HUMAN SERVICES
COMMITTEE
Monday, May 12, 2025 -
10:30 AM
JoePete Wilson, Chairperson
Charles Harrington, Vice-Chairperson
Chairman Wilson called this Human Services
Committee to order at 10:40 am with the following Supervisors in attendance:
Clayton Barber, Matthew Brassard, Chris Clark, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie
Harrington, Kenneth Hughes, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Favor
Smith, Matthew Stanley, Michael Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Meg Wood and Mark
Wright. Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty and Davina Thurston were
excused.
Department Heads present: Angie Allen, Linda
Beers, James Dougan, Judith Garrison, Krissy Leerkes, Terri Morse and Michael
Mascarenas.
Also present:
William Tansey, Renee Bruno, Wendy Sargent, Jessica Darney-Buehler and
Tracy Ploufe.
WILSON:
I’m going to call Human Services to order. Up first is the Department of Social
Services, Angie Allen.
ALLEN:
So I do have one resolution that I thought I could get out of the way
before we take on questions for the report, is that okay? And Shaun, I brought my own glasses so I
won’t have to borrow yours but thank you.
So the resolution today is actually for youth bureau. It’s a resolution authorizing Essex County
Youth Bureau to enter into a contract with NYS DOS for a NY statewide
investment in More Swimming grant. The grant is in the amount of $25,000.00.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF STATE FOR A NEW YORK STATEWIDE INVESTMENT IN MORE
SWIMMING GRANT IN THE AMOUNT OF $25,000.00, AND FURTHER AUTHORIZING A BUDGET
AMENDMENT INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE SAME. Brassard, Wright
WILSON: Any questions? All in favor aye, any opposed – that motion
carries thank you.
ALLEN: Thank you. In terms of my report I just wanted to extend
the invitation that you saw attached to my email. So as you know we did contract
with Berkshire Farms they changed their name to Together for Youth. They will
be outside after our portion of the committee so when we are done here for
coffee and donuts just in recognition of it being National Foster Care Month so
anyone from the board is welcome. It is
the color purple and Berkshire actually has pinwheels as well so if you would
like to join us out front after this committee we would love to have you.
This is an important month and as you saw on
the first page our Hey, did you know? Really spoke about the need of foster
homes. We do have 12 foster homes in Essex County currently. The interesting
thing is we also have right now 10 children placed out of Essex County because
we don’t have foster homes with them. So they are in foster homes but they are
not within our county. So when you speak
about what is that burden mean? The burden means that we cannot really truly
facilitate in good faith reunification without a burden to staff, without a
burden to the families, those foster families and biological families. We still
have regulations regarding visitation but when you need to travel two hours to
go see your child and you work that’s a lot of accommodating that needs to
happen. With some families we have if
it’s a larger group of siblings that cannot be together sometimes we have
sibling groups three to four hours apart so you can imagine just the strain it
puts on the families, the siblings and the system to facilitate that type of
visitation and sibling visitation is the most important thing. So what I’d like to do with this is we will
have flyers, there are venues to which there’s announcements and kind of in
your face boost regarding the recruitment of foster families. If you can, when I do have a flyer just put
it up in your local town halls, be aware of that conversation and the need our
foster numbers are low right now but at any point in time we could always get
more children and if we don’t have foster homes they will not be in Essex
County. Essex County will still service them but reunification will be much
harder especially when you think of family therapy and the work that needs to
happen at both children and adult side of families to come back together. So
that’s really what I wanted to speak to about today. Any questions?
WILSON:
Thank you Angie. Mental Health –
Terri Morse.
MORSE: Good
morning everyone. I understand that our
schedule has changed a little bit? Is
that right Linda?
BEERS: No, it wasn’t on the agenda.
MORSE: Okay so I just wanted to bring to your
attention that certainly May is Mental Health month and wanted to bring that to
your attention. Also, in the month of
June we are going to be hosting the suicide prevention coalition is hosting a
vivid life run the word color run is a registered terms. We can’t say color run
but we are going to be throwing chalk at people and this is going to be hosted
in the Town of Schroon Lake on June 14th and I’m going to email you
a colored flyer that you can put up in your towns if you’d like but it’s not
just for Schroon Lake but for all community members of your community of Essex
County. Our theme this year is Men, Men’s Health and because 80% of the
individuals in Essex County who die by suicide over the last five years are men
and so we want to honor the men in our lives and it happens to be the weekend
of Father’s Day too so hopefully you can encourage people in your communities
to participate in that.
I do have one resolution it’s just a board
member joining the Community Services Board and that is Ernie Hough from the
North Country Community College and he is joining us effective April 16 to
December 31, 2028 and that has already been approved by the Community Services
Board.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE APPOINTMENT OF ERNEST HOUGH TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS FOR ESSEX
COUNTY COMMUNITY SERVICES BOARD FROM 4/16/25 TO 12/31/28. Brassard, Wright
WILSON: Any questions? All in favor aye, any opposed – that motion
carries thank you.
MORSE: Otherwise things are going well in our
department.
WILSON: Questions for Terri? Thank you.
Public Health – Linda Beers.
BEERS: I
will say to you and sorry for the confusion and I think Meg may have gotten
involved Dr. John Rugge did ask to come and speak today. I asked him to come at
10 o’clock here and I was going to meet him.
He came earlier and he wasn’t on the agenda. I had asked Chairman
Gillilland and JoePete Wilson for permission for him to come to the board
today. It’s all good, I just got off the phone with him but we’ll try and
reschedule that. Anyway he got his
signals crossed as well so there’s just that in case that comes up the
confusion was that I wasn’t here last week and I didn’t get it to Judy as he
would have been on the agenda but I had asked permission for him to come but
we’ll reschedule him. Anyway my report I have just want to really call out to
my director’s update that we just had a public health partnership. This is for
the entire State of New York it’s not just public health it’s public health
associations and a bunch of groups came together that I can’t even begin to
tell you how many nominations for outstanding contributions for rural local
health departments award and Jessica Darney Buehler and Liz Terry were selected
for our Baby Steps to Bright Futures coalition and were awarded that award for
the state of New York so bravo to them and the phenomenal job they are doing
and then the only other real highlight I have is that we have offered all the
school districts many taken us up, to do pre-kindergarten enrollment and work
with our nurses in getting the kiddos updated on vaccines. I think I told you
last week that we were a little behind the state and we need to pick those
vaccination rates up.
I also have a resolution that isn’t here but in
my defense the Supervisor or Moriah asked me over the week I think Friday if I
would do it, I read my emails on Saturday when I got home and I wrote this
resolution and it needs to be done because this wonderful friend of mine for
many years is having an event which is Black flyer, in her honor and she is
struggling with ALS so time is of the essence so we wrote this resolution
together with input from her family I don’t know if I can read it but I would
just tell you I call Deb, Deb Hayes. She’s dedicated extraordinarily for 45
years of service to the community for the youngest most vulnerable children
from birth to age five in the field of speech-language pathology. She has been
a mentor to me. I’ve been in this field for a really long time 26 years now in
Essex County and I met Deb the first year I was here. She worked at Mountain
Lake Services then known as ARC and we did Early Intervention together. She’s a phenomenal woman. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s an
avid gardener. She’s a good friend to so
many people and she’s changed the lives of so many children in Essex County
that we want to recognize her with a resolution of appreciation. It’s here if you would like to read through
it. I’m doing this in the essence of time and also, the good folks in Moriah
are having a rally and it’s the 20th annual ride for ALS it’s the
Mountain Riders Motorcycle Club and we will have a large contingency of Early
Intervention providers I don’t know on bicycles they don’t drive motorcycles.
We’ll figure that out, with that I need appreciation for the resolution.
RESOLUTION
OF APPRECIATION TO DEBBIE HAYES-GUERIN UPON CELEBRATING 45 YEARS OF SERVICE TO
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. Brassard,
unanimous
WILSON: And
thank you to all the members of your team that were recognized.
BEERS: Thank you. Jessica is here with me
today.
WILSON: Office for the Aging – Krissy Leerkes
LEERKES:
Hello everybody so everybody has my report. Just a couple of quick updates. In the report you’ll see a letter from our
New York State Office for the Aging Director Greg Olsen just really
highlighting what has been on our minds for the last, quite some time in
regards to potential cuts so I just want to draw your attention to that.
Last week in regards to potential budget cuts
we were notified by our partners at AmeriCorps Seniors formally known as RSVP
that as of May 7th they would have to seize any type of operations
as they were wait listed. Fortunately
they pivoted for one day under Catholic Charities volunteers but then on May 9th
they were notified that they were actually funded so kind of had a little
moment there of how we were going to operate without our volunteers because we
utilize those volunteers for medical transportation so that good news.
Terri mentioned that May is mental health
month, it’s also Older American’s Month so you have some information on that.
And the newsletter that I just handed out our two honorees at the state level
that will be recognized on May 27th at the Desmond at the Older New
Yorkers Day Edna and Stephen Bowers so there’s a nice little article on them
and all the contributions that they provide to their community and surrounding
communities and last week we partner a lot with Cornell. We partnered and held Aber
banding nature walk down in Crown Point which was very cool. We provided all
the participants with their own walking sticks and that was to kind of
introduce our walk at ease program but they were learning about the bird
banding that happens at the Crown Point Historical site and we are helping to
contribute to opportunities that Cornell is offering in the Town of Jay at the
community center on the 22nd and then also at Ti at our Nutrition
site for a plan, prep and play day so participants will be able to plant their
own container garden, they will be able to play bingo sides which they are
going to kind of coordinate that with the nutrition aspect and then they will
be able to work with or take home some local produce to actually prepare their
own I think they are making a salad or something. So, that’s all I have if anybody has any
questions?
WILSON: Any questions for Krissy? Alright, thank you very much. Any members of the committee have anything
else to bring up? Alright, thank you
everyone we are adjourned.
As
there was no further discussion to bring before this Human Services committee
it was adjourned at 10:55 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors