Notes from the Thursday January 22, 2009 Meeting

NYS VESID-OASAS Consortium
Thursday, January 22, 2009


Attendees: Angela Lockhart, OASAS, Laurie Harris, Queens VESID, Don McManus, VESID, Wendy Hersh, Brooklyn VESID, Lorraine Linton, Queens VESID, Joanna Asperger, Brooklyn VESID, Ellen Stein, Brooklyn VESID, Jaik Schubert, NYS DOCS, Frank Tavella, Daytop, Carolyn Turner, Queens Treatment Court, Hector Moreno, Anchor House, Vaughn Webb, ARTC, Mike Smith, EPRA, Rob Hamm, EPRA, Paula Franklin, CASH & Sunita Manjrekar, NADAP

Laurie Harris started the meeting by doing a training on the OASAS-VESID Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Lorraine Linton reviewed the MOU as follows:

Key Points reviewed:

Housing: Needs to be stable. Mailing address needed to send mail.
Medical: All medical and physical disabilities completed. Indications of client medication and how they affect them need to be mentioned.
Legal: Good to have a copy of client rap sheet. Wendy H. mentioned that it is difficult to read the client rap sheet. Angela asked if drug courts assist in obtaining client rap sheets. Legal Action Center was awarded a contract by VESID to assist VESID clients obtain rap sheets. Laurie also mentioned a website that allows you to look up client rap sheets. Jaik from DOCS mentioned that the DOCS website allows you to look up client rap sheets by putting in their last name and birth year. Angela mentioned that OASAS is expecting a lot of clients to be referred to treatment programs from the prison systems. She also mentioned that OASAS (within the last two weeks) obtained the monies that Parole lost.
Discharge Planning: It would be good to know where client is going to be discharged so that VESID can continue to assist the client. It is imperative to obtain more addresses. If a client has successfully completed treatment (w/n a year), he can still go back to VESID (Client does need to be in aftercare or making meetings – needs to be documented).
Don asked a question: If a client comes to VESID and is not in a program, what is the policy? In order for a client to obtain VESID services, he needs to be enrolled in a substance abuse program. He could see a therapist but this needs to be documented. In addition, VESID also administers a Substance Abuse Assessment screening. There also needs to be a documented disability.
Additional Information to be included: Clients cannot come back time and again. Time is not an issue. If the client has obtained VESID training in the past but needs retraining, it needs to be justified. VESID can also help with displacement. Jaik Schubert stated that one can call him (212 961-4344) to obtain an Employability Profile which each client coming out of prison is given. The Vocational Counselor working with the client needs to ask client for it.
Fast Track is currently on hold.

This MOU is to be revised over the next year by OASAS-VESID.

Ellen Stein – Presented information on Long and Short Term Substance Abuse programs: As Programs are shortening the length of programs, from 18 months to 12 months to 6 months; it is affecting statistics at VESID. Ellen shared statistics from one program which showed a decline in number of clients retaining employment as they were given program completion within a year. Wendy stated that she goes to her programs and attends the orientation process once a month and is thus able to weed out clients that will not be able to complete the VESID process.

Angela informed the group about the Local Services Bulletin (LSB) that will be sent by the Commissioner of OASAS to all OASAS funded and licensed programs. The LSB speaks to Vocational Rehabilitation regulations and the intent of the LSB is to count Vocational Rehabilitation as core services.

Challenges to that: Vaughn mentioned that as Vocational services are not billable they are counted as ancillary services and not core services.
Don stated that one way to ensure participation of client in Vocational Services is to include the criminal justice system as leverage.

The next topic – Review of VESID’s consumer involvement policy was tabled for the next meeting.

The next two meetings were scheduled as follows:

March 26th from 2-4 pm. Location: Queens VESID
59-17 Junction Blvd. – 20th floor
Corona, NY 11368

June 11th from 1-4 pm. Location: Brooklyn VESID
55 Hanson Place
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Agenda for the next meeting:
• Consumer Involvement Policy
• Guidelines for what constitutes client readiness for obtaining VESID services or eligibility criteria