Committee on Family, Health & Human Services Minutes
September 12, 2006
Committee Members
in attendance: Judy Myers, Chair, Martin Rogowsky, William Burton, Ursula LaMotte, Lois Bronz, and Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
In Attendance: BOL: Susan Kirkpatrick and Melanie Montalto. DSS: Robert Kuhn Guests: Cora Greenburgh of the Westchester Children’s Association, Kathy Halas of the Child Care Council of Westchester, Matt Shelley of Greyston Foundation, Amy Gelles of the Guidance Center, Mary-Jo Gallo, Katherine Loba of the Westchester Children’s Association, Felice Harris of Union Child Day Care, Dan Lipka, Liz Mark, and Allison Lake of the WCA, Ann Spindel, Patricia Cuddy of WJCS, Karen Blumenthal of Student Advocacy Youth Board, James Duffy of Westchester Youth Council & FSW.
Items Discussed: The Westchester Children’s Association gave a presentation on their data book and their budgetary needs.
Minutes
Chairwoman Myers called the meeting to order at 12:13 p.m.
Cora Greenburgh, Executive Director of the Westchester Children’s Association and Karen Blumenthal went over additional funding needs for the Invest In Kids program.
Allison Lake discussed funding that is needed for childhood obesity programs to help schools facilitate an already mandated wellness plan for their students. She explained that $250,000 would allow them to expand the Westchester County Fit Kids program to additional schools.
Legislator LaMotte asked who decides what food is served in the schools. Ms. Lake explained that the school boards decide the menu based on the options they are given by their contracted vendor. The boards have to work together to pressure the vendors to change to a healthier menu.
Kathy Halas, Executive Director of the Child Care Council expressed that the Council would like to continue with the one million dollars that was added to the budget last year.
Amy Gelles of the Guidance Center discussed Children’s Mental Health Services. They are requesting an additional one million dollars to expand behavioral health programs for children age 0-6. Ms. Gelles explained that currently there are separate programs for individual issues while many children have a combination of behavioral problems. This funding would allow for programs to provide multiple services in one place, from mental health to child care.
A discussion ensued regarding an interagency training team to provide preventative training for youth-workers help stop behavioral problems before they begin. Kathy Halas explained that there are 177 licensed child care centers and each one is different. Most of them are small centers with roughly 45 children. They have no social workers and they are struggling. She said that on going staff training is essential and clinical staff is needed.
Legislator Rogowsky asked what role the federal government plays in these programs.
Robert Kuhn from the Department of Social Services explained that TANF funding is federal money, some of which is used to help these programs, and DSS receives block grants from the state. He said that DSS provides funding to many of the County programs.
Cora Greenburgh discussed new funding needed for programming to help youth who are aging out of foster care establish their independence.
A copy of the proposed funding for 2007 is on file.
Cora Greenburgh and Dan Lipka spoke to the Committee about Westchester Children’s Association’s upcoming data book. A copy of the project summary is on file.
The data book and online database will provide information about the economic, health, education, child care, and safety status of the children of Westchester, and it can be broken down into specific areas as well. Dan Lipka explained that the information has been collected from different County departments and organization who all use different databases. He worked with each of them to collect the data and sort it into one central database. This project was funded by the Westchester Community Foundation.
Moved by Legislator Burton and seconded by Legislator LaMotte the Committee on Families, Health and Human Services adjourned at 1:30 p.m.
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