HomeMy WebLinkAbout1985-10-21-HSC-min.pdf HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE
Minutes of the Meeting of October 21, 1985
Present Stan Finkelstein, Judy Zabin, Harvey Lowell, Sylvia Perlman, Leonora
Feeney, Sheila Martin, Marion Shepp, Bea Phear
Minutes
The minutes of the meeting of October 7 were approved as mailed.
Harvey stated that he would sign up for the Strategic Planning subcommittee,
putting Sheila on Research Harvey will review both CMARC (with Marion) and
Council on Aging (with Stan)
Coordinator's Report
1 The Town Report text is due November 15 Bea will write a draft for
the next meeting She solicited ideas, and Harvey suggested Hill St
The photographer will come November 18 [confirmed]
2 The Housing for the Handicapped Committee is still active and meeting
They are exploring private sector funding models
3 Hospice sent draft contracts They were approved as modified, to
reflect that the nurses doing respite are volunteers
4 There will be a distribution of federal commodities on November 13
( Bea is planning to have a mechanism for sign-up for households to
request holiday food baskets from local churches and the VA, who
have come to her in the past for names This will avoid the issue
of confidentiality
5 The program for Evergreen. Lane held their open house Approximately
20 neighbors came, and the sponsors felt it had gone quite well
Only three people were fairly negative, and some were quite supportive
Others merely had questions answered. The fire escape will cost $2,000
6 Bea told the committee that she had submitted her resignation, to be
effective December 1. The committee felt it was a loss to Lexington,
and they worried about getting someone with equivalent qualifications
Background Sharing
Jan Lived in Lexington for 3 years, is now Assistant Commissioner of DSS with
responsibility for research, evaluation, planning, policies, and procedures,
after having been in human services since college She is interested in getting
beyond the state perspective and seeing more local issues She feels committed
to remaining here, and becoming part of the community
Lee Clinical psychologist with a private practice in Lexington Her training
was primarily with children, but her practiceis more varied. Active in the
community Board of New England Home for Little Wanderers; DSS Area Board (sub-
committee for substitute care) Town Meeting Member
Sheila Clinical Social Worker in Brookline and Lexington she leads groups for
the Child Study Association, City Hospital; Sycle Cell is on the professional
{ advisory committee of Hospice She is a Lexington resident of 18 years, active
over the years in the League, schools, RePlace
Harvey Started in Human Services as a welfare advocate with a neighborhood legal
service in Buffalo when he was a student, got his Ph.D at Penn State, worked with
Gerry Miller to deinstitutionalize adolescents from adult prisons Now he is Associate
Director of the North Eastern Family INstitute, running a variety of programs He
has a community service bias Has two children - daughter age 7 and son age 3, who
has Down Syndrome
Stan Lexington resident for 5 years joined the committee shortly after moving here
A physician by training, but never practiced. Currently on the faculty at MIT both
teaching and doing research on health policy, third party reimbursement, and medical
technology
Judy Clinical Social Worker, interested in being involved with both direct service
and the community focus As a League member she was involved with the first incarthation
of the committee as an ad hoc human service council Now she is mostly in private
practice and works at Hospice training and supervising volunteers
Sylvia Recently received her Ph.D at Heller School, with a dissertation research
studying ten communities and how they structure the provision of services to
pregnant teens leading to an interest in local service delivery systems She has
two daughters 7 & 11, and is now doing a consulting project for EDC.
Marion Has been a musician for 20 years - organ/harpsichord/piano - teaches at
Longy, but now working as a technical writer for a computer company Interested
in human services because of experience with a handicapped daughter, now 29, who
does not fit the state system. Her philosophy is that communities can change, and
she is interested in becoming more active in the community as an advocate for this
Strategic Planning Subcommittee
The members met and discussed the role of the committee in prioritizing, with
discussion focusing on three different approaches
1. View of very broad social issues, such as civil rights for the
handicapped. With federal collapse of commitment to human service
issues, pressure devolves on the local community
2 Preparing for specific issues that we can see coming along, such
as AIDS, that are external to the Town but that we can plan for
to avoid being in a reactive posture
3 Look at Town-generated issues, specifically how to go about having
an ongoing needs assessment process or look at various population
groups
It was felt that the committee has a lot of knowledge and contacts already, and it
may be best to approach issues qualitatively rather than quantitatively It was
agreed that this is a process that will take time Stan asked what the next thing
to focus on should be It will be a goal for a future meeting to be able to present
a series of options
Research Subcommittee
( The subcommittee had already pulled together a number of use statistics, as
part of the planning for the Symposium, but they were interested in looking
at different kinds of research projects They will look at how Lexington
compares with other communities in the structure and delivery of human services
They charged themselves to meet next week and arrive at strategies for getting
information
Providers Council/Symposium
Twenty-eight responses have been received to date, primarily from agency
professionals and town Boards and Committees members Only one response has
come from a business It was decided that Stan and Judy will send a letter
to the Chief Executive Officers of local corporations to encourage attendance
Module Two will be a cse study Lee and Sheila distributed their draft of
an adolescent case and a draft by Richard Weiss of a young adult chronic
mental health case It was decided to use the adolescent case, since it had
more general appeal to a larger audience The themes to be addressed are
1. systems - barriers crossing interagency boundries
2 technical - how to reach a family that is hard to reach
3 financial - who carries funding responsibility for a middle class family
The discussion will focus on what options are available at the level of the
Town, and what are the public vs private sector responsibilities, given that
it is a middle class child. What strategy or approach does the panel have to
deal with a case such as this?
The process steps will be
1 Opening remarks by a member of the committee describing the purpose
of the committee and introduction of Marge Battin
2 Marge will introduce the panel
3. Presentation of Module One by a Harvey, followed by discussion
4 Presentation of Module Two by Sheila, followed by discussion
5 General discussion from panel and audience
The distribution will include a list of attendees, with a brief paragraph
about the committee with members names listed.
Bea will write this to the panelists, with copies of the Modules, and warn them
about cable TV Judy will arrange a meeting with Marge for the weekend of
November 2-3, with some members of the committee
Respectfully submitted,
Beatrice Phear