the nitty gritty, and then to figure out about the innovative piece going forward but the piece that really comes through pretty clearly is that both staff and offenders have some real concerns. And some of that is how valued they feel. Some of that is their mental health and emotional supports. And I think we need to dig deeper into this. So I like to get into the survey. Because I don't want to run out the clock here and talk about the philosophy of it. So Mary, you had a question and then I know my only my only quick question was, how was it presented last week to the group that you presented? I'm a little challenged that there's five or six of you here and you're kind of wondering how this is going to be presented to us. So how was it presented last week? I think I can address that question representative so the survey results were provided to the incarcerated and the staff populations at Southern State actually much earlier a couple of months ago when we were finalizing the documents because they were the participatory research partners with the team here. Last week we released the results first to our staff and then conducted a town hall meeting with the entire department on Wednesday. And then on Thursday morning the results were released to the media and we had a media availability on Thursday to discuss with them the results themselves. So to representative Emmons request, I'd be happy to walk us through the document that you have. And then with some help from my friends, we can dig into any of the salient details that you'd like to discuss, or we can talk about the department's plans on how to address some of this aside from the innovations that they plan. Okay, that would be great. Thank you. We have about 20 minutes left. So we may continue and reschedule this so we can do a deeper dive. Absolutely. So on the document that you have in front of you, if you orient yourself to the numbered page three shows up in mind on the deck is is page four but this lays out the demographics of the population that was studied. I don't have any questions about that but it's an interesting cross section to look at as gives the context of who was participating. If we then move to numbered page four, we begin to get into the categories of questions and the responses we got back so the first category is job satisfaction. A couple of things really stuck out to me on this section and that is the issues that we face within the department as it relates to staff are not related around pride in their in their position I think what these results show to me is that people do take pride in their their job at the Department of Corrections and and believe in the mission of the department where we start to see more challenges is in promotions is in leadership and communications which I think underpin a lot of the results we're seeing here. Did did you have any questions about this section or we can keep moving just I want to make sure we're responsive to you but cover any parts of this that you would like to discuss. We can keep moving. Okay, so the next section is reflections on the Department of Corrections and particularly the central office or kind of headquarters component here. Again, I think this this highlights a lot of challenges in the central office's ability or effectiveness and communicating with the staff across the system. I think what I learned in reading some of the these results is people, the staff in the department don't feel that they are involved in decision making, and they don't feel that they understand the why as to why the department does certain things that it does and so to me a lot of that comes back to communication and to engagement with the staff. And I think the survey results reflect that the staff did not feel particularly engaged in the processes of particularly decision making that's done at the central office. And I think that's the thing that we as this committee have heard over the past couple of years. So insane this result is not a surprise to many of us, but it is concerning in that there does seem to be a disconnect between central office and the boots on the ground. Absolutely. And I think this survey result provided us, you know, scientific information scientific data to work off of, but I could have told you that this was this was happening within the system before seeing the print results just having visited the facilities and talk to our staff on the ground there. There clearly is a disconnect between the central office and the facilities and so I'm curious to see if print takes this on as as areas for innovation. And with respect to that I know that this extends beyond southern state and it's something that the department itself needs to tackle system wide and that's incumbent on me to do that and so we're going to work on some initiatives to improve communication and that's our communication to create new avenues for the frontline staff to be able to communicate and then it's incumbent on the central office to communicate back though what are we doing and why are we doing it and wherever we can we need to build in engagement with the staff so that they have their views heard they feel engaged in the process they can communicate back to us. And that's something that I've asked frequently during our town halls during engagements at the facilities that the people send ideas and we really spend time discussing challenges so that it's not just the central office dictating policy that we've really taken into account the real life experiences of staff on the ground in the facilities and in the field as well. Alice I have a question. Commissioner I'm just wondering, do you have a somewhat of a timeframe or some thoughts on that, because I know like our chair has said, we've been hearing a lot of these issues for a number of years, and I know you're going to kind of be continuing with this process with the survey. But when does the when do the boots hit the ground, and we actually see some change in better communication and engagement, and so that we're kind of all working together. What is your thoughts on that and how long this will take I know those survey just came out. But again, you're talking about other kind of additional survey information you'll be gathering, but when is it likely, we might start seeing some positive changes. Yeah, it's a great question thank you representative so I think there's a kind of a two part answer to that. The first part is the print effort itself and I think we want to respect the integrity of this process and allow them to space to do their innovations, but that will certainly take some time as we just now move into that phase. The second part of my answer though is the department itself needs to take on particularly this communication and engagement issue with our staff. And we're doing that right now. Next week, we have our monthly town hall scheduled with our entire staff and during that town hall I plan to outline a few new initiatives that will be launching next week to engage staff and improve communication. I would prefer to discuss that with them but I would be happy to then come discuss it with you all and outline some of the initial steps we're taking. From there then we hope to build more structured long term kind of systemic changes to the system to to ensure that that communication and that engagement with staff can occur and is really codified within the structure of the department. So, I guess that ended up being three parts. One is the innovations from print will happen beginning soon and we'll carry on for a couple of years. The second part is, the department is looking to address this system wide immediately. And then we hope to build a longer term strategy to enhance communication within the system. So, I will look forward to that and I will hold your feet to the fire because we've heard similar promises of this over the years and we haven't quite gotten there. So I'll appreciate any movement you can make on this. I appreciate that I hope you really will keep me honest on that it's it's clearly as this survey demonstrates and as my conversations demonstrate a salient and pain point for our staff out in the field in the facilities. You have another question here Karen and then Larry. I think I am similar with Mary where she's at night, coming from the new legislative perspective, maybe I have more like a plot like this is going to happen right because I'm seeing it like I'm not surprised by this data with my experience with the just the conversations we've had. So, what I'm hoping is that when the report comes out next year, there's going to be a shift in it and I guess I'm feeling hopeful that now there's a tool to measure it so it's not just going to be anecdotes and stories like there's now a tool that's going to measure this that we can hold that accountability. I'm looking forward to that piece of it, and it's helpful to hear that there's these different problems that are going to be taking this data and moving it into action, because that's really what we're all looking for is seeing success in our Department of Corrections. My question is because I agree that transparency is key with this I'm giving everybody the information like so we're all about it. Do the other facilities did they get detailed access to this information and questions I feel like what's happening in Springfield is one thing but I'm guessing in the other facilities are going to be like, Oh yeah, yeah that's true for us to so was there similar conversations in the other facilities. So the survey and the results are limited to southern state that those came from the research done at southern state. I think the, the official answer is, we can't necessarily extrapolate that to the whole system, I would say, you know my answer the unofficial answer is I think this clearly reflects the facilities and the system, and I think we can see that we have other data points that we can lean into that demonstrate that as well. The results themselves, the same document that you are all seeing was shared with the entire staff. And so other facilities did have the opportunity to look at this data, and during the town hall we had an opportunity to discuss it and had a question and answer session, not dissimilar from this. Everybody in the department, and then really everybody in the state of Vermont and nationwide could look at these results now because they have been published but we did share it with staff before we made it public. On your first point. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think in my opening remarks where I really tried to highlight there is. I want this system to be better. We have a lot of room to improve, but we can't do that unless we have the tools in place that really give us the facts, and help us to understand the challenges I think too often. We think we know what the problem is and we think we know what will fix it. And in fact, we're not getting to the root issues and so this, this effort provides us with the, the real data that we need to be able to understand our real sets and then begin to design the meaningful changes that I think we all want. And so, while I agree and understand that people in my position have come here before and said we're going to make meaningful change. And perhaps I will fail also. I hope not. And I think we're the department is completely and entirely committed to getting the tools in place to actually make those meaningful changes. And I think that's the direction we're going that's direction the governor wants us to go. So direction the secretary wants to go I know that's what this body wants us to do. And so hopefully, I am here to help everybody get to that point and get the structure in place to be able to make those meaningful changes. Very and then Michelle commissioner this is representative labor. I'm glaring parts of this survey, hard left blue, hard right, red, but some of that, I think could easily be jumpstarted without a big budget. It's mostly in communication and style of leadership. Have you addressed this with your staff to look for the low hanging fruit that you could do first and make the biggest impacts. Absolutely. That's a great question I could not agree with you more. Somebody somebody recently asked, I can't remember if it was in this committee or another. I apologize. Are you going to need budget to accomplish all of this and certainly there will be some budget tail to some of it but I agree with you that I think many of the money of the challenges we see within these results can be resolved with the existing budget we have or won't require large budget lines, it's it's communication it's leadership it's structural changes to ensure that people feel heard and respected and valued. Those things don't, don't necessarily require those large budget lines and so I agree with you and the staff, you know the team here and my executive team have sat and import over these results and had conversation after conversation about how we do this. We also met with our counterparts in VSE a and our labor management groups here within the department to discuss, what are some. Obviously there are big ticket items budget type items that they relate to benefits and pensions and things of that nature but they're also small small ticket or small bucket items that are simple that if you did this it would make people feel better. So let's group all those together and start pushing those out and so that will also be part of our presentation next week to the staff and I'd be happy to come back and discuss those things with you. I agree that we can do a lot of those little things quickly easily with low cost. And, and they will help us to move the needle and relieve some of the pressure on the staff. I've got a follow up on that I don't, you know, that's fine with the current folks you may have now the central office, what happens when those folks change. How can we ensure that those tools that you've put in place in the communication piece that then ties into the culture of each facility. How can we ensure that that is continuous regardless of who's sitting in central office. Great question. You know I think we can design a structure that that addresses much of this, particularly around communications and engagement and breaking down some of the barriers between the central office and the field the central office and the facilities, the barriers between the field and the facilities we can we can do that structurally. I think it remains codified for the future. I think remains to be seen a little bit I'd be interested in having conversation with you about that. I think the best that I can do is get the department position for success on those things and hand off whenever that may come to fruition. A department that's that is succeeding in those areas and has the structure in place to help the next person continue to build on our progress. But ultimately, much of that I think does fall to the discretion of the commissioner and and hopefully our leadership selects commissioners who are committed to that type of culture change positive interaction with staff, wanting to make those meaningful connections wanting to humanize the staff and value them as human beings in addition to valuing them as as dedicated members to the team here. So if the committee has ideas about how we more permanently structure that I'd be happy to engage on those topics. Yeah, thanks for presenting on this the data, some of the data is really disturbing but it's also really valuable for us to know what are these areas where we really need to make improvement. I have a question about because the huge majority of this has been gathered during COVID. How can we, how can we pay attention to that and know what was a problem before COVID and what, you know, how can we make changes to factor that in I mean I know at Springfield I worked with a number of individuals who who resided at Springfield, when I worked at the Community Justice Center, and there were a lot of great programs that were happening there that stopped because of COVID. There were support group and recovery programs there were religious programs that happened in person, all of that has stopped family visits changed. So how. So the first question is how can we factor in what happened with COVID, and what we can change. The second part is, how can we perhaps do something to address the needs that people have right now, while COVID is still an issue because people being in lockdown all but 15 minutes of the day, maybe they need that to protect from COVID, but maybe we need to do something else to try and meet their mental health and other need areas so if you could speak to those, I would be appreciating it. You know, I would welcome my colleagues here to weigh in on the point about how we deal with this as a survey taken during COVID, and then as we move forward and hopefully out of or at least into the endemic phase of COVID. There are some things that we know predated the COVID 19 pandemic our staffing challenges, for example, the communication breakdown or lack of communication between central and the field and facilities. Those things are long running storylines and trend lines in the department and so we have to address those either way. I think the other point of this that while the survey was taken during the pandemic. The ground has shifted on us the world post pandemic will be totally different than the world pre pandemic and so we're going to have to adapt to our new reality and and it gives us opportunity to build for the future. But we're going to face staff staffing challenges when the pandemic ends, as we do while the pandemic is is still going. So those are areas that we're going to have to focus on very heavily, and I'll let my colleagues speak to that if that they're interested in just a second but on the second point. We do have to do some things immediately to address the mental emotional physical health of the facilities and I think as we move towards the endemic phase of the pandemic or, I guess at that point would be in the endemic. We, we need to evaluate our mitigations that we have in place to determine if they aren't now outweighed by the mental emotional physical toll that they're taking. We have a hugely vaccinated and boosted population both of the incarcerated and staff, much like the state does as a whole. And so with those protections in place. Can we start to draw back some of the mitigations in order to account for the mental health needs the physical health needs the emotional health needs of the incarcerated, but also our staff. I mean I think what this survey says is both populations are being dramatically affected by a litany of mental health, emotional health physical health challenges. And so we can discuss some of the things that we're doing immediately on that front but but it certainly we're beginning to move towards the endemic phase and and there will be changes in the system that need to happen as we get there. But if any of my colleagues wanted to comment on the COVID phase and the point in time nature of the step. This is Jesse if I may add on to that I mean there's a couple of thoughts I mean one is coming back to this capacity point if this data collection is a sustained practice then when we're several years down the road the fact that we started it during the COVID period will not be as critical to understanding because we will have, you know, trend over time. The second thing I would say is this survey data is a rich and valuable source of what we know but we do not have to and will not proceed as though it's the only thing we know, again, you know, among other things this is where, whether it's the some of the qualitative work around focus groups and interviews that Abby had mentioned that was already done is helpful. The participatory work will help if you look at the demographics of the staff who took the survey many of them have been working in the department for a while and as we're sitting down with them and thinking about what this means and what we need to do they will bring in the results that they have of a longer time horizon for the organization so I mean and and also I mean I think some of these situations that we're seeing I think particularly around mental health stress, you know, trauma exposure are caused by the pandemic or at least exacerbated by it I mean those are things that are, you know prevalent and correctional environment all over the country but they're also impacts that are not going to recede by themselves, simply because the public health situation gets better as we all hope it will like you know with anything with trauma when there's damage done specific proactive actions have to be taken to alleviate that and we still need to measure to see whether that whether we you know have reason to believe that some of the things we may come in that are being effective you know the the change in time period isn't going to magically solve you know or or you know mitigate some of these problems like we'll collectively have to do that so hopefully that is that is helpful I mean it is it is you know certainly a challenge that we have to think about and it's you know but when when you start work you have to start it with the time that you're given and you have to start somewhere and this is you know it's it's tragic all the way around that this is the environment that we had to start in and that we have but this is our time that we got I just wanted to you know in reviewing the report and that and I'll be obviously interested to hear all the comments that you all have but I think a lot of the mental health issues and that the I should say more of the probably enhanced mental health issues amongst our staff and you know concerns and their health and all of that is a lot due to the fact of the staffing challenges and kind of crisis like we said there was a problem before COVID and I think it's just been enhanced since COVID so you know the obviously communication and engagement is important but I think the staffing crisis needs to be somehow addressed you know kind of up around the priority do you have any thoughts at this point how to do that. Yeah, thank you representative so I view these as two separate but related problems there's a staff problem and there is a staffing problem. The staff problem is the individual human beings that comprise the department staff do not feel valued engaged communicated with they don't feel that the department is investing in them as people or in their careers. That is one set of problems that that I need to address and I am beginning to address those things and we have strategy in place to do that. The second part is we have a staffing problem we simply do not have enough people to maintain the system the way we want to and so we need to increase those numbers, and we can do that through a couple of different ways. One we have to retain the excellent talent that we already have. And then we need to go out and recruit new talent and so in order to do that, we need a system that people want to come work for that they are told by current members of the staff. It's a good place to work the pay and benefits are good the department treats you well, they're invested in you as human beings. And these things are interconnected and so we do have a strategy in place to get after both of those problem sets, but it's going to be heavily focused on professional development. The department investing in the professionals in our, on our staff to show them that we care about them care about their career and want them to stay in the department. It's going to be focused heavily on staff wellness and so that gets to the mental emotional physical health issues we were just talking about and providing them wrap around services that helps support their whole life, not just their life within the department. We focused on communication and process improvement. As we see throughout the survey results, many people do not feel that the promotion process is fair, many people do not feel involved or communicated with on us whole litany of topics within the department so if we can work to improve those things, and we provide the professional development, the staff wellness. So these things coupled with the work we do separately on benefits pay all taken together will help us to move the needle on the staff and staffing challenges that we're facing. Thank you and I will look forward to your timely updates. Absolutely. With that, and looking at timely situations it's past 12 o'clock. I know that there's a lot more questions for the survey so I would like to schedule some further time for this because I know some community members do want to do a deeper dive. I've only touched the beginning piece of the survey in terms of the communication piece, and the communication piece is vital to our staff feeling valued and developing trust, both in their work environment and trust that Central has their back. So those further conversations and some of that may not involve legislative work, it's work from the department, but how do you keep that in place regardless of who's there. And some of the parts of this involve that some of the facilities for understaffed to begin with, when they first opened up southeast being one, and that is a real budget implication that the legislature needs to grapple with. That's where the legislature needs to be involved in appropriations committees as well. So we need to start because we have other commitments happening so we're going to need to reschedule to continue this conversation and continue going through the survey with this. Any closing thoughts from you folks before we break for lunch. I just simply say that I appreciate the opportunity to be here with our partners and discuss this with you and certainly we welcome a future opportunity to discuss it again. And as we move down this process, we'd be happy to share all the activity that the work and the process improvements that we're putting in place so that you're aware and can help us measure those and make them permanent where they're working well. That'd be great. So thank you folks. I know this is a chunk big chunk out of your day. Thank you. Thank you for giving us the background of the print project, the urban Institute, UVM thank you for the help that you've done on this and being a partnership. It's been very fruitful in terms of the information and it validates a lot that we have heard over the past few years, even pre COVID. This validates what we've been hearing in testimony. So I really appreciate that. And that's what MIDI does as well. So thank you folks. And for folks on YouTube. We will be back this afternoon. At one o'clock, and we will be shifting gears and talking with our state treasure about bonding issues and capital expenditure so we're shifting gears back to our capital budget. So thank you folks on YouTube. Thank you folks for coming in and testifying on the print report. And for you to