Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council One Ashburton Place, Room 1109 Boston, MA 02108 DEVAL L. PATRICK Governor TIMOTHY P. MURRAY Lieutenant Governor JUDYANN BIGBY, M.D. Secretary Tel.: 617-573-1786 Fax: 617-573-1890 www.mass.gov/eohhs Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council One Ashburton Place Boston, MA 02108 General Council Meeting Minutes July 8, 2008 2:00 P.M. 21st floor, Conference Room 3 COUNCIL MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE Joe Bellil, Jean McGuire, Liz Casey, Paul Spooner, Joe Tringali (telephonically) STAFF ATTENDING Jack Boesen, Michelle Byrd CHAIR Assistant Secretary Jean McGuire NOTE TAKER Michelle Byrd AGENDA SETTING No issues were added to previously-issued agenda The Chair called the meeting to order at 2:15 pm. Approval of Meeting Minutes Joe Bellil made a motion to approve the June general session minutes. Paul Spooner seconded the motion and those minutes were unanimously approved. Joe Bellil made a motion to approve the June executive session minutes. Jean McGuire seconded the motion and those minutes were unanimously approved. Paul Spooner made a motion to approve the April executive session minutes tabled from the June meeting. Joe Bellil seconded the motion and those minutes were unanimously approved. Report on the MRC conference Jack Boesen reported on the conference. He reported that the conference, as well as the PCA workshop, was well received with good attendance and participation from consumers. Jean McGuire was the luncheon speaker at the conference. Jean noted that she was impressed with the diversity of the consumers at the conference. Council members were provided with a copy of an informational flyer from the Multi-cultural Independent Living Center in Boston, which presented a workshop at the conference. Other MRC conference materials including a consumer handbook are available in the Workforce Council office. CPR Scholarship Program for PCA’s Michelle Byrd reported to the Council that the date of the first CPR training has been set for Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at Holyoke Community College. The flyer announcing the training was provided to council members. Michelle will provide an electronic version of the flyer to council members as well. Report on the PAS Coalition Joe Bellil reported on the Personal Assistance Service (PAS) Coalition’s request that they be added to the Workforce Council’s meeting agenda on an on-going basis. Joe suggested that some of the issues that could be addressed include reporting on the PCA consumer survey; the progress of the work improvement group and MassHealth’s prior approval process. Jean suggested that the Council review the scope of their role in these issues apart from the administrative role. Paul Spooner voiced concern that the PCA work improvement group has not met since March 2008 and that there is significant frustration no other meetings have been scheduled to carry out this work. Jean requested additional discussion from council members. Joe Bellil expressed interest in receiving reports from the coalition in the hope that it would promote input from the western part of the state. Jack Boesen suggested a reciprocal relationship whereby the council’s work would also be included in the coalition’s meeting agenda; opening communication and increasing the public presence of the council. Jean McGuire suggested we begin by requesting reports from PAS. PCA Emergency Preparedness Project Bill Allan from the Disability Policy Consortium reported on the work they began with the Department of Public Health (DPH) to develop personal preparedness educational and training materials for consumers in need of special assistance in the case of a community emergency. Mr. Allan noted that Liz Casey of the council and Rebecca Malberg of SEIU, along with Stavros and BCIL have been instrumental in the recruitment efforts to develop consumer and PCA focus groups for this issue. Many consumers and PCA’s noted the need for such a plan citing lessons learned from the response to the Katrina catastrophe. They also expressed the need for a personal plan for everyday crises including strategies for strengthening personal networks and requesting community assistance. Mr. Allan suggested the next step may be additional training including leadership training in this area as well as a pilot training program. Mr. Allan asked the council for their recommendations on how best to integrate emergency preparedness training into overall consumer and PCA training initiatives including development of a “train the trainer” program or use of PCM and ILC agencies as training sources. Jean McGuire suggested that emergency preparedness be included in workforce skills training. Paul Spooner reported that MassHealth requires an annual review process and suggested that materials and training could be added to this process to teach consumers about the need for emergency preparedness. Liz Casey felt that a succinct and direct approach would work best and suggested written materials be provided to all consumers and PCA’s. PCA and Consumer survey updates Jack Boesen reported that 500-600 consumers are being sampled for the consumer survey and that the actual survey would get underway soon. The MassHealth Data for the PCA survey has not been received, but focus groups are being recruited with help from 1199SEIU. Rebecca Malberg, from 1199SEIU, expressed concern that the survey may be less successful based on the age of the data set. Outreach SILC Conference Jack Boesen reported that the Council’s participation in the conference would provide the PCA consumer community with the opportunity to raise questions and concerns regarding PCA services. This information will also be reported in the Council’s performance review report due in December to the Governor and the legislature. Newsletter Michelle Byrd updated the Council that the proposed name for the Newsletter will be “The Voice”. The development of features and topics to be included in the first issue are on-going. Council Meeting Schedule This agenda item was tabled for further discussion from the last council meeting. Jean McGuire requested that the council not make changes to the schedule at this time since several council members were unable to attend due to transportation problems. Council Budget Joe Bellil reported on the budget report submitted to the Council. A PAC funding request for $200,000 is in place to carry forward the work required for developing the Referral Directory into FY09. Funding of $300,000 for the Workforce Council operating budget for FY09 has been approved. Jean McGuire expressed concern that this reduced funding will impede the work of the council for the upcoming year. She requested that Jack Boesen work with Joe Bellil, the Council Treasurer to prepare an alternate budget based on the current approved funding. Paul Spooner made a motion to accept the report. Liz Casey seconded and the report was accepted unanimously. RFR for PCA Referral Directory Paul Spooner made a motion to move to Executive Session. The motion was seconded by Jean McGuire and approved unanimously. The Council came out of executive session. A motion was made, seconded and passed to adjourn at 4:42 p.m.