 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Bill Gehring. And today we're very pleased to have a special guest from the Health and Human Services Department, Anne Wunderjim. Thank you. As you know, we have about 22 departments. Not about, we have 22 departments in Sheboygan County and the largest and perhaps one of the most important is our Health and Human Services Department. Anne Wunderjim is the director of that very important department and today is going to discuss some of the roles and responsibilities as well as some of the upcoming initiatives and festivities this winter. Absolutely, and it doesn't feel quite like winter today. It's very nice out there. Not too bad. Please begin sharing a little bit about yourself, how long have you been director and give us a flavor for the organization of the department. Okay, I think as you know, I've been with the county more than 20 years and we won't say how many more than 20 years. And I've been the director for the last six, although it seems like it might be seven now. And each year is different and each year is enjoyable and my answer to people has always been the day that I come to work dreading everything I'm doing is the day I'm retiring and so far that hasn't happened. And that's because of the roles and responsibilities of the department. We benefit people. And when I think about the number of people we serve, it's every single Sheboygan County resident. We often kind of talk tongue-in-cheek and I say, well, we serve people womb to tomb. And by that I mean we serve pregnant women and we serve people who have passed away and need assistance with their burial and everything else in between. As I was driving out here for the show today, one of my thoughts was one of our areas that we provide services and juvenile justice and those are young people in our community who have gotten into trouble. And today our department, along with some community agencies, is hosting a juvenile justice conference out here on the campus. And it looked from the cars parked out there that participation is very good. So that's just one of the areas in which we really serve the community. I thought you were gonna say you saw some tagging or something on a concrete wall on the way out here. So I'm glad to hear that was the case. No, I didn't see that. It's not what they call it now when you spray paint, it's tagging. I still call it graffiti. But I believe probably the most recent term is tagging, correct. Now you have five divisions in the department, do you know? Actually, we're down to four now. We did some reorganization, so you're correct. Last year with the retirement of Jim McCabe, we incorporated our aging services into the Division of Community Programs and we now have our Aging and Disability Resource Center. So community programs provides both our behavioral health services in addition to the Aging and Disability Resource Center and then the back end of that is our long-term support services for our elderly and people with disabilities. So that's one of the prime areas of service. In addition to the juvenile justice, the other half of the Division of Social Services is our Child Protective Services. So it's the children who are being abused primarily by a primary caregiver where we get involved and we have a number of referrals that come in every day that we investigate or now we do assessments and we do risk and safety planning. So that's both our behavioral health with community programs, long-term care with community programs and then our social services. We have a division called economic support and that's always a little bit misleading but from Bill's past work experience that's where we have staff that determine financial eligibility for Medicaid programs, which would provide health insurance coverage to people. Foodshare, which people often think of as food stamps and then other programs such as childcare, eligibility in Wisconsin Works or W-2 and then our fourth division is public health and public health we have nurses on staff and in sanitarians. So we do communicable disease prevention, intervention, the WIC program which is the Women, Infant and Children program along with all the hotel and restaurant inspection programs. So that's kind of a very high-level overview of our four divisions at this point in time. One of the things that always impresses me about your department is not only the breadth of programs and services, but the people that work with you, work for you. You have some very talented, caring individuals from our ends to administrators and please give us just a brief flavor of some of the diversity of employees and how many employees you have in the department. Okay, as you said, it is a diverse group of people. We have about 200 employees that we employ. There's very few that are part-time. We're primarily a staff of full-time employees. We have registered nurses, as you said, in public health, but we also have registered nurses in our long-term care area and in our behavioral health area. They have a different expertise in psychiatric nursing versus a background in working in geriatrics with the elderly. Our sanitarians who have education so they go in and do the hotel and restaurant inspection and work with the restaurant's social workers and our social workers are certified social workers and we have bachelor's degree people as well as master's degree social workers. We have psychotherapists. We contract with a psychiatrist and we have our paraprofessional support staff. And I think one area of staff that people are never really sure of is our economic support staff because some of them have degrees, some of them don't, but nobody can walk in and just become an economic support specialist. It takes six months of training in-house and another six months before you're fully trained to do that eligibility determination. So we just, I kind of think of us as a microcosm of what's out there and the skill sets that people have and bring are just tremendous and probably the most important one is we do care about the people we serve. And that's not something they can teach you, that's something that people bring to the job and support in their roles working with people in the community. One of your newer initiatives, as you mentioned, the Aging and Disability Resource Center, it's been about a year since July. Correct. So almost a year and a half that it's been in existence. Really an important focus for the elderly. Please touch on what's the role and services provided from the ADRC. I will do that. And actually I brought a little something along for you and Bill. And this is one of our magnets from the Aging and Disability Resource Center. So Bill, there's one for you and Adam, one for you. And my kind of assignment to you is if you can't use that personally at some point, whether it's somebody coming into your office or when you're out in the community, pass it on to someone who could use it as a resource because it has our phone number on. And then I have a packet of information I'm going to share with you and also give to you to share. But our Aging and Disability Resource Center brought together our services from the Division on Aging and that we also had in other parts of our system and now incorporates one-stop shopping. So if I have an elderly parent and I'm looking for some services as a child of an elderly parent, I can call in and get some assistance. As an elderly person, I could call in or a person with a disability, whether it be a physical disability or developmental disability. So it's for adults age 18 and older or someone on behalf of that adult 18 year older seeking services, information assistance. Most of our work goes through phone calls. People call into the number 459-3095. It's on your magnet. They have a question. We have staff, at least three deep that are there to answer questions. We may have to take information and get back to them. So we're a resource. If they need more than just information assistance, we can do some options counseling. We can actually go out and meet with the person, talk to them, just do a kind of an assessment to help them see what they need. If it goes beyond that, we can help them look for what types of funding can the county provide or can the community provide to assist them in meeting their needs. So it may be respite where I just am getting tired out and I need a day a week where I can not provide care. It could be assisting and ranging for admission to a community-based residential facility. It could be providing in-home supports. So we are located downtown about one block south of our main building right above the Margo restaurant and next store. So it's kind of an odd spot, but we're on the third floor. People can stop in. We have computer systems available. So I would just encourage people if you need some information to help support a person with a disability or an elderly person, just give us a call. I have a grandmother who's 91. Of course, I'm very fond of and she's living at home alone in Sheboygan Falls. She isn't driving anymore. She isn't making meals for herself like she used to and is starting to talk a little bit about should she be exploring a traditional nursing home and there's a number of good ones, because you know, in Sheboygan County, she isn't likely gonna pick up that phone and make a contact. She certainly, as I said, isn't gonna get in the car and drive into Sheboygan. So if you're a grandson or a child of an individual like that or someone watching this and you know of someone who perhaps could use some assistance, what's the best way to proceed? How do you reach out? By calling that number you mentioned earlier. What I would say is grandson concerned. If you feel comfortable doing that or you wanna talk to one of your parents to do that, they can pick up the phone. As long as she's agreeable, we would send one of our staff people out to meet with her. She may want you there as a support system as we talk with her. It's interesting that you said nursing home care because it's very likely we would look at alternatives to that. Could we keep her in her own home? You know, home delivered meals. Transportation, you brought that up. One of the brochures I have in here for you is on the Sheboygan County Transportation Program that I'm gonna give you. So she could call this number if she needs to get someplace. So we could provide her with a number of resources to take a look at what would her options be to stay where she is or something that's not quite a nursing home at this point in time. You could place that call. A neighbor could place that call. We can send the staff person out after doing a phone call. We're gonna talk a little bit later about some other things but there are just so many resources so that's why I said it's not just the person themselves. It could be any interested party especially if they think somebody may be a little bit at risk and might need some help. Very good. Final question before turning it over to Bill. The Sheboygan and Plymouth area United Way which I know Ann you're very familiar with. The county takes an active role in supporting. They did an assessment or a survey recently and asked the community what are some of the key issues or areas of concern that people have in this community as you well know there was concerns raised about elderly or elderly abuse. And in fact in the information that they share that that's a trend that's on the increase in Sheboygan County. What are we doing or what can we do to address that issue of elderly abuse? It's interesting to bring that up because back in the 80s was when the elder abuse legislation was passed and at that point in time I was working with the long-term care units. So we've been doing elder abuse assessments and services since the mid 1980s. It's interesting that people say it's on the rise and I have some data along that I can pick up and actually share and get to you in terms of the numbers. I think there's better reporting when I look at the numbers. People are more aware of it. We have what's called an I team an interdisciplinary team that takes a look and works with our department because there's different types of abuse. There's financial abuse and we have a close working relationships with the banks and the financial institutions insurance agents. We have elderly people who have agreed to sign forms at their bank that if the bank notices changes in their account activity it can be reported and followed up on. There's physical abuse of elderly where caregivers are burned out and become physically abusive. So we wanna put services in to relieve the stress so that they can continue to provide care. There's emotional abuse and that's always the difficult one and then there's self-neglect and self-abuse where the person just doesn't realize they need help. They don't have a grandson that's concerned and we have to intervene but the intervention is to support the person and to support the caregivers. So we've actually had contact with the United Way to support some of the things we can do possibly using volunteers then to work with people and it's not only the elderly. We also do adult protective services for vulnerable adults and we're gonna get some additional state money in 2008 to actually support that program. So we have a brochure in here on elder abuse reporting and what we can do and then just extra little booklet and these are all available at our Aging and Disability Resource Center. So if somebody calls and they want more information we can actually send them a booklet or a packet of information. Excellent, thank you Ann. And I know that the ADRC was a state initiative that we really spent a lot of time on and the state continues to come up with new initiatives. What might be the new initiatives coming down the road that we'll be working on? The nice thing with the Aging Disability Resource Center is they provided the money and I know you always appreciate that when the money comes with the state program. We are in the process right now of implementing a program called Family Care. In the past I've talked with both of you about our alphabet soup of cop and kip, community integration and community options program. All those Madrid programs and funding sources are going to be rolled into one program called Family Care and it's a managed care program for people with long-term care needs. The key is, is a person that's eligible would be a person who is eligible for nursing home care both based on their functional needs and their financial eligibility. So right now a person that needs that type of care is entitled to go into the nursing home but we have a wait list for community-based services under the Family Care program. Family Care will be an entitlement just like nursing home care and I have to again say it's for long-term care services so it's for people who are elderly or have a disability that qualifies them both functionally and financially. Again the Aging Disability Resource Center will be that entrance point for people to find out more about Family Care to look at the options involved in Family Care and then actually to enroll in Family Care or if they so choose and are eligible to enter a nursing home. The other part with Family Care is the county will not have the contract with the state. There will be a separate contract with a private managed care organization that will administer the Family Care program and then that managed care company will contract back with us for social work services that we can provide. So that's the big thing that's coming and taking a lot of our staff time this year. We've talked a lot about programs for the elderly and disabled but we do a lot with children and their families. What are some key areas? As I said before we do a lot with our child abuse neglect area and we went through a Child and Family Services review not that long ago so we've really been working with our staff on working with parents where we've had to place children out of the home and reuniting them with their family. So we have a social work position that really works with the foster family and the biological family to mitigate the circumstances that led to the abuse neglect and return that child back home. So that's one of the key areas right now in addition to probably 40 for other programs that we do in terms of working with children because we contract with over 200 agencies in the community to provide services also. It's not just our staff doing that. Let's turn to the public health department. It seems like just recently we took over restaurant and food inspection but it has been a number of years. Could you explain what that entails? I was glad you're not gonna ask me how many years because I was thinking how many years has it been? I was talking to Bruce Kras and Dave Rettiger the other day who are two sanitarians and we often think it's gotta be this really complex type thing that keeps us safe when we're looking at food handling and what they basically talk about is food temperature. Hot food needs to be kept hot, cold food needs to be kept cold and hand washing but it goes beyond that. When they go in they don't look just at the physical plant in terms of the floor and the sinks and that type of thing. They actually watch the restaurant go through the food preparation process. When it's delivered, how is it stored? How is it handled? Once they take it out of where it's stored, how is it handled on the counters, the tables and that type of thing? All the way to being served to the table, put in a buffet, whatever it might be. So they really look at that and then they work with the restaurants to improve their practice. We're not there to punish, we're there to ensure that there's food safety. They work with the hotels in terms of the spas, the swimming pools to make sure that those are maintained appropriately. So it really is protecting the public in terms of food-borne illnesses. And recently there was a story where they closed down the schools in the southern part of the state really trying to identify what might have caused those children to become sick. Many times it is in the food we eat in terms of what might cause that. Ever since 9-11 emergency preparedness seems to be a very critical issue. Where does your department fit in in that area? All facets and we work very closely with the Sheriff's Department and Steve in terms of emergency planning. Our role is a little bit different. And public health again as we talked about earlier has really taken the lead on that because of the funding that comes in. We do tabletop exercises through public health and we're part of a Quad County consortium that's funded through the state. So we work with Fond du Lac, Ozaki and Washington counties. Our emphasis more recently hasn't been kind of on the bioterrorism or that type of thing. We've been looking at pandemics if we would have a flu outbreak. And I'm not talking the bird virus at this point in time but that's the most common one. How would we vaccinate the entire population of Sheboygan County? And we need to do that in a very short timeframe. So we have a plan in place on how we would do that. This year we focused on our special needs population. I talked about foster care earlier. When you looked at Katrina, it was your special needs populations that were difficult to provide services to. We need to know if a foster parent is evacuating, where is that foster child? Because we have a legal responsibility. If we're providing services to a person with a developmental disability and they're living in a group home, we need to make sure that group home knows what to do and how to evacuate. And we need to know where that person is going to be living. So our focus the last year and continuing into 2008 will be making sure those at risk or high needs populations have their safety needs addressed should we have any type of emergency situation. The other part we do is education. And every time I ask this question I have to go, I'm not prepared. I have all the pieces in my house except for a cash supply because we rely on upon our debit cards and our credit cards and our checks. But I don't have it in one place. So if an emergency occurs, I can't grab one box and evacuate or do my in-house kind of preparedness. So we really need to start thinking about that. And again, we have excellent resources by calling our public health department. And they're also out on our webpage the Sheboygan County webpage by accessing public health, what you should have in your house, what you need to be prepared to do. And that is not only for individuals, it's for businesses and that's one of the things as a county we're beginning to take a look at is if something came up as a county are we prepared? If half our workforce was not available due to an emergency, what critical services do we continue to provide and what don't we provide? And do we have a building to provide it in should the building I'm currently housed in not be there for us to use? So emergency preparedness, you know, we like to think isn't a big deal, but when you start thinking about what needs to occur, half your workforce in a grocery store is gone and the power system is down. How are you gonna purchase groceries is just a major thing. And I always like the little ad on the paper that talks about well the dog food is edible for human consumption and I can share the bowl. That wouldn't be my choice. I'd prefer to have a few other supplies in my house. So my guess question to you is are you prepared in your homes in terms of your food, water, supply and as your kit together because honestly mine's not and I know better. I think we'll have to work on that a little bit. We're just asking the questions today. Thank you, Anne. You're welcome. If you're watching this at this point you probably just wanna take a deep breath yourself because Anne has already covered a tremendous amount of information and services that the health and human services department provides and provides alone. We have 22 county departments. This is just one of them and as I mentioned earlier one of the most important and also one of the most complex a lot going on, a lot of services provided and speaking of preparations it's that time of year when folks are gonna soon be thinking about their Thanksgiving and Christmas and I know the department is involved with some special activities. Please touch on those. Actually I just met with Pat Prey who is our volunteer coordinator social worker yesterday and all the Thanksgiving baskets that have been donated to the department already spoken for for many of our people who don't have the resources so that's already been completed but we were working on the poster for the Festival of Trees we're very fortunate that they selected us as a recipient again of funding for our child abuse neglect fund. So we have staff that also volunteer their time that weekend to participate in that and that's the first weekend in December and it's their first year at Blue Harbor so it'll be an interesting change for us in terms of a location. In addition to that we are beginning to plan for our Christmas donation room. There are just so many generous organizations and individuals in the community who sponsor individuals or families so anything from toys for children to bathrooms for the elderly to providing gift certificates so an elderly person can get a haircut or get their perm and that type of thing so that's some of what we're working on at this point in time. Just helping support the community and getting the donations to the right individuals and for us it just supplements Christmas for many of the children and families we work with. I know you've been a volunteer for the Festival of Trees for many years and I think this year it's gonna be at Blue Harbor for the first time. Correct. Yeah, that'll be nice. And I don't have my work hours yet but I think it's Saturday night so whoever shows up on Saturday night I should be there either serving food or selling a year raffle ticket. Very nice. Well with Thanksgiving and Christmas comes cold weather and you have a program that I know can help assist people with those cold temperatures and fuel, what's that? Okay, it's called Weep and it's not like you're crying Weeping, it's Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program and actually we run it year round now but people only think about it at this time of the year because of course that's when it gets cold and we all know what's happening to our gas prices right now. By calling our Economic Support Unit which is located out of the Job Center on Wilgus Avenue basically we mail out applications. The individuals can complete that mail in application, send it back in and then based on the state computer system checks are actually issued to the vendor who provides the oil or the utility service to that particular individual. The nice thing about this program is it really helps our elderly residents again because they're on fixed incomes and when you see that increase in the utility cost so we do some outreach at our senior dining sites to take applications also. They can come in and fill out an application and we can help them with that and then through our Asian and Disability Resource Center they can also assist people in accessing the Energy Assistance Program so it is a very valuable program and again it's available year round but we always think about it when the temperatures start to get cold and the snow starts to fly. You have a very caring department, we have a very caring community, a generous community and we only have a minute left but with the holiday season approaching and a time of giving and being thankful. What can our viewers, what can people in this community do to support our Health and Human Services Department in your efforts? Okay, our biggest need right now and it just came across my desk today is we are losing more foster families than we're gaining and that's good news because what's happened is through recruitment when we do have children that can't be returned home the rights of those parents are terminated and those children are adopted by those foster families and they're opting to go out of the foster family service to us so we only recruited four new families last year and we lost 13. So if there's anyone listening who knows of someone that may be interested I would ask them to please call our department and ask for Jackie Erdmeyer and that number is 459-641-8459-641-8. That's the receptionist who can get you to Jackie to talk to her. She can provide some basic information but foster families just serve such a valuable purpose and some of our foster families are aging out of the system, they're retiring and some of them as I said are adopting so that's our need right now but of course at Christmas, any donations they can give a call and we can either help pick up or they can drop off and we'll try to get that to someone who has a match need to what they're donating. Excellent, very good Anne, wonderful overview and if you wanna learn more about the Health and Human Services Department or there was any program that Anne touched on that you'd like to provide input or have concerns or again would just like more information there are a lot of good people that Anne works with don't hesitate to pick up the phone and make a phone call in particular if you have a grandmother or grandfather or a parent that you're a little concerned with that again like my grandmother is aging and perhaps isn't eating like they used to what have you take action, pick up the phone, contact the Health and Human Services Department again the Aging and Disability Resource Center at 459-3095 459-3095 you can make a real difference so again Anne thank you for being here today. Thank you Adam, thank you Bill. Next month our new highway commissioner will be here Greg Schnell it won't be long and you'll be fighting the elements the snow and the freezing rain and it can get dangerous out there and Greg's gonna be here to talk a little bit about the highway department some of their operations upcoming initiatives and provide some safety tips so until next month on behalf of Chairman Gehring and the county board thank you for joining us.