Council Minutes
Infant & Toddler Connection of the New River Valley
Council Meeting
March 14, 2003
The next Council meeting will be held on May 9, 2003. COUNCIL DOES NOT MEET IN APRIL. The meeting will be held in the Montgomery County Human Resources Building in Christiansburg. It begins at 9:00AM and ends at 10:30AM.
************************************NOTICE************************************
ALL VOTING MEMBERS PLEASE ATTEND OR SEND AN ALTERNATE
SO BUSINESS CAN BE CONDUCTED
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PRESENT:
(Voting members or alternate designated by *)
Dr. Jaye Harvey* Radford University - Fiscal Agent
Carolyn Dunford* NR Health District - Chair
Jodi Schaefer * NRV Head Start - Vice Chair
Sharon Wood* Community Services
Margaret Vaughan* Pulaski County Schools - Secretary
Sue Wigand* Mont. County Schools
Kathy Stewart* Professional Rehab Services-Private Provider Rep
Katy McCullough ITCNRV - Council Coordinator
Joanne Behl NRVCS
Kathy Pierson ITCNRV-Family Support Partner
Alison Trigg Heartland Rehab Services
Jackie Myal Pulaski County Parent Resource Center
Nancy Butts PTOR
Molly Carroll NRVCS
Susan Linsday NRVCS
Vickie Brackett CRD
Christi Peters RU Student
Kathy Harris* Floyd County Preschool
Selena Bowman PRA
Coreen Bookout PTOR
Mary Critzer* MCDSS
Dierdre Hurst* Montgomery County Parent Rep.
The meeting was called to order at 9:07 by Carolyn Dunford, Chair. Members introduced themselves following a roll call of voting members with 10 voting members present therefore forming a quorum.
NEW BUSINESS:
1) Financial Support Request for Special Instruction - Joan Behl & Sharon Wood
Proposal taken to Direct Services Committee. Special instruction has been provided by NRVCS
since the implementation of EI services through IDEA. NRVCS has experienced a series of cuts in state funding resulting in loss of programs and positions. It has become increasingly difficult to provide these services at the current level. The agency’s most recent Memorandum of Agreement with ITC-NRV states that NRVCS will provide Service Coordination to 40 families while the average is actually 74 families. The decline in state funding has forced NRVCS to focus its efforts on services that do have another source of funding. EI will lose a position if further state cuts occur and revenue from the program does not increase.
NRVCS is requesting that the Council discuss seeking approval from the Part C Office to use Direct Service funds to support Special Instruction during the next budget year. NRVCS would continue to provide Service Coordination and evaluations at no cost to ITC-NRV. Discussion regarding this issue ensued. Since there is no quorum, no motion or vote took place. We all agree that we need to be proactive on this issue and make this happen as quickly as possible. We may need to pull voting members together to discuss this topic so we can vote. Katy will contact Bev Crouse to check on exact procedure with this. April is a tentative month when NRVCS could experience additional cuts, however we really don’t know if or when this will happen. Overall, there appears to be positive support for this proposal. Voting members will be called to see when they could meet to talk and vote. Handout provided on this issue.
(Quorum achieved late in the meeting after two additional voting members arrived). Jodi Scheffer: Motion to support the request made by Joan Behl and Sharon Wood of NRVCS that ITCNRV cover the cost of special instruction , minus revenue collected from families in FY 03-04 and to submit the request to the Part C Office. Motion seconded by Margaret Vaughan. The motional passed unanimously.
OLD BUSINESS:
1) Budget Update - Katy McCullough
Handout provided. Katy feels we are doing pretty well on money. We are going to have to move some money around. There will need to be more money for evaluations. There may be some remaining in OT and PT. Service coord. is ok. We will be low in speech. Purchase of service has quite a bit left in it as well. Family support is high because it’s part of Kathy’s salary.
2) Committee Reports:
a. Direct Services Committee - Kathy Stewart
Report by Nancy Butts. Met on Feb 20. We have a form we want to use with families so they know exactly what to expect from service delivery. Dr. Harvey is concerned about the formatting of the form. It’s an awful lot of words for families to read. Perhaps we could make some changes to the document to make it look more reader-friendly.
EI is a ‘carved out’ service. We are allowed to provide in-home services. Once the child is no longer recieving EI services, services in home are rendered on an individual basis through a home-health agency. The committee wanted clarification because some families have been left high and dry because they want to keep their therapists and do not want to loose services.
June 2 and 3 Natural Environment Training in Roanoke. Katy wanted this to be the training that all the providers go to. Feedback says that this is really impossible to pull people for 2 days. There will just be too much lost revenue. Council’s expectations need to be clarified. What is the best method to do this training. Heartland is sending one therapist from each discipline for them to gather info and return with it to share. Can everyone do this? Susan suggested that all therapists from CRD who will be working withEI should go to this training since they did not participate in last year’s retreat. Jaye asked: , “Do the people who don’t go to tis training have a different training to go to? Can the people who actually go to the training come back and do a formal passing of the information to other therapists?” Other suggestions were to send only one person from each location and come back and be the trainers for other local providers. Wouldn’t it be better to send more than one person? There is no registration fee, no overnight fee. We can carpool. Can we reimburse if there is money left over. Registration is due next Friday (3/21).
Outcome: Therapy groups send one therapist from each therapy discipline to the 2 day training. If therapy group is experiencing a hardship and can’t send that money folk, they need to contact Katy. There will be a group training after the training for folk who didn’t go. All CRD folks come to the ‘after’ training if they are working with EI. The other groups may send whomever they want to. the local follow-up training. This was motioned by Sharon Wood. Second by Jaye Harvey. Kathy Stewart abstained but vote was unanimous.
b. Family Support Committee - Deirdre Hurst
Nothing new. Meeting today.
c. Child Find Committee - Katy McCullough
Many events occurring in April & May. May is early Intervention Month.
d. Transition Committee - Margaret Vaughan
As of next council, minutes from this committee will be given. We are continuing our work on the resource book. Meeting with administrators of counties has been put on hold for a bit.
4) Family Support Partner’s Activity Report - Report submitted by Kathy Pierson. Her report is listed in the handouts and is attached.
5) Service Coordination/Special Instruction Report - Report submitted by Joan and is attached. It’s self-explanatory.
6) Council Coordinator’s Report - Katy submitted a written report. Self explanatory and is attached.
Other Announcements:
•Down Syndrome Assoc. of the NRV - Meets on 3rd Tues. from 6:30-8:00 at Duncan Hokie Honda Community Room at 2040 Roanoke St. in Christiansburg
•Counting on Transitions - Tues. 3/26 from 9:-1:00at the Roanoke Higher Ed. Center
•ADHD parent support group at Fairlawn Presb. Church every 4th Monday. 6:30-8:00 Childcare and food provided. Doing the ABC’s of Behavior this month.
•Parenting Fair, Sat. 4/12 from 10:-2:00 at NRV Mall
•Working with Infants & Children Who are Deaf or Hard of hearing and Their Families-Intermediate
•Level, from 8:30-4:30, May 6,7, & June 6, Wytheville
•AT & Aug Com: Making the Connections, June 26 & 27, Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center, Roanoke
?Mont. Co. Parent Support Group for Families of Children w/Disabilities – 2nd Thursday, 10:-12:00.
A special thanks to Pam Hodges, teacher assistant in Pulaski County, for her involvement with council today as child entertainer.
There being no other business, the meeting was adjourned at 10:35 by Carolyn Dunford.
Respectfully submitted by Margaret Weston Vaughan, Recording Secretary