MINUTES TEMPLATE

NAMI MetrowestBoard Meeting

Employment Options 6-8 pm

82 Brigham St., Marlborough, MA 01752

Board Members in Attendance: Larry DeAngelo, Carolyn Egan, Margie Linehan, Walter Linehan, Toni Wolf, Tim Lee, John DeRonck

Minutes of October 6, 2014 Carolyn

Reviewed and Accepted

Treasurer’s Report Larry D.

Reviewed

Mary Iglesias raised $1000 for Options and NAMI Metrowest

Michael Scott made a $1000 donation to us

Clarification of “Total Liabilities” and “Equity” entries was made by Larry D.

We donated $500 to the family of Lucille Blidgen

Education and Seminars Judi, Tina, Walter

Topics for seminars were considered

We are planning to ask Heidi Donnellan to present information about the Partial Day

Program at Marlboro Hospital and Inpatient Services

We discussed several mental health services, hospital based and community resources and

the difficulties they have. We decided to offer an interactive panel discussion of some

of the programs. Toni will recruit people who have used their services and service providers

to discuss what works and what doesn’t. The audience will be encouraged to ask questions.

Judi will handle publicity.

Advocacy Margie

The Board considered which issues we want to focus on to influence our legislators to take

action.

We agreed to make higher reimbursement for Mass Health Mental Health providers our main

issue. The waiting time for someone to receive treatment for a new patient is excessive in part

due to the high turnover of therapists. The low compensation results in many therapists

leaving Mass Health for other positions. Patients also experience changes in their therapists.

Services for children, incarcerated persons and the shortage of facility beds were also discussed.

John presented data from Advocates that illustrated the numbers of interventions and hospitaliza-

tions that Advocateshandled since July, 2014. Insurance mandates restrictions on the length

of someone’s stay in a hospital.

The number of Emergency interventions andhospitalizations at Framingham and Natick were compared, showing a significant difference between the two.

Leonard Morse Hospital has added a new psychiatric unit with 14 new beds.

John also explained what services are available if someone is not hospitalized.

John will research more data for our advocacy platform.

Margie presented an extensive report on the financial victories mental health has received

for the annual state budget for FY 2015. See addendum.

Bylaws

We decided to review our by-laws and make sure that all Board members have a copy. Toni,

Walter and Carolyn will review them and bring up items of concern.

The next Board Meeting will be Monday, December 1, at 6:30 pm.

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