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External Program Review Committee (EPRC) minutes

Date: April 6, 2023

DSD liaisons: Stacie Enders, Toni Puente, Linda Wolford and Ari Dionisopoulos

Type: Whole committee

Attendees: Kim Frost, Mary Piggott, Lindsay Nash, Dan Baker, Melanie Eidsmoe, Jodi Greenstein, Stacy Danov and Laura Daire

Not present: Danielle Bishop and Susie Haben

Agenda items

Public comments

There were no public comments at this meeting.

Vote

Vote to approve the whole committee meeting minutes from March:

· Kim Frost: yes

· Dan Baker: yes

· Lindsay Nash: yes

· Jodi Greenstein: yes

· Stacy Danov: yes

· Melanie Eidsmoe: yes

· Laura Daire: not present for vote

· Mary Piggott: yes

Updates to share

May meeting

The committee will have a guest speaker in May, Sherray Greene, who will share information about Minnesota’s Mobile Crisis Mental Health Services. The committee may want to consider adding information about these services to the PSTP template to ensure all teams are informed about these resources now that there is one centralized statewide call line.

Direct care workforce shortage

See the meeting agenda for additional information.

· The DHS Odyssey Conference this year will include two sessions related to the workforce shortage: one will cover data and trends (May 23 1-3pm), and the other will cover promising practices (May 25 9-11am).

· HCBS Workforce Development Grants:

The bonuses website will be available soon. Applicants must have been working for a person or provider for at least two years. The income guidelines will be on the website.

Marketing for the bonuses and stipends projects will start soon.

· DEED is doing a paid advertising campaign over the summer to recruit DSPs. Linda is working on webpage content that will feature direct care workers and their stories – she is looking to recruit men, people of color and people from rural areas who are interested in sharing their stories. EPRC members are welcome to recommend exemplary staff they think should be featured in these stories. Interview questions will be things like: What do you enjoy most about this work? Linda will send more details to EPRC members next week.

· DHS staff met with Missouri state employees this morning to talk about apprenticeship. Currently Minnesota has two apprenticeship programs for direct care professionals, but they haven’t been widely used because there is not a financial incentive to participate in the program. When time permits, DHS could coordinate a different type of incentive by reaching out to various licensing boards to see if they would be open to changing policy so that direct caregiving experience counts toward some of the required experience for obtaining a license.

Behavior Intervention Reporting Form (BIRF)

· The application is complete, but the account creation and password management processes are still in development. Pilot testing will start on July 1 with a small group of providers. Committee members who are part of the EUMR subcommittee will have access to this new system – Stacie will start onboarding committee members to the new system sometime in late summer.

Subcommittee updates

Requests for approval subcommittee

This subcommittee recently recommended teaching toleration as a strategy for phasing out mechanical restraint. Tolerating changes in routine is a challenging fact of life, but particularly for people who have a heightened need of routine and consistency. DHS staff have been thinking about ways to get more information out, such as fact sheets, tips, etc. The Successful Life Project has tip sheets online that DHS could add to. There are also tip sheets on the DHS positive supports webpage, as well as MNPSP.org, but unsure if DHS has any guidance related to teaching tolerance. Dan and Stacy will meet to work on this and report back later to the committee. Other committee members are also invited to bring resources and tips to the next meeting, or tips on strategies for sharing this information with direct caregivers.

Discussion

Review of annual recommendations

The committee continued to review its Olmstead report draft. Last month members wanted more time to think about how to better support kids who engage in challenging behaviors. However, it was later learned that MDH is putting together a new workgroup with multiple agencies to look into this topic with interested parties, so the committee will wait to see what they come up with and then support their work as appropriate.

Vote to send the committee’s draft annual report to the Disability Services communications team: