3.15.2022 Fall River City Council - Committee on Human Services, Housing, Youth & Elder Affairs

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city council committee on human services housing youth and elder affairs will now be called to order madam secretary role please counselor here here here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio a video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or

unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first item on the agenda is citizen's input any citizen input no okay we'll move on to number two minutes from the december 22nd 2020 meeting motion adopt second motion to adopt made by councillor kadeem second by council pereira all in favor aye any oppose so voter item number three is a resolution the committee in human services housing

youth and elder affairs to convene with the chair of the commission of disability to discuss ada needs and improvements throughout the city adopted june 22nd 2021 just want to make known that we are going to table this today or entertain a table today as the people um who want to come to speak about this or were not available this evening motion to table second motion to table made by council

per second by council kadeem discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed so voter item number four is a resolution for the committee in human services housing youth and elder affairs to convene to discuss high-risk youth the resolution is as follows whereas a significant percentage of our youth are considered to be at risk or high risk of falling prey to gangs violence and drug activity and whereas

many of our youth feel isolated and feel there is nowhere to turn for help guidance and or support and whereas we have youth at the middle school level who realize and recognize the group gravity of the situation have publicly identified problems potential solutions and a plan to deal with the devastating issue and whereas education and programs that target at-risk youths are key to

breaking the cycle and there are adults and children alike who are reaching out for help for development and implementation now therefore let it be resolved that the committee in human services housing youth and elder affairs convened to discuss and be a catalyst for this endeavor in our community and be a further resolve the committee chair reach out to community and school partners to provide information on

available resources discussion on implementation of educational component and development of a plan to combat this issue this was filed by councilor michelle dion so we do have representatives here to have this discussion can we call them down madam secretary yes folks you want to come on down please kind of

good evening everyone thank you for coming uh if we could just go around and introduce ourselves for the record please hi i'm cindy director of parent community engagement can you turn that mike please sorry we'll do that again so everybody at home can hear cindy kudo director of parent and community engagement wall river schools thank you i'm mikayla gagne i'm an adjustment counselor at diamond regional

excellent andrew bellum the assistant superintendent and principal diamond regional christian mccluskey youth services coordinator for the city of hall river excellent thank you all for being here we appreciate it um i think christian i'll start with you um we've had a you know brief conversation of what what the city offers as far as youth outreach so highlight some of the things that we can

uh educate the community about so we'll start with the shannon and safe and successful youth initiative but these are two very focused grants that are focused on high-risk youth for gang involvement and safe and successful youth initiative is a step above that focusing on the small percentage of the population who are driving prime in the community um but sitting down and brainstorming

with michaela last week everything that we do is based on positive youth development and both these grants are on positive youth development and it's really focusing on all youth and which address all risk factors so not not just gangs not just violence and it's really trying to focus on the assets or their uh positive things going on in their life and increasing that and thereby

decreasing all risk factors uh so with michaela um we co-chair the board of youth violence prevention initiative and we've got youth violence prevention week coming up at the end of april we do host an annual youth violence prevention information presentation which focus on those two grants will also highlight all the other initiatives going on in in the community um i don't know if there are specific

questions or i could just like let zeppelin just ramble on or i think you know i think the intention of the resolution was i think for education to see what's available out there um so also prior to covid there was the youth empowerment task force uh between all the school districts and the aft after school out of school partners in the community and that was really gaining some great momentum and

then as you know two years ago from today the world changed and i think that's where a lot of the issues that youth are facing now are based on that social emotional aspect in which all the progress that they were making um both in the faller public schools and diamond and focusing on that it took several steps back and so now not having that direct connection not having that curriculum not being

involved during school day or after school day in programs now we're seeing some of those issues so now with that i will defer to the school folks with what they were doing pre coven and during hove and now what they're seeing and now hopefully that we can meet together in person uh do more not only planning but implementing action steps to speak a little more to the community

piece and i don't think so a lot of this is a surprise you know speaking of boys and girls club the other day they're open their doors are open the kids aren't coming um so i think that's a huge you know issue we're trying to tackle how can we connect these kids back with the resources that are available i think people are kind of found their comfort in their isolation whatever it may be

so certainly a concern but in the in the midst of covet i wanted to put out there too that we did do some focus groups with the youth we were able to connect with some middle schoolers some high schoolers and their concerns their biggest concerns were about their peers mental health no surprise i think that's for all of us but to hear from them and what they were saying um we definitely you know kind of

dove into that more we certainly talked about it's wonderful to have more resources in the schools adjustment counselors we we know are fantastic but i think that they were actually talking more about access to more confidential services as many around the table know something comes out in school is a very specific protocol you have to follow and then kids don't feel like they can trust or

open up the way they want to when they need to um so we did develop the new matter initiative where you'll start seeing them around the city but we did not we were able to launch at diamond this year and we've gotten them out to the other schools and trying to implement even further but they're small magnets when they open their locker this year there's a small magnet inside that said need to talk you

matter and it goes to a qr code with quick confidential hotlines you know everything from suicide prevention lgbtq support domestic violence homelessness you name it it's an upset a website we're constantly updating we're looking at how to add a map to it so kids can have a quick access to these to welcome places that they might be able to find a caring adult if they need one in the process

but just to provide an additional you know resource so i think that the mental health issue is definitely and i know cindy will also sing to this i mean right now our kids are hurting our adults are hurting when we're putting out referrals it is it's it's crazy that a lot of our agencies are not taking referrals anymore the ones that are we know as a month months waiting list and and in school we

have a backup in terms of um outside counselors coming into the school which has always been a great resource that's completely backed up right now so um a lot of this you know and when we're sending kids to get evaluated in an emergency room they might sit there for days and then get sent home because there's no beds so i think you know so that's some of the major issues we're

seeing with right now and they're seeing it for themselves so i'm sure you can add to that but yeah just speaking um sorry students that need those mental health services and where having them evaluated the need for them to be hospitalized has increased significantly so we have a considerable number of students being sent home because there are no beds and really being tracked at home which is so dangerous

you know students who need counseling desperately and again are waiting you know months for services historically we had partnerships with and we still have these partnerships with agencies but they would um you know take on our students right away that was part of our agreement and they can't even fill that capacity anymore just really you know looking to hire counselors from the city or willing to come into the

city it's just been quite a challenge for all of our agencies who are willing to enable to hire more counselors they just can't find licensed clinicians to fill those positions um so that that's just been an increased need of course with that leads to mental health issues it leads to the substance use the alcohol use the violence the increase in everything so i think it's such a root issue that you know

council foreign yeah um you know i'm sitting here listening to some of what you're saying and i absolutely feel it michaela does have a group at diamond that she meets with and i've had the pleasure of going there and speaking to the group and last week i was asked to go to henry lord and i met with a group of like 60 students that were there and some of the questions that were asked to me

was um mr what do you do when somebody who loves is on drugs how do you get them to stop now as a social worker that was like bing red flag being this child needs to talk to somebody but the main focus that kids were asking about the main topic mental health and these are kids in eighth grade worried about where do you go for like mental health help

and i did get a call a young girl who's been hospitalized three times three days and then she's back home and there's no other services and i mean this this young lady uh was at the point age 12 was at the point of cutting was at the point of eating laxatives because even though she weighs maybe 80 pounds soaking wet i mean 90 pounds soaking wet in her mind she should weigh 80 pounds um

and she started sneaking alcohol in the parents home and drinking tequila now we did get a placement for her and she did go to mclean and she is there for an extended amount of time because they really want to know what's going on you know what what is the issue going on and then she reveals some things that had happened her you know having worked with a lot of children who were sexually abused

you cannot get a counselor for six months and i think that's a problem i watched the city school committee meeting the other night and they were talking about positions they have for counselors and they wanted to get counselors who matched the faces of the children that are in the schools and you can't get counselors that are bilingual or trilingual into the schools they're just not they're not coming in

and i don't know what we do about that because you're right and when you talk about the boys and girls club have their doors open is transportation an issue do you view transportation as an issue for a lot of these kids and i think that's something we need to talk to certain about too because we tried to get and i think they're going to get smaller buses but we tried to get when the armory was

open years ago i tried to get a bus that would pick kids up at drifty bring them to the armory and then parents would pick them up there we couldn't get serta to bring a bus to the armory so i think maybe something like that would help but what are the activities for kids to go out to socialize to do good things you know how do we utilize the parks to do good things or have a

dance or we as a teenager when i was a teen there was a dance at every church every weekend there was somewhere to go there was cyo meetings that you'd go to the churches have kind of all gotten away from that so that is a resource that totally died so i mean what what are some solutions to maybe a website that has something to kids use computers should that be something that's on a

city website that then spurs or maybe a calendar of events is that something that that's something we could help with you know but all yields for history and and i want to follow up with that because my next question is actually going to be um and i'll start with you mr avello as far as where can students i know sometimes an educator myself here i kind of get it they kind of want to see

the information before they approach a person so you know for example a student at a diamond how could they access that information digitally or through a website to kind of understand what they're get what they want to do and then move forward with it so yeah that's why i think uh we need a comprehensive approach here right so schools are a first shift and we're accountable for the first shift but the

second shift where it's lacking where the pandemic even put us further behind where kids in crisis before the pandemic are even further behind now right and i think that's what i feel passionately about communicating and working together with other schools in the city with the city of fall river with the resources out there to create something comprehensive because to be honest with you i don't know

what's really out there second shift for him i know there's something going on with youth sports right now that bobby bailey is is running and heading up but other than that what comprehensive approach do we have and michaela alluded to the fact that the boys and girls club their doors are open but kids aren't going and i know they had a an enrichment program after school but kids aren't utilizing it so how do we

what do we create to get kids back engaged target the right kids right our high priority kids and open it up to all kids but coming together as the school districts in the city along with the resources in the city to create something i've been in places like new bedford that they have something called beyond the bell it's for elementary school children right you think if you can start targeting kids in

grades three through five and really capture them there they have a better shot going forward and it's an elementary school program where they have enrichment opportunities where they partnered with the boys and girls club in new bedford public schools for some of these activities enrichment opportunities that we're talking about but that takes funding from the resource and grant side from the city side and

the school to side all investing in those kids knowing that to in kosher incarcerate someone in massachusetts seventy thousand dollars so if we can invest early on in in our children and in the kids in the city you know we'll be better off but it takes coming together because personally i know boys and girls club i know what the the youth sports network or or the new uh initiative there i know some of the things

um that we've also started and worked on together but something comprehensive that's really reaching the most important kids in all kids i think it needs to be created maybe maybe there just needs to be some type of a collaborative effort with all of the partners somebody from you know even you know from the two charter schools we have both of the high schools that we have three of the high schools we also have

bishop conley and maybe get one person from each of those locations to sit down and figure out what we can do there there are activities that go on but i think just digitally you need to get them they're all on their computers to do that you know maybe uh the both durfee and bcc have the film program are there some kids that want to go on and talk about different issues and do

a weekly teen show or something you know we could help facilitate something like that so i know this summer we had some basketball camps or uh in some of our neighborhoods that were extremely successful we need more of that we need more you know basketball in the in our neighborhoods in the south end we need places for our south end students um and youth to go to they don't have transportation they

they do want to go to after-school programs um and we have limited capacity how do we build that capacity um the programs that we do have in the south end are highly successful um what we have the council has put out money um and there'll be pickleball courts and a volleyball and other things the ice skating rink they're working on at kennedy park so it's centrally located but i i agree that transportation maybe

somebody like joey de silva who's on the park board but works at housing too maybe it's getting a list of those people together and and figure out what everybody can do can can partner up to do it's going to take more than just you know just us sitting here um to kind of change things but when i went around before covert i went around i went to diamond i went to augustine

to ask the student leadership the student council what are some of the activities you'd want to see and one young girl said i really would like a dance on the battleship and i said oh a dance on the battleship i said what made you think of that like what she said well it's my mom and dad me and i have two brothers and i live near the battleship i drive

by all the time i see her but my parents can't afford five tickets for us to go on i was like oh and i mentioned it to mike dion he said we'll get tickets you know we'll send them and then cover here i don't know where the little girl went but i mean something as simple as that um i think some of what you were talking about we were doing with the youth

empowerment task force um monthly we were meeting with representatives and we invited all the schools in the area so right francis was very active with us we had diamond we had the fall republic schools and we were you know making some great strides in terms of really tackling you know some of the issues and you know and some of it's talk and some of it's like okay how do we make put this into action um i

think one of our um you know best outcomes from that was we had created the youth and family fest at the boys and girls club which you know was this way to we had all these scl activities we had great speakers we brought 800 people on that day who you know came and learned a ton and they stayed at the end for a great raffle that we had too but

um but it was a really great way to bring the community together that was you know um that came out of that task force which we only were able to run a couple years before kind of things fell apart we didn't we hadn't used that voice yeah uh extravaganza here we were supposed to be somewhere else but because of rain we had it here i had to put tables outside of city hall

because so many people came so people will come and the other thing is there is a whole other group of people in fall river who are event planners and want to plan things they want to do things at the picnic grove area you know that that we made so they want to have activities there and i think there's people to do it we just need to figure out a way to coordinate it better

what do you do with your kids on the weekends and stuff basketball amendments that's what it's been for the last uh yeah they both collected basketball no i i i agree i think one of my questions uh was going to be what are the glaring needs so i've been listening i heard transportation um you know more south than activities or or um outlets for for those uh youth that are

down in the south end but the big piece obviously is the comprehensive approach that you know mr bella was was speaking speaking to and just i think at this table i don't i don't feel like we're going to accomplish a whole lot i think what i would like to do after this discussion is really just make a motion to uh forward a letter to the to the mayor to create either a task force or a steering

committee uh comprised of the folks that are here hopefully one one member on on this this committee to really kind of talk about the next steps what are the resources that that are needed how can the city you know and the city council and the city uh put in the resources and and make sure that it's action driven because i think that's that's an important piece i think as we all know sometimes we get these steering

committees and task force that there's a lot of talking and discussion going on not a lot of action that comes out of it but i think if we're all on the same page there's there's a a lot of money available right now um you know between our money and and other resources that we need to be leveraging to to really kind of figure out how we really kind of make a sustainable change because i think

that's the important piece not just you know we're going to do it for a year it falls off but have true sustainable change right from the beginning and i think it's got to be comprehensive with all the stakeholders so i think you know we really truly need to figure out who the stakeholders are and get them to the table so um i think if everybody's in agreement there are no other glaring

needs that i think that we could potentially address here i'd make a motion that we send a letter to the to the mayor um to implement a a task force which would include a member of this committee um to really kind of get an action comprehensive action plan put together and some timelines and benchmarks um so that this committee and the council can can really review and help fund as well

do we want to in that letter do you want to include you know who the stakeholders are and a list of who should be there or just yeah i'm sure the mayor knows who some of the people would you know i i would leave it to i would leave it too faced right i would leave it to the chair i think if if we draft the letter and then the chairman can

um really just touch base with the administration to make sure that everybody that's at this table is part of that and then i think everybody could have some input from from this table as to who else needs to be included to make sure that we've got all the stakeholders uh at the table correct i would just like to be inclusive of the youth voice yes that's what i'm saying i mean it really

truly needs to be and if it's a large task force then i'm okay with that but i think we need to to be cognizant of the fact that we really want it to be um a tangible you know attack to making sure that we're making some changes here that's that's all correct that there are action plans that are coming out of this so okay so it's yours made that the form of motion i'll second

it a motion made by council of kadeem to send a letter to the administration second by council of pereira any discussion all those in favor aye any oppose i just have it motion to adjourn well one second oh one second sorry i thought christian is you want to is there anything else you want to possibly highlight the things that are i want to go around the table and there's anything you're working on

are going to be happening soon share that information the floor is yours well soon on thursday in addition to st patrick's day it's absolutely incredible kid day so it's a call to action for adults just to write a simple letter or note to a child in my life whether it's a son daughter student next door neighbor a player on your basketball team there's just something tangible that they can

have and read over and over we've been doing that at st fences for years and the youth put it up on their door and they keep it up on their door until they leave and i just passed out i had mentioned youth violence prevention week is or we're organizing fireworks prevention week which is going to be april 25th through the 29th so here are some suggestions and the second group of suggestions are geared

towards elected officials there also some geared towards schools so as we approach that we're definitely going to be uh more proactive and looking to see what people can do to help tie in what they're doing so it's not necessarily something totally new that they have to create but how is something that um espirito santo what durfee or diamonds doing that they can tie into this excellent and christian if somebody

wanted to reach out to you about what resources are available and where they can start how can they contact your office full on one full one one what's the best what's the best way to reach out uh c mccluskey at florida.org excellent and you also have a website too right or the four of youth violence profession has a website correct yes fr youth violence prevention dot org correct excellent

uh do you want to put in a resolution um from this committee to the council for you know a resolution announcing this youth uh violent prevention week that they're having that's one of our elected official tasks i have no objection to that put it in from this committee and that way we can talk about it and people will know you'll handle talking about yeah that's fine and no problem yeah not a problem at all good

mr rubella i just want to say thank you to um the counselors here today making this a priority right the future of our kids the future of our city right so i really want to commend all of you here uh making this priority on the school end uh we obviously have a school school-based initiatives that we've been rolling out in response to the pandemic to accelerate you know student growth

and and really recover as we emerge but something coming up is wellness day it's going to be a community-wide event in may and i'll let michaela speak to it further but it is going to be a community-wide event i feel like for for a long time diamond's been the school on stonehaven and you know we're really trying to push um to be to be out in the community and be a resource and continue

um you know to be an asset and opportunity for kids so we're going to continue to have events like this but we're we are trying to make this a uh a city-wide or community-wide event and i'll let michaela speak to it further similar to our youth and family fest we really want to create a day to promote physical mental health you know wellness all the way around have a lot of activities going on i have

a lot of great giveaways and we're really excited to this year we tried to do it last year but that didn't work out invite the whole the whole community and you know to enjoy the event so really excited about that um youth of the year is being named for fall over tomorrow which is really exciting we have representatives from across the city so drum roll in terms of finding out who got that

and also i just wanted to add as part of the advanced prevention week we're really encouraging um most of the sros to get involved in police youth dialogues within the school that week um so that's been exciting we had a great sro meeting on the other day we hosted over at diamond um trying to get some initiatives going and you know another piece that they had brought up that day was you know can we get some

more field trips going where we can get these kids to places they've never been before whether it be you know basketball game a baseball game outside of the city whether it be the you know hiking in the woods um you know so some other things we've been thinking about brainstorming excellent and from public school side yes um so we're really excited and i'm celebrating our um absolutely incredible kid day this

this week in a huge way so look for our videos that are coming out and all of our students are receiving personal notes from someone in their school to really let them know how special they are and incredible they are we are we have a bunch of initiatives in in each of our schools just really um looking at what the individual community needs within our schools and that's what we've really found

post-pandemic is that some of our schools really have their own identified needs that are different from others and really trying to pivot what what we do on a daily basis to address those needs for not only our students but our families and being flexible with that that's been really huge adding a lot of sel support through hiring more staff that are licensed and able to and trained to support that the

needs of our students the individual needs of our students creating additional parent workshops to educate our parents on how to support their students at home whether it be mental health but also homework needs and screen time you know education because that's been really huge and you know a critical need in our learning growth post-span during pandemic but also post-pandemic and really just starting to

re-establish our commitment to the choose love curriculum where we were starting to really come together as a community in having that common language not only in all of our schools but with our community partners so wherever our students went they were hearing the same language whether it's you know with counseling in at the ymca or boys and girls club but also we had some businesses like banks

really starting to buy into that common language and i think that's really important to bring the community together as a whole we really are in this together and we need to be in this together to really support our students um we're only as successful as our youth so if we don't start investing and really come together to support that um you know we're not going to grow as a city and we need to you know really

think about that um and invest in that and i'll just ask the question michael if you're a diamond student watching this right now who is the best person to to speak to a diamond about some of these programs that you offer michaela come and find me come find michael's office okay all right what day they have here right now we're looking at may 14th yes on this saturday excellent and on the

public school side so they're school adjustment counselors we have an amazing school adjustment council lead that meets with all of our sacs you know routinely to to really put out there what we have available to our students in support wise but also in the community and plugging them into any kind of service they need whether that's basic needs to mental health to um you know curriculum wise or

extracurricular activities excellent anything i'm good further counsel prayer anything further no but i have in my desk i had the bio reserve of the reservation all the trails and things they have so i wanted to make sure i gave it to my kill this i mean we can get more yeah if we need more which is great but it's nice to see different things that kids can do excellent well i just want to say thank

you for all of you being here the educator part of me is very happy as well to get a lot of this information i think a lot of people may not know about and hopefully we can bring something together to collaborate on all sides and really help our kids out so and i made a resolution uh for us to yes file a resolution with you correct i made the motion second yes so motion to

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