Greater Hartford CAN Pre-Implementation 6/18/14

Greater Hartford - Coordinated Access Network

 Meeting Notes

June 18, 2014

In attendance:

Sandy Barry- Salvation Army

Wendy Caruso- 211

Crane Cesario- CRMHC – DMHAS / Hartford CoC

Roger Clark- Immaculate Conception

Justine Couvares- Chrysalis Center

Brenda Earle- CT DOH

Fred Faulkner- The Open Hearth

Bryan Flint- Cornerstone

Nate Fox- Center Church

Lou Gilbert- Immaculate Conception

Mary Gillette- Mercy Housing

Kristen Granatek- CCEH

Camilla Jones- Bloomfield Social & Youth Services

Dave Martineau- Mercy Housing

Sarah Melquist- MACC

Matt Morgan- Journey Home

Patrice Moulton- CRT/East Hartford Shelter

Amina Musa- Journey Home

Pieter Nijssen- Tri-Town Shelter

Sarah Pavone- CRT/East Hartford Shelter

Heather Pilarcik- South Park Inn

Frank Rector- HOPE Team, CRMHC - DMHAS

Lionel Rigler- City of Hartford

India Rodgers- Bloomfield Social & Youth Services

Kathy Shaw- My Sisters’ Place

Logan Singerman- Hands on Hartford

1.      Reviewed GH-CAN template and the statewide templates

·         At what point / will sex offenders be diverted?

                                                              i.      At assessment. It also depends what the housing crisis is. If they need shelter they can also do the UHA. With the CAN model, our existing housing list may need to be unified in the future, as we’re moving from institution specific goals to a community-wide strategy.

                                                            ii.      As previously discussed, assessment sites that serve children can’t have sex offenders on the premises.

                                                          iii.      Shelters can look up the person’s name when it is in their bucket and cross reference it with the federal sex offender registry.

2.      2-1-1 is willing to work with us about what we want from them. When a client calls,

2-1-1 puts their basic information in to HMIS. If we decide we want the option as a community, 2-1-1 can send us emails to notify us that there is a new appointment in our bucket. However, we all decided that for right now that was not necessary.

With our instruction, 2-1-1 will be able to refer all individual male clients to Immaculate Conception. Subsequently they will also refer all individual women and families to Salvation Army Marshall. 

However, we essentially need to outline our plan for 2-1-1 because we are going to have multiple options for our GH CAN appointments. There will be an appointment location for families and individual women inside Hartford and another regional location. There will also need to be a location for individual men inside Hartford and another outside Hartford.

·         What are we going to do about people who call 2-1-1 requesting shelter but do not give any demographic information to 2-1-1?

o   Response: That happens just let 2-1-1 know what you want us to do. Would you like that men just be sent to Immaculate?

o   Yes, just have them present in person. If the person seems to have needs beyond our capabilities we can call the HOPE team to help us do a specialized assessment.

o   The person who withheld information could be under aged, will we still accept them in the shelters? Although CT is not a right to shelter state,  once they enter the CAN we will work with them

·         We will not be able to cross reference data before assessments to verify the client’s information

3.      Communication of Coordinated Access Network

Commissioner of the Department of Housing, Ivonne Klein is planning on holding a state agency meeting to communicate the changes in referrals to shelter. There will also be an email sent to police chiefs, hospitals, regional stakeholders to make them aware of the changes.

-On Thursday Afternoons, Capitol Region Mental Health Center - DMHAS Gridlock meeting is held with all the heads of hospitals regarding mental health bed utilization. We will communicate changes to this group as well.

·         When clients go into in-patient will they have a bed to come out to?

o   Depends on the shelter, MACC doesn’t save beds.

o   East Hartford - if someone leaves for inpatient such as IOL, they will hold the bed for a week. Same with Salvation Army, Immaculate, Cornerstone

o   The Open Hearth mandates detox and will hold a bed for them. Even if they are in detox for a month or two they will guarantee a bed.

o   Tri-Town will hold the beds for about 5 days, granted there is active communication with IOL case managers.

·         When discussing hospitals’ participation, it was brought up that an ideal situation would be to do assessments on a mobile basis. So while the person is in a medical facility (detox, ER) they can know where they are going after discharge. Asked if the HOPE Team is able to do this? They responded that they wouldn’t be able to assist without additional resources and staff.

4.       Previously discussed having a timeline to reach specific goals in our CAN process. Reviewed questions from the Susan Wagner form to help us know what details we still need to work on.

Assessment Schedule: Lou Gilbert offered a room at Casa / Immaculate Conception for any other agencies to do assessments there (Monday-Friday).

·         Each assessment won’t necessarily be two hours but doing the assessment, referrals and data entry might take two hours total.

·         There is nothing available in ECM regarding  centralized bed lists. We are going to have to communicate to know where there is bed availability. Discussion:

o   Other communities do Monday conference calls to know where there is availability;

o   Immediate need is different than the assessment shelter referral. Therefore in our GH CAN we will need to communicate more than one day a week to know where there is availability;

o   Discussed the Google document that the individual men’s shelters have been using;

o   Although the Google document wouldn’t be updated in live time, it could serve as first steps for the assessment staff to have a good idea of where there is availability;

o   They could then call the shelters that have openings first as opposed to calling all the shelters not knowing where there might be availability;

·         How are we going to handle shelter to shelter transfers?

o   It is something we are going to discuss together at a later time. Decreasing churning is one of the goals of Coordinated Access.

o   Rapid rehousing eligibility is changing, so populations that are harder to serve may be housed;

o   Transitional living programs that have individual units (in contrast with congregate or dorm-style sleeping areas) may be turned into permanent units

·         While the federal rapid rehousing funding has specific eligibility criteria, state funded rapid rehousing may not be as strict. This is being discussed on the statewide level also.