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Healthy Hancock

Minutes

07/17/02

 

I. Grounding and introductions

Gale, Healthy Acadia

Helena, Union River

Mary Jane Bush, Bucksport Community Health Advisory Committee

- Jully 27 Fort Knox Festival with Healthy Activities

Laurie Jones, MDI Hospital MDI Coalition

Barbara Peppey, Healthy Peninsula project

Doug Michael, Healthy Acadia

- August 8th meeting around youth Sommesville fire station

- see handout

Donna Madonna, HPP

Jim Fisher, HCPC

Carl - Health Link

- Health Link is moving to Harely House next to the hospital in August

Kelly Fitzgerald, Tobacco Specialist

- Busy with smoke free campus

Jenny Gott - MDI school Program

Kim Horton - Blue Hill Health Education Center

- Vista Ameri-corp Volunteer is coming soon

- grant received for WERU Project

Ron Beard - University Cooperative Extension

- working with Peninsula Tomorrow

Susan Berry - Bucksport School Coordinator

- busy time

Sharon Bray - Bucksport Community Health Advisory Committee

II. Roles

Ron - Facilitator

Recorder - Jim Fisher

Time keeper - Kim Horton

Team Leaders - Doug and Helena

Agenda for next meeting - pick a new recorder and team leader.

III. Review of Agenda

IV. Review of minutes from the pror meeting - no changes

V. Review of decision making process

- Helena reviewed the guidelines of thumbs up and thumbs down consensus voting.

- Doug raised the question of whether to set a quorum number for decision-making

- a variety of opinions were expressed on this issue:

- might be good to assure representation of a group if the decision significantly affects them.

- another proposal suggests that all significant

Statement adopted by the Coalition: "Agenda should clearly delineate discussion issues in advance of the meeting. This will permit people to weigh in prior to the meeting even if they cannot attend."

Need to be sure that members understand their relationship to the sub-regional construct of the coalition.

IV. Membership responsibilities

Helena reviewed the reason for having a membership policy

- need to maintain continuity to avoid constant reintroduction of issues

- new members and non-members attending the meeting might be provided some orientation before attending the meeting (by their own coalition)

- Helena is working on an orientation packet

documents include responsibilities, membership criteria, values, etc.

- the group agreed with the concept of permitting alternates to attend meetings.

- Barbara presented the concept that the coalition members have a broad range of potential responsibilities. Barbara will frame this issue for the next agenda.

IV. Funding opportunities

Bucksport presented two sets of proposals -

1) The written proposals concentrated on advocating new ways to distribute funding.

2) The oral proposal was to look at options to build a more uniform structure and sustainability around healthy communities. Want to initiate a dialogue around this and the implications of state funding specific questions were raised by the committee

How can we build a sustainable system for Hancock County?

- current system creates imbalances

- would he group be willing bring in resource people to look at this?

Examples include: Maine Center for Economic Policy and Maine Rural Development Council

Barbara - the questions on the agenda might be answered with the process that was just described

Doug - the new questions are quite different and more approachable

Kim - the per capita funding concept might result in a significant loss in funding to this region.

Susan - the Bucksport Coalition needs funding. What can be done to assure sustainability of this and other healthy community initiatives.

Jim - per capita funding might result in fragmentation

Urban/rural factors are difficult to anticipate.  

Urban areas may need more per capita.

Outside expertise may need to come from other sources. Not aware of specific work by MCEP and MRDC

Doug

- We cannot change the current budget year

- some opportunities to collaborate have been passed-up

Sharon

- the numbers that Jim produced show that ANP and Blue Hill are receiving more money per capita. They already have more resources. (Recorder's Note: per capita funding for the Ellsworth HSA was significantly reduced when the populations of Bucksport and surrounding communities moved from the Bangor HSA to Ellsworth. Expenditures through the tobacco grant to Bucksport significantly increased after this move.)

Helena

- This is a tricky matter - are we proposing to have all resources redistributed or just the tobacco settlement funds.

Susan -

HCCCH might advocate for equitable funding of all health programs.

Kim and Gale - need to turn our time to identifying new resources to sustain grass routes efforts

Jim - the concept of a funding formula may lead us to health districts. A competitive process seems to work better for healthy communities.

Mary Jane - there are a variety of initiatives at the state level to create multi-county health districts.  The sustainability grant was a short-term mechanism to hold the groups together while funding is worked out.

Between now and he next meeting a sub-group

- Mary Jane and Kim - will work on framing the questions for the next HCCCH Meeting

IV. Office of Substance Abuse RFP

Kim - there are two or more groups interested in applying for the grant.

Mary Jane - Bucksport - has a basic infrastructure need for $76k. The super grant is would not generate sufficient revenues.

Coalition for OSA proposal:

1- Union River

2- Healthy Acadia

3- PATH

4- Schoodic

Healthy Island is not going to participate separately.

Costs of some parts of the proposal are quite high , such as MYDAUS survey and staffing

Jenny - funding for some shared projects has come entirely out of HSA such as Education Committee and HCPC assistance.

Mary Jane - Bucksport would like to contribute to shared projects, but does not have resources to share.

Kim - does a competition within the County send a bad message to the state - does it look like the coalition is fragmenting?

Educational Content - to be decided at the next meeting

 

V. Next Agenda -

Future meeting schedule and format

-tabled to the next meeting

August 2nd is the next meeting of the substance abuse issues

Agenda for September meeting:

New Committee Structure

What we want to accomplish

Responsibilities of members and coalitions

Defining the functions of the coalition (?)

Finding leaders and recorders

The next HCCCH meeting will be September 11th.