HIGHLIGHTS OF MINUTES
August 3, 2007
Waupaca, WI
Not enough Board of Directors present to make a quorum for the meeting; therefore, no official motions would be entertained at this meeting.
Tom Matykowski informed the directors attending the meeting that WJOA is not interested in a side-by-side conference in 2008.
Tom will write a letter for the conference binders and the prima-facie giving the history and current positions of the two associations regarding a joint conference.
Case Problems
Young girl that is lower functioning and violent. County is having difficulty getting assistance from their mental health system. Discussion ensued about the ongoing and increasing issues that the juvenile justice system is having with the local county health systems.
Policy indicating that kids in detention are not eligible for medical assistance.
Can schools implement a policy where law enforcement would have to contact parents before interviewing children. A couple of counties have been running into this issue. One law enforcement said they would take the child into custody which the school district did not want and therefore solved the situation. Another suggestion was calling the AG’s office for an opinion. No one knew of a statute that prohibits the school from making such a policy.
Request from Mary Anich from Waupaca County to share policy and procedures on how to implement a county aftercare program for correctional cases
1) New administrator for the department is Reggie Bicha.
2) No movement on HRS43, however the training committee continues to work on the web-based training.
3) Cathy updated the Board on the proposed change that requires the court to consult with children over the age of 15 at their judicial review hearings regarding the child’s independent living plan. The change will also include if the child is not present that his/her attorney, GAL or social worker could relate to the court the child input.
4) Cathy informed the group that there was some discussion regarding independent living at the state level and she wanted our input on these issues. DHFS is saying that only kids that are CHIPS or JIPS should be eligible for independent living funds and that the independent living funds would not be available for JJ kids
The Boards responses included the following:
* Most counties determined whether the child is available for an independent living based on the 6 months of out of home care after his/her fifteenth birthday not the type of order that the child is on.
*CHIPS orders are dropped when the child is placed on a delinquency order.
*JJ clients often times have CHIPS issues and these issues may or may not have ever been substantiated in the record.
*All out of home orders require the perm plan to include an independent living plan.
Cathy will share this information with Christine Lenske, the Independent Living Coordinator at the State. Christine is planning to get an independent living work group together to look at these issues
5) Cathy reminded the group that we cannot send children out of state without going through Interstate Compact.
6) Audit of the fiscal impact of the 17 year olds on the JJ’s system is continuing.
1) Gretchen Kubnich reminded the Board members that all Community Intervention Programs invoices are due on October 5th and the Program Evaluation is due on October 26th. 2) Personnel changes – Jane Dier-Zimmel is the new Superintendent of Southern Oaks School for Girls and Mary Ratz has taken the position of Employment Programs Coordinator with the Division of Juvenile Corrections. Lori Pendleton, the ICJ person is leaving and Mary Keys is taking over her responsibilities. Mary will be at Laurie’s old phone number. 3) Sprite is up and running, it is now a 20 day program. The current program has all the components of the old program but each sectioned is shortened. Sprite continues to accept county direct placements. The website has a calendar for the Sprite schedule. 4) Reviewed juvenile justice legislation. 5) The training committee is working on the web-based training for the basic intake training. The web-based training will take the place of 16 hours of face-to-face training. Supervisors will need to monitor the completion of this training. Workers will not be able yo register for the face-to-face training until web-based training is complete. For CPS workers the training will take the place of the legal aspects training. 6) State budget is not past and may not be past until October. Due to this fact, the Department of Corrections is not going to be sending out any more bills after July 1, but will disperse some spreadsheets for counties to project their cost. 7) Due to the Adam Walsh Act, juveniles that are registered sex offenders that turn 18 will go on a public website as of November 1st. It is estimated approximately 2,000 juveniles will be going on this website.