October 25, 2024 Minutes

Human Services Advisory Commission - Meeting Minutes

Meeting: October 25, 2024

In Attendance: Stacey Casteel, Ernest Cienfuegos-Baca, Stephanie Foos, Stephanie Gausch, Stanley Graffis, Jodi Hartmann, Scott K. James, Enita Kearns-Hout, Kelly Martinez, Tammy Phillips, Gillian Smith, Lisa Taylor, Tom Teixeira, and Adam Turk

Absent:

In Attendance: Tami Grant, Julie Witkowski, Karin Crandall, and Lesley Cobb

Recording Secretary: Lesley Cobb

Welcome

The meeting was called to order at 8:17 a.m.

Presentation

United Way Weld County Strategic Plan

Melanie Woolman, President and CEO gave a high-level overview on the United Way Weld County (UWWC) Strategic Plan. She noted that they did hire a firm to help them with this yearlong process of their first ever Strategic Plan. To start off they received perspectives from about 50 different donors and non-profit partners and then conducted a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. They then looked at the strengths and challenges. Some of the challenges they found where many people did not know what UWWC does, which was not a big surprise since they do a lot of different things at different times. Another challenge was that since UWWC has been offering more direct services, they had become a competitor in limited grant funding. One of the strengths noted were the relationships that UWWC has with businesses, non-profits, volunteers, donors, and others and how they bring them all together. Based on that strength, the Board gave the task of envisioning the organization out to 2030 and what it would look like if they focused on being the relationship builder, which would be a shift for the organization. To validate this, Melanie conducted additional community interviews, half of which were from the original group of 50 and the others were a new set of donors and non-profits. The result was that an overwhelming majority confirmed that they would continue to support UWWC’s shift to focus on relationship building. Based on this additional information, Melanie felt that she could confidently recommend to the UWWC Board the shift to become the convener of the Collective Impact in Weld County. She explained that the Collective Impact is not new, but they now have a plan to staff it and to fund raise for it. She explained that the Strategic Plan details how they intend to carry out the change and that their focus will be divesting all the direct service that they are currently doing. Right now, there is intentionally no plan in place as to what is next for that change since she wants to hear opinions before decisions are made. Melanie voiced that the target time frame for the completion of divesting direct services is 2026 but will work with the community to make sure there is a smooth and seamless transition. The full Strategic Plan is on the United Way Weld County website if members would like to further review the numbers or projections.

Introductions

Review of Minutes from July 19, 2024

Motion to approve the minutes was made by Stanley Graffis and seconded by Adam Turk. The minutes were unanimously approved.

2025 Membership, Officers, and Meeting Dates.

The proposed future meeting dates and times for 2025 were presented:

Stacey Casteel informed members that there are two members, Lisa Taylor and Tom Teixeira, that will be leaving the board at the end of the year. Lisa Taylor has recommended a replacement for her open seat and that individual has submitted an application to the Board of County Commissioners for review. This will leave two vacancies, one vacated by Elizabeth Barber and the other by Tom Teixeira, which are School District 6 and Low-income Housing. If members have any recommendations of people who would be interested in filling these vacancies please reach out to Lesley Cobb, Stacey Casteel or Julie Witkowski. Julie Witkowski indicated that the hope is that once an Executive Director of the Housing Authority is hired, that person would be recruited to join the Commission.
Stacey announced that new officers need to be approved for 2025.
The identified members who indicated an interest in the open officer positions were brought forward and a vote was taken.

• Chairperson – Stacey Casteel. Motion to approve (A. Turk). Second (E. Kearns-Hout). Approved unanimously.
• Secretary – Jody Hartmann. Motion to approve (A. Turk). Second (E. Kearns-Hout). Approved unanimously.
• Vice-Chairperson – Stephanie Foos. Motion to approve (A. Turk). Second (E. Kearns-Hout). Approved unanimously.

2024-25 Core Services Program Plan

Ryan Traylor reviewed the 2024-25 Core Services Program Plan, which is the start of a new three (3) year plan. This plan is submitted to the State to give them a breakdown of how we anticipate the allocation of our Core funding, as well as to add any program areas that we would like to spend our Core funding on that are outside the norm. Some of those areas include Prevention Services, Family Engagement, Youth Mentoring, and Offense Specific Treatments. Ryan indicated that we have roughly 26 ½ County employees who are technically funded through our Core funding. The allocation for Core funding for this year is around 6.1 million dollars. The plan does not change much from year to year, and we have not added any new services for this year. The main changes from last year are our funding and our costs. Ryan also informed members that the plan was approved by the State, so the Department is good for this year.

Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Update

Expenditure Report -

Karin Crandall reported that for the CSBG budget we currently, as of the end of August, have $217,314.72. We do not have our September numbers in yet for closeout. We do have money set aside to pay salaries for the Lighthouse/Prevention Program. We have received all of the funding for this year so we can now start looking at people billing for additional wages.
Karin Crandall shared that so far this year $33,141.00 has been spent to help 32 households through the Community Services Block Grant. This funding was used for transportation, rent, utilities, furniture, relocation, and a wide range of other things. She also reported that through other funding they have spent $296,097.41 and have helped 464 families with some type of emergency funding, which also consisted of transportation, rent, utilities, furniture, and relocation. The Department has reviewed 626 requests for emergency assistance already this year, 83 were denied, 76 were withdrawn, and 3 are pending. Karin explained how all of these requests are reviewed to see if there is a sustainability plan and if they have been referred for other available services/community resources.

Organizational Standards –

Karin reported that the Department has a lot of Organizational Standards that have to be met in order the receive the Community Services Block Grant. There is a list of around 60 things and a lot of those have to come before HSAC. Some examples of these are the Department’s Strategic Plan, the Conflict-of-Interest Policy, volunteer hours, and the HSAC yearly orientation. She noted that one of the specific items in the Organizational Standards that we are required to do is a Needs Assessment every three (3) years. That requirement is specifically to gather data in the community or do a Needs Assessment to determine what the needs are in the community, and to know that we are using the Block Grant dollars to help with poverty in the needed areas. The Department is looking at being more inclusive of HSAC on how we are doing the Needs Assessment and how we are looking at it. Next year Karin will be looking for HSAC member volunteers to review how we are gathering data, if we are gathering it from the right places, and if we are getting the qualitative and quantitative data that the State is asking for, so that the Department can be strategic in the data we are pulling. The results of that data collection will be presented to HSAC for their review.

Contract Services Update

Lesley Cobb provided an update regarding contracted services for the 3rd quarter of 2024.

Department Updates

Employment Services New Division Head

• Tami Grant announced and introduced to members Elizabeth Barber, who is the New Employment Services Division Head.

Ambassador Program Update

• Julie Witkowski reported that there is a People and Culture group, which is a smaller group on the Leadership Team, who are carrying forward some initiatives throughout the Department based on feedback that had been received from staff. From that, Julie explained, they are trying to bridge the different divisions within the Department and will be launching an Ambassador Program in 2025. This program will have individuals from each division be an ambassador that will help cross train new employees by giving tours of the different campuses and connecting new employees with other staff in those divisions who they may work with in the future. Julie is excited about the new program and noted that she will give updates to HSAC as the program progress in 2025.
• Ernest Cienfuegos-Baca commented that they are starting to do training on 2-1-1 resources and how to access those. He highlighted that there are many nice features such as the ability to text information about resources to individuals and he offered training to the Department regarding those. Julie thought that would be a great addition to the Ambassador Program. Karin Crandall also thought that it would be a great idea to have them come on the JT show and a Department Quarterly meeting to highlight those features.

Preview of New DHS Internet Page

• Kyle Ewertz and Heather Roberts presented a preview of the new DHS Internet page. Kyle explained that one of the main goals from our Strategic Plan was to relook at the client facing internet page. The new pages that were previewed are intended to make the internet site more service focused instead of division focused so that it is more navigable to our clients. Heather indicated that the new pages will be more mobile friendly, and the site will be 100% accessible. Kelly Martinez offered assistance from the Health Department’s Community Advisory Board which has an English group and a Spanish group who help review their fliers and brochures. She felt they could help with feedback regarding the internet page. Kelly will email Kyle with more information on when they meet. Kyle stated that the plan is to roll out the new pages that were previewed on November 18th, with those being phase one (1) of a larger project that includes updating the individualized pages within the website. He anticipated that this project could take up to a year.

Community Updates

Stephanie Gausch

• Stephanie reported that they continue to see a large number of individuals coming to access food at the food bank. They are averaging 800 to 1,000 households coming in a day for emergency food assistance. These numbers continue to be unprecedented, and they are continuing to source more food and stretch what they have further to meet the need of the increase of clients. She stated that they are getting ready for the holiday season and soon they will be asking for turkeys and fixings. All of that food ends up going to their non-profit partners who give them a number of how many people they will be serving this holiday season. The Food Bank will have a large food drive Saturday, November 23, in front of Safeway, King Soopers, and Walmart.

Scott K. James

• Commissioner James voiced his true appreciation for the Commission and thanked the members for the work that they do.

Jodi Hartmann

• Jodi reported that the Star Rise project is under construction and if anyone wants, they can drive by and see the progress. Builders have framed up to the fourth floor and the goal is to get everything enclosed so that they can continue construction work on the inside during the winter. She also indicated that the construction is currently on time and on budget.

Stanley Graffis

• Stanley reported that he is on the Board of the Veterans Memorial, which is memorial located in Bittersweet Park. They will be having a Memorial Day celebration in which the Korean War veterans will be honored on November 11th, from 11:00 to 12:00. The Keynote Speaker will be Martin Lind, the National Anthem will be by the Greeley Central High School choir and the Brentwood Middle School band will be playing patriotic songs. The VFW 2121 will be having a soup luncheon that afternoon that is free with donations being accepted, and they will also be handing out poppies at King Soopers and Safeway, with donations being accepted.

Tom Teixeira

• Tom stated that he enjoyed being on the Board and wishes everyone great luck in moving forward with changes.

Kelly Martinez

• Kelly shared that they hired a new Community Health worker. They now have six (6) Community Health workers and she just finished up a grant with CDPHE to hire more. She explained that these workers are our connection, and basically go into neighborhoods and do education, as well as navigate and help people who need food assistance, housing assistance and transportation assistance. Kelly is hoping to hear back about the grant in January so they may be able to hire more Community Health workers. She also let members know that the Health Department is working on the Community Health Assessment that needs to be completed every three years. This is a long survey for people to complete and they are looking at incentives, such as gift cards, that can be given out for completing it. The hope is that they will get a better response rate for completion.
• Kelly was excited to announced that the Health Department did receive CDC recognition for their Diabetes Prevention program. With that, they are now listed on the CDC website as a provider, which is a great service to the community because this type of service could cost around $600.00 through the hospital system. They are also able to offer the program in Spanish, which is the only Spanish Diabetes Prevention program in Northern Colorado.

Ernest Cienfuegos-Baca

• Ernest reported that the Cold Weather Shelter is fully staffed and on target to open their doors on November 1st.
• Ernest gave an update that there will be some changes being made to the Greeley/Weld County Housing Authority and that there will be two housing authorities, the Greeley Housing Authority, and the Weld County Housing Authority. The Housing Authority Board will be working diligently with the City and the County on what that transition plan will look like with this change.

Enita Kearns-Hout

• Enita stated that she is glad to hear that the Cold Weather Shelter is now open and that during this gap period, Catholic Charities has been providing shelter for single women in their dinning room. They will continue to serve families as the overflow agency for this area and working with the Greeley Family House to find a plan for these families as soon as possible.
• Enita reported that the three-year City of Greeley Homeless Prevention grant that they received for $325,000.00 will be used up by December. They are getting an average of 250 calls per month for rental assistance and the City has indicated that the grant money should be used as needed so they are trying to serve as many people as possible right now. Enita is hopeful that by the next meeting she will be able to report on another opportunity that they will have to continue funding to help with this need in the community.

The meeting adjourned at 9:50 a.m.