LEVI General Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

Attendees: Jennifer Franklin (Family Self Sufficiency), Liz Smokowski (Longmont Humane Society), Caroline Kert (Boulder County Aging Services), Jackie List (Safe Shelter), Cheryl Hodgson (CPWD), Andrea Halbig (RMOMS), Christine Springer (Blue Sky Bridge) and Trish Wood and Kim Heard (LEVI)

Agency News:

Blue Sky Bridge – Christine mentioned that they have had 91 interviews (with 12 including domestic violence) since the first of the year. Their crisis line calls have also increased. They are currently finishing their presentations/outreach to 3rd Graders at Spangler Elementary here in Longmont (the first school they have worked in for Longmont). They are hoping to add more Longmont Schools next year. She mentioned the speaker, David Finkelhor, will be presenting on Friday, June 22nd at the Tivoli Student Center on the Auraria Campus on the subject of “Myths, Realities, and the Unknown – Internet Contributions to Child Abuse and Youth Deviance”. For more information or to sign up – go to blueskybridge.org or call: 303-444-1388.

Center for People with Disabilities (CPWD) – Cheryl mentioned that Care-Connect moved out of their building last summer and CPWD has expanded their offices into their space. Care-Connect will have a part-time person using an office at their location in the near future. She mentioned also that their Section 8 Housing Vouchers (for people with Brain Injuries, Mental Issues) can take up to 5 years or more to receive – a person that qualifies needs to fill out an application and submit it to Viviana Garcia at CPWD. Additionally there is an apartment complex (Casa Libertad) here in Longmont that is for people with Brain Injuries, Disabilities and Senior Citizens. It is run out of an organization called Accessible Space. They have about a one year waiting list – and CPWD also has applications available for this facility. Accessible Space has several apartment facilities all around the U.S. that are handicap-accessible.

Family Self Sufficiency – Jennifer said they are accepting applications for families for the FSS program that are already living in Section 8 housing . They also still have opening for larger families (5 or more). In addition, they have been modifying their interview process to tighten the requirements on accepting new clients into their program.

Longmont Humane Society – Liz mentioned the controversy around the Pit Bulls – and that numerous people have dumped their ‘Pit-Bull’ like animals at the Humane Society lately. Apparently many of the animals that they once thought were Pit-Bull mixes – are really other breeds of animals – as they had an expert come to LUH to educate them on the other breeds.

Safe Shelter – Jackie mentioned that Ashley, the Elder Abuse Coordinator, currently has 26-27 elder clients that she is working with right now. Their Shelter has been full for a while and rarely has openings – they are also gearing up for summer residents – since that is when many people leave relationships. Their 2 ‘Garden-Level’ rooms are also almost ready for longer-staying clients. In addition she mentioned 2 fundraisers for Safe Shelter – one in July at Oscar Blues and the other in August at Martinis. Jackie said they encourage women who call looking for shelter that are denied to keep trying back as things may change before anticipated.

Boulder County Aging Services – Elder Justice Program – Caroline talked about the Elder Abuse Awards to be held June 15th from 3-5pm at the East Boulder Senior Center. They will be giving out 8 awards this year. Caroline also mentioned again that they would be offering some condensed 1-Day trainings to Advocates, on the issues of Elder Abuse. If you are interested in scheduling a training – contact Caroline at: 303-441-1599. Recently they conducted a training for Boulder County mediation/restorative justice participants.

St. Vain Family Center - St. Vrain Family Center – Robin Menschenfreund wanted to have this announced: She was asked by a member of the Tuesday noon Rotary Club to try to put together some representatives who work with children’s issues who would be willing to visit with a delegation from the Ukraine sometime between June 7-10 (approximate). The group wants to learn about how we deal with issues to help children who are in conflict or crisis situations. If anyone wishes to learn more and visit with this group, please have them contact: .

LEVI and Committee News

The Elder Abuse Awareness Month Sub-committee continues to work on activities around Elder Abuse Awareness Month for June. We talked about places we want to outreach with posters and book marks, including Meals on Wheels, Walgreen’s Pharmacies, Drs. Offices, DMV, Post Office etc. We will also have a display at the Longmont Library, Entrance Signs to Longmont will have a message, several letters to the Longmont Times Call Editor, as well as this month there is an article in the Longmont Life. The Elder Abuse Justice Committee would also like this campaign to take place in Boulder, so the posters were modified to include contact information for SPAN. Trish is also working on posters in Spanish.

The Child Sex Assault committee met – to start the conversation on how to approach this subject here in Longmont. We currently have representatives from Blue Sky Bridge, MESA, the Longmont PD, LEVI, Child Protective Services, and Mental Health Center Counseling.

The Q2 training on CCR’s primarily focused on the DVCC – Denver DV Coordinating Council. This is a group from various agencies (law enforcement, safe shelter, victim advocates, probation, legal services, DA’s office, etc.) that meet daily in Denver to review DV cases. They use a triage form with risk assessment profile elements included and in general feel this format provides better victim’s services. A question was raised about how they get around confidentiality. Lora Lee said they reviewed each other’s protocols but did not agree to a common set of rules. Each victim is contacted before the meeting to sign a confidentiality agreement acknowledging that several agencies will be discussing the case. As a result of the training, BreAnne @ SS shelter, DeeDee Kaplan from the DA’s office will be meeting with the DV detectives from the LPD to discuss cases on a weekly basis.

Quarter 3 training is planned for September and will be on Lethality Assessments of DV Victims.

The LEVI budget was shared, no major issues/areas to report.

The next LEVI General Meeting will be TBD as the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV) Conference will be at the same time as our planned meeting on June 13th.

1 of 2