Larimer County Interagency Oversight Group (LCIOG) Meeting 6/13/24

For more information (including members in attendance) see the full notes document here.*

View the meeting agenda.

Interagency Oversight Group Website: The Larimer County Interagency Oversight Group maintains and restores community health, safety, and well-being by partnering with families, youth, children and communities to provide an integrated, immediate, unduplicated and efficient continuum of local services for families with children in Larimer County

After introductions, the minutes from the May 9, 2024 meeting were approved.

LCIOG Chair & Co-Chair Vote: Motion approved to elect Andrea Clement-Johnson as Chair and Cyndi Dodds as Co-Chair.

Review of LCIOG By-Laws: Significant changes were made by the Group last year, so no changes or additions were put forth. Motion approved to accept by-laws as written.

Family Assessment and Planning Team (FAPT) Updates: Kayla Hendrickson offered these changes to FAPT:

1. The team will decrease capacity from 60 cases to 35 cases per month. FAPT closes approximately 4-5 cases each month. With capacity decreasing, they plan to continue to “naturally” close cases, but only accept new ones based on capacity. Kayla commented that the waitlist continues to grow. They are looking for sustainable community-based resources to shift patients towards, like Rapid Resource for Families.
2. The FAPT team is shifting from virtual to in-person monthly meetings with the Loveland and FoCo teams. The purpose of the meetings is to discuss budget, resources, cases, and brainstorming. Kayla hopes the shift to in-person will help bring back the collaboration that she claims to have been part of the original FAPT team. However, she said in-person meetings are a challenge for families.
3. Notetaking duties will rotate among the reps. Previously, advocates took notes but the FAPT team agreed that was counterproductive and it limited their participation.  

Kalya also shared a success story: For the past 1.5-2 years, FAPT has been working with a family that has 3 youths with severe mental health issues. She said unsafe incidents or attempts occurred almost daily and the family visited the hospital nearly 200 times per year. FAPT helped the family connect to trauma treatment at the Jacob Center, therapists, and SummitStone resources. She said today, 1 youth has graduated from needing FAPT’s services because he can safely attend school, leave home, and play with friends; the other 2 youth are still navigating some court and truancy issues, but they have not had a hospitalization in the past 6 months. Kayla attributed the success to collaboration, the FAPT model, and the Jacob Center Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) approach that helped empower the parents, and provided structure and control. 

Budget Update (see expenditures attachment below meeting notes): Thad Paul projected that pressures will be felt in FAPT and recommended reinforcing employees’ creativity to navigate systems with reduced budget. Kayla stated that FAPT is actively making efforts to decrease its budget by transferring clients to sustainable community resources. The program is losing a contract in the fall which will bring cost savings, and Turning Point will begin accepting Medicaid, so they are working to move patients with Medicaid over. Thad recommended looking into opportunities for care coordination with Regional Accountable Entities (RAEs); Kayla plans to connect with Violet Willmett, the Rocky Mountain Health Plans Care Coordinator. 

Rapid Resource Staffing Review: Kayla said a review happened the last Friday of May. The next is scheduled for the last Friday of June. 

YTD Monthly Expenditures: The group decided that the expenditures are not worthwhile to discuss each meeting. They will continue to be sent out as an attachment to the agenda, but they will plan to review them quarterly unless something out of the ordinary appears. 

Placement Data:

• Thad said that DHS is placing more kids today than in the last few years because during Covid the team was not going out as much / kids were not coming to DHS as frequently.
• Patti Davis expressed concerns about the impact of Covid on socialization. She mentioned students are coming into schools not understanding how to navigate socially. She says it will be important to pay attention to strong socio-emotional indicators among kids who have been introduced early to technology or raised with it.
• Averil brought up the importance of early childhood intervention. She suggested having the Early Childhood Council come speak with the group. Patti added that Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has increased the number of people seeking evaluation services and universal preschool has allowed them to have a larger reach – but  it remains almost impossible to keep up with the need, she said.
• Nicole asked if they could get an update on the Early Childhood Mental Health Project. She suggested adding early childhood and continuum of care as a full agenda item in the future. She said Imagine (an adolescent mental health treatment program) added an educational teacher recently, which is a big step towards continuity of care, but students in crisis touch so many systems that they need to continue to discuss how to be more efficient and blend services.
• Another attendee recommended bringing in Nate Riggs from the CSU Prevention Research Center or Larimer County Director of Public Health Tom Gonzalez. Andrea added that prevention and intervention align with Larimer County’s Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) priorities. 

New Business -- Legislative Actions:

• HB 24-1038 - High-Acuity Crisis for Children & Youth passed. Thad stated this will create funding for more beds so children in crisis are not sent out of state; however, he said this bill does not get at the systems-level changes that are needed and counties will continue to compete for those additional beds.
• SB24-059 - Children's Behavioral Health Statewide System of Care: postponed indefinitely 
• SB24-008 Kinship Foster Care Homes passed. This bill makes it easier to certify kinship, and therefore, will be easier for kinship foster care homes to receive financial support. 
• SB24-200 - Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion in Child Welfare passed, but included significant changes. This bill will focus on improvements to data in an effort to address disparities in child welfare. 

Thad said he expects a plethora of child welfare bills will be proposed next year, including one focused on  ensuring that those who lose their child welfare certifications cannot go work in child welfare in another state. He also expects another bill related to child welfare abolition. He acknowledged there are needed improvements in the child welfare system, but believes child welfare should not be abolished. 

The meeting adjourned at 12:39pm. 

Next Meeting: The LCIOG typically meets the 2nd Thursday of the month, but the July meeting is canceled. The next meeting is August 8, 2024 at 11:30am via Zoom: Meeting ID: 951 8695 1643 Passcode: 670996 (check agenda prior for changes to zoom link)

Questions to Consider:

 Who will decide how the team uses cross-sector collaboration to provide continuous, efficient care for children and families?

*Citizen Observers further the commitment of the League of Women Voters to its principle of Citizens Right to Know, however, we are not acting as journalists. Omissions and errors are possible. It is assumed that users of this information are responsible for their own fact-checking. This could include contacting a government clerk, conversing with an elected official or staff, and/or asking us to speak to the Observer who attended.