 Good afternoon, everyone. This is the House Health Care Committee and the Vermont House of Representatives. I'm Representative Bill Lippert, Chair of the Committee. Welcome you to our afternoon of testimony. We are following up on testimony we began last week around a proposal from the Department of Public Safety in conjunction with the Department of Mental Health and to a degree the Department of Corrections, primarily with the Department of Mental Health, looking at a proposal to add mental health counselors to the Vermont State Police System in Vermont to help respond to situations that where the state police are called and the situation involves significant or likely mental health issues. I'm going to turn this, we're going to be taking testimony today, tomorrow and having committee discussion on Thursday with the goal of reviewing and finalizing a proposal if there's any modifications, a proposal on Thursday. I'm going to turn the committee over to our Vice Chair, Representative Ann Donahue who has been working to schedule witnesses and Ann, I welcome you to give a general introduction as well and then I'll turn my phone off and then I will have you welcome our witnesses and help manage the time that we have. I think we have between now and 4.30. Thank you very much. Yeah, this is, we are in a very short timeline. We were not abreast of this issue or brought on board and asked to take a look at it until just really last week because it was in the Department of Public Safety budget which we don't, doesn't routinely come before us. So we do just have a few days and I really appreciate people who are able to respond to come to testify today and tomorrow on very short notice. We are going to really need to keep to our timeline. So I'll sort of be reminding people keeping testimony focused because we do also want to have some time with each witness to have the committee ask any clarifying questions. So we're starting off this afternoon. We have two individuals, Bo Yang and then Calvin Mohan and then we'll be having a half hour presentation by several of the different designated agencies about existing programs they have that in some way partner mental health and law enforcement and we'll have time after that for questions to that panel. So very much appreciative of, as I said the people who are able to come this afternoon and if we could start with you or if you could introduce yourself. I think most of us have met you through all legislative training. I'm not sure you've been, you've testified in our committee before. I don't believe so. So welcome to House Health Care Committee and we would love your thoughts on the proposal that's in front of us. I didn't specifically reference what some people have asked. Well, is there a legislative language that I can look at that you're looking at? And we don't have any because this was simply a budget proposal and the Department of Public Safety did do a memo explaining what their intent was but there isn't legislative language at this point other than some temporary placeholder language that we put just to hold the money in the budget. So thank you, please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Lippert and Vice Chair Donahue for inviting me today and members of the committee. Just for the record, my name is Bore Yang and I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission. And just quickly, for those of you who don't know we are the state agency that is charged with enforcing the anti-discrimination statutes of the state, which includes our fair housing and public accommodations law that would prevent the state nursing homes, other residential facilities from discriminating against people with disabilities, specifically people with psychiatric disability. And I'll just get right to the point as I know we are short on time. So with all due respect to the Department of Public Safety and their good intent here to embed more mental health professionals within policing, I want to advocate that I believe this money should be moved from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Mental Health for a few key reasons. The answer to bias in policing against people with psychiatric disabilities is not to hire more mental health professionals in the same way that you cannot just hire more black and brown people to address racial bias. This is a culture and climate issue that needs to shift. When you embed social workers and mental health professionals in the police, you potentially create a conflict where these social workers and mental health professionals have to operate within that policing framework. To be effective, they must follow the protocols, the policies and the procedures of the police. And the goals and missions of mental health professionals could become compromised in the services that they provide. You need separation. We see that with healthcare within the Department of Corrections. There's a culture and climate and corrections that permits in many ways disrespect for the dignity of inmates. We've seen cases this year against women in our prison systems. We've seen cases based on race and definitely based on disability. We know that healthcare providers who operate outside of corrections often have very different opinions about the health services provided for inmates by those who are regularly doing the business of providing healthcare within collection. When leaving this money with the Department of Public Safety means that it is used for one primary purpose. And that is emergency response. Diverting these funds to the Department of Mental Health entirely with the legislative mandate to develop more community resources and maybe peer networks means that the funds will go farther and wider and be more effective and preventing the need for emergency responses. It is time that we invest in being proactive and not reactive. The state of Vermont is in a mental health crisis. There are not enough community supports for people with psychiatric disabilities in the state. On a regular basis, people who are aging with dementia and other health issues are stuck in hospital beds and they're stuck in corrections while they're waiting to be placed in the community. They have nowhere to go. Nursing homes and residential facilities across the state reject to them. The state might provide incentives to help them be placed but they are not held accountable or responsible for ensuring this continuity of care. We are leaving our most vulnerable in hospitals to die and I am not exaggerating. We've seen these cases at the Human Rights Commission. In the best case scenarios, some of these individuals have to leave the state of Vermont away from their friends and their family to live in Massachusetts or New Hampshire or elsewhere. Sometimes they're waiting for placement for up to a year or more. And at worst, while they're waiting, they die. These funds could be used to develop more community and residential homes for Vermont's most vulnerable. And a lot of these community resources that I'm referring to have already been addressed and made as recommendations in two really important reports. If you haven't already read it, I would refer you to those reports. One of those is a 2012 report to the legislature by the Behavioral Health Policy Collaborative. And that was done in response to Act 17.9 which was an act relating to reforming Vermont's mental health system. And the other report just came out in March of this year by disability rights Vermont called wrongly confined. And it goes through several findings and several recommendations. And so I would defer you to the experts on what those community resources are that are best fit to help Vermont's most vulnerable. But I would say that while we have this money, instead of looking at it as having mental health professionals and policing is better than not having mental health professionals and policing. But instead to say, since we have this, what is the best way to serve Vermont's most vulnerable? And I argue that the best way to do that is to give that money to the Department of Mental Health to work towards building those community resources. So I thank you. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you very much. Are there any questions? Mari and then Laurie. Thank you for that. And would the, if we required the, active participation of the Human Rights Commission and or the Racial Equity Task Force, speaking for your own, in your own jurisdiction, would you foresee needing some financial support in order to work with this program? As a state employee and a state agency, we know we wouldn't. I mean, it's just a matter of time and shifting that work around and we are pretty worked. But I feel like we're in the business of service. And so the answer is we would be gladly helped. I don't know if the Human Rights Commission is the best entity. Certainly we do a fair amount of these kinds of discrimination claims. But I would also say that it, oftentimes people think of the Human Rights Commission only because that's the agency that they know of. But disability rights Vermont is a great agency. A lot of designated agencies have experts that could serve as well. And so, yeah, that's all I would say. But to answer your question, no, we don't. You won't need money to do this work. Lauren, did you still have a question? No, I'm good, thank you. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate your insights. Thank you all. Good luck. So right on time, two minutes early, it's great. We have Calvin Mowen. And again, I'm gonna ask you to introduce yourself and your background and your title and relevance to the topic and then just jump right in. All right, thank you, Ann. And yeah, I really appreciate the invitation to speak to you all today. My name is Calvin Mowen and I'm here as a trainer with the Peer Development Workforce Initiative in Vermont. As part of that work, I do a lot of training in intentional peer support, in safely withdrawing from psych drugs, a whole range of things. I've also done some trainings in the community on alternatives to policing and crisis situations, largely using the IPS model and restorative justice practices. I am also an eight-year resident of Wyndham County. I am myself a psychiatric survivor, meaning that I have experienced harm through the psychiatric system. And I currently am also a user of mental health services. I am also a member of the LGBTQ community. And for as long as I've been in Vermont, I have been an advocate doing direct support of individuals, both inpatient and in the community that are interacting with Vermont's mental health system. And I'll say that I am opposed to the proposal from DPS completely to expand the mental health outreach into the state police barracks. I understand that it's, I guess I will say it would be preferable to me to have that be under DMH, but I also have some concerns about that that I will get to, but I guess I just wanna first say that I appreciate the proposal from the department of public safety. I think it's a good faith effort. I think what it's proposing is that, really to reduce the harm to people who are experiencing distress. We know that there's a problem. We know that we need to do something in Vermont. The people who are most likely to be killed by police are those experiencing emotional crisis or an extreme state or an altered state. And those chances are increased when there are other factors involved, poverty, being black, indigenous, other person of color, being visibly queer, transgender, gender non-conforming. And yeah, I mean, I think there's pretty large agreement about the most effective and immediate way of reducing violence against those communities is to reduce our interactions with the police. However, this proposal isn't going to do that. And I guess I wanna point out that we're in the middle of a moment where there's a lot of momentum across Vermont as well as the whole country to divest from policing and invest in community supports instead, because we're recognizing that policing does often result in trauma, injury, and death. And so this proposal actually does expand the reach of the police rather than defunding and investing in the community. And yeah, I will echo that what we actually need is greater efforts to extricate mental health supports from law enforcement. This proposal would further enmesh them. The message I believe that is sent here is that mental health is a criminal issue. It's a public safety issue. And as I have heard repeated again and again and again, and which Commissioner Schirling also included in this proposal, those with mental health challenges, I'm gonna quote him right now, are not more likely than anyone else to commit violent acts or crime. So as we are treating mental health crisis intervention as a public safety issue, we are really enforcing that myth that we are violent and dangerous people. I also wanna echo that what we really need to be doing is to be putting those resources into the community. And working towards, yeah, like the ability to support each other without involving law enforcement. Police respond to these crisis situations, as we know, not because they are best suited to handling them, but because people call 911, bystanders, friends, family members, and they do this because they don't have any other alternatives. About them. And I wanna say a little bit about why social workers and mental health professionals are not alternatives to police. They are just as capable of separating us from our families, having us locked up in institutions, getting court orders for us to be put under state surveillance as the police are. And they're able to do it not based on, you know, a crime or anything like that, but just because of a psychiatric diagnosis or a disability. When a clinician arrives on the scene to respond to a crisis, that constitutes an escalation for many people who have suffered trauma from the system, whether it's in the emergency room, psychiatric system, people have really seen great loss in their lives because of their involvement with these professionals. And as we know, also the treatment that we receive in this system is impacted by factors that I mentioned earlier, race, class, and gender. And so if we're really thinking about those who are being most impacted by policing, they're also the most impacted by the way that we're delivering mental health services and social services. And I have seen folks often respond as if this is a threat because to them it really is. And the way that we respond to threats varies from different people, but when we've had these traumatic experiences of having our autonomy taken away and our ability to make our own decisions taken away, that really does create a trauma response that I've seen just time and time again, whether it's in an inpatient setting or in the community. So yeah, I guess I'll echo that having the social workers be part of a team of police does have some scary implications that that's where their accountability is going to be and that that's the policies, the protocols that they're gonna be having to follow. What I would love to see and what I'm recommending is that we look at the way that we respond to crisis in partnership and in communication with people who have the live experience. So I'm here today able to speak to you for just a few moments. And I don't know how many other folks that you're gonna be hearing from who have this kind of direct experience, but we have been left out of this conversation, generally speaking, including by DMH. We hear a lot about how to make these very urgent decisions now, but I think the phrase that I keep hearing is like the mid to longterm. So in the mid to longterm, those with lived experience are gonna have more input. And we've been hearing this for quite a while. So what I would ask is that, yeah, if we're looking at $525,000, that's going to go towards crisis response and it ends up under the purview of Department of Mental Health, that there'd be a really clear directive about the kinds of decision-making processes that are going to in fact, involve my community advocates who are already doing a lot of this work in Vermont and can really speak to what it is that we need. And frankly, there are some pretty clearly outlined proposals for how we would like to see crisis response go. Those are out there, those have been out there for a while. I want to give a little time for any questions. So kind of got the, okay. Are there any questions for Calvin on some of what he said or we have a couple of minutes here to, nobody. I see some hands, Ian. Oh, I'm not, why are they not? Oh, I'm sorry, I had to scroll up. I'm sorry. All right, Representative Durfee, David. I thank you and thank you, Calvin. I just was going to follow up on the comment that you just made that there are crisis response proposals that have been out there for a while. Can you elaborate just a little bit on that? Because I'm not sure that I have a sense of what that might look like. Sure, thanks. Yeah, there are some models that are out there that frankly haven't had the chance to be fully funded and fully scaled up. Where there are peer support workers who are able to respond to crisis who also are accountable not to a mental health agency but to the people that they're serving. Specifically in Vermont, there's been a proposal not in terms of crisis response but actually crisis support is how I'm gonna put this. There's been a lot of talk about how we need to like look further upstream and prevent these kind of emergencies where police are being called. So for, I don't know, a few years now, advocates have been putting forward a proposal to expand what we currently have as a two-bed, peer-run crisis respite, which serves the entire state, to expand that into more of these respites, to be able to accommodate more people, to be able to go somewhere that is safe, that is comfortable, where we are with people that we can talk to. And that that would in fact prevent a lot of the escalation into having an emergency. Representative Rogers. Sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, you weren't finished. I mean, I just wanted to add that, I talk to psychiatric survivor advocates around the state all the time and we have a huge list of ideas of things that we would like to see, supported housing, peer supports, all kinds of things. I just, my point was that, we are here and we have a lot of ideas and we are closest to the problem. And so I think closest to the solutions. Thank you, and can I just follow up? And I know that time is not unlimited here, but, and I mentioned it just because it's salient, top of mind the tragic incident in Rochester, New York, that was in recent incident, but it just came to light. And I'm wondering if just thinking in that framework, if the question before us, and I'm not sure that this is the question before us, but if it were to have in a scenario like that, the option of sending someone to the site who was a mental health worker, rather than law enforcement, would that be a better, would that lead to different better outcomes? So that's, I guess that's how I'm trying to, or that's the way I am framing. Maybe I shouldn't be framing this conversation in my own head, but if you have a thought on that. Yeah, so is it better? I mean, maybe a mental health worker is not showing up with a gun and they're not somebody that can throw you in jail. They are showing up with the full force of the system behind them that can incarcerate a person based on their disability, that can have them court ordered to be injected with drugs. And for some, that might be considered an improvement and for others, not. I mean, certainly we don't want anyone, police showing up and then results in a horrible death. I don't think it's a choice of either or, like either that or we send clinicians to maybe have an agenda of, getting somebody to go into mental health services that they haven't necessarily asked for. I think there's a third option and I think it's voluntary supports that are available to folks that we can go to, which we just currently don't have right now. Thank you. I think Anne is saying. I'm gonna move to the panel just so. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Thank you, Calvin for speaking with us. I guess I'm hearing loud and clear what you're saying about looking to existing models and including more feedback from members of the peer community and survivors of the psychiatric system. And I'm also kind of trying to make sure that I'm clear on if there is a recommendation you're putting forward for the $500,000 and if so, that I'm understanding correctly what it is. So I don't know if maybe you can rearticulate that or if you want me to try to articulate what I'm hearing. I can try to do it. Thank you. Yeah, I guess what I'm recommending because it is kind of the 11th hour is that I do believe it would be an improvement if the funds identified were put into Department of Mental Health instead. With, yeah, like I guess I would wanna see a really clear directive for how my community and other communities who are impacted are gonna be involved in deciding how to implement this. And I would like to see crisis response be completely separated from police response so that if that 911 call goes in and it's mental health crisis response, that gets dispatched elsewhere. It'd be great to even have a totally separate number so that people can call for what they want and get what they want. That's helpful, thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony, Calvin. So I asked Julie Tesler to coordinate helping to bring. I think there's been reference last week when we heard testimony, there are a number of different ways that have kind of emerged over the past five, even 10 years in Vermont for trying to address non-police response to crisis situations. So there's more than one and what I asked Julie is if she could kind of pull together in her limited time, some samples, some disparate samples from different communities of how some of the designated agencies have contributed to working on the specific issue of addressing a mental health crisis. So Julie, maybe you could introduce the folks that you have representing the system and then they've got about a half an hour to share the different agencies. I think we have four different agencies presenting and then we'll open up for questions. Thank you to Representative Donahue and to the committee for taking this testimony and hearing the different perspectives. I think we'd probably agree with some of the previous speakers. There wasn't a lot of process coming up to this that this proposal came out very quickly but obviously with very good intentions. And so we thought as Vermont care partners it'd be helpful for the committee to hear about the crisis response work we do. How do we currently collaborate with law enforcement? What are the models that are out there now? And take your questions. So we plan to move very quickly. We have actually five speakers. It was a sign four but we ended up with five, sorry. And we have the same amount of time to work in, that's all. Well, just quickly kind of present some basic information for you and hope to be in half an hour. So we leave a good half hour for discussion. I didn't keep my list with me, Anne. So I can start. I know the first person is Karen Curley. I don't remember the order beyond that. Karen Curley is the director of crisis services for Washington County mental health services. So she's gonna start us off. And if you don't mind panel, I apologize if you could introduce yourselves as you go along and I'm pretty sure you know your orders. So if we're set to go, Karen wants you to start off. Okay, I'm set to go. So thank you so much for the invitation to testify today. And for the record, I'm Karen Curley and I'm the intensive care service director at Washington County mental health. Within our division are all emergent and urgent care programs, including the emergency screeners and the new mental health clinical position working with law enforcement in Montpelier and very city police departments. Our crisis line receives approximately 14,000 calls per year. Our emergency screeners are a fully mobile team and respond to emergencies at people's homes in the community, at schools and at local businesses. Our screeners work very closely with our area law enforcement partners and actively participate in the collaborative training process established with team two. Each month approximately 34% of all screener face-to-face interventions include law enforcement. We also have a new position established in August of this year, 2020 in a collaborative effort with very city and Montpelier police departments. We now have an urgent care mental health clinician who works 50% of her time with very city police department and 50% of her time with the Montpelier police department. Her position is based out of the police station. The position is funded by each of the cities in the Department of Mental Health. Since mid-August, this clinician has already been on several calls each day with the police to help provide support and de-escalation during emergency calls. For both the screeners and our new police urgent care mental health clinician, we are clear about the roles and responsibilities of each entity while jointly responding with law enforcement. We have established the mental health clinicians are on scene to provide mental health assessment, crisis stabilization, de-escalation, social and emotional support and safe disposition planning. We are also clear law enforcement is on scene to provide safety and security for everyone involved. It is also clearly established that while we work respectfully and collaboratively together, we have different roles and we work for different agencies as well as have different supervision. This clear understanding and organization of roles during a response helps us to ensure the best possible intervention for people in distress. In Washington County, we have two screeners on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the entire county. The screeners are often called in multiple directions during their shift and have been increasingly needed in the hospital emergency department. For example, one screener can be responding to a situation in Cabot while our other screener is in Berrytown at another scene. While the screeners are responding to these crises, Vermont State Police could then call meeting a screening response in Moortown. In this situation, the screener will collaborate with Vermont State Police to establish a response as soon as possible. It is also possible that the screener's response will be delayed because they are already out on other calls. By having a mental health urgent care clinician working directly with a police department, they can respond to the scene at the same time. We need additional resources for mental health response. Our screeners are faced daily with innumerable demands for mental health crisis response from law enforcement, the community and our hospital emergency department. During the COVID pandemic, we have had to develop new protocols to both incorporate telehealth in our response as well as to utilize safe protocols for active outreach to help people in distress. With additional urgent care clinicians faced with law enforcement, they will be able to respond to scenes directly with the police, which will decrease response time. Our system also needs additional resources for programs outside of emergent and urgent care so we can refer to these resources for ongoing support and intervention. Currently, programs carry waiting lists and are saturated, which makes access to services more challenging. This increases the likelihood that people will remain in crisis. Our mental health system needs better resources across the continuum for prevention, ongoing treatment, support and crisis response. We have seen a rise in utilization of the hospital emergency department and have people boarding daily with mental health needs at Center Vermont Medical Center. COVID has increased numerous stressors for people, including health concerns, financial concerns, family conflict, additional care taking burdens and isolation to name a few. This has increased people's depression, anxiety and mental health distress. Our mental health system is overwhelmed with service requests and needs. In emergency services, that translates to people boarding an emergency departments for days awaiting safe disposition plans. We have effective strategies based on research and evidence to be helpful to people in mental health crisis. We need adequate funding to implement those strategies and help people in distress. In closing, I'll share two stories that are emblematic of the different emergent and urgent mental health clinicians collaborating with law enforcement to make a difference in our community to help people in distress. Recently, our police urgent care clinician responded to a local bank with police. The police received the 911 call because there was a woman at the bank causing a disturbance. Our urgent care clinician was able to provide support for the bank teller who was physically shaking, crying and distressed. Our clinician was then also able to provide support and deescalation to the woman who was agitated, experiencing psychosis and also in distress. While talking with our clinician, she was able to calm, leave the building safely and accept referrals to community resources. Another example of our joint response with law enforcement is our screeners responding to a home with local law enforcement where a person was suicidal with a loaded gun in their home. The screener spoke with the person on the phone while the police kept everyone involved safe. The screener was able to convince the person to safely give police their weapon and come out of their home. The screener then talked with the person and they agreed voluntarily to go to the hospital and get treatment to alleviate their distress. These jobs are challenging and stressful but always incredibly worthwhile. It is imperative that we work together with our law enforcement partners to provide the best response and crisis deescalation for people in distress and need. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. So next up, you know who you are. I do know who I am. Thank you so much for having us. My name is Brandi Littlefield and I'm the Assistant Director of First Call for Chintending County and I oversee the community outreach program. While the community outreach team works closely with law enforcement and first responders, they work across all community settings and are Howard Center employees. Our efforts allow us to provide proactive support while also providing supports that will allow us to assist law enforcement or reduce and divert, my apologies, the need for law enforcement involvement. The program was created in January of 2018 with six local towns partner in with Howard Center. Due to the program success in their first year, another town joined the program in July of 2019. As the success continues, we have received much enthusiasm from the remaining police forces in the county wanting to participate as well. The program success relies heavily upon hire and a varied group of specialists to better assist our communities. Our specialists come from diverse backgrounds, both personally and professionally. Additionally, the team currently has multiple members that are bilingual and we value applicants with lived experience as it enriches the services that we are able to provide. In fiscal year 20, we provided 3,344 calls and 1,137 face-to-face contacts reaching 567 unique individuals. We provided 186 proactive outreaches and diverted police response 384 times, which means that dispatch was sent out community outreach instead of a police officer to the scene after verifying the safety of it. And then we've assisted police on 381 other contacts. The majority of referrals into our program come from law enforcement, reinforcing the collaboration and commitment to meeting community needs. Despite the significant number of contacts, we've been able to appropriately help determine appropriate hospital emergency department use. With only 91 individuals going to the ED for further assessment, 10 of those individuals were due to medical needs only, 53 were for psychiatric needs, and then 28 required both medical and psychiatric care. And we wanted to end with sharing a story of how somebody becomes engaged in our service. We had a 78-year-old female, one of our participating towns who was contacting the police department via phone and emailing the chief of police up to seven days a week. Her concerns surrounded neighbors, dogs, barking, family, medical wellness and isolation. The team followed up with her and explained the limits of what the police could assist with and asked that she contact us instead so that we could help her find resolution. We informed her of the resources that could assist her and asked that she contact us instead of the police because she needs assistance with these individual items that she had brought forward so that we could help connect her to the correct resources. She has since accepted continued check-ins from the team and though she was previously refusing to engage in services, she has now accepted an intake with our access and intake team for transitional case management and support. She has not called the police department in a week now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi everyone, thank you for having us. I'm Charlotte McCorkle, a licensed clinical social worker and the senior director of client services at Howard Center where I have worked since 2008. As the largest social service agency in Vermont with 1,500 employees and more than 8,000 clients, Howard Center has an array of crisis services. So the community outreach program that Brandy just spoke about is one of seven crisis programs we have in total, all of which interface regularly with law enforcement. Howard Center's 24-7 mobile crisis team is called First Call for Chittenden County. First Call has 24 master's level crisis clinicians and six supervisors. First Call provides phone support and face-to-face crisis assessments, now also by telehealth in homes, schools, police departments, in the emergency department and in other parts of our Chittenden County community. The Please Call, First Call for mental health assessment if someone they are with is in crisis and First Call initiates contact with the police when there is concern about personal and public safety. Howard Center has two residential crisis stabilization programs, Jarrett House serves youth ages five to 13 and Assist serves adults. Both programs are short-term in nature at longest 10 days and provide safety, further assessment and connection to services. Act one is our public enabry program and bridge is our five-day social detox program where individuals can detox safely from alcohol and other substances. Lastly, we have two outreach teams, community outreach, which you just heard about from Brandy and Street Outreach, which serves Burlington with four outreach specialists down to six, down from six due to budget shortfalls. Street Outreach has been a model for similar programs throughout the country. Both outreach teams are able to respond to community members in lieu of the police when the situation does not warrant a law enforcement response based on police and dispatch's assessment and trust in our outreach teams. When an individual or family is in crisis, Street Outreach and Community Outreach can be the early intervention, eyes and ears to determine what level of support is needed next. Our First Call assessment, connection to additional community resources and at times a visit to the emergency department. By having a layer of triage and intervention, both First Call and the emergency department are not the default responses for community members in situations that don't require a mental health assessment or an ED visit. This is better care for clients and a more effective use of resources. There are times when Howard Center's crisis teams rely on law enforcement to complete a duty to warn when there is a threat to public safety to serve a mental health warrant when a person needs emergent and urgent care to respond when a client has a weapon and is directly threatening someone and beyond the staff's ability to manage safely. There are other times when we know that more robust crisis services would reduce the need for law enforcement. A few weeks ago, I had to call the police myself when a youth was assaulting staff at Jared House and de-escalation and intervention strategies were not working. We wished we had a viable alternative. Howard Center is in the process now of convening a workgroup to explore intervention alternatives so that we have the right resources and right services at the right time for clients and our community. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. I'm Steve Burr. I'm with Northwestern County and Support Services, which is a designated agency serving Franklin and Grand Isle counties. In terms of the model in our region for the last five years, we have had two full-time staff working together in two different law enforcement agencies. For the past four years, when it's been assigned full-time to the St. Albans State Police Barracks, the other is assigned full-time to the St. Albans City Police. Both have similar roles, which are modified to meet the demands of each law enforcement agency. They also provide support to Franklin Grand Isle Sheriff and the Swanton Police Department when needed. Our core crisis team also provides support during a response and is a backup support when our dedicated mobile outreach staff is not available. We also, in the state police position, we've also been piloting a service dog option, which is really found to be very helpful on the scene. And the dog is also trained to track when individuals are lost and to assist in different ways. Our funding has been exclusively used through our crisis budget, our existing Act 79 funds, which are intended to divert use of the emergency department, decrease inpatient hospitalizations, suicide, and also improve response and outcomes with law enforcement. Perhaps one way to provide a picture of the application of our model was to describe three situations or a few situations with law enforcement. Just recently, we were involved in a response to a young adult who was on top of a building structure wanting to jump. And in this instance, the law enforcement officer actually did a very good job of connecting with the individual and our person on scene, helped to figure out what that person needed in the moment and ultimately prevented a hospitalization. The another area where we work closely with the sheriff is when, and I know this has been an area of focus for the Vermont Mental Health Crisis Response Commission is when there is an eviction process underway with someone with mental health issues and us getting involved proactively and not waiting until a situation escalates. Those are two situations. And then we also were recently on the scene of a recent shooting involving a ledge homicide and being there for both kids and adults and trying to link them with necessary services. What have we learned? We've learned that having a full-time person dedicated to one particular law enforcement agency really does accelerate trust and connection and frankly challenging individuals and some of the assumptions they make about individuals with mental illness. It also supports a more immediate access to mental health professionals. We prefer this rather than spreading one staff across several locations. We have also seen the benefits of the team two training model designed to support both law enforcement and mental health providers in figuring out how to respond more proactively and effectively and to learn from each other before this is a crisis gets out of hand. This also supports the goal of developing a response together with law enforcement and mental health both having different knowledge and skills and collaboration. The important point in supporting funding for position through a designated mental health agency is that you are not just purchasing a person but purchasing a system that can be coordinated and can connect with other essential services for the individual who has a specific need. In terms of the future, we're really excited about the possibility of funding to support these positions and could also see ways to enhance the model. Frankly, it's been frustrating that we've been using crisis dollars exclusively to support both positions. We really could use these dollars, our existing dollars in a different way to support other needs in our community. We also see opportunities how to enhance how to enhance our services as well. I think another area that we're all challenged with is what's the best kind of data to get to understand are we effective in terms of how do we show better outcomes? What really are those key variables? So with that, I'll end my comments. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Great, I'm for the record. I'm George. I'm saying you sound good. We hear you and I'm muted. That's funny. I know Zoom, it's such an interesting phenomena. So I am George Carabacacus. I'm the CEO of HCRS, Health Care and Rehabilitation Services and we're the Designated Community Mental Health Agency serving Wyndham Windsor counties. So thank you for having us here. And I guess I'll start with, we have since 2003, we've had a police social work program starting in Bellows Falls. Since then, because it was so successful, we took that program and brought it to Brattleboro, continued in Bellows Falls, went up to Springfield Windsor. It's serving Weathersfield to some degree, Hartford. We also have a police social work liaison in the Westminster Barracks that serves about 26 towns over 1,200 square miles. We also recently through a HRSA grant, Health Resource Services Administration grant have a police social work liaison serving the Wyndham County Sheriff's Department, the Dover and the Wilmington Police Department. So we've been doing this for a pretty long time and this program has really been about addressing the reality that unfortunately, law enforcement is oftentimes the first stop when there are challenging situations that are in our community, mental health, substance use, domestic violence issues, a whole range of behaviors that often lead to officer, to law enforcement being called, situations that actually involve poverty and a whole range of other issues, homelessness and healthcare issues and so forth and so on. And so we, our staff work side by side have worked are actually part of our adult services and are connected to our crisis team. They work side by side with officers throughout the area and the local police departments. They monitor, assess, support, provide de-escalation. They go on calls with officers. There are situations where there are frequent challenges. They are, they do reach out to those individuals and to those families to help support them. A lot of it is helping to connect the dots. It's helping to make the appropriate referrals. It's connecting with people who have a whole range of social service needs but quite honestly don't know where to go. And we know the criminal justice system is not the way to do it. It's not the support that they need. What they need is help. What they need is connection. What they need is building those relationships. And oftentimes the work, it's in the community, it's in homes, it's at someone's breakfast table, it's having coffee in their home. It's working out and understanding what those connections are. So we have in the past year, we've impacted 888 adults, about 189 children and families were also impacted. We work with a lot of folks that are either homeless or at risk of homelessness. So our police, social work liaisons have been working with warming shelters, with the local shelters, more recently with motels, with folks that are in motels and trying to help support them to connect with services. So, and in many cases, it's really finding alternatives, finding other ways to support those individuals. The intent is to reduce the incidents that lead to contact with law enforcement, but also help people connect with their community. One of the things that we've been, that I have to say I really resonate with is that a lot of the work that we've been doing is trying to really look at our systems, look at policing and looking at ways to really move to a different place. I think including peers and I do feel very strongly that the people that are most impacted must be involved in the process. They really do need to be included. I think we need to make sure that that is incorporated into our model and I know that's something we're working on locally. So, you know, there was also someone mentioned proactive and a lot of this is really trying to interrupt that cycle that just isn't terribly helpful and breaking that cycle is really critical. So doing the kind of proactive, early intervention work is really critical as well. So, though that's something about our programs, I have to say we've learned a lot. We've also learned that we as a designated agency cannot do this alone. We are part of a whole social service network. So the challenges and the issues of the people we serve must be addressed holistically with whether it's through healthcare, whether it's through dealing with food insecurity and poverty and housing issues and really giving people those opportunities. So those liaisons really do an incredible work and are very connected to all our services, children's, children, youth and family services and all the comprehensive system that we do provide. Another piece that they've been doing for years is working with truancy work groups and working with schools because, I mean, one situation we had a family that had three kids, each one was an elementary, one was in middle school and one was in high school and the school system didn't know that they were all truant at the same time. We went in, we supported that family and we found there was a whole range of issues and supports and services that were needed that not only helped the parents who were having some pretty significant challenges were about to be evicted. I don't, without going on into all the details, it was a real challenge, but no one knew until that liaison went in to support that family and those kids. So I think it's an important move. I think it's really critical that we create those collaborations, but that we also use this opportunity to move forward and really look at ways to create alternatives that can really make a difference in the lives of all the people we serve, of which we are a part of. George, you guys have done a terrific job in giving some very succinct, helpful pictures. I actually would like to start off with one question which really is for any of you because it's not something that really came up and that's in terms of the various funding streams and there were a number of references to Act 79 or other Department of Mental Health crisis funds. And I'm wondering, are any of those funds based on how they're being routed, are any of those matched with federal money through global commitment or so forth? Not in my area, Anne. Okay. I don't believe so either for us, NCSS. So does anybody know why, if it's coming, if it's department, if it's mental health services, money for crisis services? And this may be a question for DMH. I'm starting to sense, George. It could be, but I'll also say from our perspective, well, when we started this program, we patched it together with at least half a dozen funding sources, including United Way and local funding. But as we move forward, Act 79 was helpful, but ultimately we've been using primarily global commitment dollars. So we have been using dollars out of our grant and or global commitment pot for this program because we, organizationally, we feel it's really important and critical. And yet it really, it takes away from our ability to fund other core services. So, but that's how we've been doing it. But again, I think that would be a good question for DMH as well, systemically. Other questions? Let me see, Representative Gina. Thanks. Thanks everyone for coming today. I have a question. I asked this last week of the commissioner of public safety, is that Mike Sherling's title? He's a commissioner. We were talking about how when he was the police chief in Burlington, how he was police chief when the Howard Center started working with the police department and had social workers who actually were based in the station and at least for some time. And he didn't know the current status of that partnership. So I'm curious, are not just for the Howard Center, but for all the designated agencies present, if people could talk a bit about challenges that might emerge from having police embedded in the police stations for them as mental health workers? Because we heard some testimony, I'm assuming you all heard from the Human Rights Commission earlier, as well as from Calvin. I don't remember your organization Calvin, Moen. But some concerns about it from the perspective of clients. And I'm just curious as the actual agencies, had there been any challenges having workers embedded in police departments? And for the Howard Center specifically, are they still cited at the police department? I can speak to that. This is Charlotte McCorkle. Thank you for the question. You'll notice that none of us use the word embedded. We think it's complicated and potentially misunderstood. So all of the staff that we spoke of across our agencies are hired by the designated agency. And so for Howard Center, our four Burlington Street outreach staff are hired by Howard Center. And they have an office in downtown Burlington, right off of Church Street and are frequently at the Burlington Police Department, just like they're at other community locations downtown, but they don't work out of the police department specifically. Would it be fair to say that like an analogy would be how, I mean, I worked for first call, so in full disclosure, all the other designated agencies here, I mean, Charlotte and Brandi know this, but so first call workers work in the hospital, we're not based there. So we'll go to the emergency room, but we're at our actual, and we have a work room at the emergency room, but that's not our main office. Is it similar that they have a space at the police station they can use, but that's not their main office? That's right. Okay. If any of the other agencies want to respond to your models in terms of that question? George? Yeah, that's actually a really, really good question. And our staff, well, first of all, having staff in eight or nine police departments, the sheriff's department and the barracks, each department and each community has its own culture. It's really, it's sort of interesting. In general, we are co-located, we have our staff have a space, the work that they do, however, it might be in people's homes, it might be in the community, it might be at the shelters, it might be at the warming shelters. I mean, their community is out and about in the community, but they do have a space, they are very connected. And that those relationships are key. The trust and the relationships are really critical, but just as important and more important is the trust in relationships that are built in the community. So that people that they come in contact with know that they are HCRS staff, that they are here to help support and guide people. And, but it is a process of sort of working on sort of really understanding each other's culture, but also making sure that our staff who are supervised by HCRS staff and they are part of our on-site meetings, of course and so forth. What they do is consistent with our philosophy of caring our values. I think that's really, really important. And I think that's gotta be part of the process. So anyway, thanks. And I would just comment too, from Northwest Counseling and Support Services, we're co-located, more co-located in the state police than in the city police. But one of the nice things about that, to build on what George and others are saying is that you can have some informal conversations about situations of, well, that would have been a good one to call me on. I could have really worked with you in a different way on that. And it really takes time to build that trust. And so, but I also understand that, one of the concerns would be, you almost get into this kind of collusion point of view where we're just, we're not different. And do we have the right staff who could call out certain things? But we've seen some real movement within some of the law enforcement officers in challenging their own views on some stuff and not fully understanding and frankly talking about things in their own families and trying to figure out what is a different way to respond. There has to be a better way of responding. Karen, is your hand up to reply? Sure, I'll go really quick. So our urgent care clinician position is new. What I wanna say about the funding about that program, just that position really quickly is, we only have funding for a year. And so what I have concerns about is the sustainability related to will this continue to be funded after this year? So that person just started about four weeks ago and she is co-located in both the police departments and she also has two offices at Washington County Mental Health. So as everybody said before, really her job is to be mobile. Her job is to be in the community. Her job is to be an outreach person available to folks. The one last thing that I will say just to mention is law enforcement entities in our area, the hospital in our area, schools in our area, everyone wants a screener based in their building or entity with them related to response time. So when you have two people who are covering the whole county, we're a tinier county than some of the other counties, it's still if Vermont State Police is going from the Middlesex Barracks to Moretown and I'm out in Williamstown, I'm still 20, 30 minutes behind them in terms of response. So that's all I'll highlight as well. Thank you. Other questions? Bill. I don't think I have a blue hand to raise because I think it's because I'm co-host or something. I was keeping my blue hand, I can't find it. So I would be interested in hearing folks from the DA's comment on Calvin's suggestion of a strictly or a primarily peer response and to see if, because anyway, so I'd be interested in if you, maybe it's like asking someone to conceptualize something which is so inside your, the DA structure that you can't think about it, but what would it mean to have a strictly or a primarily peer response rather than even a mental health professional response and can you comment on how that might be structured or whether you could interact with such a program? Again, this is Charlotte McCorkle from Howard Center and I'm happy to start. What Calvin said really resonated with me in terms of the ideals of responding to people who are in need of support. And I think now and in the future, there are a lot of things that he said that we can put in place or strengthen. Howard Center does have a peer run team called Start, stabilization, treatment and recovery team. It's peer led and all the members of that team are peers. There is some criticism within the peer community about it because it's a peer team within a designated agency system which some people find to be a contradiction in and of itself. But our Start program, the staff respond both in crisis situations and also at points of intake so that all adults coming in for services have an opportunity to connect to a peer service and that Start provides services on the phone but also face to face and through telehealth. So fully mobile in Chittenden County. I think it would be fantastic if they're responding for additional peer positions and this may be part of a longer conversation but I think there are some situations where even with a robust peer structure or the supports that Calvin was talking about, there will be times where a law enforcement response is still needed based on safety. George? Yeah, I have to also say that it really resonated with me. I do not, the use of peers as part of this, our response to situations that arise is I think in no way incompatible. I mean, I think it's actually something we've been talking about internally. I would say a collaboration, well, first of all, the thing that binds us, how does shared humanity? How does, how is it incompatible to have people who have had the lived experience, who really understand, who really get it being part of an intervention that can support people in the community? That makes a whole lot of sense to me. Having said that, I think that bringing that together with clinical expertise, bringing that together with resources that are out there, which quite honestly, I think we do need a whole lot, there's a whole lot of resources as part of a continuum that we absolutely do need. But I think that it does make a lot of sense, but it takes a lot of conversation. I think we really need to work towards that. I know locally, we have a very, very strong peer support team, and we've been having conversations around how to create those connections as part of an outreach team or as part of a way of responding to these, to situations that arise. And I think like Charlotte mentioned, I think they, I feel like our peer support team if anything enhances our ability to support folks in our community. And so I think there's a lot that I resonate with and I think there's definitely value there. And at the same time, I think the collaborations and the relationships and the connections and also looking at ways that policing can shift and change to really be brought into social services and investing in those social services, I think it's really critical, it makes a whole lot of sense. Brian? Thanks, I don't want to go back to my question earlier, but I was just like processing everything and like the ish, the main issue before us is this idea of funding, giving funding to the state police to put workers based in barracks. And when we had the commissioner of public safety, he couldn't, he didn't have the answer to why the Howard Center stopped having the street outreach. I believe that's the title. The person was Justin, that was the staff person, who used to be based at the police station. And that's no longer the case that that's the main office. And I'm just curious, is there a reason why the Howard Center specifically doesn't have people actually based at the police station? And was there some challenge to that that led to that? And the reason I ask is cause that's really one of the main areas where there's concern is this idea of someone working with the police versus someone working from within the police. So I'm just curious if there was any specific reason why or any challenges that emerged? Cause I don't know if we got a clear answer on that. This is Charlotte McCorkle from Howard Center. I was not overseeing street outreach at that time that you're talking about referring to Justin for it. I do know, like I mentioned earlier, that street outreach does have physical space in the police department that they're able to use. But I think as street outreach workers, they prefer to be on church street and closer to the work because most of their interactions are happening in or around church street or in the downtown marketplace area and not at the police department. So they again, certainly go to the police department, but they prefer to be community based. So I think that's based on staff preference more than anything else. So I have a question and again, this is for anyone, but one of the things I'm not clear on when you're developing for any of these models seems like each time you have an entity that is more and more its own entity, there's less flexibility between them. And I'm not clear why, for instance, if there's the ability to add one staff position, let's say who's gonna be a liaison with the police, why that wouldn't be one additional coverage person as part of an enhanced crisis team as opposed to saying now we're gonna have a separate person who's the police clinician because then any of those people, if they were all trained that any of those people could do any of those things, including a response with police, if there were two police departments who needed assistance or there were two non-police or three non-police, they could vary based on where the calls and needs are, whereas if somebody specifically the police linked person, it seems that that reduces flexibility. So I'm wondering why the model wouldn't be to just expand the crisis service team and make it more robust. I can speak in area, what happened in my area was folks from the city of Montpelier and from the city of Barrie wanted specific focus in their area and we're very clear that our mission is to respond to all crises in our county. So yes, it would be great to add a third person to our response but it does not guarantee that that is specific for Montpelier or Barrie or for example, the Vermont State Police, when they have brought this forward to us over the years, they want a guarantee that when they call you will absolutely leave your office in Berlin and come and we've explained if we're in our office in Berlin and able to respond, of course, we will do that but if we're out on other calls in other parts of our county, whether there are two of us or three of us, we still then are gonna need to figure out how we're not going to get there at the same time as you. And so that's at least in my county, that's the discussion of the way that this current position that we have came about. Thank you. They're buying a priority access to that person by having them designated and they're contributing funding for them. Is that fair to say? Yes. Yes, yep. I would say that, yes. They're an agency that wants to respond and then we have a question from Representative Christensen. Yeah, I would, you know the role of the police social work liaison is different than the role of a crisis team worker. The crisis team workers do, you know, the police social work liaison, at least in our experience over the years is really focused more on that person, not that the crisis team person shouldn't be crisis team person, but really looking holistically at their whole support system, looking at the social contributors to health, looking at all those pieces that help support that, all the pieces that oftentimes are either the barriers or the obstacles, the things that are getting into, in the way of people succeeding. It's a very, it is a different model. It's a different focus. Now it can be done differently. Also are at least the police social work liaisons that work with our departments are not QMHPs, they're not crisis screeners. You may need to translate that for everybody. They're not, sorry, acronym alert, acronym alert. They're not crisis screeners who are qualified mental health practitioners that are designated by the Department of Mental Health to screen individuals for higher levels of care, hospitalization and so forth, warrants and all that. So it is a different model. I'm not saying that in some cases and actually in our case are police social work liaison at the Westminster Barracks is a QMHP, but I just, for full disclosure, but I do think that the focus of that work or like street outreach in church street or not to speak for housing, but it seems like the focus is different. So rather than just putting more money into crisis, you're really, we're creating something very different. And so anyway, those are my thoughts on that. Emory? I just have a woman on the street question. Do people know who to call if they're in crisis? A lot of people won't even know what a designated agency is to look up a number. And if you're in a crisis that's escalating, isn't it just the fastest thing to do is to get 911? Is there a way your number, your crisis number is out there for all? Just question. Anyone? Well, so I'll answer that for Washington County. So yeah, it's a great question actually. And we work really hard to through public relation efforts through websites, through various and sundry, advertising, and then also partnering with other social service entities to get our crisis number out and about through law enforcement. They hand out our number as well. So I think, yes, we're more than happy to have our number distributed however, and there are multiple ways that it's distributed. I think it's a great question around people know to call 911. They don't necessarily, in my county, know to call 2290591 for emergency services. Julie, you'd like to weigh in on that? Yeah, just quickly. It is a challenge. We don't have an easy number, but we have been trying very hard to make sure that our crisis line gets promoted. There's been a lot of effort around promoting suicide hotlines, but the crisis line is much broader. And so we have been trying to put in the COVID support work and on the Department of Health website. And it's a challenge. And I do know that I think it's in Oregon, when you do call 911, it can go to ambulance, fire, law enforcement, or mental health. And I love that model. Well, I don't know enough about it, but it seems like that is worth looking into. I did look it up. I'd seen a reference to it. I looked up the website and it's certainly an intriguing, seems like a really intriguing positive model. I'll also reference, I know that for some individuals who have dealt with the mental health system, the crisis line isn't interpreted as a way to call if you're having a crisis. It's interpreted as this is how you get the screeners who are the people who determine whether or not you will be involuntarily hospitalized. So it's maybe the last place you wanna call. That's helpful. Anne Maria, is your hand still up or are you just? No, I'm finished. Okay, all right. Thank you. We've got a couple more minutes. If there aren't any other questions. Okay. Okay, clarifying question to Julie. Are you saying that there is a single number for a crisis line for all the DAs across the entire state? Because I'm not aware of that. We don't have that. So we've been trying to publicize the connection to our website for the links for each one, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So what I was gonna ask, if we don't have specific questions, if any of the DAs would like to make any kind of final comment, we've got about five minutes left to any wrap up thoughts based on the questions or things that have occurred to you. Nobody, oh, sorry, Lucy, Representative Rogers. Yeah, I just was, as a quick follow-up, I was just kind of trying to understand what would be required in order to have a call to 911 that had to do with mental health, be redirected to a crisis, team or to the desert. I just am trying to understand on a very kind of nuts and bolts logistical level what would be required to make that happen. I don't know if anyone can speak to that. I could hypothesize, but I'm more interested if any of our panelists here could have any thoughts about that. George? Yeah. Well, I do want to say at our local PDs when if someone calls dispatch, and I know this isn't terribly, this is just the reality, when they call dispatch, oftentimes if it is a mental health challenge or there's issues that are sort of more social service related and so forth, they will connect with our liaison. And there might be, oftentimes is a co-response. I also, I think, I think it was Calvin that might have mentioned the possibility of a separate number. We're really looking at situations that really don't need a criminal justice response. Something we're talking about actually locally is looking at health and wellness or what some communities call welfare checks, looking at those, looking at other, there may be situations where we could do that, but that might involve a different number. It involves marketing. It involves really careful consideration of what are those calls and what are those situations where someone where it could be a, whether it's a peer mental health clinician, a social work liaison going to, but currently in most of our police departments where we have staff co-located, they will be dispatched. I mean, they will be connected. It's not ideal, but it does make a difference and it helps a lot. Representative Christensen. Yeah, George somewhat, I answered my question, but when you call 911, they usually say, what is the problem? You know, that's their first. What is your emergency? Your emergency, right. And I would like to know, do they, if someone says, oh, I'm having a melt, somebody's having a meltdown here and they're getting violent or even if they're not getting violent, they're just becoming totally irrational and escalating, I don't know what to do. Would they call the designated agency or would they send that to the police? What happened in that case in our community that with the 911 calls, if we have, this is assuming we have a police liaison there with the officers, they will be called, they will correspond, they will go with the others. The challenge is availability. I mean, there's a lot of challenges with that, but and it's not an ideal system and it's a system that really needs, I think that's a much bigger conversation. So it's anyway, yeah. Lucy. Yeah, thank you. That was helpful. I think I'm really operating, the question I'm asking is really kind of just nuts and bolts where if it seems like there's situations where the problem is that the person who's calling doesn't know the number of the, they should be calling the designated agency. They don't know the number of the designated agency or they and or don't know that they should be calling the designated agency. I mean, is there a piece of equipment that can say you call 911 and at some point they say, okay, press four, if this is a mental health issue and you press four and it literally, you know, I'm kind of very much on the, is there just a piece of equipment that reroutes a phone call, like not as much in the theoretical, but more on the kind of like what's missing to actually make that phone call go. I suspect before the mechanical, it would probably be a training and triaging component. I don't think they're trained to do that level of triage currently. My gut feeling about it. Julie, we've got a minute or two left literally, but Julie, do you have a thought responding to that? I did. We do do this team two training. It's a contract from the department of mental health where trained law enforcement and mental health center staff, but dispatchers are more frequently joining those meetings and so that they are starting to get that education so that could help. And I did want to be clear that we are supportive of this proposal. We do think this will augment the work we're doing, but we also want to be clear that we would love to strengthen our crisis services and the continuum of services, including the peer component of it. And we totally agree that peers as stakeholders, just like we as stakeholders, would like to be involved in a collaborative process in developing this proposal further. Well, thank you very much. That's a perfectly timed summation of the position and I appreciate everybody who was able to come today and participate and welcome you to join in listening tomorrow. We'll be hearing from a sort of broader variety of people and perspectives. And if we're really lucky towards the end of that time, we'll be able to start some discussion of people's maybe follow-up questions or where to start focusing in what our thoughts are. So thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ian. Thank you for this opportunity. Close out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Are you ready to go off live stream? We are. Yes. Thank you.