ALBEMARLE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES VIRTUAL ADVISORY BOARD MEETING TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

ALBEMARLE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
              VIRTUAL ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
                 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Chair: Jennie More
Vice Chair: Mary McIntyre

Present: Mary McIntyre, Karen Horridge, Emily Dodson, Amy Laufer, Katherine Burton and
Kaki Dimock
Absent: Jenie More and Doug Walker
BOS Members: none in attendance this month
Guests: Mary Stebbins, Wanda Hoerman, Alice Micklem, Sam Spencer, Philip Holbrook and
Erica Jennejahn

Mary McIntyre as acting Chair called the meeting to order at 3:32 P.M.

Introductions were made as a new Advisory Board member, Emily Dodson, is in attendance.
Emily represents Scottsville and Donna Price appointed her to the Advisory Board. Kaki Dimock
introduced herself and mentioned that today is also Emily’s first meeting as well. Kaki asked for
introductions and as an ice breaker, asked that we name our desired superpower. Today Kaki has
surrounded herself with staff that know all the answers to all the questions.

Agenda Item: Approval of the April, May, June & August 2021 Minutes
Discussion: Mary asked if we had a quorum and then asked if we were ready to approve the
minutes.
Action: Karen Horridge made a motion to approve April, May, June and July minutes. Amy
Laufer seconded. Mary took a vote, all board members were in agreement. Motion passed.

Agenda Item: Business from the Director – Information Items
Discussion: Mary asked if there were any questions about the information items. Mary asked
about the Bright Stars information item regarding hiring new family coordinators and wondered
what the pay range is. The hiring range for Paygrade 14 is a minimum hourly rate of $20.37716
to a max of 20% in the pay range of $24.45259. Mary McIntyre was happy to see that we have
gotten ten more owners/landlords to participate in the voucher program and wanted to know if
there was anything the Advisory Board could do to help encourage more owners. Mary asked if
personal thank you cards to the new owners could be helpful? Philip, Housing program manager
agrees there is an advocacy piece.

Action: Philip will talk to Carter Walker (Rental Assistance Coordinator) and he will get back to
Kaki and Mary about the idea of writing personal thank you cards to new landlords.

Agenda Item: Business from the Director- “A Review of Ways We Supported the
Community Members During the Pandemic Crisis” Presented by:
Wanda Hoerman – resettlement efforts, expanded benefits, etc.
Sam Spencer – job support, unemployment update, etc.
Philip Holbrook – housing supports
Erica Jennejahn – ways we support families
Alice Micklem – extra supports for individuals, families & community
Kaki Dimock & Mary Stebbins – ARPA funds
Discussion: Wanda was invited to a meeting with CDSS and UVA regarding a family coming
from Afghanistan at the last minute. They were coming here to Charlottesville. They had nothing
but the clothes on their backs and the fathers lap top. We needed to find housing, household
items etc. This is not something we typically do so Wanda called out to the agency asking for
help. Housing was very instrumental in finding a place. The feds were willing to loan the family
money for 90 days. They looked for hotels but there was a UVA home game so no motels were
available. It was difficult to find a place. Carter Walker reached out to landlords and got a 90 day
lease and secured the funding from the feds. They had an apartment but nothing else. It was a
tremendous collaborative effort. So many people in the community stepped up and they had
furniture, food, (SNAP & Medicaid) Erica drove a U-Haul truck and drove around collecting
donations. The family also had experienced trauma, so they have two family support workers
that are working with the family. The Self Sufficiency team found the father an $18 an hour job.
A lot of connections made this happen. When the family walked into the apartment, they said…
this is home.

Amy Laufer asked if we should be trying to get extra staff to review all the Medicaid changes in
Benefits? Wanda said lobbying for additional staff is always needed. We are hurting in a lot of
areas. We don’t know what the state is going to do and how it is going to hit us. We are going to
need help; we are hoping there will be ample notice of the changes. The state has in the past
given positions in situations like this. Sam Spencer said with self-sufficiency work force
services and childcare worked with families. Childcare staff worked with providers to make
spots available for older children who normally would have been in school to in day care. The
Governor had a house bill that raised limits to allow ineligible families to become eligible.
Glenda Best reached out to the Albemarle bus shop and arranged for children to be picked up by
buses allowing parents to stay at work. Our region is identified as a childcare desert so
placements are hard to come by. They are working with a community partners to create a job fair
for childcare providers to become subsidy providers. SST wants to create a platform to help
people with jobs and a pathway to careers. One of the things they are looking at was the
opportunity for our career center to become a one stop. This would change the career center to a
human services shop. We wanted to help applicants with training. So, Juan would be able to refer
the applicants to connect with other community partners who can help with training, funding etc.
SST is currently waiting for the work source to approve. The SNAP participants will have work
requirements back eventually. We will have a SNAP training program to focus on SNAP
participants enrolling them in this program to work with partners to get training, transportation,
clothing etc. to help them get the career they are looking for. The other program the FEE
program Full Employment Program focuses on TANF participants, pay employers a stipend to

hire our folk of a min of 20 hours per week for 6 months. The employers will see the benefits of
hiring our folks. We are still working with the IRC clients as well. In a nutshell, SST is working
with economic development team getting funding from the City of Charlottesville for a culinary
training program GO COOK. Six Albemarle county clients are participating in this program.
Amy asked if SST helps with unemployment benefits. Sam said some of the staff has
connections with VEC and there is a pipeline they can reach out and ask questions. Juan Wade
does help folks apply for benefits and IRC clients as well.

Alice and Erica provided information for child welfare programming. Erica started with school-
based programs. Family Support is an incredible team. Family Support had a program to provide
snacks when the pandemic closed school down they switched it up and have a food pantry that is
available to all clients. Staff can make a bag of food/diapers and deliver to families. They have
provided at least 300 bags over the last 18 months and plan to continue this process. Renee
Lundgren personally drover over 3000 miles to help deliver meals to students throughout
Albemarle County free meals. She partnered with the nutrition dept and the bus dept. She helped
coordinate with bus drivers making deliveries to designated spots. They got creative with face-
to-face visits by seeing families outside. They contacted school staff and provided training with
masks and lots of hand sanitizer. Early on Carol Fox donated 800 masks and Family Support and
Bright Stars passed out these masks in the community. Renee Lundgren also helped get a vaccine
clinic in Southern Albemarle (at Yancy School). The partnership between the schools and DSS
was amazing in the pandemic. The schools helped with technology, access to hot spots, cheat
sheets on how to access technology which our Greer Family Support worker went into family’s
homes to help them transition to virtual school. The ability to have virtual meetings allowed the
Family Support unit to increase their ability to meet using Teams or zoom and have ended up
“meeting” more often and strengthened their team. Bright Stars worked to secure funding to help
create tools, games, activities for the kids (Cares Funding) and iPad. They set aside daily
opportunities to check in with families to make sure they were getting what they needed. What
was challenging was to know what phase the school was in. At least five individual surveys had
to be completed with families based on what phase the school was in. Now there are 200 kids
enrolled. The team made sure the families all got instructional packets and spent time in the
homes learning to navigate the virtual school experience. They provided direct experience to
current and alumni students. The number of new cases was lower during the pandemic, but the
prevention services doubled. Open cases were also more complex, more moving parts and
tremendous support. For 6 months 9 out of 10 coordinators were out on FMLA. At many times
Carol only had three active coordinators working.

Alice wanted to highlight what she sees as the themes in child welfare. In CPS, they worked on
mandated work which was made more difficult. The staff was required to go into houses with
positive covid diagnoses. The stress has been significant. This is a field that the average length of
time in the field is 18 months. This team has seen the impact of that 75% (another resignation
has made it higher) turnover. This turnover trickles into other units. Its great being virtual rather
than not seeing each other BUT it is hard to be virtual because we are not meant to interact
virtually. Staff have talked about how hard it is to do home visits with human connection when
meeting virtually. The biggest issue in Family Preservation is the lack of service providers. There
are a lot of vacancies in these fields.

There were two significant initiatives to support youth aging out of foster care. These benefits
will come to an end as of September 30th. Covid testing for foster kids going into care
complicated the process. One big stress in the winter there was a spike in psychiatric hospitals
and kids would have to wait in ER’s and DSS staff had to be in the hospital with them. Our staff
volunteered to sit with these kids in crisis to support them in a very difficult moment in their
lives. Sitting in a hospital during a pandemic risking exposure made it all more difficult. Not
having in-person visitation with parents and children was very hard especially with younger kids.
Mary sked if there were any questions from the Advisory Board. Amy asked how many people
are left in child welfare? How many staff are they down? Erica has lost one position (that
position was transferred to Self Sufficiency to hire a second Employment Services Worker). In
CPS we have been hiring. Many of the folks leaving went to Bright Stars and are transitioning.
Right now, they are actively looking for three-line positions and one Senior CPS worker. (4
vacancies) We have hired one very experienced worker and one inexperienced worker. Mary
McIntyre said if they think of any questions, they will email Kaki. Mary, as acting chair, advised
the presenters that if they wanted to exit the meeting they could as the Advisory Board finished
up with business.
Action: Philip and Kaki will move their presentations to the October agenda.

Agenda Item: Business from the Board-Open Discussion
Discussion: Katherine Burton wanted to commend ACDSS on all the work being done through
the pandemic. Katherine herself had an emergency surgery but she is better now. Mary wanted to
bring up that the meeting was moved to the 3rd Tuesday of the month instead of the 2nd Tuesday
so please remember update your calendars. Also, Mary asked if we could get the Zoom invitation
and meeting documents sent the Monday before the meeting rather than the day of the meeting.
She feels like the meeting documents deserve more time to be reviewed. All present Advisory
Board member agreed.
Action: Lisa will send the zoom invite and meeting documents out the day before the
meeting (Monday) going forward in October.

Message Out:

   •   ACDSS staff served as critical support to this community during this incredibly stressful, difficult
       time. They responded with creativity and a strong commitment to community care; and, in
       some cases, they were ‘first responders’.
   •   Staff have suffered some as a result:
           o We have a higher turnover rate than usual, particularly in CPS
           o Many staff have used Family Medical Leave for stress injuries or illness
           o Staff morale is strong but they are running without reserves
   •   Increased numbers of people in need, as well as increased acuity and urgency of need,
       combined with significant state policy changes, have increased our caseloads in most units. It is
       unclear how long we can anticipate this impact and likely impossible to predict future but
       current caseloads are beyond our capacity, and we need additional personnel resources to meet
       our mandates and targets.

Meeting adjourned at 5:02 PM

The next Advisory Board virtual meeting will be the third Tuesday of the month, October 19, 2021
at 3:30 PM using Zoom.

________________________                                                _____________________
 Jennie More -Chair                                                      Lisa Jordan - Secretary