 Good afternoon. This is Senate Judiciary and Senate institutions meeting on the subject of placement of difficult place youth with the Department of Children and Families. I'm at a prior meeting, Commissioner Brown mentioned that they would have, hopefully have a plan by the first of the year to deal with some of these more difficult kids and Senator Benning's committee on institutions as is beginning a deep dive into the problem. Basically looking at how the youth who used to go to Woodside are dealt with. Luckily, it's a small number. We've had discussions with the Commissioner of Corrections about possible four beds in Rutland or some youth. But it still leaves a real void, so I turned over to Senator Benning. Yes, good afternoon everybody. I'm Joe Benning, I chair of the Senate Institutions Committee. Last year we took a beginning look, if you will, at the brick-and-mortar changes with respect to Woodside being closed in and what to do with problem youth that might need to have some more secure settings. As a result of our conversations, which were fairly brief, we had understood that there was going to be a facility in Newbury with some conditions that were placed on the state's intent to move there in the event the town did not go along with that suggestion. I understand that there had been objections. There has been a situation where things have entered into the legal world and the problems for resolving that remain to be seen. But as that winds its way through the legal system, the question becomes what, if anything, is plan B at this stage. I think that brings us up to speed with both committees. Senator? Commissioner? Would you like to comment or Deputy Commissioner Radke? Sure. So we have a presentation to go through for the committee and we'll kind of touch on on what was just raised by the committee during that presentation. But we thought it would be good to give a bit of a background to our system of care in the different services and placement of youth that that we provide those services to to kind of frame context to this conversation. And so with me today, I have we have a Deputy Commissioner Erica Radke and then also Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of DCF of Caterina Lesaias. And Peggy, I didn't know if you could give Caterina authority to pull off the PowerPoint. We have another document to show as well. Yes, I did give her permission. Okay, great. I'll pull it up right now. Is that good for you, Commissioner? Yes, thank you. And by the way, it's on the Judiciary Committee website. Folks want to follow their own. You know, and Caterina, if you could go to the next slide, please. You know, so at DCF, we're really committed to the positive youth development and providing support in services to promote safety, long terms, long term stability and the well-being of the youth we serve. You know, we recognize the importance of that the appropriate setting for youth to meet their needs, whether that be in a community-based care or what residential system of care. And then Erica will take us through a little bit of the next couple slides on the PowerPoint. Erica. Thank you, Commissioner. Caterina, can you move to the next slide? So, good afternoon, everyone. For the record, my name is Erica Ratke and I'm Deputy Commissioner of the Family Services Division of DCF. On this slide, we talk about custody and case types. Children and youths receiving ongoing services in DCF can either be in DCF custody or court-ordered conditional custody or actually in the custody of their parents while their family receives support. Point-in-time data from September 2021 shows that there were 1,055 children in DCF custody and of roughly 470 children in conditional custody arrangements and 320 families receiving ongoing support. And of the children under DCF custody, as you can see, the vast majority were placed in custody due to cases of abuse and neglect and other chins matters. The majority of the youths that have been adjudicated delinquents are actually in conditional custody arrangements. So in terms of, you know, where children in custody live, you can see from this slide that most of the children in DCF custody are placed in home-based care. The majority reside in foster care or kinship care. There's only a small percentage, about roughly 12% that are placed in residential care. Next slide. And as I mentioned earlier, there's just that small number of delinquent youth, a little under 4%, that are actually in DCF custody. Most of them live at home and receive services and supervision under DCF. Next slide. But of those youths, that small number with delinquencies that are under our custody, a little over half of them are placed in foster or kinship care or live at home. And then the remaining youth that less than half do reside in residential care. Are there any questions before I turn it back over to Commissioner Brown? So some of what we're seeing in our systems of care category, if you go to the next slide, is that the pandemic has been having a real impact across the board in our system of care. It's been hard to retain and recruit foster parents to make sure we have a strong and robust foster system for our children who are able to be placed in the community, which is the vast majority of our children. We serve whether they're Chin's kids, abuse and neglect, or children deemed delinquent, which is a very, very small number of the kids we serve. Also, we're seeing the impact hitting our residential programs really hard, you know, either just hard for them to retain and recruit staff. That is a serious challenge for many of the programs we rely on. Also, we're seeing outbreaks happen in some of the programs we serve, either with the staff or the youth, which then limits the ability to admit new children into those programs during those outbreaks, which is further straining the system as well. And those impact Chin's kids and juvenile justice kids, we're seeing that happen more and more across our system of care. And then the other area, in particular with Kinship, where we put youth with other family members to help meet their needs and to live with and provide services, many of them are grandparents, and they are in the vulnerable, you know, the more vulnerable category in terms of the impact of the pandemic. And some of our children are in schools, we're at risk of catching, even if they're vaccinated, they could have a breakthrough case, or they're younger children who are not eligible to receive the vaccine. And so that's straining our Kinship care as well. And we're reevaluating our policies in terms of vaccination for the kids in our care and custody as a result of some of these impacts. But just given the dynamic and our role in these children's lives, it's a policy decision that needs a lot of review and analysis and conversation with our partners. We have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to stabilize our high end system of care in Caterina. And if you'd thank you, you know, we have been working with Beckett to create a new contract to help them recruit high end stabilization foster homes and provide wraparound services that contract goes into place on February 1. We're hoping that will help provide some more high end foster homes and stabilize kids that might that are able to live in the community, but with a little bit higher level of service. So that will relieve some pressure on the system as well. Also, given the staffing challenges that we're seeing in some of our programs, you know, it's incredibly important that those programs stay viable and open to meet the needs of our children. And so we have been able to utilize an amended contract being used in the agency of human services. And on the healthcare side of the field, where they have a contract with a provider, a national provider that provides traveling healthcare resources. So we are now a party to that contract. And we are utilizing traveling healthcare resources to help staff programs in a couple areas of the state. One of those is the CL program, you know, the depostry programs in Bennington, and then also a program in Windsor County. Also, I'll point out prior to being able to bring on board these traveling resources, we were actually using DCF leadership staff and line staff in some of the residential programs to help keep them open and available to meet the kids needs and other in some of these areas of the state. So you can see we've utilized quite a few hours of traveling resources. We recently just extended that contract that did run through December. Now that contract's been amended to run through the end of March and we'll reevaluate at that time if those resources are still needed. You know, something we would prefer to make the investments in the program staff, permanent program staff, those programs, given these traveling resources are very expensive. But they are necessary at this time to make sure these programs are able to operate and meet the needs of our case planning. Also, you know, we have several youth who need a higher level, not of residential care, but of mental health care, who really have some acute mental health needs. And the mental health system, particularly for adolescents is very strained at this point and inpatient capacity is very limited. And so we are working very closely daily with the Department of Mental Health and other mental health providers to make sure the needs of our youth are getting met and prioritized so that they're able to have access to inpatient services when those beds become available. You know, the Brativore retreat is really the one inpatient setting that's available for adolescents in the state of Vermont and they are full on every on any given day right now. And there is a waiting list of youth that need in that inpatient level of care. I think right now we have three DCF kids who need that level that are waiting to get in. And many of them are being maintained in healthcare settings while they're waiting for those beds to open up given their level of acuity and their health mental health needs. Also, we're contracting with a provider to open up a two bed program to serve developmentally delayed youth. You know, make sure we're meeting those youth needs as well. I think in general, it's fair to say that we are seeing an increase in the level of needs of some of the youth, not just in general in Vermont, but in kids in DCF custody, you know, the impact of the pandemic are taking their toll. And we're seeing that in some of the higher acuity needs of some of the kids that we're serving within DCF. And so we're really making sure we're putting in programs and services to meet all of our children's needs at all levels of care right now. Also, we've, you know, some of our programs to make sure they're financially viable and can compete in the labor market. You know, we are providing new updated rates, increased rates for our providers. Many of our providers are coming to us seeking increases in their rates and we're working with them to provide them. But also, we've been providing emergency financial relief as well, so that those programs can stay open and viable and meet the needs. So we're making sure that our programs have the financial resources available to stay open and operate and make sure that they can retain staff. Also, I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Senator. Well, I guess the two areas where I'm most concerned right now is the case planning and I'm doing communication with DMH because that's what we're seeing at my local hospital are kids who are in need of mental health treatment being housed in the emergency room and then creating all having altercations with staff having other helpers. And then the second one is the need for dealing with that small group of dangerous youth who are trying to be housed in the community. But in the early this morning, we talked about possibility of four beds at the Rockman Correctional Facility. Those are the two areas that are most needed. And I got something from someone that the Brattleboro retreat was out seeking contracts with New Hampshire to take kids that obviously would leave us with less room for that group that you identified. You know anything about that? Yes. Commissioner, if I just interrupt, I need to alert Peggy that one of our committee members is stuck in the waiting room and would like to be admitted. I'm sorry, thank you. Sorry, just to say he's not actually in the waiting room. He's attempting to join the wrong meeting. I'm communicating with him right now. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Senator Sears, for highlighting those two areas of concern. I can say that the leadership within DCF meets regularly and talks regularly with the leadership at mental health and the agency and other partners as well. And also we have teams that meet regularly daily to triage the needs of the youth that we're serving and then other youth that DMH is serving and try to make sure we're matching kids with the appropriate level of placements with the services that are currently available and then prioritizing them when there are delays in our youth being able to access care. In terms of the contract with the Brattleboro Retreat, New Hampshire has a very peculiar contracting process. And my understanding is that agreement was something that was discussed between the state of New Hampshire and the Brattleboro Retreat some time ago. And just given the peculiar contracting process that it took quite a while for that contract to go through this committee that all state contracts mean to go through, and that that contract really is only providing beds when there are beds available and they are not needed by any Vermont youth. So right now I just want my understanding that they're serving any youth from New Hampshire and that they would not unless there are no Vermont kids that need access to those services. Thank you. Senator Sears or Benning may I ask a question? Certainly can for my end. So I just I'm looking at this and I'm just it's always befuddled me why we can pay a thousand hours of travel time and we can't offer sufficient wages to attract people permanently. I mean I know that and this happens in hospitals too. Travel time is really really expensive. So if we're paying for a thousand hours of travel time and now we've just reactivated the contract, why don't we just offer more money to hire local people and have permanent positions instead of travel. Anyway it's just it's always befuddled me that we are willing to spend money on travel but not willing to increase our salaries to get permanent local people. Thank you Senator and in your point as well taken and I and I certainly would not disagree with that sentiment and I would say that we are working with our providers to provide financial resources to be able to pay more to their staff their permanent staff through the through the rate process and emergency financial relief so that they can be more competitive in the job market and not only being able to hire more staff but be able to retain more staff and so we are doing that work on on our end in DCF in terms of our our residential system of care and making sure our residential providers can be competitive in the wage and labor market. Thank you. I was just going to add in that I agree with you that we are definitely working with the rate setting process to try to get to a more competitive wage but what we found is that in this immediate short term we still needed to help them help these programs get more staff which is why we called in the travelers because as we're trying to help the the program stabilize they still needed staff in the meantime due to you know COVID with staff having COVID and taking off or having people resign so this is sort of a short term solution that we're working on while we help get them to gain their own more permanent staff in the in the longer term. Senator English. Yes Senator English. Commissioner Brown is there a backup plan in case Newberry the Newberry site doesn't work and the reason why I asked that question is because I'm just getting questioned over and over and over why we're not looking at the Windsor site that we've already own already so could you help me with an answer to that so I could I could I could answer that effectively why we why we wouldn't be looking at Windsor if Newberry doesn't work. Sure um yeah and that was the next piece of our presentation just to update you as Senator Benning touched on you know the our permit with Beckett um at the local level with the town of Newberry's Development Review Board was denied. We disagree with the decision and the reasoning behind the decision and we have appealed that decision to the Environmental Court that appeal will take some time to work its its way through but we still believe that that is the right site the right facility and the right program and the right provider for what we want for our youth that need that level of care. Certainly recognize that that's a setback and there's going to delay the opening of that facility or you know depending on the outcome of the appeal you know we might be having to look at a more a different permanent option. We are working behind the scenes right now we have a provider who's willing to step in to run a more secure program on the interim. We are working with that provider and other partners to locate an appropriate facility in a community that will meet our needs. We have looked at the Windsor Prison. We've been working closely with the buildings and general services on this work and BGS along with other providers did recently submit a report to the legislature regarding the Windsor facility and and its future and I would defer to that report and you know in that report it makes clear that the town of Windsor would prefer that it not be used for any type of human service type of program like either corrections or a secure juvenile facility is my understanding. That not being said I think the bigger concern that we have is just the state of the facility. BGS has been pretty clear with with us that that facility is in such a state of disrepair and condition that it and just as it was a facility to begin with that it really doesn't make sense to make investments in that facility because it would take a tremendous amount to bring it up to meet what we would need it to meet for our youth and that would take a considerable amount of money considerable amount of time to make that happen. We'd be talking about building a new building regardless of what site as far as whether it be Newberry or Windsor but I hear you as far as again you might run into the same problems with Windsor as what we might be running into to Newberry and you've answered my question thank you. Yeah and I would say in general I think other programs within the agency that they support whether it's for substance abuse or developmental or serving developmental disability you know group home settings are really facing challenges in siting across the state and as Vermont has moved forward with what I will term de-institutionalizing over the last several decades and trying to become a more community-based oriented service provider and in meeting folks we serve needs we are running into more and more resistance in terms of siting of these small residential type facilities and it might be something I would recommend that the legislature revisit and whether there's more needed to do in terms of legislative legislation to support the development of these facilities you know one of the areas that the town of Newberry just for instance you know even though the state of Vermont is funding would be leasing the facility in Newberry and funding the operation through a partner the development review board found it's not a state owned and operated facility even though it would be we'll have an option to buy it will be you know spending millions of dollars to renovate it and millions of dollars a year for a provider to run it you know so the protections that are in statute now might not fit the current framework of how the agency provides services in the community and it's been for a while now moving away from state operated facilities into more community-based facilities but what would state involvement that might be an area and I think needs re-evaluation at some point by the legislature because other facilities are running into similar concerns in other areas of the states may I follow up yes following up on Senator Ingalls question I I do understand and I understand that Windsor doesn't want it and Newberry doesn't want it and you said that you were working with somebody and I'm not sure who to provide a an interim why would we if we can work something out where there can be an interim we're talking about at least two years down the road for even if Newberry gets on track right if we can provide an interim for two years in a community and with a provider whether it's Becket or not but is willing to take this on why don't we just make that a permanent solution instead of interim and then continuing the the battle in Newberry that's a great question senator and I think as as we're approaching an interim plan we are with that in mind that it could be a longer term solution and and so that is some of the work that in the conversations that are happening is you know what would be the longer term outlook for if we leased or purchased a facility or that provider did that and what renovations would we want to make in the short term to make it viable and then depending on what happens in the future would there be further investments or modifications we'd want to use that facility and so those conversations are happening in terms of of of the different options we're looking at and evaluating is summer there would be very short term and some could could meet a longer term need and in what level of investment in those longer term needs make sense given the current state of where we are but I mean your point has well taken senator those are the conversations if I might just kind of a response to this conversation I'm I'm really troubled by not having the understanding of we have an immediate crisis that has to be dealt and I'm acutely aware that crisis see all is in my district there are multiple becket programs in my district which deal with girls which are putting added stress and strain on all the systems down here and I I think we have an emerging an emergency problem that has to be dealt with but one of the things that I'm proud of developing over the years in Bennington is community support for these programs and unfortunately that's in danger right now here in Bennington but it's something that becket never did in new bearing with all due respect to them and I brought this up to them personally during meetings with our committees of last year it does take community support and if you're not willing to get out there and meet and answer questions from the community it doesn't happen and I but I do think we have an emergency we have a problem that needs to be addressed now it can't wait a year for becket to open and I agree with senator white and I I'm appreciative of the effort to the commission for deputy commissioner the entire DCF but I think part of the problem is that the the emergency is now and we have they have the state employees association after them because workers are being placed and what they claim are dangerous situations we have the local hospital at least in Bennington concerned about what's happened in assaults on on staff there by some of these teenagers and so it's like a perfect storm and it has to be dealt with just not something that calls for a year's planning and I'm not going to fix blame for why becket didn't work or why it's taken you know from the time we first discussed it last year to now and we're still no further ahead we're actually now at least a year away I just you know I think that was my purpose and bring us here to try to get us all to understand we have an emergency situation DCF is doing the best it can but we need the entire agency human services behind us and I thought the questions about Windsor you know Windsor doesn't want it but it's at least five miles wilderness and it is owned by the state of Vermont senator Sears can I ask that the power point be taken down for a moment senator if I could just weigh in a second senator Sears as well at senator benning I don't want to interrupt you those I apologize it's okay the issue for me commissioner is on our committee both the state and becket left it with us that if the town was unwilling to host this facility that the plan was going to shift to something else and there are a lot of people who are anxious to come and explain why things didn't happen and senator Sears is 100 correct this is a problem statewide and people are having a direct impact especially the state employees who are running into severe problems so I don't know what it's going to take to get this to the top of the burner maybe it's already there but for sure we're going to take a deeper dive on this next week to follow up what senator Sears has just been walking through and try to get this moving as quickly as possible I just wanted you to be aware of that a lot of the folks who are surrounding new burry who came to testify and are upset about the process and how it worked we will be joining us to have a conversation and the state employees association as well so this is um it's a conversation that needs to be had and we need to resolve it it's that simple I'm done that was my rant dick I appreciate that I went I guess yeah I think we need answers quickly um and again I think we've offered a couple of suggestions one being four beds at the Rutland Corruption so we're dangerous youth and the other being what can be done to open up beds at the retreat or to provide more beds for those that need a psychiatric care um I if I might just read from an email while hospital emergency departments treat all who arrive for care most are not equipped to handle long-term influx and troubled sometimes dangerous juveniles who are left for numerous days even though emergency treatment is not required needs individuals stay for an extended time in our emergency department challenges escalate such as keeping staff safe and having space and resources available to care for patients with true emergency conditions our experience and what we've learned from others is that the juveniles arrived from various parts of the state the treatment facilities who may not be equipped to handle their needs ultimately these juveniles end up in our emergency department when these facilities are overwhelmed often they become the responsibility of the local police and the state's attorney during that course of each situation you know I don't think I can express it any better than that as to the immediate problem that we face that must be above it if I may just jump in here I mean I certainly appreciate the sentiments being shared by senator benning sending shares but I also want to be very clear that um you know standing up a secure facility will not resolve many of the concerns that we're discussing here today many of the kids would not be appropriate for a facility like that because the many of the kids in crisis right now are chins kids in these in these residential programs and they would not be suitable for a locked program by law they were excluded from Woodside when it was open also many of the youth are in mental health crisis and just like any parent and custodian of their children you seek appropriate care and services for those for those youth and so if a child goes into crisis you bring them to a health care provider and that's and that's our obligation as a department is to make sure the kids that we're serving get the same access to the same services make sure their needs are met as any other youth in the state of them awkward we stand and act as their parents and that and that's what we're trying to do here is make sure our kids in our care and cuss they are getting access to the services they need I certainly um look forward to the conversation next week senator um the southern Vermont southwestern Vermont medical center i'm certainly happy to work with them to to to problem solve and to see what resources we can help support them with but at the end of the day when we have a youth in crisis and they need health care it's our obligation to make sure they get access to that healthcare and you know and and we are not alone in the state in in Vermont in this in our conversations with our neighboring states and states across the country the pandemic is is creating challenges across the board and even for states that have a facility like are struggling as well to meet the needs of all their youth it's the it's really the pandemic and that's where our focus is but also our focus is also on we we recognize the need for a secure facility for the very very small number of youth that need that level of care but right now the greatest impact in the state of Vermont is the impact across the board on our systems of care and it's our obligation to make sure we're addressing all of those and we are doing that and we are prioritizing all of those needs at once and working as hard as we can to address those needs I I want to make clear I never suggest that it was your fault nor did I suggest that it was DCF when I realized there's an endemic I realized the problems but I thought that when you raised the issue of working with DMH I suspect that's where much of the problem was is that the agency of human services siloed out many of these kids and so those that should you know that would have been before the Crawford decision would have been at Woodside being dealt with the Crawford decision has had as much to do with Woodside as well as the staff there had as much to do with the demise of Woodside and I'm certainly you came in after that and obviously the deputy that he did as well but we have a crisis and that's what I'm trying to say and I understand the need to use an emergency room but when there's no other place and the kid is held in the emergency room for an extended period that that's where the problem is why I was asking about Broward for a treat thank you senator yes thank you senator and that is an important point and I would just like to add that in terms of when we do have a youth that is in crisis and they do need to go to the emergency room when they're screened in you know they do get the treatment that's available but we also do then continue to look for placements when they're not able to go to the retreat we even look at placements out of state in order to try to find as somewhere for you to go to get that treatment that they need but as the commissioner said since this problem is just really nationwide we found that many of the other programs don't have beds either and and I would point out too that when we have a youth in crisis that doesn't screen in since they are our responsibility we do you know keep them and and continue to take care of them with our own staff and the sheriffs when available as well so it's not as if we're just leaving are you there at the emergency room without cause yeah that are white so this may be a stupid question but I know that a couple years ago we we funded 10 more I think it was 10 more level one beds at the retreat in what used to be called Linden Lodge it's across the street from the retreat are those do we know if those those are secure beds because they're level one psychiatric beds I don't know that we need and at the time the retreat actually said that we probably needed more step down beds we didn't necessarily need more level one beds are those all in use right now or could those 10 beds be used for this purpose my understanding and I would probably defer to my colleague Commissioner Hawes at the Department of Mental Health who's who's more in tune but my understanding is is well over a year ago the the retreat was experiencing financial difficulties and they closed at least one one program for to serve adolescents and so there's currently a unit being unused and so and that's some of our work with the retreat is what can it take to to bring in additional staffing to open up some of some of that unused capacity in their facilities right that was that was a different that was a different those are different beds that was a an adolescent program that was unceremoniously shut down by age as I will say and the but the 10 and that program was in on the main campus but the the 10 beds that I'm talking about are across the street in what used to be called Linden Lodge and it was voted on by the House a number of years ago to add those 10 level one secure beds and I just I don't know if they're in use but if they're not those are secure they're both staff and building secure and I if they're not being used if we don't need them for level one psychiatric beds I I just I don't know I will connect with with our partners and get back to you on the answer to that question because I do not have that specific knowledge myself thank you and I'm just going to add one more thing I would also if we're looking at reopening an adolescent unit at the retreat why aren't we looking at doing that permanently then instead of just and and as Senator Bennings or Senator Sears said in Bennington they he has worked really hard to get the community behind these this kind of services and I would say the same is true in Brattleboro with the community welcoming services for kids in crisis adults in crisis so just to come now your point is well taken Senator White and I would say that we recognize that many of the programs we operate in the department and I'm moving broader than just the family services division now in terms in response to the pandemic the expansion or the change in those programs are certainly creating stress in communities across the state whether it's the emergency housing program or you know the resident our residential programs are serving kids with greater acuity or or having staffing challenges and that does put pressure on those community first responder and healthcare resources you know we you know share some of the work we've done here to help kind of stabilize our providers to help meet those kids needs but also we've been working with a security consultant you know because some of those areas have involved as Senator Sears and police responses and we want to make sure we're working with our community partners as well in those conversations and I meet regularly with the chiefs of police in certain communities or with leadership in other communities across our programs when when issues pop up to see what we can do to help meet their needs or make changes you know to provide a better service and lessen the impact. Senator Sears says one of those conversations is happening next week in his area with the hospital and I look forward to that conversation but those conversations are happening regularly across across the state on whether it's due to the impact of the emergency housing program or or our system of care and we will continue to do that as long as necessary to make sure we're meeting the needs not only of our kids and our providers but also the communities that host some of these services as well. Thank you commissioner I truly appreciate both you and the deputy commissioner coming here and giving us this update. It's a challenge and I recognize that challenge both of you. But I'm hopeful that the institutions committee's deep dive will help us better understand what needs to be done particularly in terms of the psychiatric issues that you have kids who are in custody that did not commit a crime who have significant psychiatric issues and I've always seen the problem there between the department of mental health and in some cases Dale and the department of children and families like you guys get stuck and you need help from your partners in AHS too. And I a lot of people missed the impact that Judge Crawford's decision had on Woodside and there are those with certain kids and the behavior of certain staff at Woodside that led to those allegations as well as those findings by Judge Crawford. I think we can't forget that in this whole conversation. You are correct senator many of the kids in mental health crisis even if Woodside was open wouldn't be even if they were juvenile justice kid wouldn't be appropriate you know and Judge Crawford's decision really highlights that issue quite well. I think when you know hopefully when judiciary institutions health and welfare whomever else looks at this crisis will also look at that particular group that may be like in the adult world corrections is the institutional last resort it seems like in many cases in the juvenile world DCF institutional last resort we have to change that. So we do have a few areas to touch on of our presentation just one to share some of the other you know I want to recognize our family services staff you know they have been asked to step up and work in ways and serve youth with a higher level of acuity that we have seen in a long long time probably never in our system of care given the impact and our staff have stepped up and so we're seeing chins youth being asked to leave foster placements or residential placements at inopportune moments and our staff need to step up some of them you know need to be stacked in apartments with law enforcement or with our staff until we can get to a business the next business day so that we can get them into a residential program many don't accept new admissions except during business hours and so our staff have stepped up and you know and I want to recognize the work of the staff it is asking a lot of our staff and they have stepped up across the board whether it's the other area I would say they've stepped up as you know you know it given it's a juvenile youth is picked up in the middle of the night or a weekend we have agreements in place with law enforcement to staff them with in apartments we've secured in areas of the state until we can get them into court and then assess what's the right program replacement for them longer term and many and we ask our staff to be there with law enforcement to manage those youth as well and one of the things we've encountered and it's getting better what really hindered us early in the pandemic but working with law enforcement as sheriffs we're also working on a new contract with a in-state secure transport provider it's transporting our youth after they've been picked up has been challenging where we've needed to wait long periods of time for a transport team to arrive to move youth we ask a lot of our staff sitting with them in police departments or emergency rooms or in other programs depending on the circumstances and you know and and that's why our work to stand up an interim solution is so important that facility would bring more stability to the system in those circumstances while they're rare they are challenged they can be challenging when they do occur also you know to help relieve the stress on our team you know we're working to bring in retired staff or other staff on a temp basis who have training and skills to work with youth so that we can not rely on our existing staff so heavily we're working to bring additional temp resources on to handle that load we also have been in conversations with an out-of-state provider who it's a for-profit provider and they provide mental health care more higher level like inpatient care that wanting to establish a program in Vermont we're working to see whether that's something the Department of Mental Health and DCF and Dale Disabilities Agency and Independent Living are in conversations with this provider you know space again is one of those limiting factors in that conversation right now I mentioned the transportation and we do I'll say the pandemic has really broken down barriers within the agency of human services I work much more closely and regularly with my colleagues commissioners and deputy commissioners and in our teams on the ground as well between the disabilities aging and independent living mental health and the Department of Corrections and you know and one of the things we're working closely with DMH is to try to bring some additional healthcare crisis stabilization programs back up to full capacity you know those that are short just of inpatient hospitalization some of our providers there again have been hit with staffing you know our designated agencies are really struggling with staffing right now which really you know limits their ability to fully provide those crisis stabilization programs and so we're working with our partners there as well and then to support our team Erica I don't know if you want to touch on some of the work we're doing right now to help support our team at FSD who have done a phenomenal job and I have tremendous respect in this by the hardest job in state government is being a social worker within the family services division you know I I really do have a great team and it's important to me to recognize the hard work that they've been doing and as the commissioners said how they've stepped up during COVID and staffing youth that are COVID positive are also staffing youth high-end youth and you know different situations either in apartments or at emergency rooms and what we've been doing is we developed a workforce development group just to brainstorm some ways to show our appreciation for our staff as well as looking for ways to retain our staff and to also hire additional high-quality people and some of the ideas that the group has come up with is pay incentives for staff members that are staffing COVID positive youth we're also contemplating creating a specialized response team that would be eligible for a yearly stipend and we got that idea from DOC and what this team would do I'm envisioning them having specialized training and being able to mobilize and support youths that have emergent needs and another thing that we're also considering is utilizing the designation of senior FSW at this point we only have a few left but really re-energizing that designation that would be for more seasoned workers that could stand to have increased pay but that they're not necessarily interested in managing people but that we're recognizing their skills and their talents as a way of keeping them around because we absolutely need them so what we're really looking to do is find creative and innovative ways to find out what the staff needs in order to make sure that we have a real positive work environment because I do have a great team and I really want to make sure that we keep it and that we grow it and then there's just one last piece of information we wanted to share with the committee and I know this has come up another testimony of what residential programs we use in state and out of state and and the youth in those programs and Caterina I didn't know if you could pull that spreadsheet up just so we could share that with the committee yep can you see that now I can make it a little bit larger if that's better yeah and and so here are the programs that we use in state and then below our out of state and you will see the name of the program the number of DCF youth placed there whether there are chins youth or there are juvenile justice youth and then a description of of the program and who the who they who they serve and what type of service they provide very general high level so if you can scroll down so you'll get a sense here and I believe we provide this to the committee so we have 71 kids in in state programs right now 60 of those are chins kids 11 of those are juvenile justice kids and then if you scroll down you can also see we do rely on a number of out of state programs particularly for for kids who are struggling with with very unique needs that we just don't have a large number of kids with those same needs that where we could it makes sense to have a program created in state to meet them and so you can see we have 50 kids in out of state programs right now I really love to continue to reduce that number and provide more services in state but we have 40 chins kids in programs out of state right now in 10 juvenile justice kids and so that gives you a sense of the programs we're utilizing for our youth the number of kids we have there where they're located and kind of a high level of of what that program focuses on for service and I asked you what cx treatment it's oh oh treatment okay thanks we I think we're supposed to be on the floor at one and we're close to that so well that wraps up our presentation center girl thank you we really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation thank you thank you very much and senator benning and senator I don't see senator liens here but I see senator hardy and other members of thousand welfare