Study Session - 4/4/2023 5:45:00 PM

all right good evening everyone sorry
for the delay we came out of an
executive session and everyone needed
some hot coffee since it feels a little
chillier and here to most people but not
me
um Welcome to our console study session
for April 4th 2023 I will call this
meeting to order we just have one item
on our agenda this evening and that's a
presentation and discussion of the
community engagement task force Focus
areas related to mental health and
suicide prevention I believe Melanie
Dykstra will be introducing this item
good evening
mayor council members thanks for having
us this evening my name is Melanie
dykstrom with the town manager's office
I'm the volunteering Community Resources
manager but I am here on behalf of the
community engagement task force as the
staff liaison so I'm going to just kick
off this presentation and then we do
have some members of our task force here
and one of our members will be taking a
piece of the presentation as well
so I do want to just kind of
recapture kind of where we've been and
where we're going but spring of 2021 the
Town Council did direct staff to create
a community engagement task force in
January the council did appoint our nine
members and two alternates we kicked off
March of 2022 with our first meeting and
then in November we did all come to you
at the council retreat in order to kind
of get some feedback of how as we finish
a topic area we should bring it to
council and that's actually what today
is is we are bringing our report out of
our first topic area
so again the council prioritize areas of
focus that were selected by Council were
the task force to look at domestic
violence entering Gilbert as a kind
welcoming and inclusive community
homelessness and low-income challenges
human and sex trafficking and mental
health and suicide prevention again they
went through a pretty long journey of
getting some board member training
making sure they had education on issues
as so that they could select their first
Focus area and what they did come up
with is the first one after they did a
survey and looked at all the data
education and information that they had
they did hone in on the mental health
and suicide prevention as their first
Focus area I'd also like to acknowledge
Kathleen dollar who is actually here as
well she's with digney health and she
helped our task force as a facilitator
to help bring us to these
recommendations and work through a lot
of the information that they had
absorbed and were able to talk about so
we really want to thank her time and
effort that she put into the task force
to get us to where we are today
so as you'll be hearing from the
recommendations one of the overarching
objectives that they did have and some
of the things they wanted to make sure
were focused on is really promoting
awareness of existing resources they
also wanted to promote positivity around
mental health we've heard there's a lot
of stigma on that also holistic support
of mental health and that was looking at
different ways to provide support
through Mental Health Services with the
goal being increased awareness and use
of available resources and less stigma
about mental health so all the
recommendations are here I'm going to
hear tonight kind of are the three key
areas they're looking at is the
awareness making sure it's positive as
well as holistic
but we also wanted to make sure that you
are aware of some of the recommendation
considerations that are still in mind
that these all do have a time frame so
everything you see here is not going to
happen overnight they've all been
qualified to use their short-term
midterm long term and short term for
them is between 0 and 12 months midterm
time frame is one to two years and long
term is two to five we know these things
cannot necessarily happen overnight not
everything can get kicked off like that
we also recognize that there will be
some resources that may have to be
allocated to some of these
recommendations but we also know this is
not something that the town needs to
necessarily do all by ourselves this is
an opportunity to have collaboration
with outside Partners other people to
take the lead we might be support on
that it's not all staff driven or town
driven that these are the ideas that
they are bringing forward as to how we
can definitely work with our community
as a whole
the other thing and it didn't as part of
your packet you did get some information
on comparative recommendations and we
wanted to make sure that as we went
through their priority recommendations
we kind of compared it to our 2019 needs
assessment and were items still valid
were we matching do things still
relevant we also compared it to the ad
hoc committee on Teen Mental Health was
that was just done through the House of
Representatives and you do find there's
a lot of comparative there's a lot of
the same issues gaps needs that are
still out there that need to be resolved
or worked upon and so we found that this
was a great tie-in to make sure that we
were on the right track and that these
recommendations were relevant today
so with that I am going to introduce our
presenter Amy Holstein who is part of
our task force to take the next section
thank you Melanie I'm Amy Holstein I um
my whole background is about 19 years in
mental health behavioral health Social
Services child welfare
um and so this is very important near
and dear to my heart and it's a big load
that we as a town and our community as a
whole is taking on so thank you for
inviting us to be a part of it and to
speak to it our services really revolve
our recommendations really revolve
around the services having an awareness
campaign and access to information we've
been given a lot of information in this
past almost year going through the needs
and it's really helped to understand
what are we currently doing like Melanie
already spoke to and where can we go
from here and that's going to revolve
around our services our awareness and
that access to that information
the objectives that we kind of kept
going back to through the information
that we were getting is really about 24
7 access emergencies don't happen from
nine to five um we all know that there's
medical emergencies that happen all the
time that's why we have ERS how do we
help with mental health and get those
services in place for people alternative
therapies really speak to we meet people
where they're at how do we support them
with their beliefs how do we support
them with the type of treatment they
need and how do we reach everyone
regardless of their age
the biggest thing that we really found
was the awareness and we do that through
education and sharing information the
more we know the better we can do if we
talk about it we can make it a norm like
Melanie also spoke to and creating those
wraparound services for people how do we
support them get them everything that
they need so that they can be productive
members in our community
so with the services that we talked
about we already learned that Gilbert's
already doing a lot and so how do we
really understand support and partner
with other programs so that we can
continue to do better we don't need to
continue to reinvent the wheel and
duplicate our efforts how do we keep
growing on top of a healthy Foundation
that's already being built we're going
to do that through professional
navigation Services how are we going to
support people with getting the right
access to the right supports if you
think about somebody who is experiencing
homelessness they are also experiencing
use with substances and they're having
um
have a good night everybody
did that come up
um so how are we going to help them you
have someone who's experiencing
homelessness substance use and they're
also having thoughts of wanting to kill
themselves what's the priority who's
going to know how to support that who's
going to know where to get them to and
so we need to be able to have those
supports and be able to ready ready and
available to answer those things as they
come up
the button
thank you
and then being uh through our
trauma-informed services let's be a
trauma-informed community so that's
going to be offering Mental Health First
Aid to the community and supporting them
um it looks and feels different to every
person how we support someone who's
experienced trauma is going to feel
different how we approach them and serve
them is going to be different as well
how does our librarian know how to help
somebody who has a mental health illness
is someone who's in danger to themselves
or someone else one of the things that I
really thought about is not too long ago
a couple weeks ago I was at an event and
there was a gentleman I saw something at
the corner of my eye and he was doing
the Heimlich maneuver on somebody very
quick very silent very fast quick to
react how do we have our community do
that how do we partner with our
community so that we can respond as
quickly to a medical emergency to a
mental health we have to be able to
understand identify symptoms of trauma
reaching people again how they need to
be reached
um through our Outreach and our Advocacy
Center these are also going to be ways
that we can reach our community we can
have hubs how do we train our community
to be the boots on the ground resources
how can they reach our most vulnerable
population to let them know here's an
Advocacy Center here's how you get the
resources you need here's how we're
going to get to where we need to go to
make sure that you're successful safe
and again a productive member of our
community
we also noticed that in a lot of the
trends there's alternative alternative
therapies and different ways that we can
use our Mental Health Providers to make
a greater reach within our community so
it may not just be traditional talk
therapy it very much so could be
creative expression it could be through
animal therapy so again how do we meet
people where they need to be met
and as we went through all of our
information and we kept getting
everything we kept really coming back to
our biggest Point throughout our
Discovery and discussion was really
understanding the importance of
awareness and having access to
information again we cannot do better if
we don't know better
um so my favorite thing that we really
did come up with and we spoke to it a
lot was creating a Gilbert good business
designation if we have all organizations
who are on board and we're partnering
with other people people know where to
go to get the help I can walk into a
business if I'm feeling unwell and I can
say I need help I don't feel safe and
they could say no problem let's get you
to where you need to go without any
stigma without any feelings of
something's wrong with me they could get
me to where I need to go and we do that
through awareness and another great
thing about that would be the mental
health Mondays was something we created
so Mondays we talk about what's mental
health what does that look like what
does that feel like for everybody else
and then making sure that we have access
to the information everything should be
easily accessible and available that's
going to be achieved through having
readily available resource cards for
those 24-hour services and we Market
information having resource fairs so
again sharing the information with our
community
if things are advertised advertised
widely and information is shared through
Publications then we can really make
sure that something happens it triggers
a memory and we can make sure everyone
gets to where they need to go for the
mental health and safety
back
okay just to wrap it up we've talked
before too that when we put these into
place we don't want to just be checking
a box we're wondering how are we going
to move the needle wow does this
actually become a successful Endeavor
and so we do recognize that we still
need some Benchmark data there's not a
lot of Baseline on different things so
we do need that needs to be established
for each of these recommendations as
well as actually and we started doing
that with the group to make sure that
they each become a smart goal as well
and Kathleen talked a lot about that to
us as well to make sure that you know
they have to be specific which so really
defining them making sure that there is
a measurable opportunity we do recognize
that we feel like these were all
attainable this is something we already
went through these are attainable goals
they are realistic and we can set a time
frame so the group has already done that
with each of these recommendations now
we just have to get a little bit more
into the measurable opportunities which
we recognize can be some pre-survey some
post-survey information and
understanding that we have some
benchmarks to go along with it so that's
something that's important um to make
sure that we do recognize that these are
recommendations that do make a
difference
so with that we're actually here to make
sure that we get your feedback and
understanding because we will be moving
on to our next topic and want to make
sure that this is the kind of
information that you're looking for from
this group to bring back to you so we
would like to just open it up for any of
your feedback on this information and I
don't know if vice mayor tilkey wants to
chime in on anything that we may have
missed
thank you Melanie
um vice mayor would you like to add
anything since you are the liaison to
this group
thank you mayor um first I just want to
thank the group they've been together
for over a year now and this is the
first time that we're really able to
present some of their recommendations
um we we want to give you a high level
um look at what we were talking about I
know there's more details to come out of
that but today we're really hoping that
if there's some specifics that we're not
sharing today that you think will be
important that we do that if you need us
to dig deeper into any of those topics
because you want additional information
that that's the kind of feedback we're
looking for right now
I think the other thing you know they
they took the biggest topic first and
the reason for that was they the group
and we had long conversations about it
understanding that a lot of the other
issues that we're going to be tackling
the root of that comes from some type of
mental health issue and so
I I believe some of the recommendations
that you see today are going to be
similar we're going to be able to tag
team that with the other topics that
we're talking about and
I'll go in the weeds just a little bit
because I'm getting really jazzed about
the the mental health Monday you know if
we're able to create very short PSAs
that have very powerful message we can
then share that through the faith
community for that week through your
businesses through all your
organizations so that we would have some
really powerful consistent messaging
that goes out that
that pushes people to the resources that
we'll have available and so that's
really what we want to do is by
eliminating that stigma around mental
health you know it's as simple as you
know you may be feeling this way or you
know somebody who's feeling this way
today
if if that's the case we have resources
for you and this is how you can get a
hold of them and so that that's the type
of
um
programming we're looking at
but we do need more feedback from from
you all as well thank you thank you vice
mayor any comments questions
uh I I don't actually have any questions
but I think you girls and and staff have
done a terrific job and and the
residents that have been involved and in
this program and the biggest thing that
that I see is
educating
and putting this out where everyone
knows not not just maybe the people that
need the mental health but but people
that their families and different people
so that if they see that they can help
them as well
and uh but I I don't think I can add to
much of anything you guys have done you
did a great job thank you
thank you councilmember any other
comments questions
mayor
yes Council oh a voice from above
councilmember Anderson I almost forgot
you were there sorry yes sir no problem
very quickly I was uh again thank you
just as uh vice mayor said thank you for
all your efforts in the community that I
think you chose the right topic to start
with and and it looks like we're really
on track with something that will make a
difference in the community one thing I
was interested in is
there are some communities in the
country that are trying to replace the
police with Professionals in these areas
that you are presenting tonight and I'm
glad to see that we're including
training with the police that they are
there the First Responders and they
should be able to respond and not give
up that position to Mental Health
professional that probably isn't going
to be there right away so I'm glad to
see that
and again I think you're right on track
thanks Melanie
thanks councilmember Anderson we
appreciate those comments I think you're
right on track too and especially with
mental health like it's been like has
been stated everything that we see
happening around us is really related to
mental health our homelessness situation
our drug situation I think even your
next topic human and sex trafficking I
think it's all connected and I think
that you're really off to a great start
um how long do you think you'll focus on
this one area before you move on to your
next because I know you've already noted
that your next one will be
human trafficking human and sex
trafficking so I want to make sure that
you don't bite off more than you can
chew are we going to focus on one area
for a while and just start talking about
the next area that would be my question
thank you mayor for the question right
now we are actually having the group
move to the next topic area so as we
continue to keep in mind all of the
information and the recommendations that
that they have we did actually have a
meeting last night and they actually had
presentations on human and sex
trafficking from three different
organizations our Gilbert PD we had to
start right there as well as CC's Hope
Center so that they started getting the
information so they're going to actually
start working in that area because I
think as vice mayor typically indicated
we think there's going to be some
overlap and so kind of going through
these to see you know
you know where we need the overlap where
we can dovetail what efforts need to be
similar as to how they attach each of
these areas so I think we're going to
and vice mayor's looking correct me if
I'm wrong but work through each of these
and some will not take as long as others
based on the information we're receiving
we think we may and again thanks to
Kathleen dollar to set us up on kind of
the process that we did we'll be able to
mimic that and take this we hope a
little bit quicker through some of the
rest of these topic areas and then again
we'll bring the next this one back to
you and then we'll keep building on that
as we go great thank you how do you
intend to work with other organizations
and groups on the mental health portion
of it for instance I know the current
Gilbert leadership class their project
is focused on suicide prevention which
is mental health to me too any thoughts
on that Melanie mayor council members
yes we actually brought that up during
our meetings trying to understand what
else is going on out there and knowing
that that is a potential resource how
can we support that that what does that
look like making sure everyone's aware
of that and making sure it's getting out
in our circles we have organization as
you know of for our town who wants to
potentially be an action arm and move
some things forward on our behalf as
well so making sure there's different
groups and we can continue to educate
through our different avenues that we
can keep moving those things forward
again Dignity Health is working on a
zero suicide initiative that came to our
attention we're sharing that out in all
our Avenues and channels to make sure
there's attendance participation so
anything we hear of especially that's
still related to that and we talk about
moving that forward is to make sure that
we keep that information moving out into
the community that's great Kathleen
thank you for everything that you're
doing to assist this group I haven't
seen you in a couple years I don't think
so night very nice to see you thank you
for being here this evening thank you to
the members of the committee that are
here this evening also thank you for
your presentation you did a lovely job I
know it's not easy standing up with that
Podium and Melanie thank you for being
the liaison this group and I think that
this is I think this is an important
position for you to hold with this
considering what you do within the
community and being the liaison to for
our town because I think we really could
work together between those two
organizations especially vice mayor came
out and ran our
um our planning session for for our town
so I think she probably saw a lot of
correlation there also so thank you for
all of that any other comments or
questions from anyone
great job thank you thank you I think
you're doing a great job and in the
right direction thank you very much
thank you
I will go ahead and we're done a little
early so I have a few extra minutes I
will go ahead and adjourn the study
session and see everybody back here at 6
30. thank you