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Home My WebLink AboutMINUTES - 05021995 - F&HS-01 To: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS F&HS-01 5:...L °F Contra FAMILY AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE Costa FR O M: .� xA�.,.:...... 4¢ April 24, 1995 County �,:._ *° DATE: count SUBJECT: STATUS REPORT ON THE ROLE, RESPONSIBILITIES AND STRUCTURE OF ADVISORY BOARDS WHICH ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF FAMILIES AND CHILDREN SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS: 1 . AMEND the listing of "Children and Family-related Advisory Boards, Committees and Commissions" which have been referred to the Family and Human Services Committee for the purpose of reviewing the manner in which priorities are set and policy advice is provided to the Board of Supervisors in the family and children' s services area, as reflected in Resolution 94/356 dated July 12, 1994, to delete the Human Relations Commission from that listing. 2 . AMEND the listing of "Children and Family-related Advisory Boards, Committees and Commissions" which have been referred to the Family and Human Services Committee for the purpose of reviewing the manner in which priorities are set and policy advice is provided to the Board of Supervisors in the family and children' s services area, as reflected in Resolution 94/356 dated July 12, 1994, to add the Juvenile Systems Planning Advisory Committee and the Juvenile Justice/Delinquency Prevention Commission to that listing. 3 . DIRECT the County Administrator to invite each of the advisory boards, committees and commissions identified in Section I .A. of Resolution 94/356, as amended by Recommendations 1 and 2 above, to provide the Family and Human Services Committee with their comments and recommendations for how they could be more effective by responding to the following questions : A. What is the best way in which the advisory body believes it can provide priority-setting and policy advice to the Board of Supervisors on family and children' s issues? CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD ITTE e�S APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S): ACTION OF BOARD ON May 3995 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE _X UNANIMOUS(ABSENT Torlakson ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. ATTESTED May 2, 1995 Contact: County Administrator PHIL BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF cc: Health Services Director S V ORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTBJTOR Public Health Director Acting Social Service Director County Probation Officer By D F&HS-01 B. How does the advisory body believe the County can best deliver family and children' s services to the citizens of the County and what changes does the advisory body believe are needed in order to achieve that "best" service delivery methodology? C. How would the advisory body recommend reorganizing the process by which the Board of Supervisors receives overall priority-setting and policy advice from its advisory boards, committees and commissions in the family and children' s area? 4 . AUTHORIZE the Family and Human Services Committee to meet again with the identified advisory boards, committees and commissions to receive their responses to these questions on July 24 , 1995 at 9 : 00 A.M. BACKGROUND: On July 12, 1994, the Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution 94/356 which, among other things, referred to the 1994 Internal Operations Committee a group of six advisory boards, committees and commissions in the family and children' s services area for the purpose of reviewing the "existence, role, responsibilities, composition, and relationship of each of these advisory boards, committees and commissions to each other, with a view to forming a single family and children' s or human services body with the other groups serving as subcommittees of the overall body. " The 1994 Internal Operations Committee was unable to address this issue during 1994 . With the formation of the 1995 Family and Human Services Committee on December 20, 1994, this issue was referred to the 1995 Family and Human Services Committee. On April 24, 1995, our Committee met with representatives from the six named advisory bodies, namely the Human Relations Commission, Child Care Task Force, Family and Children' s Services Advisory Committee, Family and Children' s Trust Committee, Human Services Advisory Commission and Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Advisory Board. We outlined our Committee's interest in this subject by pointing out the Family and Children's Services are clearly one of the Board' s highest priorities . The formation of the Family and Human Services Committee is testimony to this priority. The fact that the Board has put additional funds in adoptions and has dedicated a great deal of time and discretionary funding to family and children' s services issues in recent months indicates the priority which the Board gives to this area. At the same time, we shared our concern about the County' s ability to provide adequate staffing to all of the advisory boards, committees and commissions . We seem to be operating a somewhat dysfunctional system in which the average citizen cannot figure out what is going on, which advisory body is responsible for what and how to access the system. In some cases, people are off doing their own thing and there is frequently not a good forum for interaction between the Board of Supervisors and advisory bodies . Our Committee believes that we need to focus our energy better. We need to look more closely at where we are going in an overall sense. We want our advisory bodies to find a more cohesive way to provide advice to the Board of Supervisors on family and children' s issues . We need to have advice which takes a comprehensive look at all programs and which is able to balance priorities among and between programs and services and can look at competing needs and interests . Too often, we are faced with advisory bodies pulling at each other and at the Board in such a way that those who are most vocal or have more political clout get what they want without necessarily looking at what is best and most needed in the community. 2 F&HS-01 Several representatives from the Human Relations Commission (Jeanene Ferguson, Brenda Blasingame, Barbara Tonningsen and Pam Perls) suggested that their advisory body did not seem to fit in the context of family and children' s services and asked that they be deleted from involvement in these discussions . A number of other individuals agreed that the Human Relations Commission did not seem to fit in this grouping of advisory bodies in the same way as the others which were included in Resolution 94/356 . Our Committee agrees and is recommending that the Human Relations Commission be dropped from further consideration in this context. Wilda Davisson, a member of the Child Care Task Force, asked about the cost of staffing each of the advisory bodies and suggested that the Board' s decision should not be solely a financial decision. She suggested that there needed to be a special voice for children' s issues and a need to expand child care and development issues . She indicated her belief that there needs to be a separate advisory group dealing with child care issues . However, Kate Ertz- Berger, Executive Director of the Child Care Council and a member of the Child Care Task Force, suggested that there could be a lot of benefit from having an overall family and children' s committee with specific subject-matter subcommittees . She noted that many of the advisory bodies have a shared agenda that overlaps to a large extent. Linda Baker from the Juvenile Justice/Delinquency Prevention Commission suggested that the Delinquency Prevention Commission portion of the Juvenile Justice/Delinquency Prevention Commission might appropriately be added to this discussion. Mary Lou Lucas suggested that it would be a good idea to have an overall Commission. Stephen Purser spoke on behalf of the Material, Child and Adolescent Health Advisory Board and suggested that we need to understand the relationship among our services . He agreed that the MCAH Advisory Board was optional and that funding for staff was tight. Dr. Wendel Brunner, Public Health Director agreed on the need to consolidate our services . He noted that the Health Services Department is going through a zero-based review of all of the advisory boards they staff and will be making recommendations to restructure some of the advisory boards . He also agreed that in order to be effective advisory bodies have to be adequately staffed. , Joe Goglio, a member of the Human Services Advisory Commission, noted that the County has done some innovative things and hoped that nothing that was being suggested would damage the level of services provided to the disenfranchised in the County. Cathy Tabor of the Family and Children's Trust Committee noted that FACT has a very structured role to perform. At the conclusion of all testimony, our Committee indicated that we would like each of the advisory bodies to provide us with their comments and recommendations for how they believe their advisory body could be more effective in the larger context of family and children' s services . It may be that we just need a mechanism by which we could staff a single committee that would provide better coordination and communication among the existing advisory bodies . We agreed that the Juvenile Justice/Delinquency Prevention Commission should be included in our discussions, as should the Juvenile Systems Planning Advisory Committee. 3