HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-09-05-YSC-min Youth Services Council
September 5, 2007
In attendance were Helen Cohen, Norman Cohen, Becky Kosterman, Julie Fenn, Tammy
Duffy, Tina Demambro, Dewie Weiner and Bill Blout. Dewie Weiner is one of our new
representatives to the YSC She is a private therapist in Lexington, who works with
children, adults and couples
The Council spoke about the "Colonial Times" articles and positive feedback from
community members and families The school consultations will continue this year at the
high school. They will start in October and go through April Jodi Hill is presenting in
October on"Getting Difficult Messages Across Efficiently and Effectively to Parents", in
November, David Perna is presenting on Anger Management, and in December, Tim
Dugan is presenting on Bipolar Disorder A middle school outreach initiative is planned
for January 2008 another trip to Nashoba Valley If you are interested in volunteering,
please let me know and I can provide more details The Recreation Department has
placed the flyer/permission slip in their Fall-Winter brochure and it is already filling up
We then talked about the community calendar initiative, which was being worked on by
the Outreach/Prevention Task Force last year The calendar would be a place where
PTA's, Lexington Police, et cetera can post youth and family well-being related
programs As the Town of Lexington and SSD's website changes (as all department's
websites will), our department could probably link to the community calendar on the
home page We talked about the possible need for information to be screened. Julie and
Becky will look a little more into use of community calendar, the draft letter to begin
marketing, and schedule a time to reconvene with the task force Marketing will also
incorporate the larger community, so that we can get residents to access the calendar
Helen also addressed possibly working on the Red Flags Booklet Tina mentioned that
Minuteman would possibly print for free and LHS was mentioned as well. Julie will look
into her contact person at Children's Hospital as Concord-Carlisle worked with Emerson
Hospital for funding. The Council agreed to work on both the community calendar and
red flags booklet this year
Bill gave a brief update on the Community Forum. Norman mentioned that Ellen
McDonald has booked Cary Hall for January The goals and details are not yet worked
out. The group is considering a full-day Saturday event, having a morning and afternoon
session. There may be panels centered on topics such as depression, sexuality, and/or
suicidality There may be discussion about other communities as it relates to youth and
family services and services available in our community Julie mentioned that LHS
students were very interested in doing a community dialogue this year We certainly
need to think about timing of both and impact Group members suggested doing a half-
day session and maybe build towards full-day and also really suggested small group
discussions Bill will report any updates to Becky via e-mail so that the Council can stay
informed between our meetings