Attendees: All commissioners present except Hoisington
Community Corrections, Angela Brewer
- Cognitive and trauma-informed intervention programs now available
- Court processes have been delayed, crime trends impact corrections around a year later
- Increase in mental health concerns, substance use disorders, housing and economic challenges
- For now, has 3 federal funds (this may change)
- Trying to engage more with the community via partnerships
- Pretrial release initiative: planning to spend this year building the program so that it will be ready in January of 2026.
- 2024 treatment court (behavioral health unit): currently has 16 clients. Providing sober spaces and necessary transportation. Grant funding.
- 4th Thursday of the month is treatment court, open to the public
- Community-based coordinators based in police and sheriff departments. Has increased the number of people in jail voluntarily accepting services. Part of this is the COSSUP grant. Has successfully reduced number of substance-use individuals incarcerated.
- Q: Peters: is the climate assessment something you look at every 3 years? Does it help employee retention?
- A: just completed last summer. In her opinion, should be evaluated more often, would be worthwhile. At the moment, fully staffed in community corrections. Thinks they should start doing ‘stay’ interviews in addition to their exit interviews. Learn what draws people to work in this occupation in this community.
- Q: Peters: can you give an example of community partnerships?
- Employment is an initiative they are trying to focus on in 2025. Want to ready people for work. Community Action Center, heart organization, Health Finders, Chamber of Commerce (on and off communications).
- Peters: My wife works with someone who’s gone through the program, he has come a long way, great job.
Social Services: Chris Sammon
- Preparing for statutory changes in Child Welfare: Minnesota Statute 260.61 MAAFPCWDA (commonly referred to as MAAFPA). MN African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act
- Waiting to see on whether new money is allocated by the state
- Legislation aims to: address disproportionate rates of minority populations of children in the welfare system, wants to increase the stability of families.
- Key provisions: new mandated requirements, no additional funds allocated. The Department of Youth Facilities (DCYF) annually evaluates which groups are overrepresented in the statewide data, culturally specific training for case workers,
- Will impact 30-80% of Rice County child protection cases
- Trends appear to be normal, but do not track some important factors
- Implementation stages: Hennepin and Ramsey counties have received $5 million of one-time use funding. DYCF (Department of Youth, Children, and Families) is developing a system to guarantee county compliance with this act starting in Jan 2026
- Feb 26-27 is the 2025 AMC legislative conference, an important opportunity to advocate for state funding
- Rice County needs this to be implemented by Jan 1, 2027
- Rice County will need to enact training and create infrastructure for the technology. Many of the numbers this law will require to be pulled are not currently available – would need to be done manually.
- Communication with the 2 counties already working on this.
- This is a good law, they support the law. Need to: start training, evaluate what is already being done in this area, evaluate what resources will be necessary, and communicate with the community more. The state is recommending a caseload of 5 cases for each employee. Will need to increase the number of employees. Unsure what the fiscal impact will be.
- Q: Purferst: define the populations
- A: disproportionately represented child. Annually, the department will need to look at which children demographically are served at a higher rate than the number in the general population. Those overrepresented will be the ones this law applies to.
- Q: Peters: the SSIS system. Does that take it from the original communication with the client or youth all the way to evaluate the funding to the individual?
- A: computer system analyzes it, this is found later in the process after the intake.
- Q: every county in the state uses this system?
- A: yes
- Q: how about other states, is there a better system out there?
- A: that is the question
- Q: how old is this system?
- A: very old, somewhere in the early 2000s
- Peters: sounds like we need to advocate highly for that (a new computer system)
- Malecha: we’ve been advocating, but the state doesn’t allocate to new systems often
- Undergahl: one of the concerns given the cases in the news recently that maybe the systems have failed… what’s our exposure on this? We’ve found the process of trying to keep kids in the family sometimes causes greater issues. As a board is there a greater risk here?
- A: I think what you’re speaking to is the challenging balance between family safety and child preservation. The partnership between courts and social services agency and other agencies and the sharing between these. The ownership of these decisions must occur within a system/network of responsibility. Unfortunately, when something bad happens, it often falls on the county. Hard answer to give, not sure if she can answer it.
- Undergahl: at this high level, we all believe in the same thing. But people’s reactions can be difficult to quantify. How many more resources need to be allocated to make this a success for the children, but also families? Issues with child welfare certainly extend into other areas and issues.
- Mortenson (County Attorney): to supplement that question on increase risk, we’ve gone away from objective standards. Child protection juvenile and criminal world… definitions are vague. What we’re seeing across legislations is a subjective standard, easily interpreted. All of these will increase our risk. We’re mandated and required to follow this, but the standards are unclear. As a county, we will need to define these for us. But a court in the future could sue us for how we define it. Rock and a hard place. Legislature is writing laws open to interpretations. Our child protection units are intepreting the legislation and trying to follow it as clearly as we can. Will it be enough, too much? Standards are now based on subjective language.
Adjourned
