 Welcome to those who are listening on YouTube. This is Representative Bill Lippert. I chair the House Health Care Committee and we are meeting today. We're today, we are taking up testimony regarding a and I see Representative Sheena is here. I'll admit him to the meeting. Today we have witnesses to help us understand a proposal that is in the governor's budget, a proposal from the Department of Public Safety, but proposed in coordination as we understand it with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Corrections. We have, and this is a proposal that involves adding mental health staff or counselors to law enforcement as has been done in some other parts of the state and there have been different models. But our goal today is to hear from Commissioner Mike Shirling from the Department of Public Safety and then from Commissioner Sarah Squirrel from the Department of Mental Health. And we will, so we can understand the proposal as it's being put forward. We will then later, as I understand it, we'll be hearing from Representative Christie who sits on the Judiciary Committee also is the chair, co-chair of the Social Equity Caucus and there has been a series of hearings and survey done. And I understand that between Representative Christie and Robin Joy, we will hear some results from the survey as it relates to issues of mental health and law enforcement as well. And I should say that we will be coming back to this topic next Tuesday. And we will, so you'll need to stay tuned to our agenda but we have added a meeting of this committee on Tuesday, 3.30 to five and then the committee will be meeting again on Wednesday and Thursday, stay tuned for the times. I don't have them right at the top of my brain but it will be posted and several of those meetings at least will be to allow other stakeholders to comment on the proposal that will be put forward today. We're doing this as the healthcare committee because we have jurisdiction over the areas of mental health. We understand that the Judiciary Committee and the Government Operations Committee have both been involved in issues of police reform issues. The speaker has asked us to take the lead on reviewing and making a proposal based on our review and testimony after we've had more time to take testimony. In the meantime, some language has been put into the budget is being put into the budget as a placeholder language that will allow our committee to continue its deliberations even as the budget moves forward in its process. So with that, I'd like to welcome and I'm looking around the screen. Welcome, Commissioner Shirling. You are either on the waterfront or you've got some really nifty background but it looks very inviting. But welcome to the House Healthcare Committee. Thanks for having me. That is not a Verlant background. It's quite a large work back there. Oh yeah, I don't see the Adirondacks. A minor missing piece. Okay. Thanks for having me and I'm picking up this important discussion. I know the committee has a memorandum that we drafted back in July that relates to this but I figured I'd go back in history very briefly much further back than that. And then also bring you up to speed on some of the discussions from earlier pre COVID time during this legislative session. So... Mike, can you interrupt you just for a second? I understand you have a hard stop at one o'clock. So I just want other people to know that. I think we should be able to cover your testimony and hopefully hear from Sarah's commissioner squirrels while during that period, perhaps some of the others. We wanna save time at the end for committee discussion but we recognize that you have a hard stop at one. I'm gonna be relatively brief and within an hour there's not enough time to go into all the nuances of the efficacy of this initiative but we'll cover the key pieces and there's definitely plenty of time for interactive committee discussion. The general history here is that the use of embedded mental health and social work assets within first response, within public safety and in particular in law enforcement has a long history both nationally and in Vermont. The first of its kind was an embedded social worker in the town of Bellis Falls and that has expanded over the course of the last two decades to two very robust teams that work in Chittenden County, one in Burlington with assets both on the Church Street Marketplace and city-wide and a second team that works throughout the majority of the towns in Chittenden County. That's done as a partnership between municipalities, the state, the local police departments, the designated agency, the Howard Center, University of Vermont Medical Center and a host of others. And it has grown over time from a single position that was Matt Young, the original street outreach interventionist that was on Church Street into two teams as I described. In addition, within the Department of Public Safety we have relationships with two designated agencies in the Westminster Barracks and the St. Albans Barracks where similar mental health outreach embedded workers have been working for several years. That program is approximately five years old in St. Albans and all of these programs have met with significant success. And in defining success, when I was in Burlington we did a number of different studies and assessments of call volume and interventions and I'll just walk you through a couple of the sort of highlights. The overarching goals have historically been to improve outcomes for folks that are suffering with either mental illness or a personality disorder or some other co-occurring disorder substance related. There could be some criminogenic issues as well. There could just be stress in their life and trying to bring resources to bear as early in the process for them as possible results in better outcomes. And ultimately works to reduce the number of times they interact with first responders whether that's law enforcement or the number of times that they require an ambulance response or a fire response for that matter. A number of times that they find themselves in an emergency department whether that's requiring a point in time care or longer-term hospitalization for some reason or another to essentially intervene as quickly as possible to prevent things from deteriorating using a standard medical model. All of these programs have achieved a very interesting balance of privacy which is always a concern with these kinds of relationships and partnership. And by that I mean weaving together the folks that are responding to 911 calls on a day-to-day basis and adding this asset to the array of tools that are available really has worked well simultaneously not eroding the medical privacy of people that are getting these services. And what I mean by that is it's essentially a one-way street of flow of information. From law enforcement, we're able to share with the responders and the mental health and social workers a general overview of the types of things that we're encountering people the types of events we're encountering people in but there's no need for law enforcement and first responders to see anything to do with their medical diagnosis, their history, case notes and things like that. That's all done in a designated agency using the medical and HIPAA overlays that go with that. So that's the sort of high-level overview of the way these things have evolved in Vermont. In January of this year, we put forth the multi-faceted modernization strategy and one of the important components of that was a desire to expand from the two barracks that we have now to all 10 barracks that the state police run and not just to have these responders cover the service area that is exclusive to where the state police cover but to cover the entire service area. So if a municipal department or a sheriff's department covers a particular portion of that barrack service area, these responders would be available throughout that service area not specific just to where the state police provide service. Historically, one of the impediments to expanding this program were efforts to try to get co-investment which does exist in other programs around the state right out of the gate before you get these workers out in place. So for example, looking to hospitals or municipalities to contribute as much as half the cost to get these folks into service. What we opted to do in January was to sort of reverse those streams and to say, listen, we'll partner with the Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental Health and we'll fund the initial positions and get them out in the field, demonstrate the efficacy to all of the towns, municipality, sheriff's departments and stakeholders. And then we will look to expand the programs by looking at that co-investment model. That still remains the plan but in late February, early March of this year we were struck with a global pandemic and some of those plans were altered. So the original plan to have funding from three different state departments provide as many as six of these responders were altered to initially in July to have a plan where we were going to add two of these responders each year for three years and then in the out years potentially add additional ones. But we were successful in our budget construction in the Department of Public Safety to be able to actually add seven positions to our budget for fiscal 21 and expand from nine of these response, excuse me, from two of these responders to nine responders. So that would leave one barracks uncovered in the near term and would allow us to move forward with really a programmatic initiative rather than individual responders and two barracks that we have now. So what the future goal is is to hire each of these responders, they would remain contractors with an employees of the designated agencies and they would create essentially a team rather than individual responders. They would be a team that works within their service area but taking advantage of training of the experience and the support from the various responders in the nine barracks that would have these mental health clinicians. And in addition to that, the hope is that we would work to have these folks closely embedded in working with the other social workers and mental health outreach specialists that exists throughout the state. So that's the primary overview. There's a lot more nuance to it and a lot of different roads we could take in terms of exploring how work with memorandum of understanding and job descriptions and things like that. But I'll stop there and let the chair and the committee sort of lead which road you'd like to go down. Okay, thank you. I think what I'm gonna suggest is that we, because I certainly have some questions and some of them would be clarifying but I think it might be helpful because what you're describing is a partnership with the DAs who we will hopefully we'll be hearing from next Tuesday. And they have also shared, Julie Tesla has shared with us a memo which I had asked to be distributed again to members and posted on our committee page because I thought it'd be useful to have that as background information as we heard here, listened here today as well. But we have the commissioner of department of mental health which of course contracts with the DAs for crisis services. And let's hear from commissioner squirrel and I see deputy commissioner morning foxes with us as well, welcome. But let's turn to commissioner squirrel and then let's open it up for questions. And I think there are some things which would helpful but they may get clarified as we hear from commissioner squirrel as well. So with that commissioner squirrel, welcome. Thank you representative Lippert for the record Sarah squirrel, commissioner of the department of mental health, deputy commissioner morning foxes joining me here today. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this. I also wanna just take a moment and commend commissioner Sherling for his leadership on this, for his vision of modernization of public safety. I think this is a real opportunity to strengthen our collaborative work between the department of mental health, the department of public safety and corrections. We certainly are all well aware that a very high number of law enforcement calls are related to mental health and or substance use. And this is a real opportunity to move in the right direction. Across Vermont as commissioner Sherling has highlighted, there is a continuum of collaboration that exists to respond to the high volume of law enforcement calls that are related to mental health and our substance use disorder concerns. We have models that include the embedded social worker program that he referenced working with Northwest counseling and support services in St. Albans, as well as HCRS down in Southern Vermont. And I think the outcomes that we've seen as a result of that model of embedded clinicians is first and foremost that individuals who are experiencing mental health challenges, a crisis in the community can actually be referred quickly to appropriate services and supports. It reduces the need for any kind of law enforcement intervention for any path that leads to arrest or incarceration, greater access to treatment, likely decreases in the use of hospital EDs, an approach of course related to suicide prevention. And I think also fundamentally, builds more trust and collaboration in the communities, which is something that is a strength of Vermont and that we continue to build on. We also have community outreach and street outreach programs that function a little bit differently than the embedded clinician model of the Department of Mental Health is an instrumental in leading as well. Folks are aware that we have a community outreach program at the Howard Center. That covers kind of six communities in the Chittenden County area and has that kind of innovated, rated funding model where DMH provides some funding, the municipalities provide some funding as well as the local hospital network. And then DMH also provides funding to the Howard Center for their street outreach program. I think when I think about this, I really think a lot about implementation and the delivery model. And I think one of the things that is really exciting to me and why I'm so pleased with Commissioner Shirling's leadership on this is that we kind of have a little bit of a patchwork quote of approaches in Vermont. And what we really need to do is to knit those approaches together and bring something to scale across the state that will actually have meaningful impact to support Vermonters. And like all things in Vermont, we need to have something that is consistent that we can implement systemically, but still allows for the regional nuances and the uniqueness of communities to inform that work. I also know that that trusting relationships and collaboration are at the heart of any successful implementation. And the fact that both DMH, Department of Public Safety and DOC, will have an MOU that really links and articulates the collaborative partnerships between us ensures kind of ongoing quality improvement. And further that, the heart of this model and work in implementation will be held by our community mental health agencies. So certainly the designated agencies as the hub for this work ensures that it will continue to have the kind of clinical oversight that we would want to see. The other piece that I would add that I think is important for us to consider and have discussed with Commissioner Shirling is the need to ensure that stakeholder voice and peers and individuals who've lived experience are informing our work. We certainly want to take the time to ensure that those who are directly impacted have a voice as we move this work forward. I think we should take some time in the next few weeks to ensure that we bring those voices in to understand what they are thinking about how we might move this forward. I certainly speak for the Department of Mental Health. We think this is the right direction to go, but want to ensure that we have really heard peer voices and individuals with lived experience. I also think the model itself is currently contemplated, does really lay a framework for ongoing accountability in that area as well. The designated agencies, I think are well prepared to continue to ensure that through their respective tables that the voice of individuals with lived experience will continue to inform the work, to improve it as we go forward. And also we have our Adult State Standing Committee at the Department of Mental Health that we want to ensure has voice and input and the designated agencies themselves will also have the opportunity to bring in that input through their respective standing committees as well. So I think in the short term, supporting and moving forward with embedded clinicians is the right direction to go. I also think there's some midterm and longer term pieces that we want to continue to think about as a system of care, which is also broadly standing and strengthening emergency services in general, so that we can have a more proactive response initially that might not even need law enforcement at all. But that might be more midterm to long term, as well as continuing to strengthen our ability to bring peers into that work and to have peers supporting that work at the community level. Again, I think that those are more midterm and long term strategies that are also aligned with the MH's 10 year plan. So those are just, I guess, some initial comments from the Department of Mental Health. We really support this collaboration with the Department of Public Safety and are looking forward to getting this work off the ground. I will pause for a moment, just because Deputy Commissioner Morning Fox has done a lot of work on this and just, you know, Deputy Commissioner Fox wanted to see if there's anything else that you wanted to add based on your experience with Street Outreach and Community Outreach. You're muted, Fox. Just very briefly, thank you. Morning Fox for the record, Deputy Commissioner Department of Mental Health. As Commissioner Squirrel mentioned, a lot of the work I've done over the 25 years in my professional career have been at that intersection of law enforcement and mental health. I've been involved with folks who have developed the crisis intervention training model out of Tennessee, was one of the founding help develop and still part of the steering committee for Team 2 Vermont and continue here as well as throughout New England doing trainings with law enforcement around verbal de-escalation and violence prevention skill training. I have been able to see a lot of the work that has happened with the Bellows Falls embedded worker as well as through the St. Albans Barracks and having mental health professionals teaming up with law enforcement is a growing model throughout the country and the world. And it's time and time again shown success in being able to divert people from law enforcement or the criminal justice system. And so I'm very excited about expanding what we have and needing to keep in mind that all areas of Vermont are not the same. And so I think having embedded workers within the state police barracks is a great step in kind of unifying a lot of what we have around but we also, as Commissioner Squirrel mentioned have street outreach and community outreach programs which are also showing to be very effective and useful programs. And so I think as we move forward again as Commissioner Squirrel mentioned continuing to further develop and support and provide resources for the crisis services and community-based services will help to even get to a place where we can avoid that there has to be that intersection of law enforcement and mental health. I think that's the ultimate goal. But again, we're talking probably mid and longer-term range but I think right now this is a great next step in moving that way. And I think it puts Vermont in a position of being a national leader and doing this type of work. So I will stop there, but thank you for the time. Thank you, Deputy Commissioner Fox. I might ask if I may, you referred to team two and for the benefit of all of us on the committee perhaps you could say something more. I believe I know what team two refers to but I'm not sure if all of us will remember fully. So if you could say something more about that I think that's particularly pertinent to what we're talking about here today. Sure, team two is a model that basically pairs law enforcement and mental health professionals, crisis workers. It's a training model that helps both sides of the table if you will, the law enforcement end and the mental health service provider. And to better understand the capacities and limitations and laws that they have to operate under on the other sides to better help coordinate these types of efforts. It really fits in very well and I think has laid kind of the groundwork for making embedded workers within law enforcement be a much smoother transition than if we were to just start that without having a team two model. You know, the trainings are scenario-based and we have emergency service clinicians working with law enforcement that are in their general communities. And so you're working with people and training with people that you will actually be working without in the field. And some of the major problems that do and have come up when you have both mental health and law enforcement responding to the same crisis if you will, is their communication with each other. And the classic who's on first type of thing, who takes a lead, answering those types of questions beforehand, understanding the laws for the mental health professionals to understand the laws, limitations and capacities of law enforcement helps them to better understand what their role is. And similarly on the law enforcement side to have a better understanding of the laws, limitations and capacity of the mental health service providers so that you're not having to work out those understandings in the midst of a crisis. And so that's the kind of the overall arching tenant of the training. We do train the trainer models so that people both law enforcement and the mental health professionals bring this information back to their respective agencies as well. And we continue to do those trainings. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now but we're talking of a very high percentage of law enforcement departments throughout the state. Not just state police and sheriff's but also just municipal police departments. A large percentage have had members go through this training. We've expanded the training to include states attorneys. As we've had judges attend, members from hospitals and emergency rooms, EMS personnel as well as well as dispatchers. And so really trying to have a better understanding of each person's role during a crisis I think it's a very important aspect so that again, you're not trying to figure out those roles in the midst of a crisis because that only contributes to negative outcomes when you're trying to build that plane as you're flying it, if you will. Right, okay. Thank you. I think that that's helpful background information as well. You're welcome. I see that we have a number of committee members who raised their virtual blue hand and have questions. I'd like to ask an initial question. Is it clarifying for me? It's a clarifying question and Christopher Shirling, if I don't know if you're able, yep, you're still with us, you're just not on video. There you go. The term embedded is being used. And I think it would be helpful for me and helpful for us to understand what it is that is meant by an embedded, I don't know if the clinician is the term that used an embedded social worker or embedded mental health worker. Can you help us understand what that means and why that term is used or why it's important? Certainly. It goes to that close collaboration and communication that Deputy Commissioner Fox was talking about that it's really about having these folks fully embedded with the law enforcement agency with the community so that they have a full understanding and a full view of the field of play. In many instances, if there are roll calls where the beginning of a shift happens, there's multiple officers coming on, they're getting a briefing. These mental health workers are going to that briefing. They have full access to the law enforcement facilities to be able to interact with folks and gather information and figure out where their resources are best utilized. It's essentially a descriptor of the operating environment where the barriers to sharing information and allowing access so they can do their work are broken down. And does that speak to issues of co-location? It can. Or is that not necessarily always the case? It's not always the case in Vermont. As Commissioner Squirrel mentioned, trying to move to a model where we're uniformly using best practice around the state is one of the overarching goals. And co-location is I think an important piece of that, not necessarily on a full-time basis because oftentimes this work is happening in the field. But having the ability to co-locate really is an essential piece of building relationships and sharing information and ensuring that the work is done at the highest possible level and with the greatest breadth of information in forming it. Okay, thank you. So I saw Representative Houghton had her hand up and then I think Representative Murray, Murray Cordis and Representative Sheena. Just to continue that line of questioning a little bit. So when you say embedded for state police but then in Chittenden County, we have the community outreach team, what is, is there, and if there is, what is it, the difference between those two models? There's not a substantive difference in part because our model's not fully flushed out yet, but I know those teams do have direct access to their law enforcement agencies. They go to roll calls, they do ride-alongs. In many instances, they actually carry radios and that's I think something we would envision as well and have access to our computer-rated dispatch and records management system. That way they can see a call coming in or hear a call coming in. They can say, oh, I know John Smith. I've been working with him. I'm well-suited to respond to that. I can take that call instead of sending an officer or they may choose to go with an officer or they may say, hey, John's been a little violent recently, once you get there and get things settled, let me know and I'll come over and I'll work with him. So just provides a lot of different opportunities for to enhance response based on being, I mean, embedded's one way to describe it, but really just being part of the team is I guess the best way to paraphrase it. Thank you. And then just one follow-up question on the team too, is that are all officers who have either an embedded or community outreach or street outreach connected with them required to go through that training? Team two is not a requirement at this point, but I believe that most of the folks who are part of the like community outreach program and things of that sort have gone through the team to training, but team two is strictly a voluntary training at this time and has been since its inception several years ago. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. And then we'll say, Gina there's a Christiansen and represent page of questions. Thank you. I have a concern that I haven't seen a reference both in the memo or in the larger plan or the presentation to formalization of a relationship with the racial equity task force and especially in light of the recent Cornell UVM report that showed that implicit bias training had little to no impact on policing behavior. In this, I know we're talking about mental health but I strongly believe that a formal relationship with the racial equity task force and or the human rights commission should be involved in any work around any work period, but especially around public safety. Can you, all the commissioners and deputy commissioners if you can respond to that, I'd appreciate it. Sure, I'll start. Excuse me, the executive director of racial equity is involved with us on a daily basis on much of our policymaking and our initiatives. So that's one piece of the puzzle. The other is within the department of public safety, I would dare to say we have the most robust equity advisory structure probably in all of state government that's grown up over the last several years. We have a fair and impartial policing committee that now has co-directors, both a sworn captain but also now a civilian co-director and a huge team of stakeholders, most of which are outside of state government, many of the names that you would recognize that help us guide these kinds of strategies and they're very much in the loop on this initiative. Thank you. So they've been directly involved? They vet things like our modernization strategy, our 10 point fair and impartial policing plan that we put forth in June in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy or constant contact. I wonder if it would be instructive to have them listed in the outward facing, the public facing materials that you present as a model of how to create state policy and include those representatives. I think commissioner Scherling, we're happy to explore that. I'm sorry, I was speaking over commissioner Scherling. I'm not sure if people heard what I didn't hear what you said, unfortunately. Which piece don't respond to the last question? I think everyone quarters was asking about making reference to them and then you had a response. Yes, I just said we'll take a look at ways to do that. I see, okay. Thank you. Any comments from commissioner or deputy commissioner from DMH? No, the only comment that I would make would be that I would support that perhaps more formalized connection and certainly articulating it in the memo and the program design I think is important because I think this is an effort to improve healthcare access. But we wanna make sure that we're tailoring the provision of care services or the enhancement of care to remove any obstacles that minority patients or individuals might face. So, and to continue to promote culturally informed services. So I do think that's an important next step and I appreciate the representative bringing that up. Any further comments? I can only echo what both commissioners said and just said, I think it's an important piece to make sure that it is part of the process. People with mental health issues are historically stigmatized and biased against as well as people of color as well. And so combining those together makes for an even more potential from a bias or stigma perspective. And so you can only add to the potential success of this by including that. Okay, thank you. Representative Cordes was that, that was, okay, we're gonna continue on then with Representative Chena. Thanks. Yes. I still don't know if Representative Houghton, you had your hand up again or Representative Christensen following Representative Chena. Thank you. I think my questions start with, I don't know, are you Secretary Sherling? I don't know what your title is. Are you the secretary? Mike is fine. Okay, well, Mike, I think it starts with you, although I think where it goes is to all of the witnesses, but from my recollection, like when Burlington was first had a street outreach program, it was just Matt Young and then it expanded. At some point along the way, there was street outreach worker embedded at the police department. And I don't believe that's the case now, but I could be wrong. So I think my first question is, is there still a worker embedded in the Burlington Police Department or did that stop at some point? I'm not aware that that stopped when I was the chief of police in Burlington, we expanded from a team of two to a team of six in the city and we expanded that from just being on the marketplace to being a statewide response entity and they all had radios. They came to our roll calls. They were fully embedded in the day-to-day emergency and non-emergency response to the wide. I don't know if that's changed because I haven't been there in about five plus years. Yeah, and I'm not sure either. So, because I was gonna ask if it has changed, why are they not embedded there anymore? And the reason being, we're talking about adding embedded workers to state barracks, but if they're not embedded in Burlington, I'd be curious what were the reasons why that stopped? Go ahead, if you have an answer, go ahead. I just have a little bit of information that might help clarify Representative Chiena. So just to clarify, we have two programs that are focused on Chittenden County that the Department of Mental Health provides funding for. The first is the community outreach program, which I would say is the newer program, if you will, where that covers a broader community. I think it's South Burlington, Richmond just came on board and that's kind of that braided funding model where DMH provides, I think it's $160,000 to that effort. There's a UVM grant that also funds it and some additional funding as well. And that's community outreach that's focused on. I think it's five or six different municipalities. Originally, there is a street outreach program, which DMH also funds. We provide global commitment investment dollars to the Howard Center, along with some of our mental health block grant funds. And that currently funds for full-time specialists who are embedded and work closely with the Burlington Police Department. It is focused, it is my understanding that that is focused a little bit more on the Church Street area and just that downtown Burlington area. So it doesn't have the same breadth that community outreach does, but there are currently four full-time folks that are a part of that outreach working very closely with the Burlington Police Department. And I'm looking, look at Deputy Commissioner Morningbox to see if I got any of that wrong. So there are still workers embedded in the Burlington Police Department. Yeah, the word I use is works closely with. So what that looks like in terms of embedded, I would just need to, I think I would need some more clarification. Well, I know that there was at least one worker, and I Googled just now to fact check myself to make sure I was correct, who had an office at the station. And in the article, it talks about how people used to call him a narc because they viewed him as working for the police and that he had to do a lot of work to try to like, that his tires were slashed, et cetera. And so I guess I just bring it up because I'm trying to understand like, what were some of the challenges that we saw of having embedded police officers in Burlington, and how that- Embedded mental health workers? My bad, embedded mental health, see that's the Freudian slip. And that's the mistake I think other people make when you embed mental health workers with the police, but is that they start to view them as an extension of the police. So I guess my question is, I'm trying to better understand some of the lessons learned in Burlington. I know every part of the state is different, but that doesn't mean that there aren't lessons to be learned. And I do think it'd be good to hear more from people on what their experiences were, what the challenges were, as well as the strengths of having- Yeah, that's a great question. I spent literally hundreds of hours walking the street with Matt Young and his team and growing this program in Burlington. And I can tell you unequivocally, the concerns like the- That was Justin that was relaying that experience where someone called him an ARC, are those kinds of concerns and confusions are few. More often than not, what we actually see is people in the community, once they realize that those workers exist, they're calling and asking for them to come and help them. So that is the most prevalent experience, is that we get people who are in, have some frequency of need of services of some kind and don't have to have those services or needs met. And more often than not, they're actually calling and saying, can you send me Bob or Joe or Samantha or whoever that worker is? Because I really want to talk to them. I really need to talk to them. And it actually creates a little bit of a challenge in that they're not that person's specific clinician, but what the role it has evolved to in some instances is being that sort of pivot point that the mental health worker being the pivot point to connect them back to their designated clinician or to other services and really being that global facilitator for them to ensure that they stay healthy and safe. I appreciate it. I have one other question that it sort of pushes the connection between this specific suggestion and the greater system of care. And when I stumbled upon, when I was reading the article, I stumbled upon a quote from you, Mike, from 2014. So you may not remember it, but I want to read it and see what your thoughts and the other's thoughts are about this quote. Because when you said to the seven days that it's not a magical answer to the underlying challenges. The problem pre-November and post-November is the same said Sherling. There are too many people reaching a crisis threshold on the street and once that threshold is reached, there are very few options. We've got to create a system that minimizes the number of times that the behavior gets to that point that it requires that level of intervention. And I don't see any evidence of that going on anywhere. So I mean, I know it's been six years since then. And I'm curious like when we think about how this fits into the overall system of care, what your thoughts or the other mental health staff thoughts are about like, you know, that this is maybe not a magical answer and what are some of the other things we need to be thinking about connected to this to make it successful? That's an outstanding question. And I do very much remember that quote because I've said that in other versions of it many times over the last 15 years. The underlying thesis, and I should actually start before I go into this thesis to say that Commissioner Squirrel and Deputy Commissioner Fox and their team have done a lot over the last several years to do the work that I was essentially begging for at that time. But the underlying thesis is this, that 50 years ago deinstitutionalization was absolutely the right thing to do. But there was an unfulfilled promise of an investment of resources to care for people in communities that was only partially met. We disinvested when that happened and we never reinvested in the requisite systems to support people in the field. Whether that's underfunding and this is not the fault of the current General Assembly this is 50 years of underfunding the Department of Mental Health designated agencies and the healthcare system in general. And as a result, what we see is we've reinstitutionalized many folks that would have traditionally been in the mental health system in the criminal justice system. And the more nuanced piece of the thesis is that we wait for folks to decompensate, to get to a crisis level before we offer them any level of intervention. And this program is designed to change that as is a suite of options that we put forth actually a model for criminal justice and public health that we put forth in our modernization strategy in January, which has four sections to it. And the underlying premise there is that a dollar spent earlier on in the system is a better dollar spent. So the first stage is education and prevention prevent illness, prevent crime, prevent whatever it is from prevent drug addiction from happening and that's your best dollar. The next level is outreach and intervention and that's where this program comes in. If we can intervene early, we can identify challenges whether that's in schools in our healthcare system in criminal justice with police officers as problem solvers with embedded mental health workers whatever the approach is, if we can intervene early and pick something before it becomes a bigger problem then that's a better dollar spent. And next is alternative sanctions. So now you're in a place where whether it's low level crime or disorder or it's a decompensation by a patient that suffers from mental illness and now they need more enhanced services. The other areas have failed and on the mental health side maybe it's a day at a crisis facility in a crisis bed or on the criminogenic side it's low level disorderly conduct or something where someone ends up in detention for a day and then they go through a diversion process. Bringing those low level interventions to bear and the best examples of those are things like restorative justice, traditional diversion things that aren't using the blunt instrument of the back end of the criminal justice system to try to correct behavior but being far more nuanced and really using more of a health and compassion and safety approach. And then finally you reserve the resources of the traditional courts and corrections only for those folks who really have significant intractable problems that haven't been able to be solved through education prevention, outreach and intervention and alternative methodologies. So I appreciate the opportunity to walk you through that model. That's a vast oversimplification of the model and the underlying thesis of what's causing some of the challenges that we face on the street in the 21st century. But I think those challenges still exist. As I travel around Vermont and I talk with municipalities with first responders whether that's police officers, folks that are in the back of an ambulance or firefighters who are doing first response they remain very concerned about the intersection of mental health and people's well-being in that regard and the demand on services and ultimately our ability to care for those folks and what we have for resources. And again, under Commissioner Squirrel there's been a lot of emphasis on this and a lot of progress has been made but we still have as demonstrated by this proposal we have more to do. You're muted, Brian. Sorry, I was just gonna say thank you and I really appreciate you talking about it more and I don't wanna take up too much more time because I know we have other witnesses and I just wanted to say that I appreciated that your understanding and you making the case for how we spend money as a society is gonna affect the outcomes and it sounds like you're making the case for us to invest a lot more money in health care and in mental health than in like the extreme sort of police interventions because by investing money in the system of care we're actually gonna reduce the need for those interventions and it's sort of like maybe a better investment of our money in the long-term in fulfilling that promise. You're absolutely right. There is absolutely a better investment. The big challenge and as the general assembly it's the one that's laid at your feet because you have to make the financial decisions is you can't pivot the system on a dime. So we have the structures we have now and we're trying to modify and improve them and modernize them and we're trying to get as many people diverted away from traditional corrections and courts as possible or hospitalization on the other in a different lane but we've got to be able to maintain those systems until we're able to make the pivot. So that's the really hard part is where you find the resources to make that pivot. And again, this policy choice and this proposal to spend this money is an example of how to make that pivot, I think. Yeah, it's sort of on the micro level trying to do what we need to do for the whole system. Yes, and I should also say Commissioner Squirrel and Deputy Commissioner Fox are the subject matter experts here. So I would also defer to them to tell me whether I've got any of this wrong. So I'm going to intervene here as the chair just to say that I understand that Commissioner Sherling you're going to need to leave us shortly and I have a number of the committee members who have questions or comments and I'd love to actually if we can and if Commissioner Squirrel is going to be able to stay a little bit longer, at least see if there are questions that should be directed specifically to Commissioner Sherling from Representative Christensen, Representative Durfee and Representative Donahue here. And recognizing we only have like five or six minutes until Commissioner Sherling may have to leave. I am working an extension for you, sir. I'm going to try to get to 130. Okay, we'll be pleased if you can do that. So let me turn first to Representative Christensen. Mine is a pretty short question. I think the embedded program is a great one, but how many calls to embedded health workers go to in relation to the number of calls the police have? Basically, how busy are they? And is there a ballpark figure of their use? They are incredibly busy. In the almost eight years I was chief in Burlington, our call volume where there was a mental health intersection grew over 400% and we were utilizing these workers. The other way to look at this is the team grew from a single person to now two teams of roughly half a dozen each in the Chittenden County area all based on demand. So they're going to hundreds and hundreds of calls. In addition, also of note and your question is excellent because it brings up this side note as well. In many instances, they're making proactive contact with folks that may have had a call three or four days ago or may have had multiple calls in the last month and they're doing sort of maintenance contact and ensuring that they have what they need and that they're healthy and safe and that they don't have to call 911 for an emergent need. And they're doing a lot of proactive work in that regard when they're not responding to calls as well. Thank you. So I'm going to keep asking for members to at least put their questions on the table. And if along the way, commissioner Squirrel, feel free to and morning folks jump in. Representative Durfee and Representative Donahue. Yeah, thank you. And commissioner Sheryl, and thank you. You had talked about the barracks coverage areas and I live right down the road from the Shaftesbury barracks and not too far in the other direction is the Bennington Police Department. And I'm wondering if this envisions someone embedded in Shaftesbury with the state police and calls typically would come into the Bennington Police Department, how will that work in practice? If the intent here is to be performing interventions before there are crises, are they going to be getting to know that the folks that they're most likely to be dealing with when there is a crisis, I guess is what I'm thinking. And it would apply to other locations, I guess around the state too. Yeah, the underlying answer is that the practice will evolve once there's some experience, but generally the overarching goal is that this is a statewide asset that we're suggesting investing and not just an asset for the state police. So covering Bennington to the greatest extent possible, we see as part of the mix, but you've also hit on where resources will get stretched, right? So Bennington's a reasonable sized city by Vermont standards. And the future of this program, if you go back to the beginning of my remarks, we hope is that by demonstrating the efficacy of deploying these first 10 in the barracks, is that we then have folks in healthcare, designated agencies and other stakeholders, municipalities, et cetera, willing to step up and co-invest to expand the program. I can almost guarantee you that a single worker in that barracks with Bennington close by is not going to be enough. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. And is it nine or is it 10 that the funding is envisioning for this year's budget? There's seven funded positions in this budget. There are two positions that are already funded in Westminster and Shaftesbury, but also important to note, those positions are currently funded by the designated agencies. So we're very well aware that in order to bring parity statewide that not only do we have one more barracks that needs coverage that isn't envisioned here, but also that we've got two positions that are funded and using alternative strategies that we've got to bring some parity to. Can I ask which one isn't envisioned for the funding? We haven't exactly figured that out, but if I were to, I've been asked this a few times in the last few days on why my best guess is it's going to be chitin' in because there's such robust resources there already. And it's, Bellas Falls and St. Albans is the second one, right? Currently. Yes. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Okay. Representative Donahue. Thank you, yes. And part of this may be put on the table for future discussion when we get more into it, but part may be right up front now. I'm still grappling with our use of the term embedded and what that means in terms of specific models and specific programs being proposed because we have a lot out there and we have a specific proposal here. And I'm really wondering in terms of sort of public perception, does embedded mean, I mean, who are they a part of? Is really, I think in the public mind, are they part of the police structure and police roles providing mental health support? Are they part of the mental health system and a mental health role that's supporting what the police need to respond to? Because I think there would probably be pretty broad consensus that working closely together matters and is probably the most important thing. But when we get down to, well, who do they report to? Who's, you know, reporting the reporting structure, who owns them and all that gets into more of the specifics and it maybe leads to kind of an ultimate question of, you know, is part of the reason that we even need these and recognize the need for enhanced support and response because of the failure to adequately fund and staff the existing crisis teams who one would think that this has traditionally been part of their intended role. I know I've been to team two programs and I've talked with police agencies who have said, well, the problem with team two is they tell us how to collaborate. But when we call the crisis teams, they don't come because they don't have enough staffing and they're not available to respond. So it's in part a much broader question about the resources, but in the more specific, what embedded means in terms of this model? Is this proposal is to say, this is part of the police structure and the police role versus it's part of the mental health structure and mental health response role? So great series of questions. I'll have to defer the crisis team investment component to commissioner squirrel because I don't know the statewide overlay for that. Are you clear to hear me or are you hearing a lot of background noise right now? Okay, good. I don't want to get bogged down by the word embedded. So if there's a suggestion for a better way to frame that we're all ears to answer the first part of your question representative, they're part of the overall public safety fabric, not only in law enforcement, but for our ambulance services and rescue squads for our emergency departments where they're often finding themselves responding. So it's really embedded in many different things. But if there's a better way to describe that, that's great. That said, one of the core goals is to deliver more surgical response than you would typically get from a police officer responding to a mental health or even a co-occurring disorder. Hold on just a second. It's about to get loud. There's a motorcycle next door. We're in the parking lot, I suppose. In, I lost my train of thought. The reality of 911 in the 21st century is that you have access to really three things by calling 911. You can get the fire service, you can get an ambulance or you can get a police car. The scope of response for our partners in fire service in EMS is pretty limited. The scope of response for law enforcement policing is enormous. It's really the catch-all for absolutely everything else that doesn't fit neatly into the fire service or EMS. And adding these additional tools to this toolbox in terms of what response you can get is the purpose of the embedding. So just a brief follow-up is, but in this model, who are they reporting to supervisor and supervisory structure within the state police, the barracks they're in? Or are they reporting? Sorry, I missed your middle question there, I skipped it. They would be employees of a designated agency. Their clinical oversight and operational supervision would come from the designated agency as it does in the other programs. But there's a memorandum of understanding that is in place that sort of outlines the types of work that they do in the arena of public safety. So while they're partnered with our supervisors and our folks that are responding, there's no direct supervisory relationship there. Okay. Commissioner Skrull, do you wanna comment at all on the crisis, the advocacy of the crisis model? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, it's a great question, Representative Donahue. And I did try to allude to it earlier in my comments that, and I do think what's at the heart of this, I mean, this is not public safety proposing, they're gonna hire their own clinicians under VSP. They're trying to partner with the designated community mental health agencies, which I think is the right way to do it. There is that clinical oversight, there is that expertise, and then their supporting law enforcement at the community level. I would also just add that, as I mentioned before, kind of mid-term and longer-term, my vision and the vision that I think that we aspire to as a system of care is that we are able to successfully expand the continuum of prevention services and continue to expand crisis services so that that response can be more robust, it can be more proactive, we can intervene earlier, as I said earlier, without law enforcement, even needing to be involved at all. However, the current system in terms of how, what's the first door that individuals go to? Unfortunately, sometimes in our current state, it's law enforcement. So if we can enhance that first encounter for an individual who is struggling with a mental health issue, get them directly connected to the clinical and therapeutic services that they need, that's the right next step. But at the same time, I think we need to hold ourselves accountable as a system to be really looking at what is the expansion of emergency services that we need in the state and what is the expansion of peers as a part of that, to me is incredibly important as we look forward. And I, that is articulated in the 10-year plan that DMH has put forward as well. I wanna say just, I'm sorry, someone else was speaking. Is that, okay. I was just going to say that from my years of working in the mental health system, but some years ago now I acknowledge it, but also that I find myself as I was thinking about this proposal, it kind of touching on what Commissioner Sherling was alluding to that when people talk about calling the police, it's, I'm sorry, am I, I'm getting some feedback, okay. Someone isn't muted, someone else isn't muted. I think Representative Cordes, you may need, you said you're muted, okay. Let me just say that I think many times people, when they see a difficult situation and where there's mental health issues involved, the first response is we need to call the police. And I think that's what Commissioner Sherling is alluding to, that the police are the catch-all for most community members who are not necessarily knowledgeable at some high level of what's the mental health system's role, what's the law enforcement role, do we have diversion programs, do we have street workers, whatever, it's like there's something going on that's sufficiently disturbing to me as a citizen or as someone, someone call the police. And I think that that is the frame in which I see this as trying to bring more resource to that, to those crisis situations. They may be because likely law enforcement is gonna be called and we want there to be additional resource that's not just coming from the law enforcement frame as Commissioner Sherling has said. And so this is living, my observation anyway is that this lives on the boundary between trying to provide crisis services around mental health and support to the law enforcement community who are becoming de facto the point of contact for many communities and many citizens within the community. And this is trying to add resource so that a more effective response can be provided to the citizen who's having the distress or the crisis. And I think Commissioner Sherling, I'll say that the reason I asked early on about what did embedded, I mean, I think there is something about the word embedded that carries levels of connotation that go beyond what, it may provide a level of comfort or not not comfort, it may provide a level of acceptance in the world that you're living in. And for some others, it has connotations that maybe go toward the level of what Reverend Chiena was saying earlier that well, if they're embedded with the police, well, then aren't they just really part of the police? And so I think that's something to think further about to struggle with in terms of terminology, sometimes language, sometimes makes a big difference in terms of public messaging and acceptance for the various communities involved and impacted. That's a great point. We'll alter that over the next day or so as we're refining. And I think if it's possible for some people to be following some of our testimony, I think there may be some helpful thoughts that are offered that can help us all resolve some of these questions that we have. So I don't see any other hands right now from, and I know we have other witnesses that we want to hear from. I wanna say thank you. I think I'm gonna suggest that we pivot now to our other witnesses. Thank you, Commissioner Scherling. This has been very helpful. Commissioner Squirrel, likewise thank you and Deputy Commissioner Fox. If either of you are able to stay and hear some of the other witnesses, I think that would be helpful as well. But if you're not, we understand. But I think at this point, I'd like Coach Christie, I'd like to turn to you. And maybe Ann, I'm gonna ask Representative Donahue perhaps to introduce what we're about to be hearing more from our next witnesses. So Representative Donahue, I'm gonna turn it to you. Thank you, just very briefly, I've been a part of the social equity caucus which has been pretty active along with the government operations and judiciary committees on looking at the question of police reforms, policing reforms, and so forth. And it became clear, it was already clear probably for those of us deep in the mental health world but it became clear in terms of public responses that the social equity caucus fielded a broad statewide survey, Judiciary and GOV-OPS had some public hearings. And the issue of mental health response was very active in many of the comments. And so Coach Christie as the chair of the social equity caucus, I think can give a little intro to what its aims were with this survey, which really had some, I think fairly significant information of interest to what we're looking at in terms of public perceptions about needs specific to mental health response within the scope of policing reform. And then Robin Joy is with the prime research group here in Vermont and has helped with the survey and can help present and will help present what some of those findings were. So let's turn it over to Representative Christie and Robin Joy to in whatever combination in order makes best sense. I think probably starting with Kevin Christie, Coach Christie. Hello everyone. Welcome to you as well. I'm really honored to be able to be here with you today. You know, to give a quick history of the caucus itself and it's very self-explanatory when you look at the name of the caucus and its mission. The social equity caucus is an inclusive learning community. You know, that is very intentional. The social equity caucus is a group compromised of legislators and advocates working with a mission to improve outcomes for marginalized peoples and create a vehicle for Vermonters to access their representation, leadership and community. It is not enough to get rid of institutionalized inequality we aim to institutionalize equity and inclusivity. Now, you noticed I was very emphatic, you know, about that description. And, you know, it's meant to be that way. It's a radical approach of merging Vermonters together to help us in our work. You know, and that's the key. And I'm really proud of all of the folks that have been working with us. I look around the room and I see folks that have been, you know, like part of our community, you know, of Vermonters trying to help other Vermonters get through these, especially these crazy times that we're in right now with the pandemic especially. So to get to our survey, we were trying to elicit more voice from Vermonters across the state. So a team of us, community members and legislators started looking at, you know, what would be a useful way to do that? As you could see, there were three hearings that resulted from that discussion. There were joint hearings with the Judiciary and House Government Operations Committee. And they weren't just regular hearings. They were intentionally offered at different times of the day so that we could get more access to people who normally couldn't participate, you know, in our work. So there was one done on a Sunday. There was one done in the evening. And then there was one done intentionally at the noon hour. So we were looking at how do we access the voices of Vermonters who normally aren't accessed. So that was the hearings. And then obviously more formalized because they were directly related to our legislative path. So then we branched out to say, okay, let's take off that hat and see how can we access Vermonters who normally wouldn't even find themselves comfortable coming to the legislature in any way. So a group of folks working with our lead on this Sarah Coffey and Lucy Rogers developed a surveyed instrument, a fairly simple one. But it was designed to ask Vermonters, what do you think with regard to this redesign of law enforcement? And how does it affect you as an individual Vermonter? I was really pleased with our responses. We had 1,446 responses. Every single county in the state responded, you know, some more than others. You know, women, men, people of varied backgrounds, the disabled community, it achieved what we were hoping it would. We're still learning from it because, you know, with that many responses, obviously getting to what was said by our fellow Vermonters is really important. So during one of our meetings, the crime research group offered their expertise in analyzing data over and above what we shared with you, which is the baseline survey monkey analysis. There's three files that I shared with all of the members. And I just recently did it, so it's at the top of your email because we know how that works. You know, I mean, if we sent it yesterday, it's... Buried. It's buried, you know. But recently did it intentionally so that you'd be able to see it fairly quickly. So one of the pieces, the link that's in the email will actually allow you to access question six of the survey, which asks the question, do you have any additional comments? We had somewhere in the neighborhood of over 600 people who responded to, oh yeah, I've got something extra to say. So, and that's where the meat and potatoes is of the survey as well. And we're still analyzing that. And I think at this point, I'd like to ask if Dr. Attorney Robin Joy would chime in as far as her look at that part of the responses. And she's developed a tool to help us analyze that as well. So Dr. Joy. Thank you. So for the record, this is Robin Joy. I am the director of research for crime research group. Just a little background since I don't normally appear in front of this committee. We used to be the Vermont Center for Justice Research and we have a contract to provide state statistical analysis services for the state on crime and criminal justice policy issues. For example, some of the things that you can just ask me for or any of the public can ask me for is what do people who get charged with this crime get sentenced to or what do the arrest rates look like in my town and all sorts of things. And then we also apply for grants that help support research into policy issues that our stakeholders have an interest in. For this project, what we did is we did volunteer our time to help the committee analyze all of the responses and the qualitative aspect of it. Overall, I just want to point out that out of the people that responded to the survey, increasing access to mental health services, no matter what that looked like, just the general let's increase access was the highest of all the options. So people could rank the questions one to five. You could choose multiple number fives, which were the most important. And but increasing funding for mental health outreach overall scored the highest out of any of the options that people had. And in a close seconds came adding more social workers to law enforcement. And then what we did is we kind of I'm sorry, three things haven't happened in the time that you guys have been meeting. No one's known their lawn. My dog didn't bark and the train didn't go by. And now all those things happened. So I'm trying to find a room where my dog won't hear you or you won't hear my dog. So the responses. So what we did is we looked through all the responses and assigned just kind of a general term to them. That was the gist of what the person was saying. So it didn't necessarily mean whether they were pro or against but really this comment was about mental health or really this comment was about citizen oversight or really this comment was about the ACLU 10 point plan or those sorts of things. When it came to mental health, mental health showed up in a few different places and with a few different themes attached to them. So one theme attached to mental health was this idea of training for officers around mental health issues. I can't speak to what training officers currently get but there was a strong presence of people in the survey responses who really wanted to make sure that law enforcement were getting training around cultural competency with mental health issues, around the different particular mental or behavioral health issues. One person specifically requested training on autism and autistic responses to situations. Another person specifically was looking at issues of PTSD and how can we increase officers understanding of how people with PTSD respond. Another group of answers was very concerned with this idea of embedding police officers and there was a lot of confusion in the responses on how that would happen. And then there was also a sense in the answers of defund the police means defund the police and this is not defunding the police. So I'm just reporting what some of the answers were. Overall though, I would say that the concern of how our society responds to mental health as the commissioner Shirley was saying, like with this hammer, the criminal justice system, that from the responses is unacceptable to the people who responded. So I'll just kind of stop there for now and see if there's any questions or if a coach or a representative, Donahue, want to prompt me for something that I have not said that I said before? Let me see if coach or representative Donahue wish to weigh in or ask a question or comment first and otherwise I'm gonna turn to questions from the committee. Coaches. I think that was a great overview. I think that was a great overview and I think questions might draw out other aspects. Okay, thank you. Representative Houghton, you have a question or comment? And I apologize. I have a question, a large vehicle went by my house. Your very last statement and I could not hear what you said. I apologize. Well, I think I was just asking to, because I had spoken with Rep. Donahue and Representative Christie before that if there was anything that I had forgotten. No, no, write me a comment about something about a nail in the head, maybe? About the embedding, the connection to police social work versus exterior. Yes, and so there was a contingent of people who responded. So everybody wants somebody, the people who responded overwhelmingly whether they left a comment or not are concerned about the way our criminal justice system interacts with our mental health system or at least concerned about the way the people who experience mental health issues are interacting with our criminal justice system. I think that's a better way for me to phrase it. There are people who are concerned about the idea of embedding police officers or embedding mental health officers in a police department because their argument is that they want to defund the police and this is not defunding the police. But I will say that overwhelmingly people are asking for in this survey something to be done about mental health and then they have varying subgroups of how best to approach that. Great, thank you so much for repeating that. I appreciate it. Don't worry about it. That was helpful to hear again. Yeah, and I think, Mr. Chair, in listening to the earlier testimony, I think that question of language and then definition becomes very critical and Representative Donahue bought that out in a number of different statements. And I think we heard that from both Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner Schirling as well that people's understanding, language is a powerful tool and I think as simple as we might say, well, geez, people ought on. No, no, don't even go there. As a teacher, and I think most of us have taught at some level or trained at some level, we understand when you're trying to help somebody understand something, that's the most difficult job or task that anybody ever embarks on. So it really becomes critical how we go about doing that. And I think it would be incumbent upon us to be very reflective of how we address this one based on the information. I mean, the data speaks for itself. Dr. Joy just shared with us the results of this, the voices of our constituents basically saying, we need this fixed and they understand that there's the need. So they're leaving it up to us to answer that question. So. And can I just say that I think, I wanna just reflect that I appreciate the speaker of the house giving us the direction because our committee's response was the proposal has that's coming forward. We're concerned about mental health access for Vermonters and mental health issues and law enforcement, but we have not had the chance to analyze the proposal or hear testimony, take testimony, nor hear voices of the impacted communities. And so that's what we're in the midst of right now. And so I think it's very important and I just publicly give credit to Speaker Johnson for saying, okay, this is an opportunity. This may be exactly how we should move forward, but I'm going to charge our committee that's whose primary responsibility or who has primary responsibility around mental health, working closely with the Judiciary Committee and the government operations committees who have been listening to communities around pleaser form to have us analyze this, take testimony, which we're doing today and we'll do it again next week before we make any further recommendation. And then responding, as you said, Coach Christie trying to be as thoughtful as we can in terms of hearing the results of the survey as well as testimony that we hear. Back to the point of Madam Speaker, oh, seven weeks ago, a group of legislators and community members and of the affected community met with Speaker Johnson. And I think that that in that discussion helped inform her and it had such a positive effect that that's how we got to this. She had actually invited the psychiatric survivor community, the BIPOC community together in a small group session. And like you said, to her credit, that's what helped us continue this work moving forward. Just another quick comment, if I may, the social equity caucus will also be working over the next few months. We were able to put together a task force and it's a task force made up of not your normal cast of characters, so to speak. Usually when we put a task force together, it's commissioner does its deputy commissioner that, you know, and then a sprinkling of affected people. We flip that paradigm. It's all affected people and a smacker, a sprinkling of legislators. So it's a 14 member task force and there will be five legislators involved, but only in a hearing capacity in that task force. Right now it's being formulated and some of the topics that we're talking about now will be ongoing for the next legislative session so that we will be able to continue that work. And it was supported through the Vermont Community Foundation. So there will be a honorarium paid directly to those participants, those 14 member Vermonters, who will be doing that work. So it's an exciting approach to our work in general, but I just wanted to share that with the committee as well. So other questions for Representative Christie or Dr. Joy about the results of the survey? So I'm not seeing any other hands right now. Thank you very much for being with us today. This is very helpful for us to understand. And I've asked our committee assistant, Dennis Martin, to post the documents that you provided. Coach, they'll be posted on our Health Healthcare Committee page today so that it's easily accessed by people who may be listening on YouTube and would not have received your email. But those documents from the survey responses and the analysis are posted on our Health Healthcare Committee page as well, our web page. Good to see everybody virtually. Good. Thank you. I missed you guys in the hall, you know, I mean, well, we all do. We all do. It's a frustration that and it's it's the it's to be quite honest, it's that human contact which we have sometimes in between the official work that we do, as well as official contact in the halls. People have no idea how much work it's done in the hallways and the cafeteria. But we don't have a virtual cafeteria right now. Really? Really? And we're not in that one out. Right. Hi. How are you doing, Brian? OK, there he is. All right. That's that. That's right. OK. We got several brains going on here. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to suggest that at this point, maybe we I'm going to turn to represent Donahue as well and maybe I'm going to reserve major committee discussion for later after we've heard some further witnesses. But I would anticipate I would encourage folks to look over the documents that Commissioner Sherline provided to look over the documents that Coach Christie has provided. The there's information from. Care, Vermont Care Partners kind of summarizing some of what was reviewed today in terms of what's the current relationship between the designated agencies and mental health assistance to law enforcement in different models. I think our hope is that in the next several hearings in the next not hearings, but the next several meetings of our committee, we'll both hear from some invited stakeholder groups as well as hear some about different models that exist around how how, you know, and we talk about best practices, but I'm not sure if there's any science to which or which of the practices are the best, but whether we know there are different practices having different different models. And hear that so that we can inform our discussion as a committee in terms of making a recommendation to the House appropriations committee as it moves forward in its. Negotiations and dialogue with the Senate around the budget. In the meantime, as I said, we have posted on our website. The language and I think I sent it. Demis sent it out to our committee members last night. The placeholder language about the Department of Public Safety proposal. I'm not certain, but it may perhaps be modified some ways by the appropriations committee, but we'll know about that shortly because they'll be presenting their full budget to us shortly. So with that, I'm going to turn to represent Donahue and ask you if you have any further thoughts to help us frame these issues as we move forward and then we can bring this to a close. If there's nothing more for us to take on today. My thought is, is I would encourage folks maybe even commenting briefly now if you have anything in mind, but based on what we've heard, who you think we need to hear from. I think the Vermont carers partners documents really helpful. It identifies, you know, where people are doing things. And I think we're limited by time, but I'm, I think for sure we're going to want to hear from some of those as the chair said different, different models. And we have, you know, the stakeholder groups that we know we want to hear from people directly involved. So they they're obvious, but if there are other people that members can think of now or, you know, to drop drop an email to the chair, that you think would be important to hear from next Tuesday or Wednesday. It would be great. Please, please, if you drop me a note, copy it to Representative Donahue as well. And Representative Hoden. The triune. Well, Representative Donahue is helping to take the lead on organizing some of this. So just to acknowledge that. Any, any comments or thoughts before we adjourn for the day? Well, again, I want to, I want to thank those who participate today. Commissioner Squirrel, Deputy Commissioner Morning Fox, Commissioner Shirling. Coach. And I have to say took me some getting used to to call you coach. I wouldn't have when we first started serving together, but Representative Christie. And Dr. Joy. Thank you all. Oh, I'm sorry, Brian Smith. I see, I see a hand. I didn't see it before. I just put it on. Chair. I just want to say high culture is good to see it was more fun sitting across the desk from you. Okay. It's still there. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's there. He's there. He's there. Thanks. Okay. With that, I'm going to suggest that. You got another new hand. I don't know. I'm missing it. Let me see. No, it went. It either went down again or, or I saw it run. Yeah. I think we cut it. Okay. So thank you all. I think. Demis, you can take us off YouTube and a reminder for the committee. We have, we will be meeting at three 30 on Tuesday. And Demis, maybe. Can you. Chime in and remind us of the times for Wednesday and Thursday. Since I. Yes, I will. I'm going to stop live streaming right now. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I will. I'm going to stop live streaming right now. Okay. That's right. That's fine.