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Youth Services Council Meeting Minutes - 3/8/06 Subcommittee Updates Middle School Outreach Sub - committee: A half -day outreach initiative to Kimball Farm is scheduled for May 2" 2006. After reviewing the school calendar, speaking with both middle school principals, and getting the flyers made, we then found out that Diamond Middle School does not have a half -day. We plan to stick with the current plan and simply take more Clarke students. Clinical Mental Health Sub - committee: The sub - committee has met with over thirty therapists from Lexington. Some of these therapists have attended every meeting but most have not. As this "Forum for Youth" group began to look at clinical mental health issues, trends, youth needs, climate, and system's gaps we identified four target areas: outreach and education, clinical issues, consultation services and advocacy. These on -going monthly meetings have evolved to three more specific areas of focus: Consultation (once /week in middle and high schools for staff including guidance counselors, social workers, special education staff) Speaker's Bureau Community Education (the Colonial Times has offered a page in every issue that would include a listing of mental health resources, a regular column, and anything else that we think should be included) In turn, these discussions have led the sub - committee to questions about what is the best structure for the YSC to promote a community -based collaborative effort (for discussion of this item see next on agenda). The sub - committee and YSC spoke about clinical issues such as how to assure confidentiality, how to assess competency and appropriateness of volunteer consultants, speakers, etc. YSC members felt that having a contract that addressed these issues plus conflict of interest issues would be helpful. The sub - committee will continue to work on this approach. Structure of YSC and Community Groups The issues raised by the Clinical Mental Health Sub - committee led to a discussion of the structure of the YSC and how we can best promote community -wide efforts and find ways to connect people within the community. Bill Blout shared a structural diagram that the sub - committee had created to begin discussion. Under the umbrella of the Youth Services Council would have three sub - committees: Outreach /Prevention, Clinical Mental Health and Advocacy /Community Action. YSC members then discussed this diagram and its implications. There was agreement that the YSC wants to encourage people in the community, who are