The Fall River Board of Health held a virtual meeting on Thursday, February 23rd, 2023. The meeting began with a roll call and the approval of the minutes from the January 26th meeting, which passed unanimously. The board then approved a tattoo apprenticeship license for Christopher Conte of Leominster, Massachusetts, to work at Fall River Tattoo Company on South Main Street, following confirmation that all his credentials, including an updated blood-borne pathogen certificate, were in order. This approval also passed unanimously. During the Director's Report, Tess Curran announced that the contact tracing grant had been extended, allowing employees to transition to community health worker outreach and opioid initiatives. She also updated the board on the shared services grant, a multi-year regionalized funding model with Fall River, Seekonk, and Swansea, which is in the final stages of hiring an epidemiologist. Additionally, the City Council approved $50,000 from opioid settlement funds for a strategic plan to address substance addiction, with Pyre Consulting engaged to develop a comprehensive plan and budget. The next meeting was scheduled for March 30th, 2023, and the meeting adjourned with a unanimous vote.
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foreign good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the Board of Health virtual meeting on Thursday February 23rd scheduled for 3 30. my name is Thomas Corey present with me via Zoom is Michael Coughlin Tess Curran our agent for the board various guests and participants in today's meeting pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may
0:36transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are there for advised at such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes next item of business is the approval of the minutes from the meeting of Thursday January 26th are there any additions
1:06deletions corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting as printed move to accept oh second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes thank you next is a request for approval for a tattoo apprenticeship license for Christopher Conte of Leominster Massachusetts to work for four of a tattoo company 1412 South Main Street Fall River uh Lisa you're presenting yes okay
1:41Chris Conti he will be working um with hopefully at the fall of the tattoo with Bruce delorius um I don't know if you noticed but his blood-borne pathogen certificate was going to run out March 1st so we sent another one I I don't know if you received it no but I did see that I did see it was going to run out um but he did get it again and he did
2:06get it again okay February 15th so that's good till 2024. okay and all his other credentials are in order um let's see because it looked like everything was complete from the package I have yes it is he's got you know the bloodborne he's got his license here he's got first aid CPR his identification and his payment everything is in order Christopher you're moving back from Texas yes sir
2:44how did you pick Fall River well how did you pick and you're going to commute from Leominster every day I'm moving to Providence I just I just came I just uh moved back to Massachusetts I was in the Navy for 11 years ah well congratulations thank you for your service oh thank you sir okay um Mike do you have any questions no okay can we oh welcome Dr Gagliardi hey
3:09how are you we're doing very well we're discussing this gentleman's um tattoo apprenticeship license every Lisa's reported that everything seems to be in order all right sounds good can we have a motion move to approve the license okay in a second can we have a roll call Cass you're on mute sorry about that I was very confident in there too uh Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes Stephen Gagliardi yes
3:48thank you Christopher good luck you're in good hands with Bruce oh thank you sir good luck thanks folks okay see you later Tess can we have the director's report so um some exciting things to announce in in terms of some of the grants is that um the contact tracing Grant um was extended so that was slated to expire at the end of this fiscal year so at the end of June um but that has been
4:19extended uh to the following year um we still have some employees under that Grant who do some contact tracing work um and follow-up in terms of encouraging um folks who are testing positive to get vaccinated and and um and all that but we're uh we also have them um doing some other projects in terms of um you know supporting other team members um working on some opioid um opioid initiatives and we're kind of
4:48moving them towards more of uh Community Health worker Outreach worker to engage in the community so we're happy that that's that's being extended um in terms of the shared services Grant we still are working with the consultant um on that who's kind of helping to to be the grant manager um but we are in the final stages of interviewing um an epidemiologist who would be a city employee under that Grant
5:16um and we're we're kind of moving towards some uh one of the finalists um hopefully by tomorrow um and um are hopeful that that would really allow us to do a lot more in terms of data collection and sharing throughout the community um and again that's a shared Grant with um Fall River sea conk and Swansea so that epidemiologist would be doing work throughout those three our communities um
5:45does that is that automatically renewed or is that a multi-year thing that's a multi-year grant so the the likelihood is that we would have that for um I believe up to 10 years um and and it's kind of the new way that dph is approaching um funding Health departments or just funding grants is this more regionalized approach um so we're you know happy that we got in kind of early in that Grant and I
6:13know it's taken us a bit of time to ramp up and get team members you know official team members on board um we're moving forward with that position and then um seaconk is in need of a public health nurse and so that position would be funded through that Grant and that individual would be a um a c-conc employee um and again that's all funded through this shared service model um and there's through that model
6:39there's going to be a lot more opportunities and trainings for uh you know minimum housing team members and you know folks like Lisa um to take advantage of of new trainings and new certifications that are going to be required and rolled out uh over that of course that work um and Mike I don't know if you have anything to add in terms of that with your in your capacity at dph you'd like
7:07to share anything no I mean that's a good summary I I I do work part-time in the office that oversees that grant program so I that's what Tess is referring to um it's it is the wave of the future this is the way that the dph really for the first time has been able to establish or uh our dedicated Revenue stream to support local Health efforts uh and even though Fall River as a larger Community has
7:38always been able to maintain a a fairly well staffed Health Department in order to be eligible for the for this Revenue stream they had to get together and tested a great job of bringing in Swansea and Seekonk so it's a benefit for all three communities even though Fall River is larger and and sort of is the the main partner yeah and it would be great to get Somerset uh to to sign on at some point
8:02uh we'll keep our eye on them politics are challenging over there uh but perhaps things will change as time goes on yeah we kind of have other communities on um kind of as as we continue um and then we would be eligible for potential more funding as more Community sign on to our collaborative um and then the the other update that I I wanted to share um was that city council did approve
8:37um fifty thousand dollars to be allocated to the health department um for a strategic plan for the um uh fifty thousand dollars from the opioid settlement funds um to be used for strategic plan to do work within the substance addiction task force framework um so we're going to have a a group called pyre um Consulting they're going to be coming in and doing um you know a full um kind of analysis of what's ongoing in
9:08the community um as well as areas we can improve upon and then help to potentially build out um some budget items for the use of the opioid settlement funds that are that have begun coming into the city um they haven't yet been spent or allocated Beyond um this 50 000 for the first step in terms of a strategic plan it's several hundred thousand dollars a year for quite a few years it's a big
9:41deal it is and I think that's why um you know we really want to make sure that it's targeted and we're we're getting Community Partners on board um and everybody has an opportunity to share what they feel as though um we need Improvement on and then and then develop that budget and see what we can spend those dollars on so that's you know really meaningful for the community and it will make an impact long term
10:09sounds good okay anything else no that's that's all I have okay anything come in under citizens input no we did not receive citizens input okay was there any items of such a nature that they couldn't make the agenda okay we have to confirm the date for the next meeting if we follow our usual procedure it would be March 23rd there are five Thursdays in March so we can have the 23rd or the 30th
10:45the 30th might be better that the um the fourth Thursday I'm always having surgery so that's why I'm always running late we better check that yeah we if we go with the 30 we're going to check that date I I know that the the allowance for these Zoom meetings runs out towards the end of March I don't know the exact date I was going to try and check that right now okay foreign
11:20I don't think it's the 31st I think it's a a little earlier than that in the month
11:34do you want to go with the third Thursday the third would be fine that's the 16th yeah you know it actually is the 31st oh okay it looks like uh temporary Provisions regarding rope meetings from July 22nd to March 31st 23 so we would be able to provide if we get it in before then we could we could do that okay so we want to go with the 30th sure okay
12:02thank you all for attending and we'll see you on the 30th do we have the motion to adjourn yes we need a motion to adjourn motion second can we have a roll call Thomas Corey yes Michael Coughlin yes Stephen Gagliardi yes again thank you all enjoy the blizzard all right take care foreign