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DCF HHS Advisory Committee Meeting

9 a.m., November 3, 2011 Embassy Suites, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

DISCLAIMER

This transcript was created in real time by a Certified CART Provider. It has been roughly edited. It is not to be considered a certified legal transcript. It is intended for use by the recipient as notes of the proceedings.

HRI CART

Communication Access Realtime Translation 813.404.2488 (cell/text) www.HRICART.com

P R O C E E D I N G S

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Good morning. We will start with introductions. Judy? >>JUDY MARTIN: Good morning, I'm Judy Martin from Jacksonville. I represent

the Hearing Loss Association of Florida. >>DANIELLE PORTER: I'm Danielle Porter, a Support Service Provider from

Daytona Beach, Florida. >>SUSAN HERRING: I'm Susan Herring from Pensacola, Florida. >>JOHN JACKSON: John Jackson with the Department of Children and Families.

I'm also a member of the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

>>YASMINE GILMORE: DCF Human Resources. >>MERLIN ROULHAC: DCF Human Resources. >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: Carolyn Dudley, Office of Civil Rights. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Justice, Research and Advocacy, independent

consultant. >>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: Valerie Stafford-Mallis with the Florida

Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I'm monitoring the chat and, Gayl, I don't see any CART feed on the chat.

>>GAYL HARDEMAN: I just told Shana that I am having trouble connecting to StreamText for some stupid reason, so I will keep trying to do that -- as I CART this meeting. It will be quite the feat. I am on the Internet but StreamText won't load.

>>CINDY SIMON: This is Cindy on the phone, representing Florida Audiologists, and I'm in South Florida.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Thank you. Okay. Valerie? >>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I'm sorry, this is Valerie again. I don't know

how to use your equipment, Gayl. Okay, there is StreamText feed now. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Cindy is apologizing in advance. For what? >>CINDY SIMON: For going in and out of the room, depending on whether the

Physical Therapist or the nurse is in the room. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: So we have a quorum. We are going to start this morning

with Terri presenting a pamphlet that she created that we passed out last meeting. >>TERRI SCHISLER: I would like to start with this communications matrix

because it will take us a little time to go through it. At the end of the last meeting, I thought we clarified what the policy and procedures were, and that I would be on task to draft this reference tool for the front line staff that would summarize the policies, and allow them to be able to secure the services or an appropriate accommodation based on the situation.

So that's what I attempted to do. Based on our conversations yesterday, there were still some misunderstandings on my part. So as we go through this, I will tell you

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the changes that I was recommending based on yesterday's conversations. The grid on the top, in the third column, the type of accommodations allowed, we

are sticking with the term Certified Interpreter, so in all instances, scratch out the Qualified, and make it just Certified Interpreter, all the way down.

And DCF's Qualified Staff are eligible to be used during aid-essential, so I would add them, in that column, to the first, third, third and fourth boxes.

Now, if everyone would just review that and say, "does this represent the policies as they are?"

Yes. On that matrix, it needs to have the request of the customer, because, actually, under AID-ESSENTIAL, it has to be what the request of the customer is. So even in an aid-essential communication, if the customer requests writing notes back and forth, that is what they want. As long as there's effective communication occurring, you can honor their request and write notes back and forth. So something needs to be put in this matrix to designate that it is the request of the customer, and that various options are permitted.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: In all cases or just in certain lines? >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: In all cases. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. So an asterisk with a footnote or something could

be -- >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: The only time that you would not necessarily

honor the request of a customer's preference would be in a non-aid-essential situation and then DCF would then have to look at whether or not it was a reasonable accommodation, and then those criteria are set forth in the Settlement Agreement and DCF has a policy to determine whether or not they would deny that request and provide an alternative form of communication.

So, essentially, in all circumstances, it's the request of the customer. In some situations, if it's non-aid-essential and it is an unreasonable request, then DCF can then undergo a different process to determine whether or not they will honor that request.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I really hesitate to ask this question, because,

I -- I varied yesterday on having to ask this question, but, I thought that DCF-qualified employees could not be used in aid-essential. I'm sorry, I evidently just missed everything, the point of everything that we talked about yesterday.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: On Page 26 of the Settlement Agreement it states that DCF Direct Service Facilities shall utilize Certified Interpreters on a contractual basis and DCF personnel who are qualified to interpret for deaf or hard-of-hearing customers or companions when requested by a customer, or companion for, an aid-essential communication situation.

The only other situation where DCF could utilize a staff person would be in non-aid-essential communications, DCF can use personnel who have rudimentary familiarity with Sign Language or fingerspelling, but these are kind of limited to situations such as simple face-to-face conversations with minimal interactive communication, such as when providing written brochures, filling out admission forms, directing customers or companions to a particular area in a facility or other general information. So DCF personnel who may have some rudimentary skills can give very minimal, basic information, when working with a customer/companion.

When it is an aid-essential, in order for a DCF personnel to be involved in that situation, they must have undergone that independent assessment process to be considered a Qualified DCF Staff Person. And at this time, no one in DCF has actually met that criteria; that they have a Certified, not a Qualified.

At this time, to my knowledge, DCF does not have any staff person that has been designated as Qualified. Florida State Hospital has a Certified Interpreter who has passed the national certification. So there are DCF staff persons but they are actually more analogous to the Certified Interpreter category.

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>>TERRI SCHISLER: So based on that yesterday, bringing it to my attention, and I said that while I scoured the Policies and Procedures trying to find that in the Policies and Procedures, and so I looked through all documents, those four documents, I looked through all of them, and what I found was that, it is in there, it is very difficult to discern that clearly, DCF-qualified staff are eligible to be used during aid-essential services.

So what I found is that in Chapter 3, Section 3-9 F, it says that they will be evaluated, and it gives a reference to 3-11, which we discussed yesterday. So in one chapter, it only says they will be evaluated. It doesn't say then what their qualifications will allow them to do.

Michelle? >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Essentially, that whole part of the procedures has

to be rewritten, and I had recommended to DCF, and I briefly mentioned it yesterday morning, the Settlement Agreement has a specific criteria to determine that assessment, and that is one part that is still kind of a hiccup for DCF in terms of how they -- because they are working with FRID, to try to complete that independent assessment process and I don't know where DCF is at that particular point. Once DCF has developed what they're going to utilize to make that determination, it can be clarified much better in the Policies and Procedures, but right now that has to be clarified because, as written, it's not clear for staff, and we don't want staff to get the impression that a director of a particular program says, "well, I can make that evaluation," and they go ahead and say, "oh, yeah, they've been working here for years, they -- you know." So that part has to be rewritten to be more along the line with the Settlement Agreement requirements.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. So it is not clearly stated in the policies at this time, the use of Qualified Staff.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Mm-mmm. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So if we add a note or something in that column that

identifies that, based on a consumer request, and look at the wording that's in the Settlement Agreement, that based on consumer requests, a different -- another option -- accommodations options would be provided upon request. And that, if it was a Non-Aid-Essential, then DCF would have discretion to honor -- whether or not they would honor that request if it is non-aid-essential.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: If certain criteria are met. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So we will get those statements added into that.

The information below that comes from the Policies and Procedures is the wording that's there.

In the third bullet in the second line it says "DCF staff will retain" and I believe that the policies actually say "may." -- we discussed that yesterday. So change that "will" to "may."

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And that actually -- that section is going to be

rewritten once DCF takes it back to legal counsel as to what situations that they will require an interpreter to be there or when they will require an interpreter to observe a family member, other individual, acting as an interpreter for a customer or companion. That will have to --

>>TERRI SCHISLER: So that language there is strictly taken from the Policies and Procedures, so it is just there for informational purposes for the staff to remind them of the policies.

On the second page, again, those statements are taken directly from the Policies and Procedures. And I would recommend that we add in there, also, the section that talks about use of a minor child being prohibited. And also, add that minor child's statement to the Chapter 4, Section 4-18, because it's not there. And Chapter 4 is where the majority of the policies are related to interpreters, so that minor child restriction should be in that chapter.

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Michelle? >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I just found, also, under the Aid-Essential

Communication Situation Assessment Criteria, that is actually Non-Aid-Essential. So when I mentioned yesterday why would the type of auxiliary aid or service requested be relevant for an aid-essential communication, it's actually not, because these five criteria were taken from the Settlement Agreement on Page 21, and if you look on Page 21, it says "for non-aid-essential."

Aid-Essential is the straight definition that is provided in the Settlement Agreement that looks at the nature, length, complexity; that brief kind of definition which looks at importance, length, and complexity of information being such that the exchange of information between the parties should be considered aid-essential. When you're looking at Non-Aid-Essential, the Settlement Agreement on Page 21 states that "the initial communication assessment made by DCF personnel for any communication not designated as aid-essential shall take into account the following factors," and those five factors that are listed on your handout as well as, unfortunately, in the Policies and Procedures, are actually non-aid-essential. Non-aid-essential. So we have to switch the policies to clarify that, and then also, when you're looking at "Aid-Essential" it's the definition that's provided in the Settlement Agreement, and I don't know if DCF wants to add anything additional for Aid-Essential in the policies, but that's going to have to be taken back and reviewed. Does that make sense?

>>TERRI SCHISLER: So what I'm hearing is that the policy, where this language is, talks about the aid-essential criteria. It really should be, those are not aid-essential criteria?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Yes. >>TERRI SCHISLER: And so, you're going to revise -- that's going to be revised.

Then -- then would we want to add here those criteria for determining if it's aid-essential?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Yeah, aid-essential is that definition that is importance, nature, length.

>>RICK KOTTLER: And the number of people. And the reason I add that in is because the training program uses those four things as criteria, so you want to be consistent with what's being taught the staff, as well as what's in Policies and Procedures.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And I don't know -- I don't remember offhand if the training does provide more definitions for that aid-essential in terms of just those four. And then, to be consistent, that would incorporate that in there.

Non-Aid-Essential is one where I think you have to be careful on even putting it here, it may just want to have a bullet point. If you feel it's not aid-essential and don't want to provide it, see your director, because only if the director of the program, I think, would make that determination, whether or not we're not going to provide you with a requested Auxiliary Aid Or Service.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. So that was the information, trying to just summarize the high points of the policy. If we make those changes, is this something that is going to be useful for your front line staff? The remaining three pages are where I tried to expand on the definitions of those terms that we talked about yesterday, and also gives them some information on how they can determine what the qualifications are. Michelle?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I'm sorry, I don't mean to keep going back. You guys can tell me to keep quiet.

On the first part of the matrix, where you have Aid-Essential in the third row down, and it says "unscheduled" that should be listed as an emergency situation. On the Settlement Agreement, the two-hour requirement is actually for an emergency situation. If it's a non-emergency situation, the Settlement Agreement, on Page 27, references that "you are to try to schedule an interpreter but it's to be done at the convenience of the customer, and then at least within 24 hours."

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And generally speaking, to my knowledge, what DCF staff try to do, is that they kind of use that two-hour window. It's not a requirement, though, but they kind of use that two-hour window to speak with the client and say, "would you like an interpreter? We can go and get you one. It may take an hour or two. Is that okay for you?" And if the client says, "yeah, that's fine, go ahead, call," or if the client says, "no, I don't want to sit here for two hours and wait for an interpreter. Let's reschedule at my convenience. I'll come back on this date because I have to work or I have some other obligations that I have to take care of."

So I wouldn't put the two-hour. I'd just put -- for an emergency keep it at the two hours. But then under "unscheduled" "next business day" or "convenience of the customer." Because it really is working with the customer. Because many customers don't want to come back the next day either, because they're working and they say, "I'm going to come back -- I'd rather come back on this day," and then they schedule the interpreter to come back.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Any other comments on that matrix? Then, looking at the Definitions pages, again, providing you a definition -- and

these were not all taken directly from the definitions in the procedures. We can look at each of those and revert to the definitions we discussed yesterday, if that's what we want to do. But in the next column is the Verification of Credentials. How can that front-line staff verify, or, how do they know what the qualifications of that interpreter are? And I had mentioned previously that, for instance, with a Certified Interpreter, you have to either find them in the online database or you have to have proof of their certification by their membership card, but not by an actual certificate that they were given when they were tested. That certificate may no longer be valid, because their membership has lapsed, therefore, their certification has lapsed. So that's the kind of information that I'm recommending that you guys have here, so that you know how and where to verify that information. So I've given you the Web site addresses and I've listed some of those alphabet soups that we deal with in my profession. And, then -- I've also given them some sense of what the appropriate use is of a Qualified Interpreter versus a Certified Interpreter. And those are already governed when and where, but this helps them to be able to have a sense of what those interpreters can interpret appropriately and what might not be appropriate.

So if you want to look through those -- And then, the last two at the bottom of the page, on the bottom of the third page,

is where I have a DCF Qualified Staff, and I recommended another category. We can talk about those specifically, if you want to look through the pages and see what kind of questions or concerns that you have.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Can everybody please turn off their cellphones. Not put them on airplane mode, but just turn them off. Let's see if we can get this buzzing to stop from the speaker.

Well, we are doing what we can, and I am sure he is working on the sound over there.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: So, looking at the definitions, the Qualified Interpreter is

taken from the Policies and Procedures, Page 4-15. The Certified Interpreter definition is also taken directly from that page. If we changed it yesterday, it may not represent the changes we made yesterday.

The Certified Deaf Interpreter definition -- and I want to clarify whether or not we discussed the fact that that definition must be included in the information that a Certified Deaf Interpreters are, themselves, deaf or hard of hearing. Because that needs to be explicitly stated, because a hearing person couldn't walk in and say "I'm a Certified Deaf Interpreter," meaning "I use Sign Language for deaf people." Rather, a Certified Deaf Interpreter is deaf and must be deaf. So that definition is not exactly what's in the Policies and Procedures.

So, whether or not you want to keep this definition, or you want to use the

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definition that's in the Policies and Procedures, you know, that's up for a different discussion or determination.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Is there a way that, with respect to the Qualified Interpreter, because the policies are going to change a lot, so that may have to change, because in the policies they're referencing Qualified Interpreter/Qualified Interpreter, but actually they are going to be designating Qualified Interpreter/Qualified DCF Staff Person, and then they're going to have to incorporate a section that talks about Qualified -- regardless of Certified or DCF Staff -- and then competency, as well, on certain issues. And that is something they have to do. So before we finalize that, then we have to --

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Well, yesterday, I think that what we were discussing, whether we agreed to or not, was that, in those definitions sections, that we would have a definition for a Qualified Interpreter, meaning a generic -- general term, and add a definition that is for DCF Qualified Staff, which is on the third page. I think that is what we were discussing yesterday. Is that -- does that resolve the issue?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Okay, that's fine. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So we will have both definitions for generic Qualified

Interpreter and for DCF Qualified Staff. And that's why when we were going through the Policies and Procedures, when you come to a point in those procedures where it says "Qualified Interpreter," that has to be a generic reference, and specific reference has to be solicited as a DCF Qualified Staff, as defined. Rick?

>>RICK KOTTLER: Under VRI, would it be appropriate to reference back to Certified/Qualified Interpreter? Because I think it just reinforces that staff has to make sure that when they do use Video Remote Interpreting, that those interpreters are Certified.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Well, in the definitions, you do have a definition for Video Remote Interpreting and for a Video Interpreter. And I was going to recommend that, on the line with Video Remote Interpreting, in the third column, Verification of Credentials, that you -- when you contract for those services, you will have to have that in your contract that you can only use those Certified Interpreters when using VRI.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: DCF still asks their employees to verify that. So, for example, all contracts with interpreter services, DCF requires that they be certified. But they're training their staff that when the interpreter shows up, or when they are called for the interpreter to remind them, you have to send a Certified Interpreter, because even though you contract with them, they might or might not honor that.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Does that address your concern? >>RICK KOTTLER: Yes. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So on the that first page of definitions we have Qualified

Interpreter, Certified Interpreter, Certified Deaf Interpreter. Any comments or discussion on the last two columns -- that's information that is not included in your Policies and Procedures. Rick's asking about whether or not we need to include a Tactile Interpreter, and it's not mentioned anywhere in the Policies and Procedures. We haven't talked about that. However, these criteria would apply if you had a deafblind consumer/companion. So that hasn't been addressed at this point that I'm aware of.

And I'm assuming you guys are looking for that information? >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: It should be in one of the chapters' attachments. Give

me a minute to find it. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. Valerie? >>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I'm looking at Chapter 1. I'm not seeing

"Tactile." >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: It's in Chapter 3, Page 3-13, E, EE, 7. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Section 3-13? >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: Page 3-13. It's in Section -- Glossary of Terms. >>TERRI SCHISLER: I see the definition for a Deafblind Person, and there is

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Tactile or Close-Vision Interpreter. So we can add that, Tactile Interpreter definition to this chart.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I am looking at the Certified Oral Interpreter under the definition. When it says "Qualified Oral Transliteration," I'm not sure this is real clear why we're switching from one term to the other. It doesn't look like the definition is real clear.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay, that's on the second page. I have this as Certified Oral Interpreter. If all Contract Interpreters must be certified, there is a certification for Oral Interpreters. So a Certified Oral Interpreter would seem to be the appropriate term here, although you are only listing them as Oral Interpreters in your definitions and your Policies and Procedures. So to be consistent, you may want to just list this as an Oral Interpreter. But remember that when you are contracting, that you are requiring a Certified Interpreter, so that they have to be certified as well. So that needs to be -- so an Oral Interpreter can be certified, but Certified Interpreters without the specialty are also qualified to do oral interpreting, which is kind of an issue here. And in the definition, as Shana pointed out, you use the term Qualified Oral Transliterators. I took these definitions from either RID or some other relay service from the FCC web pages and used their definitions or definitions found on the National Association of the Deaf. So this language came from RID.

Why we call them "transliterators" is because they are not using two languages, they are using two forms of the same language.

So we can stick with your generic term, Oral Interpreter, because that's what you've referenced already, but you will also see them referenced -- you might want to put Oral Interpreter/Transliterator, might be something to consider.

So when your front line staff -- when the request is made for an Oral Interpreter, you may have an Oral Interpreter available who's certified as with that specialty, but I recommend that they also understand that most Certified Interpreters also are qualified to provide oral interpreting services without any specialty certificate. So that would be where, when the front line staff calls to reserve that, to make a contract for that interpreter service, that appointment, they need to make the request that they need an Oral Interpreter, and if they're not sending you a Certified Oral Interpreter, then you need to verify that that specific interpreter is comfortable or is experienced with providing oral interpreting services.

So do you want to leave this Certified Oral Interpreter/Transliterator? Or just Oral Interpreter/Transliterator?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I would take the word "Certified," just because we are trying to engrain it in staff that you have to be certified.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: So that's when, in the third column, Verification of Credentials, "may hold the RID oral transliterating certificate, but many Certified Interpreters holding a generalist certificate are also qualified to provide oral interpretation." That's in your credentials. Rick?

>>RICK KOTTLER: Okay, is that proper? We require Certified Interpreters and when we say they're qualified, many of them have legal experience, and usually they are qualified for legal situations. But they're certified as RID Signing Interpreters first. Now we're saying okay, we have certified Signing Interpreters that may be qualified to be used as Oral Interpreters, when, in fact, you are asking for certified signers, so why aren't you asking for certified oral?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: That's fine. If you are okay to limiting it to just Certified Oral Interpreters, okay.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: I'm just asking. Consistency in policy is all I'm -- and that's up to DCF. I think it's a gray area, you could make either call.

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: So any changes to that line, Certified Oral Interpreters/ Transliterators?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: That's fine. I'm sorry. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay, just checking. The next line is CART, and as of the

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last meeting, I had missed the meeting where you talked about CART, so I didn't have a definition for CART, so in that third block, you just insert the definition you have already discussed and agreed upon. I didn't have that information.

Video Remote Interpreting. Again, that definition is not exactly the definition in the Policies and Procedures, but it was taken from the FCC Web site definition. Whether you choose to keep these definitions in this document or use the definitions in your Policies and Procedures, I mean, I don't know how you want to do that. Do you want to make them both be the same and change some of those to be these definitions? Any feelings?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: You have to verify that they're certified. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Right. So that VRI Interpreting in the third column, we

would say "they must be certified and that staff must verify in each instance that the interpreter is certified."

The next page is Video Relay Service. That definition was taken directly from the FCC Web site. And I added in a third column, a reminder that it is illegal to use VRS services when people are in the same room, but that the service is appropriate for any service that would normally occur over a telephone service for other customers or companions.

There's a definition for a Video Interpreter. And the Video Interpreter definition applies to both VRS and VRI.

The last two columns -- the last two lines, and I have them bolded it just to say that I am recommending a little bit of changes here which, based on yesterday's conversation, we have to modify.

We agreed that we are going to add a definition to the Policies and Procedures on DCF Qualified Staff, and that those sections in Chapter 4 and Chapter 3 are going to be revised. There's some information that's not in those pages that needs to be clarified.

And on DCF Qualified Staff, under Appropriate Use, that needs to be changed to "limited to," and scratch out "non-aid-essential communication systems based on credentials held," because you could have a DCF Qualified Staff who's certified or you could have a DCF Qualified Staff who has a QA level or some other certification.

And then, in the credentials column, I am listing Certified Interpreter, same as what was found above, with all the list of possible certifications, a QA level certification, and where you can verify their credential.

And just to keep the doors open, there are a wide variety of other possible credentials that might deem a person qualified. If somebody is moving from another state, there are -- the VEI is a state level certification in Texas that many people hold and is well-regarded as being equivalent to a national certification by RID.

And somebody might have this AIE, which is meant for Educational Interpreters, but also gives you a sense of their qualifications.

And AEI-J is, again, an educational certification that is recognized nationwide and also could potentially qualify you to be a nationally Certified Interpreter. I know that's all very confusing.

So if you want to list that option, that there are potentially other credentials that might deem that person "qualified" without being "certified." Valerie?

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I just want to be sure I understand in that final column, Appropriate Use For DCF Qualified Staff, the language that we want to say is "may be used in certain aid-essential communication situations based on credentials held?" Is that correct? Instead of what's currently there, which says, "is limited to non-aid-essential?"

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: The DCF Staff Qualified person can be utilized in both aid and non-aid-essential situations.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: Okay. I don't mean to belabor that point, but that is so radically different from everything I have heard up to this point, up to yesterday. I want to make sure I understand that, because that's a material change.

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>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: All right. I think, for the definition of Qualified Staff, you should kind of focus on making it -- in a sense, that'll say the DCF Qualified Staff would be those individuals that have been evaluated by DCF and designated as DCF-qualified; to evaluate assigned who have -- I am trying to give a definition because, what you have to be careful of is, right now DCF doesn't have any qualified staff. They are trying to work with FRID to make that determination but that may not pan out either, so you may have to have for right now, like, a broad general definition based on the assessment process that DCF has entered into with an agency to designate. So you may have to have, like, a broad, general definition for right now, because I don't know if on February 28th this particular piece is going to be worked out yet. So DCF may not have Qualified Staff for a period of time. So I'm trying to think of how to work a definition that fits those broad categories, and we may have to wait until DCF puts it in their Policies and Procedures, because that is still trying to be determined.

>>RICK KOTTLER: Isn't there a definition in the Settlement Agreement? >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: No. I have been combing through it. And the

only thing that the Settlement Agreement states is that "DCF shall contract with an independent agency to evaluate the Sign Language and oral interpreting skills of relevant DCF personnel to determine which DCF personnel are qualified to interpret in accordance with" -- and then it refers you back to the definition for the general Qualified Interpreter. So again, as Terri has mentioned, DCF can designate individuals to be interpreters. Once they have that definition, they still have to be qualified. And so, both Certified and DCF personnel have to meet that Qualified designation. It's just Certified is based on the national standards for RID, but Qualified is an independent assessment which has not yet been fully factored out.

>>RICK KOTTLER: So then, just putting in, "as determined by an independent assessment," for now.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Yeah. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So in the definition for DCF-Qualified Staff, it would start

with "shall mean a DCF staff person who has been evaluated by an independent" -- >>MERLIN ROULHAC: Evaluation agency. >>TERRI SCHISLER: -- "evaluation agency, and has been determined by DCF to

be able to interpret competently, accurately, impartially." >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And also must meet the definition of Qualified,

referring back to that. Either/or. But they can interpret in both aid-essential and non-aid-essential, as long as they're qualified and there is no conflict of interest.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. Are you comfortable with the rest that of line, Qualified Staff Listing? Other potential recognized credentials that are out there?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Under Verification of Credentials? I wouldn't, because right now, DCF is still trying to flesh that out, and if this goes out to staff or if they are training on it, what you don't want to have happen is, somebody relying upon this and wanting to use one of their staff persons and say, "oh, well, they have to ask, so we're fine," and yet it doesn't follow along the lines of DCF policies.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: And then in the last column, Appropriate Use, we want to -- What is it that we want to say there? Do you want to leave it "limited to communication situation based on credentials held" or "based on qualifications and certifications?"

>>RICK KOTTLER: I'm looking at that, and the only thing I can think of is what the DCF have, 50,000-odd employees. There has to be a Coda or two in the system. And Codas normally do not -- you know, sometimes they go on to be interpreters but a lot of times they have no qualifications at all on paper, but they're excellent signers, so you wouldn't want to rule out someone who has those abilities by saying they have to have three Sign Language classes. No Codas I know even go to Sign Language classes. They may teach them. But you don't want to rule that person out either, to be able to be involved in -- and I am talking about in the non-essential situations. You

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want them to be able to help out. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: You might want to have two categories. The

DCF-qualified staff is based on the definition which goes through the independent assessment process. Then, in non-aid-essential, as I referenced --

>>TERRI SCHISLER: That's this one. >>RICK KOTTLER: That's the one. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Okay. I'm sorry. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Yes. That's fine. We hadn't gotten to that point. And,

again, this is why I had it bolded in my copy, so that people would know that I made some suggestions here. To delineate those staff who has some Sign Language ability that has not been assessed, or where the Settlement Agreement says some -- I can't remember the term that was in there, I don't have it written down -- minimum skills -- rudimentary skills, there you go.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And I would use what the Settlement Agreement references, where they state under the definition, it just states, "who have rudimentary familiarity with Sign Language or fingerspelling, Qualified Sign Language Interpreters," and they may use these individuals under Appropriate Use -- this on Page 26 of the Settlement Agreement. They can use them in relatively simple face-to-face conversations. And then it goes on. And I would just, under Appropriate Use, use that same thing.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. And so then, trying to raise the bar here slightly, if you all are open to considering that, the third column says Verification of Credentials. And that's where we, you know -- someone who could learn the ABCs in elementary school is not qualified for much of anything at all. And whether or not you allow someone who says, "oh, yeah, I can fingerspell," to be able to conduct communications with a customer or companion, is a little scary to me. So if there were some baseline verification of their credentials, that they had either taken the SCPI-SLPI evaluation, which evaluates communication skills, not interpreting skills, or they had proof that they've taken several courses through either a public school or a college setting, you know, that would raise the bar a little bit and give you a clear criteria for if that person who has rudimentary skills is qualified even to do simple communications.

>> MICHLE RISKE-MORRIS: I think that's going to be problematic because, sometimes it could be like an Access facility, someone directing someone to where the bathroom is, or where the Social Security office is. Or to give them a brochure on food stamps, or you know, where the computers are. And so you have to be careful. I understand what you're saying, but in most cases, if they're going to be discussing anything necessarily of any type of importance, it's going to be aid-essential. Especially because with DCF, you are involved with services, so you know, it's hard-pressed to find non-aid-essential, except for basic-type functions.

Then you also have to be careful, too, because you have a lot of ward staff, like in the mental hospitals, who may not have met this criteria, but they have been trained on using certain methods to communicate with staff on a day-to-day basis, and they have tried to develop, like we talked about yesterday, on ways to communicate with staff to address their needs.

So I think that's going to be difficult. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So if you don't want to use this or have any assessment

criteria for them, then -- so then, under Verification of Credentials for a DCF staff person with limited Sign Language fluency or rudimentary skills, what would you list there under Verification? There is no verification process. So leave it blank?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Unless anybody else has an idea, I would just leave it blank.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I'm actually okay with leaving it blank. I think the concern was that -- and I do believe we addressed this yesterday -- that the places where rudimentary sign could be used varied too much between giving a brochure and helping somebody fill out an admission form. So those need to be teased out so that

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we're really clear that this is just the Candy Striper who is walking down the hall and a deaf person says, "I need to know where the restroom is."

>>MERLIN ROULHAC: Excuse me. The plan will be after we go through the evaluation process, hopefully that will pan out, with the employees who are willing to go through that process. And after we know who those employees are, they have been identified, a mass communication will go out department-wide, letting employees know these are the only Qualified Staff that we have available on staff at this time. All other staff continue to cease interacting with deaf and hard-of-hearing customers or companions unless you use these rudimentary skills, and then that would be communicated statewide.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: And I'm very comfortable with that. I would possibly, again, suggestion in the Appropriate Use column, in addition to the statement that you read, "relatively simple communications," some of the terms that I would use in my profession would be for Direct Communication, meaning no interpreting done, Direct One-on-One Communications.

>>MERLIN ROULHAC: Right. >>TERRI SCHISLER: And something referring to survival signs or personal care

needs, you know, that type of thing. >>MERLIN ROULHAC: Right. >>TERRI SCHISLER: So that would clarify that in the Appropriate Use column.

Okay, would you like me to make those changes and resubmit this? >>MERLIN ROULHAC: Yes. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. And if there are no other questions, then, we can

look at the other document I submitted. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. Again, we were talking about the feedback form at

the last meeting, and we discussed giving them -- providing some other document that could be attached to, or provided with, that form. That would direct them to get assistance with filling that out and making sure they understood the reasons for the form.

Now, since we are changing the feedback form process, this may be incorporated in what we talked about yesterday, but this is just a simple, possibly three-page, pamphlet that would give the deaf person some simple understanding of what their rights are, and on the third panel would also give them the contact information that they need. And the third item on that column is to use forms and instructions in ASL, direct them to a specific Web page designed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing customers and companions, where those Web pages and relative information in their -- at their language level would be found. I don't know how you want to use this or how this helps us. But it does include the symbols that we talked about as well.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I have a question. How far in the future are we looking at having that Web page up for consumers?

>>MERLIN ROULHAC: That I can't say. I know that we will get right on it when we get back home. Yasmine and I already have a plan, but the web master is not someone that is under our umbrella. (:-)

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: So this particular document came out of a conversation about what to hand to someone to be able to give them that connection before they are actually receiving the augmented device or the interpreter. So where would you put this, DCF? Would you give this to the counter? Are you putting it on the countertop? Where will this be used?

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: It would be on the counters. >>JUDY MARTIN: I am just looking at this form. Is this for deaf people only? >>TERRI SCHISLER: Yes. >>JUDY MARTIN: Okay. Well, then there will be a different form for people that

have hearing loss or who are considered hard of hearing.

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>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: The pamphlet says if you are deaf or hard of hearing or deafblind.

>>JUDY MARTIN: I can't hear you. >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: The proposed pamphlet says if you are deaf,

hard-of-hearing or deafblind. >>JUDY MARTIN: Right, I read that, and I don't see anything in here that will help

a person who is hard of hearing. If you could point that out to me, I would appreciate it.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Well, I think that, while it is information for both deaf, hard of hearing or deafblind, this particular document is meant to meet the reading level of some individuals who are not English-speaking persons. Most hard-of-hearing people could probably -- will be able to read that feedback form and understand it without assistance. But the contact information would still be the same whether you are deaf, hard-of-hearing or deafblind.

>>JUDY MARTIN: So this is not something that is given to someone who walks in the door. Is that right? You said it's on the counter?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I would just say -- I think this might be something that would be useful when -- before they get their Request For Services form. Because the reason why this was developed is that we have to, under the Settlement Agreement, have a Request For Services to designate what their preferred preference is so we can document that. Unfortunately, as we all know, and we tried to do yesterday, going through that form, trying to make it as simplistic as possible is difficult. So if clients are given this ahead of time, that might give them an indication that, when they go to fill out that form, a better understanding of how to complete that, as well as -- because what generally happens is when individuals come in, in most situations, if it's an Access office, they be sure they'll get the SPOC, the personnel do, or they talk with the individual and they take them back to another office and they sit them down and have them fill out the forms. If it's an investigation, when they go out to the housing, they do their paperwork, so to speak, at the outset. So having these forms, they would have this form, then they would get the Request For Services and upon conclusion of the services that were provided or the interview, then they get the Customer Feedback form.

So I think they all, kind of, should go together. But then having these maybe just sitting at the front desk also is not a bad idea either, so that in case employees forget or are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, it is additional information that is probably somewhat easier to understand than some of the notices that are posted, as well.

>>JUDY MARTIN: Okay. I am a hard-of-hearing person, and I walk in, and I read this, I pick it up, and I read it, and then I say, "well, I do not understand Sign Language. How can you help me?" What happens then?

>>RICK KOTTLER: I have to agree with her on this. There are two separate issues. And this one works well for deaf and works for deafblind who sign. But it doesn't address at all hard of hearing, and there should be a separate one for people who are hard of hearing. I don't know -- Susan, would we need one that was for hard of hearing and oral deafblind?

>>SUSAN HERRING: I agree with Judy, and I am just wondering if we couldn't -- I mean, can you not add in there other services, like -- add to your little bulleted list and say Braille or Assistive Listening Devices? This is just an impartial list -- it's not a complete list. I don't know that you would really -- you know, my thing is, when you walk in there, and you see all these pamphlets, you get overwhelmed, and you don't know which one to pick up. So the less pamphlets and the more information you can put on one that's concise, and not overwhelming, I think is more effective. So if you can add a couple bulleted items to this part down here where you are talking about the interpreters, and the Oral Interpreters and the Tactile, you may want to insert in there another couple of bulleted items saying, you know, Assistive Listening Devices, or

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ALDs. A hard-of-hearing person is going to know what those mean. >>KIM GAUT: If this is going to be a three-page brochure, we've got the other

side. Just focus on the other side. Just focus on English-based assistance. Assistive Listening Devices, CART, et cetera, et cetera.

My second question is, if you are going to list information about how to request an accommodation, isn't this going to be circuit-specific, office-specific, if you are going to? How are you going to be doing that? Is it that every office gets their own brochures, printed with their own information?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I have seen where they've done labels, and then they -- over that they just kind of put the label, and it will include the specific information, on other brochures I have seen that done. But I like your idea. Does anybody want to help design that?

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: If nobody wants to design the back side, looking at this existing form, in the middle section, the final sentence that says "DCF will provide an interpreter at no cost to you." If I was going to try to make this more useful to persons who are hard of hearing, I would say "DCF will provide assistance or help to you at no cost. You can request..." And then the bullets. Sign Language Interpreter, Oral Interpreter, which, of course, would help somebody who is hard of hearing. Tactile Interpreter for the deafblind. CART, add that bullet point, Number 4. Bullet point Number 5, Assistive Listening Devices. And then suddenly you have made this brochure suitable for all populations with hearing loss. That is kind of a low-tech way to do it.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I think that we are trying to keep it simple, and we want this to be just real clear bullets. That was the purpose of creating it. Terri, I think you did a really great job on trying to get so much information on one side.

Making it office-specific is huge. Because that was the whole point of the 1-800 number was not really accessible to -- or maybe not friendly to all of the consumers.

The main points in the middle here are clear communication. You have a right to clear communication. You have a right to understand all written forms and documents. So I think part of this does apply to all populations, and we just need to fine-tune it. Rick?

>>RICK KOTTLER: And I kind of like Kim's idea. And the reason being is, we wanted to keep this as simple as possible for a deaf individual to understand it. And when you start blending, there is confusion that is added to it. And if you did the other side, specifically for hard of hearing individuals, English-based, you could have generally the same thing, except for, you know, there would be different bullets in the first panel and different bullets in the bottom, in the second panel. That way, if someone says, "know your rights," if you are deaf, a deaf individual can read that and it's in plain enough English that they can understand.

A hard-of-hearing individual, you are not going to have trouble understanding, but again, if you blend the two, then you add a whole lot of confusion to the issue, and it ceases to be useful for what you are trying to do with it.

>>JUDY MARTIN: Yes, I agree with that. And to have it told who it's for, who it's focused on. The Deaf on one side, the hard-of-hearing on the other side. But really bold and large, so there would be no mistake about which one is for you. I think that's excellent. That's an excellent idea.

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: My only concern is that we will have to have this in Creole and in Spanish, and I don't know if the front and back is going to work. I mean, if we can -- you know, three columns, you know, use one column for Deaf, hard-of-hearing and deafblind. Because, I'm just concerned, when we have to have this in three different languages, it is going to come up to be more than this one page.

>>JUDY MARTIN: Carolyn, then could this be really simplified? It would have to be. It would be like a trifold brochure. And how about one column for each language? And one side for each deaf or hard-of-hearing person?

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I'm confused. Why would it take up -- I mean, I

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understand the double sided cost of printing two sides. But why would that be so much different with three languages?

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: My concern is that the consumer is not going to go to the back. They are going to look here, at the front. They may not turn -- when they turn to the back, they are going to miss something or they're not going to get it at all. So they are just going to look at what's here.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. This is part of the earlier discussion related to this flyer and maybe something else that's posted in the services.

When you do three languages on one page, then the text is very small. >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: I wasn't talking about three different languages on one

page. >>TERRI SCHISLER: No. Three different documents? >>CAROLYN DUDLEY: No, what I was asking is, if you could have a column that

says Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deafblind, and list those questions and answers. That's what I was talking about.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Okay. That was going to be my other point that I was going to say. Individuals identify as being either Deaf, hard-of-hearing, or deafblind, but you cannot use the label "hard of hearing" to mean only those people who communicate orally and English is their first language. A person who uses Sign Language can identify as being a hard-of-hearing person. You have audiological definitions and you have cultural definitions. They are not the same. So typically, an organization like DCF is going to follow the audiological definition, but when you are making information available to the public, the public would identify as a hard-of-hearing person, would still need this information for some of them. So when you say, "this is for Deaf people and this is for hard-of-hearing people," you are mislabeling the information. Because there can be a person who says, "I'm hard-of-hearing," but they communicate in ASL, and they have limited English proficiency. Those labels are very hard. You can't just separate people by those terms.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: So let's go back to what Kim said. Why don't we separate them out by functionality and type of accommodation, the type of accommodation? But we still have the issue of, DCF would have to make this form in three languages, but I think DCF has to make all forms in three languages, like everything you do has to be in three languages. Right?

>>CAROLYN DUDLEY: All the vital documents, yes. >>SUSAN HERRING: I may not be covering all the bases here but what I am

seeing on this column where it says "we can provide interpreters at no cost to you," can you not just put "interpreters and other services at no cost to you?" And then just add those bulleted items and that would cover everything? Like, it was suggested CART, or ALD, rather than just limiting it to just interpreters, which most people, you know -- most hard-of-hearing people won't identify with that.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Judy? >>JUDY MARTIN: This is what I was going to say before, before we went off in

another direction. If you do it as Susan said, and if someone else, I think Valerie mentioned, the first panel at the bottom, most of those sentences refer to interpreters, so if you could reword that to include whatever, CART or Assistive Listening Devices -- I know you want to keep it simple, but we have to reach everyone.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: Following along with what Judy said on that first panel, the bullet points:

"Did you understand everything that was said?" "Did you request help?" "Was help provided?" "Was the help effective?" And then, "did you receive assistance with forms or paperwork?" That, I think, would cover what Judy is suggesting.

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>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I'm not -- I think what the original intent was to provide a document for people who don't use verbal language, that don't have reading proficiency to be able to pick up the other documents that are accessible to most people who speak English -- and maybe French and Creole. So, again, I am going to go back to Terri's point, where we are talking about reaching -- getting a separate document that will reach deaf and hard-of-hearing people who do not use English. Can we keep that in mind as we go forward with the comments? Because if we take out all the things about interpreters and ASL, then we don't really need this. But we already have forms that are written in English. This was supposed to be specifically, I thought, to reach those people. Terri?

>>TERRI SCHISLER: When you change the word "interpreter" to "help, then there's an implied message, and you have removed the explicit message. And a deaf person will not understand the implied message to include an interpreter. It's possible for a Deaf person to say, "Oh, has DCF been to your home? Did you request help?" "Well, no, I didn't request baby-sitting services or transportation services or food stamp services, which are all help."

But this is specifically asking for communications accessibility. "Did you request an interpreter. Did you request something else for communications access." And so when you take out the explicit message, "interpreter," and replace it with "help," then the message will not be clear to the -- to Sign Language/Deaf people.

>>JUDY MARTIN: Well, I understand what you're saying totally, so this should really -- so we're talking about semantics here. Most people -- correct me if I'm wrong -- most people consider hard-of-hearing people differently than Deaf people. To me, deaf means people do not hear, they use Sign Language or some other kind of method of communication. So to me, if you just took out the terms at the top, "hard-of-hearing" or "deafblind", and just made this specifically for Deaf, I think most people -- in all my travels, talking to different people, it's always, there is a division, yes. We try not to let there be a division, but for the sake of describing groups of people, it's who you want to reach. I just -- you may say deaf people may refer to themselves as hard of hearing, but the population that I travel with, and in, does not.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: I understand. >>JUDY MARTIN: So I don't want to get, like, picky here. There's 38 million

people with hearing loss, right? And only roughly 5 percent of those people use Sign Language. So I'm just trying to reach the most people. And I want you to understand where I'm coming from.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: I understand. >>RICK KOTTLER: And I do understand that. But I also know that there are

deafblind signers, there are hard-of-hearing signers, and those people have limited English proficiency, and they have to be included. And there's no way to say, "Oh, we only want the hard-of-hearing people here who are signers." They consider themselves hard of hearing, but at the same time -- and I have had many who have worked for me, and they will say, I'm deaf when I take my hearing aids out, and they sign like they are natural signers. So they consider themselves hard of hearing, and so you can't really take that category out, I don't think.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I think where we're getting off track is we are taking what was originally designed to be a brochure that would serve one particular segment of the market, and we're trying to make it serve all segments. And I think from the conversation that we're hearing from Rick and others is that the needs of that one segment of the market are so specific, that we're never going to get a brochure that serves anything other than that segment of the market, if I am understanding correctly.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Thank you. Susan? >>SUSAN HERRING: What I'm hearing is that this is designed for people who

sign, whether they are deaf or hard of hearing. So why not label this brochure, rather than "for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and deafblind," "for the Deaf and hard of hearing

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who are signers." And just put that up there. Or "who use Sign Language." And just label it differently.

>>RICK KOTTLER: You can, right above "know your rights." "If you are a signer, do you know your rights?" And it can still have "DCF customers/companions who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, and deafblind." But it says "if you are a signer, do you know your rights?" And then that separates everything.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Can we put that below that in the first set of bullets? "If you are deaf, hard-of-hearing or deafblind and use Sign Language," and then follow right there in that bullet?

>>RICK KOTTLER: I think, honestly, you should put it up in bold, because that's where they are going see it. That's going to catch their attention.

>>SUSAN HERRING: Yes. Label it, you know. You've got -- I am not sure, but-- I am hearing that you had it labeled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing consumers, or whatever -- however it is labeled. But just label this brochure to address the people who are signers; whether they are deaf or hard of hearing or deafblind.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I am wondering if that first bullet point, instead of saying "if you are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or deafblind," just say "if you use Sign Language," "if you are a signer," whatever the preferred appellation is, just use that one. And get rid of the label "the deaf, hard of hearing and deafblind," because what we've all been saying is, it doesn't matter. All that matters is, these people communicate primarily in Sign Language.

>>RICK KOTTLER: Because there are people who are speech impaired that also sign, so you are right.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay. So Terri said if you use Sign Language, which is better than "signer." So we will start with "if you use Sign Language, know your rights," and then go from there.

>>SUSAN HERRING: Or, "if you communicate with Sign Language." Put the word "communicate" in there.

>>RICK KOTTLER: I think we might want to stick with you small words. I think there is a better way.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Well, we want to stick with the words that -- the English words that equate to the signs that these signers will be using. Not necessarily small words, but in Sign Language they would sign "to use," "to use Sign Language." And they would not sign "to communicate with Sign Language." That's an English form. So it's not that it's a small word or that it's a simple word. It's something that equates to the language, the sign that they would be using when they signed it.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Any more comments? Cindy, are you still with us? Okay. I want to really thank Terri. She has been working on all of these

documents that we have seen this morning, without assistance. So thank you, Terri, for putting in all the time and effort.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Do we have a phone message? >>YASMINE GILMORE: Someone just clicked in. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Carolyn, we have been asked, who is going to revise this?

Who would you like to revise these two documents that Terri has presented? (Gayl asked privately to Valerie, what about the English-based document? Who

will create that.) >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Terri, how do you feel about that, sounds good? >>TERRI SCHISLER: I just would want to know whether or not I -- you needed me

to do something here. On this one, this is just a conceptual draft. And so, if you have someone who can do some layout or make it pretty, then, you know, have at it.

This other document, I will incorporate the comments and send it to you and then you all can review it.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Before we go on to the next agenda item, actually, Terri has two of the addendums, the appendices that we did not cover yesterday that she wants to look at.

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>>TERRI SCHISLER: Well, it's very simple. In Chapter 4 there were two appendices. One is Interpreter Qualifications and the other one is Code of Ethics, and I believe we mentioned this before, that those are extremely out of date, and need to be replaced in entirety. There's a reference in another appendix, Standards of Etiquette. It's a little thing, but if you want to be accurate, that I would like to see us be accurate.

When they reference "SEE" as an acronym for Signing Exact English, there are some references in the Standards of Etiquette that said "signed exact English", and that is not an accurate term. That is a specific method of communication that was developed by somebody back in the '70s, and there are two systems that go by the same acronym. And it's the second one that is used commonly, and it's Signing Exact English. It's a small thing, but it's not correct where it is.

So the Interpreter Qualification, I can revise that and send that in, as well as providing you the Code of Ethics from RID. And I think that there are a couple of references to the fact that Certified Interpreters follow a code of ethics, and we now call it our Code of Professional Conduct. But, I mean, it's still a code of ethics. If you want to -- it think, when you reference it as a code of ethics, then that is fine, but our current term is the Code of Professional Conduct, which is RID-specific.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, we have those changes, and we are comfortable with that, then. We are going on to -- Mr. Jackson, are you ready?

John Jackson: I am ready if you guys are, or if you want to take break, whatever you want to do.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Let's call it ten minutes. >>(Recess taken at 10:23 a.m.)

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, so we're back. And John is going to present on a

motion that was written originally by Rick and then following the group. Go ahead. >>John Jackson: Good morning, everyone. Just for the record, again, my name

is John Jackson. I'm an Assistant General Counsel for the Department of Children and Families in Tallahassee, and I'm also Tallahassee -- excuse me, DCF's member of the Board of Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Thanks a lot for having me come down. Nothing like driving down to Fort Lauderdale. I really enjoyed it, but -- Actually, it's been probably two years since I saw you guys in action. I think it's been that long since I have actually been to one of the committee meetings -- advisory meetings -- committee meetings. So it's actually great to see. It works a little different than the Coordinating Council, but it's also great just to see the progress. I know what kind of work you guys are doing and, of course, I have witnessed all the work that Merlin and Carolyn and Yasmine and everyone is doing up at DCF, so it's just great.

I was in the beginning of this project and then I was able to sneak out of it, but they keep pulling me back in. But it's really great to see the progress that is happening since two years ago when we really just didn't know where we -- this was going to go or what was going to happen. So this is great.

I have come down today just to speak on an issue that was brought to our attention through a motion from the committee, originally from Rick. Basically the question or concerns you had is the transcripts that are created, I guess from, not only CART, but from the TTY, as well; and as far as what DCF does with those transcripts. That's basically what I see the issue being, is what DCF does with those transcripts, what DCF can do with those transcripts. In order for me to really address this -- and many of you, if not all of you, have sat through my public records training, we'll call them. I'm going to have to go through a little of that again. I just want to make sure that everyone's on the same page.

Florida is an open government state, as most, if not all of you have heard me say many times. What that basically means is that the citizens of this state are entitled to know what their the government is doing. Okay. And that's a great entitlement, but if

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you don't have the legislation, the laws, the statutes to back it up, you know, it's just all words. And so one of the ways the legislature backed it up, approximately 40 years ago, was to create the Public Records Law, which is in Chapter 119. And the Public Records Law basically states that all agencies -- and it defines "agencies" very broadly, not just what you think of as a bunch of bureaucrats in a building in Tallahassee -- it's much broader. But all agencies have to be open to the public, and that includes having the records that they create, open to the public. Hence, "public records."

Now, one thing when we think of public records, when you are not, you know, engrossed in this area of the law all the time, you think of public records, well, public records are the records we're allowed to give out. But that's actually not the case. Under the Public Records Law, every record we generate is a public record, whether it can go out the door or not. It all starts in the beginning with public records. Everything is public. And then at that point, the legislature then can look at various records and various class of records, and they can make certain records exempt from the Public Records Law, which means we don't have to give to the public in response to a Public Records Request, or they can deem the records confidential, which gives them even more protection from being released to the public. The difference with "confidential" is the legislature says, "you absolutely can't give to it anybody unless we tell you who you can give it to." Whereas if it is simply exempt from the Public Records Law that just means you don't have to give it up to a Public Records Request but you can still use it and give it up as you see fit for certain purposes. Okay?

And that's a distinction, though, that I think is important for this. Another distinction within the Public Records Law is, well, you know, what is a

public record, then. And it is anything that communicates, perpetuates, or formalizes knowledge, is what a public record is. And when you think about the work of state government, that is going to be 99.9 percent of everything that we create and do in our job, is going to be something that perpetuates or communicates or formalizes knowledge.

Okay? So that's -- exceptions to those that are not public records would be a couple of exceptions would be like notes that you take to yourself to remember something to do your job. That is the best example of something that's really not a public record, because it is something for you to remember, to be able to do your job, to be able to communicate, perpetuate or formalize the knowledge within your job.

But otherwise, just -- you really need to think in terms of -- when I say "public record," it means everything. And that's what the law pretty much looks at, is that anything that we generate or receive as state agencies, in our work, is going to be considered, deemed a public record. Okay?

So when you are someone like me and you work with the Public Records Law, and someone in your agency comes up and says, "Hey, John, someone requested this document, you know, can I give it out?" Well, it starts out, we know it is a public record but let's see if the legislature has provided for any exemption or confidentiality statutes that allow us to say, "No, you can't have it."

So another thing about Public Records Law -- I think that this -- for obvious reasons, when people think of Public Records Law, the first thing you think of are pieces of paper. Because when you think of records, we think of pieces of paper, things in filing cabinets, in dusty filing cabinets, in offices where we don't know where they're located, and stuff like that.

But it's more than paper. A public record is anything we generate. So that would include photographs, if that's part of the work we do for the state. That would be a public record. If we create maps, that would be a public record, too. So it's a very broad definition of what a public record is. But also, the definition and the case law around it makes clear that it doesn't matter what medium it's in, so what they're getting at there is that digital records are just as much a public record, even if they only reside in an electronic database or computer hard drive, or something like that. It

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does not have to be an object that you can hold in your hand to be a public record. So that's something that we need to keep in mind.

And so, I will speak specifically with CART in mind, just because I am more familiar with CART and because the research I did leading up to this presentation was mostly with CART, but would apply equally to the TTY transcripts. And the reason I focused more on CART is, like I said, I know CART better and I know people that I can call and ask about CART, which I did yesterday. One of a -- I called a CART provider that the Coordinating Council has used before, and that probably this committee has used, I don't know. I spoke to him and I -- just because I needed some backup information, and some of which I think is relevant to what we're going to discuss today. One of the things with Public Records is, you can't destroy a Public Record on your own whim, whenever you want to as a state employee. We have a Public Records Law that says we have to give something out, but if we didn't have separate laws or restrictions or regulations about destruction of records, then anyone who created a Public Record in government that you didn't want seen, it would be going right to the shredder. I think you all would understand that. So Public Records Law is really has no teeth if we don't have record retention laws that also require us to keep certain types of records for certain lengths of time. And so, the issue that we're addressing right now is more than a public records issue, it's actually a records retention issue, so keep that in mind and we'll come back to that.

So initially, let's look at these transcripts. Okay? By definition, there is no question that these transcripts, when they're

created -- and I will use transcript just broadly, loosely, for these things -- that they are public records, because they have been created as part of the business of the state; we have contracted with the providers to create these things for us. It doesn't matter whether they actually ever put them on paper or anything like that. Once it is actually created -- for instance, in Gayl's machine over there -- it is a public record. Even if it never gets printed or anything like that. I don't know if I have ever seen a printed version of a CART transcript. I'm sure it can be done. They can be very long, a lot of paper, a lot of dead trees. But it's a Public Record. Okay?

If it comes into our possession, because not all public records have to be in the possession of a state agency either -- and I will get to that -- but if it comes into our possession, it's a Public Record. There's no question about it. And we cannot simply destroy it because the employee who receives it doesn't think he needs it anymore, doesn't think he needs it at all. We can't do that. There are records retention schedules that tell us how long certain types or classes of documents must be retained. Okay?

And believe me when I tell you, there is no specific one record retention rule that covers these transcripts. It does not exist. But even if it did, it is very unlikely that it would say that we can destroy it as soon as we get it.

It would probably have, at the very least, I would think, like, maybe, six months to a year that we would have to hold on to it before we could destroy it. One thing to keep in mind, though is that these record retention schedules do not require us to destroy anything. It's just a floor, the minimum amount of years or time that we have to keep this stuff.

DCF does not create record retention rules. No single agency creates their own record retention rules, because you can't have that. You have to have an outside entity that can look in and more objectively, which kind of makes sense -- take a look at these documents and make the decision, "okay, you tell me do you this with it, you need it this long, okay, we will create a records retention schedule for you." That is done by the Secretary of State's office, with the assistance or input of the agency that has the records. And so that's the position we're in now with these transcripts. Okay?

So I got to thinking to myself, okay, first, when you look at this from a legal analysis, and as you can tell from everything that I have said so far, I first have to

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determine if it's a Public Record. And I have to look at the classes of documents or things that are created that aren't public records and see if I can squeeze it in there, which I absolutely could not. I went to the Attorney General's office, specifically to Pat Gleason, people in state government know her name. Pat Gleason is kind of, in Tallahassee, she's considered the guru of the public records and open meetings laws. She worked in the Attorney General's office under Secretary Butterworth for years and years. When Governor Crist was elected she moved over to his office because he had this big transparency policy that he wanted going out, which was somewhat successful, and now she's back in the Attorney General's office, working under Pam Bondi.

But she is an expert. And I didn't even -- I didn't even finish the second sentence of my story before she made it clear, of course, that's a Public Record. So we have to treat it as such, it's a Public Record. Because, frankly, we don't want to go to jail and we don't want any of our employees to go to jail. But destruction of these records, or not providing these records or treating them as Public Records could cause -- or excuse me, could result in administrative fines or civil or criminal penalties on the person who destroys them.

So that then brings up the concern about the various employees of DCF who receive these, and it's really unfair to put you anything on their shoulders as far as them making a determination whether they can destroy it or not, but that's an internal issue we would have to figure out. So it's clear that it's a Public Record.

So my next thought was, and after the research I did was, okay, well, what if -- does DCF really have to receive these things? Do we have to get these things, you know?

Well, what we looked into -- two things. And that's -- one thing is it's the law and the law did tell us that it's clear that you cannot contract yourself into a situation or otherwise make an arrangement where you don't get or take possession of the Public Record in order to make it not available or not be considered a Public Record.

I will give you an example. Governments, small and large, are always trying to find ways around the Public Records Law because when you step back and look at it objectively, sometimes it's hard to get stuff done because of these laws. But, you know, it's the law and you have to follow it. But there have been municipalities that have thought that the best way they can get around a public records law is to make sure the non-government entity you are working with is the one that has all the records. Because then the government entity, when asked, can say, "I don't have it. We don't have it to give it to you." So then you go to the, say, the law firm that is holding the records and they're like, "we are not a government entity so the public records law doesn't apply to you." Well, someone not so clever I'm sure thought of trying that. Many someones have over the past 20, 30 years, and the courts have made it clear, it doesn't matter whose possession the record is in. What matters is if it is a Public Record or not a Public Record. It's the content of record, it's what the record was created for. So because of that, courts have ruled that agencies who are subject to the Public Records Law can't make those arrangements or those contractual arrangements to avoid getting possession of these records. So even if they did, I think arguably, they could go to the CART company and say, "well, you got possession of that Public Record, you need to turn it over." And it would be true. They would need to.

So, whether or not DCF receives it or not, I'm not so sure that would protect the record the way you guys would like it to be protected, or allow for the destruction of the record.

And we just cannot get into any contract where we have -- in which the contract -- "oh, by the way we do not want possession of this Public Record and you need to destroy it as soon as we're done." We can't do that.

Actually, the Feds can do it, and many departments of the federal government can, because my "CART expert" -- CART expert that I spoke to told me they were in a

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contract with a federal agency that included the destruction of those transcripts as soon as the -- whatever was going on was finished. He described to me that the actual federal government employee turned around and stood over the shoulder of the CART employee while they pressed the delete button or whatever magic stroke they do to make the stuff disappear.

We don't have that luxury in Florida, and I, frankly, think it's a good thing that we don't have that luxury in Florida, but that's just me.

So we can't contract our way out of this, number one, and it probably wouldn't matter anyway, because they could get it from the CART folks. Some of the CART folks, they don't have it. Now, according occurred to my expert, there are no standards out there for CART providers as far as how long they have to keep this stuff or anything like that. So it seems to be somewhat willy-nilly, depending on the provider. The provider -- CART provider I spoke with, they hold onto those transcripts for a year in their, you know, hard drive somewhere. They keep it for a year. For obvious reasons. Because they've had situations where someone's, you know, said, "No. I'm not going to pay you because your CART person didn't show up." They produce the transcript that shows the CART person showed up and actually did their job, they get paid. I can see where they're coming from, from a business standpoint, and there's no way that government could mandate how long they keep it. No, I take that back, actually. There is one way the government can mandate that they get rid of those and we will get to that in a minute.

But, what I am getting at is that, it probably doesn't matter, even if somehow or other DCF didn't have it, because it would probably be out there, odds are. Okay?

So then you get down, okay, what are the options, then? Can we -- we can't get this thing declared not to be a Public Record. Very unlikely; you would be changing the definition of Public Record. Now, maybe we you can get -- you can legislatively try to change this, and there's been success with that. There was a government-created council or collegial body, not unlike this one or the Florida Coordinating Council, dealing with autism. And what -- when they put all that together, and all the people -- the advocates that wanted it put together, unfortunately, no one ever really explained the Public Records Law to them, and what their responsibilities would be under the law. And so, suddenly, they were getting requests for records which contained a lot of private information, and, under the law, they had absolutely no protection from having to give that out.

And so when they called the Attorney General's office, the Attorney General's office said, "yeah, you got to give it out." And they said, "well, we know that's what the law says, but we don't want to give it out." And then they're like, "well, yeah, well, I wouldn't want to give it out either, but the law says you have to give it out."

But they managed to go to the legislature in a year when it didn't seem anybody could get anything through the legislature that didn't deal with money. And they got an exemption. So it was pretty impressive, which basically meant that if someone requested their records, or a portion of their records, they didn't have to give them out. So that was a victory, in a sense.

Now -- where -- so it's possible that we could -- I shouldn't say "we", because it is something that the committee could not do, and the Coordinating Council could not do, but you guys, as individuals in your various groups in the community, you could do something like that. But it's the more difficult road to take, getting something passed in the legislature -- as you know, it's difficult.

So another, more practical option, and one that the Department of Children and Families was more than willing to work on with you, given that we're kind of under the gun for the same reason, is to work with the Secretary of State's office and at least try to get a retention schedule that makes the amount of time that this department, DCF, has to retain these materials, as short as possible.

But there's a couple of realities there that you have to keep in mind; a few, in fact. Number one, like I said earlier, it's a minimum, it's not a mandatory have-to-destroy,

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number one. Number two, even if we had a particular retention schedule that was specific to these kinds of transcripts -- which I'm not saying that we couldn't develop one and get one passed by the Department of State -- if those records themselves end up in other files, that retention schedule won't apply to it then.

For instance, we could have a retention schedule that says transcripts of -- CART transcripts, TTY transcripts and any other transcripts or records that are created as part of providing an aid to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, or something broader, we could get something like that -- maybe, you know, that said we only had to keep them for six months or a year.

But, the problem comes is that -- and when we talk to our people in the programs, as far as they're -- what they would want and need these things, many of them are very reluctant to say that they -- well, in fact, a few of them refused to say that there would be situations where they wouldn't need these documents. When we do an administrative appeal, and if we have a situation where they need a CART provider to come in because a witness or a person who, let's say, didn't get their exemption to work in a day care center or having their day care, something like that, you know -- that CART transcript, I guarantee you that the appeals part, the administrative appeals part of our department, is going to want to keep that transcript. Without a question they are going to want to keep that transcript.

What that would do is put it into a different retention schedule, probably one that is like seven years long. I will just throw "seven years" out there. I don't know for certain that's what it would be. But the point I am making is that even with a retention schedule for these types of documents that is short and sweet, you still run into the possibility that, number one, they still don't get destroyed, and, number two, that they get destroyed except they get sucked into other cases and other files that are completely covered by different retention schedules.

So I guess, long story short, that even with the help of the Department of State, it's unlikely that we could have a retention schedule that would allow for destruction of these things across the board, regardless of what we use them for or what we end up using them for.

So I guess the long story short is that the possibility that DCF could avoid having these things in our possession is really not there, and the possibility that when they come into our possession we could automatically destroy them is not there either. And I know that this isn't your concern, but I hope you will step back and take a look at it from our perspective. We have a duty to -- as you know, because this is what you guys are all about -- we have a duty to inform our employees about certain requirements in the law that they have to follow, whether it be federal ADA or whether it be the Public Records Law. Our employees have to be informed what their duties and responsibilities are under this law -- under these laws. We have to tell them. Okay? And, of course, we want to.

But one thing that we know from experience is that you do not want a single front line employee to be the person that has to make a judgment call on the destruction of a record, because, number one, practically -- it just would not work practically, and number two, I don't think it's fair to the employee. I don't think it's fair to an employee whose job it is to assist people in applying for food stamps or Medicaid, or an employee whose job it is to run out to the scene in a two-hour notice to -- or within 24-hour notice -- because a child is possibly being abused. Those employees, it should not come down to them to have to destroy these documents. It's just -- it would not be fair. So it would still -- it's just, practically speaking, no matter what we do, the idea that, even if we -- that we could guarantee you that these would not be out there somewhere, we just can't guarantee that. We absolutely can't.

I mean, I'd like to be able to because I understand the concern. But I also understand it from the employee's side of it -- so down the line there's a disagreement between the deaf client and the employee over what was said or anything like that -- I can see from the employee's perspective that that transcript would be very valuable.

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And frankly, I can see it the other way too. I can see that the people who didn't get their aid, the people whose child was taken away because there was a miscommunication at the scene, I can see them wanting this as well. Because otherwise, it's my word against your word, and that doesn't usually get anyone any relief. So there's a lot of different concerns here, a lot of things at play.

And so, I think what we need to do is, at DCF, since we cannot, because of the law, requirements of the law, we cannot give you exactly what would be the easiest and make everyone happiest, what we need to do is make sure that we can assure the folks whose words or communications are on these transcripts, that we are doing everything we can to make sure that they are protected to the degree that we can protect them under the law. And which we can.

For instance, I believe, Rick, a very good point you made, Rick, is, well, what about a subpoena? How is DCF going to protect these under a subpoena? And the answer to that is, the same way we protect any other record that's subpoenaed. If there's no confidentiality provisions that affect that record, we have no protection, and if we get subpoenaed, it is going out the door. But none of these transcripts would fall into that category of records that have no protections.

In fact, they would have several protections, depending on what they were created for. If it dealt with adoption issues, they are protected under state law. If they dealt with an adult protective investigation they are protected under state law. If they are a child abuse investigation, state law. Economic self sufficiency, which is probably where you are going to see the largest number of these, which includes food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance, those three areas, that's where we are probably going to see the largest number of these transcripts, when these issues come up.

That is some of the most protected information that DCF has, because it is not only protected by state law, it's protected by federal law, and when we break federal law you lose federal money and that is -- that just cannot happen, as people know, who have ever worked in state government.

So I guess the point I'm making is, we would protect these transcripts from a subpoena or any other request for these transcripts like we would any other record, and we do protect them. It's just as much -- is incumbent upon employees of the state to provide public records when the law allows for it within a reasonable time, to whoever wants them, for no reason. It's also incumbent upon us to protect otherwise confidential records to the extent we can until the highest court in the land, or in this case, maybe Florida, when it comes down to it.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are protections in there under the law, and we do it all the time. We get requests for this stuff all the time. You know, someone sues Publix because they slipped on a banana peel. Publix lawyers are looking for anything and everything on this individual who slipped on the banana peel. Somehow they get wind that this person may have had some involvement with DCF, so "boom", they subpoena records because, obviously, slipping on a banana peel has a direct correlation to how you treat your children. Right? Absolutely!

So they subpoena DCF for those records and we come back and say "those are protected."

Now, with the child abuse records, it might be easier for a judge to look at the issue and say, "okay, I'm going to give them all or part of them." But for the federal records, no; much, much more difficult. But in the end, those are the protections that we have. We have the protection -- we have the ability under the law to say "no", when requested. We have the ability under the law to, and the duty under the law, to go to court and fight and keep those records private.

And that is what I can promise to you guys, because we do it every day and we are not going to stop that.

So those are some practical protections that you have for these records. Because none of these records would be generated in a vacuum. They would all be connected to something that DCF does, and as you all know, DCF does a lot, so we

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have our hands in all kinds of different things, but all those different program areas have their own confidentiality statutes and this stuff would be covered under those statutes as well.

So I guess this is probably a good time to take questions. Rick put his finger up first. But it wasn't the middle finger.

[LAUGHTER]. >>RICK KOTTLER: It might be. >>JOHN JACKSON: The next one. >>RICK KOTTLER: The issue involved is the fact that CART, the CART system

actually makes a record. >>JOHN JACKSON: Correct. >>RICK KOTTLER: Okay. And there is no way to get rid of that, I'm assuming. >>JOHN JACKSON: We could not make the arrangement with CART for that to

be. If suddenly CART technology changed, okay, and suddenly that was not an issue -- but I don't see CART technology ever changing. There is no CART company that is not going to want to hold onto something. Now, I know that CART companies can contract with people to not give them transcripts, because there are plenty of people out there that don't want copies of the transcripts -- for instance, psychologists and other people. And that makes perfectly good sense. It's just, the state can't do that. Trust me, we would love to be able to do that. But we can't.

>>RICK KOTTLER: Well, then, the issue becomes, and this will, in my mind, probably prohibit some people from requesting CART, but I really think that it comes down to DCF has to make sure that those people who are requesting CART understand that this becomes part of their record; that, you know, you've got to tell them that right up front. Because I don't think -- they are not going to thinking of that. They are thinking of it in terms of simply like using a Sign Language Interpreter; that this is a means of communicating back and forth. Whereas, they need to know that this is going in their file.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Right. And I think that's more than fair, because, for instance, you know, we know people call up our Florida abuse hotline and they like to remain anonymous, okay? But we train our people to try to get them not to be anonymous, for simply -- and we do so by explaining to them that confidentiality, that, you know, their name will be forever confidential unless they are making something up calling us, basically.

I guess why I'm telling you that is because I agree. I do believe that we do something that we should do at the front line, that people should understand that, and they have a right to understand that.

I mean, I'm am hoping that - let's say -- you said that there will some people? You might be right. I mean, it's government, for God's sake, that you are working with, and just that fact alone scares people. And suddenly you find out there's going to be a transcript. Well, yeah, that's -- so let's throw out 5 percent. 5 percent of the people are going to maybe think twice about going the CART route because of that. I think that if you properly explain to them the law and the protection and our duties, I think you will cut that 5 percent down, probably, just from my own experience in dealing with people, I bet you can cut that down to maybe 2 percent.

But I agree with you, Rick, and I think it is incumbent upon us, and especially in this situation --

I don't see this as an equal protection problem, but I do think that -- from a legal standpoint. But from a reality standpoint, yeah, I do. And I think we owe it to people that, yeah, we know it's going to be there. You can't tape-record someone legally without them knowing you're doing it. And at the same time, no one has to be given a card that says, "by the way, when you walk into court there's someone transcribing everything that's going on."

But I couldn't agree more, that I do believe that that should be something that people know. And I am wondering whether or not the CART folks, actually, really

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have that understanding, as well. But that's another issue. >>RICK KOTTLER: Gayl, can you answer that? >>GAYL HARDEMAN: If you clarify what you mean by "that understanding" I can

try to answer it. >>JOHN JACKSON: Simply, just the requirements of the Public Records Law and

how it could impact anything from the contracts you get into to your duties with those records.

>>GAYL HARDEMAN: Everyone who hires us has a different philosophy about records retention. The courts say in criminal actions that they must be kept for seven years. And in some jurisdictions they must be destroyed immediately. And some universities say "destroy it and don't give a transcript to the student," and some universities say "put it in the school library for everyone," and some say "just give it to the student." So it's all over the place, and we have to work it out each time with the hiring entity.

I had my usual disclaimer on my CART transcript for DCF, this Advisory Council meeting, which says this is confidential, and I had to remove it because it was going to be placed on the Web site. So now, instead of roughly editing this, I make sure it looks as good as it can be, because it is out there on the Web site.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Can I ask you a question, Gayl? Have you, or -- I'm assuming you work for a company, or are a company or whatever, have you ever dealt with a situation where you have been subpoenaed, or your company? Have you heard of your company being subpoenaed for one of these transcripts?

>>GAYL: No. >>JOHN JACKSON: I know that ACS -- I think they are called -- ACS keeps theirs

for a year. Okay? If someone out there wanted a copy of that transcript, if I was an attorney, and I wanted a copy of that transcript, I might go to ACS and subpoena them instead of subpoenaing the state agency.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: As I remember, the precipitating questions that led to all of this, the concern was an unequal application of the Public Records Laws that discriminated against persons who needed CART and created a written record, versus persons who perhaps didn't use CART but just passed notes back and forth; and that counselor's notes to themselves to facilitate the transfer of knowledge of their job were not considered a public record, versus persons who used the accommodation of American Sign Language where there is no record created.

So the discussion was that these folks that choose the CART accommodation, as opposed to the American Sign Language accommodation, as opposed to the passing notes back and forth, get held to a different standard of public records creation and retention, and by definition have a reduced expectation of privacy.

So that's my recollection of what led to all of this, and I would love someone to correct me if I am recalling incorrectly.

>>JOHN JACKSON: I would just have to take issue with that -- I could see from that side that it would feel that way, that it would appear that way, but the truth of the matter is, we are applying the law equally across the board. I mean, I am trying to think of a parallel situation. We record the phone calls that come into the hotline. They are retained. We follow the law with any record that is created, and we follow it equally across the board. And from our perspective, it's not a matter of why the record is being created or anything like that, it's just simply, is it a Public Record or it's not a Public Record. And we act accordingly.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: The question, or the point that was made relative to your assertation, was that we are not videotaping the Sign Language Interpreters. So we're not creating a Public Record. If that Sign Language Interpreter comes on-site to assist in facilitating that communication, we are not videotaping that Sign Language Interpreter. And if notes are being passed back and forth, we are not requiring those notes, if that's the accommodation that is being used, we are not requiring those notes to become a part of the public record. So that is one way of

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looking at it, that maybe it is not being applied equally across the board. Yes, it is you true that phone calls into the hotline are being recorded, yes, it is true that CART transcripts are being kept, but we are not videotaping all the Sign Language Interpreters and we are not requiring any notes to be passed back and forth to be attached to that case file to become part of that public record.

>>JOHN JACKSON: I understand. But you don't need to videotape a Sign Language Interpreter for them to be able to do what they do. But what the CART person does, by virtue of the technology they're using, creates a record. And once that record is created, then the focus comes from the Public Records Law.

But the thing is, your concerns are what make the legislature make exceptions to the law, because they are very valid. You know, your concerns are what make the Department of State in Tallahassee take a different look at retention, and they might decide that the transcripts are very short retention. Possibly, they might decide that the state agency obtains it can destroy it when its administrative value is lost, which pretty much means it is up to us whenever we destroy it. But still, we are going to have it, that is the real problem, guys; it's that we're going to have it. Which means, number one, we are going to have to treat it, we are going to have to look at it and treat it, however it is required by the various laws that affect it. Or it's also -- it means that you're dealing with human beings.

We can't develop a situation where -- I don't see a way that, within DCF, we could have one CART/TTY transcript cop that would be able to look at all these things and make the decision of when it needs to go, because that person, number one, would have to be proficient in all these laws that we are talking about. They would also have to be proficient in all the various things that go on in the various program offices. And, even then, what would that person do if the guy over in D.O.E. hearings says, "I really did not tell them to destroy that. I need it. I've got a copy of it. I'm using it. If I destroy it now, and it's part of my record, I go to jail."

I guess the point I am making is that, even if we established all these, if the legislature passed the law, or we got a retention schedule that was almost exactly, almost exactly what you guys would want, you are still dealing with the human error side of things.

And there is one concept within the Public Records Law that, even if the retention schedule has been reached, and you can destroy a document, if you don't destroy a document, and that document is then subpoenaed or requested under the Public Records Law, you can't destroy it, because it's record retention level is up. All the records retention level does -- the law will do -- is give us the floor. How long we have to keep it then? At our discretion we can destroy it.

And we can put it on our operating procedures, that these particular things we are definitely mandating all of our employees destroy, or something like that. But there is no guarantee it is going to happen. In fact, I will guarantee you it will be missed in some places, because it is just human error. There's no silver bullet to take care of your problem. Unless -- does Gayl have a question?

>>GAYL: I'll say one sentence, then I'll shut up. There is Communication Access, and there is the transcript. I don't have to give that to you. It's two parts. It's not one and automatically the other.

>>JOHN JACKSON: But if we contract with you to give it, you have to give it to us. Correct? And if the laws require us to make sure that that record is in our possession, or at the very least, retained for a certain amount of time, we are going to have to write that into our contract, or otherwise we won't be contracting with you. And I am just saying that, not because we don't want to contract with you, not that we disagree with you; it's just what is required by the law.

When you are dealing with a state entity, as opposed to a private entity, it is a whole wacky world out there, and things that might not necessarily make common sense to us when we're out of government, but it's the reality.

I can't contract with you -- You know, until you press the delete button, it's there.

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Correct? And I can't do anything in the contract that directs you, requests you, requires you or otherwise even asks you to destroy that, because, from a government perspective, that's a Public Record. Even if it's not a record that will ever see the light of day, it's still a Public Record and I cannot get into a contract to destroy Public Records or avoid receiving Public Records, because, otherwise, the Public Records Law would not work the way it is designed to work.

It's just the -- I mean, my 5-year-old could come up with loopholes like that. It would be no problem. We just can't do that.

I think Kim had her hand up. I am waiting for it, Kim. I'm ready. >>KIM GAUT: You already know what I'm going to say. It's the Communication

Access that is required, not the transcript. But yeah, I understand what you are saying, and -- you know, telephone calls are not --

>>JOHN JACKSON: The Communication Access is required for the ADA. >>KIM GAUT: Right. >>JOHN JACKSON: Okay. But the Public Records Law is a different law

altogether. And it has its own requirements. And unfortunately, this is one of those situations -- trust me, this isn't the first situation where it makes people dealing with government uncomfortable, but it is what it is.

>>KIM GAUT: Okay. Let's take a TTY, for example. You do not have to print out that TTY. There are several TTYs that don't even have the capability to print out. Okay?

So, when it comes to a TTY, just because you're -- the TTY you are using in a particular office has a roll of tape that you can enable, doesn't mean you have to turn it on.

>>JOHN JACKSON: And that's great. And you don't also have to print it out to make it a public record.

>>KIM GAUT: Exactly! >>JOHN JACKSON: It is a public record in its digital form. It's a Public Record.

We never print a CART transcript. We get the Public Record, it's in a digital form in Gayl's computer over there. We never print it out. She sends it to us electronically. It always lives in the electronic world. It never lives in the physical world.

>>KIM GAUT: TTY does not. TTY is not a digital record at all. It's a telephone call.

>>John Jackson: Okay. >>KIM GAUT: Okay? And through the Florida Relay, those calls are not recorded

in any way. We don't even keep a record of who called who at what time. >>JOHN JACKSON: Then there's no problem. Because, if there's no record

created, there's no problem. >>KIM GAUT: Exactly right. >>John Johnson: But there's no record created. That's the problem. In CART

there's a record created. See, that's also why I focused on CART, because it's a different -- you know, TTY has been around a little bit longer, am I correct? But this -- I think there are bigger concepts going on and I think that is something that we're all going to have to get used to.

This isn't the last Public Record that is going to be an issue for you guys, I don't think at all. I mean, it's not. But it's still a record that is generated. It is sitting over on Gayl's magic machine over there. And the last thing that I can do is get into a contract that in any way says "don't give it to us or destroy it," because I know it's a Public Record, and it's my duty to see that's preserved.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Can DCF create a policy about the use of those records -- not that they be destroyed or not that they not be created, not directing them, "oh, don't use the print function that's there, because we don't want you creating a record". So, can they make a policy that says that any record created through one of these Communications Access accommodations would not be used as evidence or in future dealings with that customer? Because what we are doing is creating a

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permanent record of the conversation that for other clients would not exist. So here we have a permanent record and, you know, it could be used against them, or used -- there is more evidence here about them in the conversation than is created by other people. To make the communication situations equal, that there's a record created but that doesn't mean we have to use it in future encounters or dealings with that individual. We have to keep it, we have to hold on to it, but internal policy says we would not go back to that in relationship to that case.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Well, could DCF make a policy like that? Sure. Would they? Not a chance. No, not a chance. Would you?

Look at it from your perspective. You've got the smoking gun. Are you going to just -- I got this policy, it's not law. The next guy whose secretary can completely throw that policy out the door. The guy who's secretary now can throw it out the door next month.

But, if I've got the smoking gun, I'm not going to let a policy stand in the way of my department winning as opposed to losing, to put it in the most simple terms.

So there's no way they are going to write a -- now, what they might -- what they could possibly write -- certainly, they can write any policy as long as it doesn't conflict with law, and regulation. No problem. Okay?

And, certainly, they could write policies on the use of these documents or how easily they are transferred or something like that. But it's -- so that's definitely something to explore and that would be a lot of exploring, because in DCF, when you are dealing with so many different program areas and everything -- but it's not going to change anything we've said about the Public Records Law.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: But is that deaf and hard-of-hearing individual being discriminated against because they asked for an accommodation that created a permanent record?

>>JOHN JACKSON: No, because every one -- number one, every one of these accommodations is most likely going to create a record, not just CART. Because you are thinking transcript. But there are other records created from it. I know a transcript is not the same as the bill, but the bill is a record. So there are always going to be records created. The bill from the service provider. That's called a record.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Right, but that can't be used against the client. >>JOHN JACKSON: How do you know? Why not? As an attorney, let me tell

you. >>TERRI SCHISLER: Oh, I'm not going there. >>JOHN JACKSON: You would be surprised at what information could be used,

depending on the situation. Information is knowledge, knowledge is power. So I mean, I know what you are getting at. I mean, I know where you are going, but trust me, I mean, that is no guarantee either. I can't guarantee you that that would a situation -- that that would be true any more than if we had a policy that would legally allow us to destroy them as soon as we got them. There's no way I could guarantee they'd all be destroyed.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I have a list here that is just burning. One question I have for you, John, is that if I wanted to be litigious and see something on your laptop's hard drive, I could go through that step and I could get it.

>>JOHN JACKSON: If the only place it exists was on my hard drive, and you'd still need some sort of legal access, like that it would be otherwise Public Record, yeah.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay. >>JOHN JACKSON: That's why, you know, it just does not matter if it ever sees a

C disk, if it ever resides on a dead tree. Does not matter. If it's always in the computer somewhere.

I mean, Gayl, whoever sends us these transcripts -- have you guys ever received a hard copy transcript? No. I mean it's always electronic, and we're not printing it. You know?

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: So with that in mind, I know there's levels of privilege and

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confidentiality and HIPAA and those things, and I think those all apply; but I also have levels of access to these records that concerns me. If we go through all the legal processes of subpoenaing a record, then okay then, we are subpoenaing a record, and the provider can go in front of a judge and ask that it is squelched, or squashed -- I never do get that right.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Quashed. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: So that's the process. And I think that's one issue.

The other issue is just having a conversation in a file for the front-line worker and their buddy and their supervisor and the next front-line worker and then a caseworker three years from now getting this case and seeing all of this conversation. That's not -- that accessibility doesn't need to be there.

So I guess I'm thinking, if the CART provider has an electronic transcript that needs at some point to be subpoenaed, so be it. There might be a note in the file, there was a transcript made this date, this time. But not to have that whole conversation in a client's file for it to be passed around to everybody else, so I'm talking about levels here. I understand the subpoena.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Right. >>JOHN JACKSON: Now, confidentiality laws, some are more narrow than others.

And what we look at at the DCF is that it's really kind of a need-to-know basis. For instance, the child abuse investigator supervisor, okay, they don't necessarily need -- or they're not entitled to get anything that they want for any reason that's held by all the other program areas. You know? If you worked in our Domestic Violence office that doesn't give you the right to go over to the Medicaid unit and find out everyone who's applied for Medicaid. That doesn't give you that right, at all.

But when you're thinking of social services, keep in mind, though, that the big social worker of all is the Secretary. And all of these different program offices come to him. So the Secretary is going to be able to see everything. Everything. And as administrations work, the people that he delegates tasks to will be able to see what they need to see. The person who works in the Access, which deals with Medicaid, food stamps and cash assistance, they don't necessarily need to see these protective investigations of adults or children that are, you know -- I mean, that already exists. Both in the law and in some of our procedures and policies. And training, absolutely. Absolutely.

But there is still going to be a class of DCF employees that can put their hands on anything, anywhere in here, in almost all situations, by being one of them.

Attorneys, you know, have to have the right to see everything that's in there, because there is no way we could represent our clients or work for our clients otherwise. So I just throw that out as an example.

The Chief of Staff, if an issue percolates up from any of these program areas, the Chief of Staff is probably going to will get to see this information as part of their job.

So we have protections in place both as required by law, we are trained on them, and they're part of our Policies and Procedures but that's still not much of a silver bullet as far as how this particular record can make its way around. But that's just the reality, that's the reality of government. The same would go in any other agency. The thing would go, I mean, that's just how it works.

At some point -- I hate to say it, but at some point there has to be a level of trust in government. Yes, yes, I mean yeah. Anyway. But, you know.

>>RICK KOTTLER: Right. >>JOHN JACKSON: There has to be a level of trust that, even if you don't trust

government as a whole, you've got to trust that the employees are doing what they're told, what they're legally supposed to be doing and that they're being watched to be sure that they're doing it. I mean, you just at some point, you know? But are there going to be exceptions or problems? Of course there are.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: This is Valerie. >>JOHN JACKSON: Wait a minute. We've got Shana who has a much longer

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list. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: I am going to let Valerie go and then we are going to talk

about disclaimers and how that might look. So go ahead, Valerie. >>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: That was what was I was going to talk about.

Given the fact that the fundamental nature of the CART service creates a Public Record that can or will be used in a court of law against the person who requested the accommodation, then they have the right to Informed Consent. They need to know this before they accept a CART writer facilitating communication during that proceeding. And I will guarantee you that they don't know that now.

>>JOHN JACKSON: You know, I have no problem with that. I don't know if legally that would be correct, simply because anything else you bring to government, it's kind of assumed, you know, even if there is no CART transcript, you know, if you are giving false worker to that worker who is taking your application, you know, then it's just, you know, you've got to know that that could be a problem for you.

I mean, Shana and I -- an example of, you know, what if they get up and want to give a -- they go to apply for cash assistance or food stamps, and they exaggerate things a little bit? You know what I mean? To get -- don't say you haven't done it somewhere in your life before, come on. But seriously... (:-)

But you see what I'm getting at? You got to know when you're doing that, that can come back to bite you, whether there's a transcript or not.

The most important confidential information is the stuff that the person is actually writing down. Okay? And no matter, whether the record exists or not, you can't do anything about that worker and what goes in their head. You know? They are obligated to keep stuff confidential and not go home and talk to their sister and say, "man, you won't believe what this guy told me." No, they are obligated not to do that. But at the same time there is nothing that can guarantee that that person's memory is going to lapse.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: Yes, but it's just that if there is a Sign Language Interpreter facilitating that communication, the Sign Language Interpreter signs and then they disappear into the air, and all that exists is the information that the caseworker takes down and puts on paper. Whereas, with a CART-facilitated communication, you have not only the information that the caseworker takes down and puts on paper but have you the whole verbatim transcript. That's where our people are saying the inequality comes in.

We understand you telling us there is nothing that can be done about that, so, again, I think my position is that we need to make certain that the person requesting the voice-to-text translation understands that.

>>JOHN JACKSON: No, I agree. Not only that -- that they understand it, but they also should be told, in my opinion, what exactly DCF has in our arsenal to protect it. I think we should tell them that. I think it's only fair. I think, number one, I think it's only fair to them, but I think it's good for the relationship between the worker and the person, to just say, "Okay. Just so you know, this is going to be a permanent record."

No, let's elaborate a little bit more. Any of this record, this transcript, is protected, just like all the other information you are giving me, just like your file that we're going to create when we determine whether you can have food stamps, whether you are eligible for Medicaid.

I couldn't agree more. I mean, that's something that you all could work out and it seems to me that would be a pretty easy thing to work out. But there would be certainly nothing against -- there would be no violation of the law for something like that. But no, I think that's -- in fact, I'm somewhat -- it didn't occur to me that that could be an issue.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: Huge. >>JOHN JACKSON: Well, then that's what you guys are here for. Then, this is

great. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: So a disclaimer on your TTY machine that when the phone

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rings, that says, "Hello, you have contacted the Department of Children and Families Access Office. Everything that you are about to say is being recorded and will be kept as a permanent part of your file if have you a current case with DCF." It has to be that clear on all the CART transcripts, on your TTYs, on everything. That's kind of the feeling -- that's how it feels to us.

>>JOHN JACKSON: That's something that you all have to work out. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: John, one last question for you. Would the rest of the file

determine whether it was privileged or whether it was confidential or how much those levels of protection would apply to the CART transcript? For example, if it is an abuse file, then obviously it has a higher level of protection. So the CART transcript would have whatever level of protection the rest of that case would have.

>>JOHN JACKSON: No, absolutely. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Thank you. >>JOHN JACKSON: At the very least. >>RICK KOTTLER: I think that the bottom line here is, as long as technology

continues along the lines that it is, and it uses a computer, it is going to save something in memory, whether it is a short-term memory or it is saved for the long term, and in any case, we are going to have to deal with this with every technology that comes down the road.

>>JOHN JACKSON: The best example is e-mail. In State Government, e-mail is Public Record. But there is no specific rule about all e-mail or specific record retention rule about all e-mail. It depends on the substance within that e-mail. Okay? So -- but we are allowed to destroy e-mails, because, just like every -- certain e-mails can be destroyed, there are certain rules, things that you don't need to keep or retain or something like that. But if you think those are gone forever, they're not. They're not. For instance, most DCF workers don't even know the level of backup for that stuff anyway. So you delete it. You go to your trash, I guess it's called, and you delete it from there and you thing you're Scot-free. Well, no you're not, because, number 1, every place that has big computer stuff like that is going to be backing stuff up on a regular basis, so it's going to be somewhere. And number 2, like you say, the hard drive, if they have to, the CSI stuff. They're going to find something, or they probably, in most instances.

And you're right. That's -- One of the reasons -- the Public Records Law, like so much stuff in government, is somewhat behind in technology. But I will tell you, for the past fifteen years, about everything has been behind in technology. Keeping up is difficult. So if it's difficult for everyone, it is going to be extra difficult for government to keep up with it, for legislatures to keep up with it.

You are right. With electronic communications, as opposed to the old-fashioned tree, you think that that would be easier to destroy, maintain, hide, whatever, but -- maybe maintain, but not destroy or hide or get rid of. It is actually going to make it harder. One person types a documents, as long as it doesn't go to the Xerox machine and there is only one copy of that document, it only takes one legally challenged state employee to find the shredder and throw it right in, and it's all over. If they typed it on a type machine -- typewriter -- remember those? That's nothing. So many of these laws were written before Xerox machines ever came, so we are behind.

But, no, you're absolutely right. That leaves it to the courts to interpret what was meant by it, and every interpretation coming out is making it very clear it doesn't matter what medium it's in, it's a record. And it has to be made available, and it has to have certain rules regarding its destruction, retention, et cetera. So you couldn't have made a better point.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I think Cindy on the phone had a comment. Cindy? >>CINDY SIMON: >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Cindy texted me and said she's not being read on the chat.

Her comments are not being read on the chat. You can't see her? So her technology is failing.

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>>RICK KOTTLER: But there's a record somewhere. (Laughter) Cindy?

>>JUDY MARTIN: She's been idle for ten minutes. >>JOHN JACKSON: Cindy? >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Cindy, are you hearing us? >>CINDY SIMON: I'm hearing you. Just every time I go to unmute my phone, I

disconnect it. But pretty much everyone has come up with what I had to say. One question I had is, with Video Remote Interpreting, if it's going through a

computer, is that a public record as well? >>JOHN JACKSON: I don't know enough about Video Remote. It's just -- there

has to be a record created, guys, that's the whole deal. There has to be a record created.

>>CINDY SIMON: If it's over a computer then there would be a record and that goes into this same category.

>>JOHN JACKSON: A record of something of the something having occurred is not necessarily the same as a record that actually shows you what occurred. You are right, Cindy, that it goes through the computer, your computer is probably going to have some recordings that would be a record that something happened. But again, I don't know enough about video to tell you whether or not there's an actual record in terms of the Public Records Law created.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: I don't think I understand all of what is going on with what I do, but there's a record that the call occurred and the companies submit that record for reimbursement to the FCC, based on those calls and the minutes. So there is a record that the call occurred.

I do not believe there is any permanent record kept by the relay companies of the content of the call or a copy of the video. And I think that they cannot do that, and they have ensured that that does not occur because of FCC regulations.

However, the consumers often will keep a record of our calls and can videotape us and can record on their computers our calls, and we do leave voice mail messages that are videos.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Keep in mind, though, the consumer is not a state agency. So that's not a problem. What that person has a record of or creates a record of is not a problem.

The thing with CART, CART is not a state agency, obviously, either but they are contracting and providing a service to the state. But a consumer, no.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Another thing to keep in mind, then, when you had asked yesterday for DCF to have a videophone that would take messages, keep in mind that when consumers call in and leave messages on that videophone, then that is going to also create a record. Not that it's going to be released or whatever, because of -- with possible exceptions -- but, again, something else to keep in mind.

>>JOHN JACKSON: The thing is, that one might be a little easier, but, granted, it's a record. So it's not like someone can just right away destroy it. But that sounds to me no different than phone messages, which do have a retention schedule which is short. I think it's "administrative value lost," which is as soon as you get done listening to it.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Except the committee is asking that, in lieu of filling out a customer feedback form -- so we have a form that clients can fill out and send in as a survey -- in lieu of doing the survey they can complete it online or on the videophone. So I don't know if that would affect it. That's something that obviously needs to be looked into.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Well, online -- When you say "online", do you mean it pops up and you just fill it out? Yeah, that's going to create a record if it gets into our possession, absolutely.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: If they do it not online but maybe they do it on the

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phone, that is their survey response. Is that also considered more like a message? >>JOHN JACKSON: No, I'm thinking that that would be the equivalent to the piece

of paper form or the online computer form. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: That's what I mean. >>JOHN JACKSON: But when you think about it in that situation, though, you

know why you are doing that, obviously for it to be submitted. So I mean, you know, it's slightly different than the situation with the CART transcript. But it's an interesting point.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: My point on that is they are calling to give feedback. So they absolutely know that there's a record being created just like filling out a paper. Our perspective on the rest of the documents are, you are taking a whole conversation that that person is just having a conversation. They're not really cognizant that it's creating a record. Valerie?

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: But if the Video Relay Service or Video Remote Interpreting is used in the conduct of DCF business, and that photographic record is maintained, then, absolutely, then that becomes a public record just like the CART transcript.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Right. It's just a matter of how long it can be retained. But if it's specific to someone's case, then you've got all these protections, depending on whether it be food stamps, child protection, domestic violence, and, of course, you have some federal laws that will kind of cover all these things, like HIPAA was mentioned. You know, HIPAA creeps in everywhere. So all that stuff is out there. The protections are still out there.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: We're just thinking about the standpoint of informed consent, to make sure that Deaf and hard-of-hearing and deafblind consumers who request these accommodations understand the implications of the records that are created as a result of accessing these accommodations. That's all.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: I'm thinking of several forms. We are on a deadline for the Policies and Procedures to make sure that they are finalized, and I think what we heard from you today, John, is that we are going to need to have at least some areas of the Policies and Procedures to cover CART documents specifically, and just request that DCF not use TTYs with tape. That would kind of alleviate that problem. And I am wondering, Gayl, if your company has any informed consent -- okay. Do you have an informed consent form that you use, Gayl?

>>GAYL: No. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay. Go ahead, I'm sorry. >>JOHN JACKSON: We are just discussing creating a policy that says we can't

use a TTY with a print thing. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: You can buy whatever kind of equipment you choose,

right? >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: You can't put in a record that you cannot print out

or create that, because that's, again, it looks like you are trying to subvert the public record.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: No, no, there's different kinds of equipment. You can get a TTY that just doesn't have print capabilities.

>>JOHN JACKSON: Yeah, it's having the policy where it becomes problematic. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, I can separate that out. I think it would be a good

idea for DCF to use a phone that doesn't have a print. But on the policy side I was actually referring to the CART document, to have some process in your policies to deal with the CART document.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Actually, what I was suggesting is, on the Request For Services form, where the client has the opportunity to indicate what is their preferred method of communication, if they check CART, that's where we need to put the information, so that if the person is requesting CART, they know, upon checking that box, this is what's the possibility in terms of it being created as a record.

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Because in the Policies and Procedures, those are for the employees. And with respect to what or what cannot be with the different levels of confidentiality and stuff, DCF has -- that's completely separate. You can't do a whole thing on Policy and Procedure -- I don't know you could create it because there are so many different examples.

>>JOHN JACKSON: I don't either. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And levels of things. Whatever is created as a

Public Record -- and I don't mean to speak for Mr. Jackson -- but whenever it's created as a record, regardless of what it is, within that person's case file, then that applies regardless of what's created to the confidentiality and the various levels of use and who has access based on DCF. Regardless of what's created.

So you can't put in a Policy and Procedure something specific related to CART. I think what we need to do is to provide the information to the client. You need to have it under Request For Services, in a format that they understand. So that whenever they request CART, as soon as they request it, they know about it then. Staff have to be trained that they need to be sure that they inform them when they fill out those forms that, yes, not just that they read it, but they also let them know.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, so I think I'm clear on that. So even though, if they create a CART that is under the protection that you've already got in that client's file, all right, that will cover that, and that will guide your DCF employee on what they can and cannot do with that particular document. Got it.

All right. So, then I still think that in your attachments and your forms, that a separate informed consent that talks about CART would be very useful to our consumers so that they clearly understand, like a HIPAA consent, what that file is going to be used for, and how long it's going to be retained and so on.

I don't even know if we talked about retention in our regular HIPAA's, but Informed Consent surely has to specifically say "CART".

>>Yeah. I think what you're talking about is an attachment to your Request For Services form that would have that information. But does DCF have anything under General, like when you fill out applications that -- that general language that talks about confidentiality of the record or anything like that?

>>JOHN JACKSON: I'm embarrassed to admit I'm not certain. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: That's okay. If we can develop something that

provides that information to them -- it's on the web? So if we can take that and just incorporate as well the same type of information specific to CART, and include that in there.

Because, I guess, I am looking at it from the Devil's advocate, if you say to them, "oh, CART, that could become a record," and I'm someone who is not familiar with DCF and Public Records Law, which -- if I asked my husband today about public records, he would be like, "what are you talking about?"

All of a sudden, they may think, "oh, that's the only thing that's a record. They told me about that. They didn't tell me that when I dropped off my employment stuff that my best friend made up for me was going to be a record, they didn't tell me." I don't want to -- you got to be careful on how you create stuff. You don't want to give the impression that this is a record but everything else is not. You want to make sure that they understand ---like everything else.

>>JOHN JACKSON: That's a good point. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: So like everything else, that with DCF's general

disclaimer about what becomes a record, this is incorporated into that. >>JOHN JACKSON: You know, all that being said, there's one little bit of advice I

would throw out to you guys on all these disclaimers is, remember at the very beginning of my presentation I was talking about the confusion over the term "Public Record"? Even within State Government, many, many employees, when they think of Public Record, they think of only stuff that can be released, whereas, everything's a Public Record, whether it's releasable to the public or not. It's a Public Record.

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Because it belongs to the public. So I would try to avoid the term, "Public Record" at all costs. I think I would just simply say something along the lines of this; "this, like everything else, is going to be part of your file." But then you can add, that it would also be afforded the same state and federal confidentiality protections as the rest.

>>GAYL: Shana, I do have a Speaker's Release form, if there was a public speaker that came here, they have to sign it that acknowledges that there is a transcript being made and it will be published on the DCF Web site. It's just called "Speaker Release", not "Informed Consent".

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: So that might be a place to start. We could take that verbiage and combine it with the confidentiality verbiage, do the addendum to your Request For Service.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: What I would suggest is that we put this on the agenda for February, let DCF go back and look at what their general language is now on their forms that are currently being used, and then speaking with legal counsel, can figure out how to best say that, and bring that back to the committee, and then use the proposed language and then go from there. And at this point, I don't know, unfortunately, I don't think, when I did the Compliance Report, I don't think anybody at this point has requested CART. So it's not like that's out there. We're hoping that we'll see it more and more when individuals realize this is an opportunity and they have that available.

So is February okay as a time to start putting that language together? >>SHANA WILLIAMS: We will put it on the agenda. John, thank you for your due

diligence. You really dug into this. >>JOHN JACKSON: No problem. But the thing is, I'm willing to work more with

you guys on it. Because it's definitely a issue that -- I mean it could have greater ramifications, actually, across State Government, certainly across DCF, so I am more than happy to work with you on it.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, committee. We have almost 12:00 right now. The only real agenda item that we haven't covered is Michelle is going to present on the Compliance Report Self Assessment.

So would you like to take a five-minute stretch break and then let her continue on and then wrap up early? Or do you want to take a lunch break?

>>JUDY MARTIN: No lunch. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: I'm hearing no lunch. All right, there's no lunch.

Five-minute stretch break and we are back to Michelle. Thank you. (Brief recess)

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Okay, so let's go back on the record. Michelle is ready to present.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: The Compliance Report was a requirement of the Settlement Agreement. I will briefly provide you with what the Compliance Report was required to include, to give you kind of an overview of what I was to work on.

The number of requests for Qualified Interpreters or other Auxiliary Aids and Services provided or received by DCF personnel; the number of times they were provided; the number of times that DCF denied a request for a Qualified Interpreter or other Auxiliary Aids and Services for non-aid-essential communications, and the reason for the denial; the number of times DCF did not provide a Qualified Interpreter, Auxiliary Aid Or Service in a timely manner and the number of times a customer/companion failed to appear or arrived late for a scheduled appointment.

So it had to include the data. That was the data that had to be included. The Compliance Report also is to provide updates essentially on DCF's activities

as it relates to the Action Plan, the Self Assessment Plan, the Training Plan, the Monitoring Plan and all actions accomplished by DCF, as well as any complaints that were filed about DCF by deaf or hard-of-hearing customers or companions regarding providing Auxiliary Aids and Services and or Effective Communication, and an

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explanation of how DCF resolved each of those matters. So I will summarize them in order is a went. The DCF Action Plan. Essentially we have all seen copies of the DCF Action

Plan. DCF has been following the requirements of the Action Plan and has met the

deadlines since -- generally, has started the contract which began in February 28 of this year.

I did note, however, that when I did the initial summary of the DCF Action Plan that there were certain things I had to consider requirements, but they occurred prior to my start as the independent consultant and the deadline waiver. Since I was not part of those I didn't go into depth on those because I wasn't here so if DCF was to have it done by a certain date and it was not, that was not really under my control at that point.

The only thing DCF is having difficulties with is the designation of individuals who are DCF employees as Qualified DCF Staff Interpreters.

That requirement was to be, I think, 180 days after the effective date of the Settlement Agreement. The effective date of the Settlement Agreement, they were to evaluate the Sign Language and Oral Interpreting skills of DCF personnel. That has not happened at this point. They are still working on that. I know they have been working with FRID. They have also communicated that to Gail Hoffman at the Office of Civil Rights. Gail Hoffman also tried to provide assistance in getting that moving. It's not for want of trying is what I am trying to say. They are still trying to do that. It has not occurred. However, DCF has communicated to staff that even though they may have staff at their facilities who have in the past interpreted, as Merlin said earlier, they are informed that they cannot until such time as those designations have been made. We did see witness of that because at Florida State Hospital there is an individual there who has for a long time been an interpreter for the hospital. Right now, because she does not have that designation, she cannot interpret for the aid-essential communications. So as such, the Florida State Hospital has hired a contract employee who is a Certified Interpreter, to basically perform in her role.

There is, however, I will say and I said it before, at Florida State Hospital, there is one employee that we know of, unfortunately, throughout the state of Florida only one, who is actually an employee, but that employee is a Certified Interpreter.

So they don't meet that DCF-qualified as staff, but actually they're a Certified Interpreter. And I did verify the Web site check, but that individual is certified. And also we did that the same for the contract provider. So we did verify. And that is relatively easy to do, especially on your phone, if you have Internet.

Second thing was the Customer Companion Communication Assessment. As you all know that has been developed. It has been approved by the DCF Secretary. One thing to keep in mind is the Settlement Agreement references a Communication Assessment form in which you assess the communication requirements for this individual, you gather their input as to what their preferred method of communication is, and the DCF staff have to document what that request was; how they provided it; and if they provided an interpreter; they are required to put the time frames for when the interpreter was contacted; when the interpreter arrived; and were any referrals made or anything to that extent.

That form has been completed. DCF combined that form with the service record requirement under the Settlement Agreement. Under the Settlement Agreement, every time DCF provides Auxiliary Aids and Services, they're to document them. What DCF did was, they combined the two into one form, so it's a Communication Assessment, and I can't think of the full name but it's a long thing, but it's also record of service. And so the end result is that you will see that communication form used every time. And I had to instruct DCF staff that once you fill it -- and unfortunately, once the person who says what their preferred method of communication is, every time they come back in the office, the DCF staff still has to fill out the record again because you have to. That's your record. But you continue to have to provide that Auxiliary Aid

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and Service. They also created a Request For Services form. It used to be a waiver form

when it first came out but we have changed that and we are trying to educate DCF staff on not referring to that as the waiver form because it wasn't necessarily intended to be a waiver form. It was actually a way to give the consumer the opportunity to indicate what type of service they wanted, so that if you just had the Customer Communication Assessment form and the person said "I want an interpreter", but you look at the form and it doesn't say that, this is a way, because the client signs it and says, "this is what I want." So it's not just a waiver that they don't want any services. It's also the client's ability to check that box to say, "I want an interpreter."

And trust me, it has been very beneficial, because in reviewing files, I have seen indications where the Customer Communication Assessment does not reference anything about an interpreter being provided. However, I look at the form and they checked "interpreter."

So on the site visits, we are going back and saying, "what happened? Why was an interpreter not provided?" Now, there may be reasons to that, where they checked that they wanted an interpreter, then they said, "okay, we're going to call." And they should come -- they can come in a couple hours or we can do it whenever you'd like to reschedule. The client says, "I'm not coming back, I don't want an interpreter, I want to do it this way." That could be a reason.

But it's a good way to check that whatever the customer is requesting, they are receiving that. So we have that document as well that was created.

There are also monthly reports that were created by the SPOCs who submit them to the Office of Civil Rights coordinators who then track all of the information that's coming in. The monthly reporting forms, unfortunately, I don't know if necessarily the reports -- the forms have to change, but there needs to be more training on completing the forms.

There are certain things that'll say, you know, "number of times the communication assessment was completed; number of requests for aid; number of requests where they did not want aid." Generally speaking, you would assume that number of times the Communication Assessment form would be like 100. Number of requests for aid, 30. Number of waivers, 70. So you would think 70 and 30 would equal 100.

Well, when I relay the data, you will see that that doesn't necessarily happen, because individuals are still not familiar with how to complete those forms; even though I will grant it to the Office of Civil Rights, there is a four-page, I think, instruction on how to complete the summary.

For those individuals that may have one client it's relatively easy. For those, such as the mental hospitals or the state facilities, it's not the same.

I was talking with Al Sanders, who works with Florida State Hospital, because he looked at his forms, we may have to revise the forms as it relates to him because they don't complete the Communications Assessment form each time. But -- because do a Communication Plan. If you do a Communication Plan you don't have to continue to fill out the Communication Assessment because that's what the Communication Plan is for.

The monthly reporting form doesn't anticipate that occurrence. So that is something that we will have to work on.

I noticed that there are some difficulties, as well, with staff completing those forms. They are not always completed fully, and there are inconsistencies. So like I said before, I have seen cases where it says they want an interpreter, you look at the communication form, there is nothing to show that an interpreter arrived, or you can see where the person says, "I don't want an interpreter, I don't want any services," but then the form says there was an interpreter.

Nothing in the case notes or anything to document exactly what has happened. So we are working with staff to properly document in the case files what has

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occurred. And how that -- what has transpired. Secondly, there were instances where staff were completing the Request For Services forms and they were either signing it or they were completing everything and then put "refused to sign." And I suggested, and I still strongly suggest, that they not do that. You should not be writing somebody else's words. If they refuse to sign the form, they don't want to sign the form, just simply put that on there and in the case notes or in the Communication Assessment where there's a comments section, write that in there. But I think it's unfair to a consumer to put that that consumer did not want any services and then put "refused to sign." You need to put that someplace else.

So we have been working with staff also, there were a lot of concerns raised when we first did that.

Second concern that I have is that, we're going to be working with DCF and the Office Civil Rights, that the SPOCs, as well as the coordinators, need to follow up more on those inconsistencies when they see them. And primarily it should rest with the SPOCs. If they're getting Communication Assessment forms and these Request For Services forms, if there were any concerns the form isn't being completed properly or there's a question of interpreter requested not -- concern there was not one provided, they need to be going back to their staff immediately, find out what happened, and in some cases contact the client to follow up to ensure that if they requested a particular type of communication method, that, if they changed their mind and that is not what they wanted or there was a mistake and it needs to be documented.

Unfortunately, when I would get them, it would be sometimes a year later; and I would get a list of the client's names and numbers and try to contact them. And probably in 80 to 90 percent of the time they'd either moved or it was no longer a working number; or I would leave messages and wouldn't get any phone calls back. So I couldn't follow up on it. So you kind of have this -- you don't know what happened.

Those are some issues that I think still need to be fleshed out. And more training on use of the forms, more use the forms by staff. More familiarity, repetition builds knowledge.

I think that you will start to see the forms being more utilized. Hopefully with some of the changes that we're doing, change some of the forms,

clients will better understand that as well. I think the one we talked about today, I really like the brochure, because I think

that will help out in completing the forms. Data. Okay. Again, I didn't do the data. I'm just reporting it. But there are

some inconsistencies. You will see from June through May of 2011, so approximately a year, except for at the time I did the Compliance Report I didn't have April of 2011, it had not gotten into their database, so they sent it to me, but we had to manually enter it, which was like a stack probably this high, which my data entry person could not do in that short period of time. It has since been entered in and we are going to be running that report.

But, other than that month, there were 7,702 Auxiliary Aids and Services that were requested within a year of time. This is throughout the state of Florida. There were 2,333 requests by companions. The rest were requests by customers. Aid-essential communications were determined to be present in 3,905 cases. Unfortunately, that is not an accurate number. I think staff are not familiar with what is aid-essential or not aid-essential.

One thing to remember is that staff had not -- during this period of time -- direct service staff had not gone through the classroom training. And so I think that you'll see in the next year, these numbers will change, because there were no denials in any case of requested aids or services. There were instances where I saw them in the database. I think there were like 12 cases. So I went back to DCF and I said, "I see where there were 12 denials. I need those cases." They found out they were data entry errors because they would send me Communication Assessment forms to show

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there were no denials. It's just that when the person inputted the data, there are two columns. One is waiver, and one is the denial. They are back to back. And so, unfortunately, they were just data entry errors.

And then it indicated Auxiliary Aids and Services were provided to customers or companions 7,989 times. One thing to keep in mind, that any time there is any type of aid or service, whether it be writing notes back and forth, or if the person requests to read lips, DCF is marking that. So again, there's that. You might have to kind of adjust some of the monthly reporting to accurately report what is going on, because if you read that, you think, "you didn't provide interpreters or CART or Video Remote Interpreting, all those services?" Well, no. Because there were also 1,302 waivers completed by customers or companions. So again, the data is a little bit difficult to kind of sort through.

But DCF is creating a different database now that captures that information better, so that hopefully the next year's reporting -- I think I have a Compliance Report in February -- we'll have approximately six months of data. The new database, though, I think is being -- going live, I will tell you when. So you will have like a couple of periods, like July, August, September, October, where they are still using the old format within the new database.

We're also going to work on a new database to try to look at various areas, so that we can look at, for example, how many Certified Interpreters were utilized; where were they utilized, which areas; are we seeing gaps; where are we seeing Video Remote Interpreting being used; if we are seeing any requests for CART, where is CART being utilized.

Also, looking at the type of provider, so that if we are seeing, is it a DCF-direct facility, what type of program are we more likely utilizing: Access, Family Services, Adult Protective? Or is it a contract provider? What are we seeing from the contract providers? The way the database is developed, once we start to see more accurate reporting on the monthly reporting forms, you will start to be able to see trends; you can look at if there is differences. So I think that will be very helpful to DCF in order to do more in terms of seeing what are trends; what are we seeing; what is being requested more; what is not being requested.

So there is a lot of differences that can be used with the database. Although I like to use it with the statistical programs that I use, I still have to work

with DCF, because I use SPSF, which is a software package, they are still using a database similar to Excel, which can't run the reports. So some of that - we have to figure out ways to analyze that data.

Certified Sign Language Interpreters were used 1,873 times out of the year. Unfortunately they put Qualified Staff Language Interpreters were used 252 times. What I am thinking occurred in those instances were prior to DCF -- they didn't realize that staff were still out there interpreting, because they still have staff on site. So they were marking that staff were providing an interpreter when they shouldn't have been; they should have been using Certified. We did have that instance where we saw that staff were using them.

Now, if it was a non-aid-essential communication, and they were just helping them, giving them an application, or giving them information on where to file for social security or something, it's okay. But unfortunately, the monthly reporting doesn't cover that. So those are things that we'll still have to -- again, I think that the monthly reporting, some of that we're probably going to have to tweak a little to get a better feel for if you were using that, when you were using it.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Could you just repeat that number. Was it 2,000 times or 200?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: 252. That was for Contract Providers and 617 for DCF staff. I'm sorry. So 617 for DCF staff. And 252 times for DCF Contract Providers.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: Not Certified Interpreter.

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>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: It says DCF Qualified Staff. However, that's an error, because contract providers don't have any staff. So they could have been putting that they were using a Certified Interpreter, because they don't have DCF staff, or they were using their own staff when they shouldn't be; or they could have a certified staff person. We don't know.

Again, monitoring, when you go out to the actual site and you review their case files, more of this information will be fleshed out. But again, this is reporting and not the actual monitoring visits. Keep in mind that even if they said they used a staff person, we have done corrective action plans with some locations where they have used staff where they shouldn't have been. So just because they are not supposed to do it doesn't mean they don't understand they shouldn't be, and that's part communication and the training that will go out.

With DCF Contract Providers, we don't know, they could have Certified Interprets on staff. And they would put that -- they might think, "oh, that's my staff member," so they're logging it. But, in fact, it shouldn't be, because it's supposed to be that Settlement Agreement designation of the DCF individual.

So some of that has to be worked out. >>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: In the data section, I am a little concerned

about making somebody speech-read being listed as providing an accommodation. That is very troubling to me.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Again, that is part of training the staff. Because what happens is, on the Request For Services forms, where the client indicates what their method of communication they prefer, I have seen where many clients will check the box, and then put in Other, they say, "I prefer to read your lips."

So the DCF employee is saying, when they are logging that, it's not they're waiving any services; they are saying, "that is my preferred method of communication." So that's how they are logging it.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: As a person who was one of those people -- up until three-and-a-half years ago and not realizing that there was an alternative. That is not an Informed Consent. They don't know what else there is.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Well, they do. On the Request For Services it includes CART, all the other boxes. What they are doing is, there is a general box that includes all types of other Auxiliary Aids and Services. They are checking the box, and in the Other category they are writing something different.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I get that. I guess my question is, if they see the word "CART," or even if it is spelled out, "Communication Access Real-Time Translation," they don't know what that means. Is anybody saying to them, "Do you know that as a speech-reader you are only capturing 30 percent of what I say, but if you get CART you will get 100 percent? Do you still prefer to only understand only 30 percent of what's being said, or would you like to understand 100 percent?"

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: That is something that you have to take back to DCF. That is something that I monitor or support by the Settlement Agreement, and that puts the employee in a very difficult position.

But, essentially, that does bring up -- now, for two months I will talk about -- I did have data from June and July of 2011, where you can see that we are seeing vast increases. Because for only those two months, there was actually 2,468 Auxiliary Aids and Services that were requested. So in a two-month period you went from a 12-month period where there was 7,702 for a 12-month period, because it was June through May -- well, 11-month, except for one month -- to one-third of that in a two-month period. So we are seeing that staff are completing those forms more so.

This doesn't count the hospitals. Because, again, as employees of the state, they only do the Auxiliary Aid and Service form once, and they do their Communication Plan. So these are actually strong indicators that a lot of individuals are now starting to utilize these forms and report that back.

For that, there were only 24 requests by companions. Certified Sign Language

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Interpreters were used 353 times, so we are seeing in a two-month period, we're seeing the increase.

I'm trying to see where it was -- on that. 1,873. So that's actually, you haven't seen that much of an increase. A little bit more but not as much.

And then, Qualified Sign Language Interpreters, 128 times. So we are still seeing that issue.

But I have a feeling, like, for most of these it's Florida State Hospital, because it was their employee who was providing the Sign Language interpreting, even if that person is certified. So for a lot of these, oh, here I have some examples of that.

On the reporting form, because of Florida State, they were putting "Qualified Sign Language Interpreter," which was really their Certified Interpreter. So some of those, you see that large number, it's because they are coming from Florida State.

Assistive Listening Devices, they are now starting to track that because the monthly reporting form has changed. So for the full year they didn't track like ALDs were being provided. Now DCF is tracking that. Assistive Listening Devices were the second most common Auxiliary Aid and Service used, other than Certified Interpreters. They were used 143 times in the last two months. They could have been used previously, it's just it wasn't being tracked on the monthly reporting form. Now they are currently tracking that information under a specific category.

Occasionally staff will utilize other Auxiliary Aids and Services such as Video Relay or Video Remote Interpreting. Those were used 10 times in the two-month period. Florida Relay services were 13. And I think where they marked the Florida Relay is if a DCF staff member contacts a client, over the phone, they gather information and they mark it they used Florida Relay service.

Contract Providers indicate that they provided Auxiliary Aids and Services 309 times for the month of June and July. They had indicated only 288 of these aids were provided timely. They put that only twice that an interpreter failed to appear or arrived late.

On the other hand, DCF Direct Services Facilities indicated that Auxiliary Aids and Services were provided 139 times. Again, numbers don't correspond, but the data indicates that they were provided timely a total of 1,910.

So there are different categories that don't necessarily equate. So you are reading line items, but when you try to pull all the line items together to get a general picture, it doesn't come out as neatly.

A lot of that is going to be a training issue for staff and how they complete the forms.

Because in another section of the report, it says that 2,492 times that Auxiliary Aids and Services were requested, and that a majority of those were provided for customers. So even though they said that, again, I can't explain the numbers. I can just report what was reported. Needless to say, Auxiliary Aids and Services are being provided. Generally speaking, they are all timely. There is relatively -- a rarity where you see that interpreter did not arrive on time.

So overall, DCF is meeting those requirements. As to specifically being able to say, "let's track this appropriately, how many times did you request an Auxiliary Aid or Service; break it down for me; what type of aid or service was provided; let's see how many waivers did we have" -- those numbers should all the match up. That we're still not seeing yet. That is going to be a training issue.

But again, there were no denials that were reported. And generally speaking, timeliness was not an issue for interpreters showing up. And where we do see they are using Qualified Staff, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are really utilizing Qualified Staff, because in many instances it is staff employees who are certified. So some of those, the numbers reflect something but it's actually something that needs more clarification and further understanding.

However, I will note that the data suggests that you have a lot of Auxiliary Aids and Services forms being completed. However, they're not a lot that are being

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requested. Because, like said, you may have 7,700 forms being completed but a couple thousand are actually requesting Auxiliary Aids and Services. And then of those requested Auxiliary Aids and Services, many could be such as lip-reading, writing notes back and forth. You are not seeing huge numbers of requests for interpreters or other types of Auxiliary Aids and Services. We were not tracking ALDs or Video Remote or anything back then, but even what we are seeing now.

So in my report, I put that it's unclear as to why this is happening. I did put a couple of possible reasons based upon some of my site visits that customers and companions who may not be accustomed to DCF providing these service, so that is going to be a matter of education and also training the staff to make sure they offer those services.

So we're hoping to see that that will be a change and you will start to see those numbers increasing.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: I think that's great, that this staff offers the services and then they can, maybe, understand what the services are and help the clients see what the benefit to the client is to use the service. Because again, you know, you guys have been interacting with persons who are Deaf and hard of hearing who are very knowledgeable about assistive technology and the accommodations. There's a whole population out there that's deaf and doesn't know what to do about it, or they are hard of hearing and they don't know what to do about it. They don't even really understand how much they're not hearing. And again, I'm the pot calling the kettle black on that. I was in that boat not too very long ago.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And I do know some Adult Protective Services -- this last site visit -- not Florida State Hospital. But in August, in interviewing, they have PockeTalkers for all their workers that go out. So they take those PockeTalkers with them each time, and they offer them services, and they have it turned on, and they do utilize them more. Staff have reported where, "yes, we are using them more."

So again, part of it is going to be as time goes by it will improve upon those. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Michele, I am wondering about the data collection process.

It seems like a shame to get all of this data and then to have to say, "but it's not really very accurate." I know this was last year, now they got informed by the training. But if they are not using SPFS or another software that is savvy enough to get the nuances of the data, then it's really -- they are kind of missing the point.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: They can get the data. It's just a matter of us sitting down and deciding what we want to start pulling out. They have a database where they are tracking all of this. However, when they utilized it before and they gave it to me it is in Excel for the older data, but the monthly reporting form has dramatically changed. So what they were previously reporting on for the year, prior to myself coming on board and helping them design the Auxiliary Aids and Services, what was being captured and what was being reported, they didn't collect everything that wasn't broken down.

So you would get information, but it wasn't necessarily broken down in terms -- I think -- I'm guessing, but I think I remember where, I think there was one place that said number of times Auxiliary Aids and Services were provided, but it was under the category of "timely". Or it was like "number of Auxiliary Aids and Services provided timely." That was the only time they were asking. Not the number of times provided overall.

So part of it, it was just a matter of methodology of making sure it's all in there. Now that we have it, it's a matter of sitting down, but it only started in July of this year. Because remember, these reports were due June 28th to be approved by the DCF Secretary. February 28th, excuse me. February 28th, the forms had to be in and approved. Then they did the training in June. Forms went into effect July 1st. So by the time I did this report, only two months.

Granted, we are still seeing some issues but a lot of it, like I said, is we are

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seeing such huge numbers. But those are coming out of the hospitals. And the hospitals are doing the Communication Plans. So we have to tweak some of it. Once we get -- we have the data, it's just going to be a matter of, for example, when you start analyzing the data, select out hospitals. Then look at just those numbers, and what do we see? Because there, if they are only seeing clients once, one time, or they are doing a record each time because they are not doing Communication Plans, then we can start analyzing the data more.

I haven't had the opportunity to really focus in on that data and do that, because when I got this, for the Compliance Report, I had like a week to really pull it out and start reporting on it. That doesn't mean I'm not going to go back and look at this year's or last year's data. Because we are looking at it and we want to look more into it to see where the trends are.

But I think there are positive things coming out of the data. DCF is collecting the information; they're collecting a wealth of information; and you are showing that the service are being utilized; and they are probably being utilized even more now.

Because, one thing I wanted to bring up, in speaking with staff, there is a lot of staff out there that are providing services to clients, but they are not reporting them because they didn't know that they had to report them on the form. So some staff, "why didn't you log that?"

"Well, I didn't know I had to; only if they wanted an interpreter." Then they would log something.

So you are seeing, again, a lot of it is training. The training of the DCF Direct Services staff only just started I think in August. Granted they will be completed by December, but that just started.

So some of this, we are doing all this stuff to create all these forms; create all these policies; get all these things in place, and at the same time we are pulling all this data. So in some case it is the cart before the horse because your training staff actively collected all the data on what they previously didn't really understand what they were supposed to do. So there are some things.

Also, based on interviewing with some clients and some of the focus groups, I think that in some cases customers, when they're only frequenting a DCF facility to process paperwork or drop off information, they may believe it is not necessary to request those services. So in some cases I think you will start to see where they may request more types of Auxiliary Aids and Services, not just relying on lipreading or writing notes back and forth.

As I noted before, Request For Services forms, I don't think the clients fully understood those forms. So hopefully by making some modifications of the brochure that will accompany that, you are going to start seeing improvement on that.

I did have a couple of clients that said even though they offered the services, they declined them because they didn't want to put a burden on staff. So again, some of this is going to be more and more repetition. Every time they come in, realizing that they are offered the services, they will start utilizing it, realizing that "okay, I can."

So some of that we hope to see improve. But we did have some clients, who -- they told us, "nope, I go in and I request it."

You know? And some staff, they are already starting to work out plans with these individuals. There was one Access facility where they have already made arrangements. The lady comes in every three months. They said, like clockwork, she comes in every three months. They have already talked to her and said, "Okay, before you come in, call. We will make sure we have an interpreter there." And they wrote it out for her, gave it to her, they put an alert on the screen. So she calls in, the alert pops up and it puts what her preferred method of communication is. So agencies are starting to do this.

The hotline -- the hotline now has specific questions where they ask, when they use -- "do you know if any of the family members are deaf or hard of hearing? If, so what do they use to communicate?" That is already being asked. So many

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investigators know, before they even go to the house, that they may need that. Now, is it perfect? No. They don't know in every instance what the form of

communication is. Just because they say they use Sign Language, they don't know what type of Sign Language. So in some cases -- and you can't necessarily call them up and say, "hey, we are going to do an investigation on you. Before we come out -- " But they are doing things where they go out to the house, then they postpone the interview and they come back with an interpreter. They try to get an interpreter, you know, within the two-hour time frame. So they are working on that.

And then they find that out. I think training will -- you will start to see a lot better. Florida State Hospital, like I said, they have gone through the training, where you

look at their Communication Assessment forms, and they are doing a great job with filling those out. So hopefully will see that again.

Now that they are able to flag files, we are encouraging, especially in Access, there is a screen where they can put an alert. So we are trying to put that out there so that if clients who repeatedly go for recertification or benefits, they apply for food stamps, that those alerts pop up and the workers know. They put what the preferred method of communication is so they contact them and they can do that ahead of time.

We do see, with a lot of with Adult Protective Services, though, a large number of Auxiliary Aids and Services forms being completed. However, very few requests for services. That population, primarily the majority of them, are hard of hearing, and not requesting any services, even though the workers will take their PockeTalkers, they say "are you sure? Anything that would help us communicate with you?"

And they will even document in the case work where they have asked them repeatedly, and they will -- the worker -- what have we offered to them, this is what we have, they still say no. It could be because they really don't want to have anything used because it's an investigation.

There are some clients, too, that lack capacity. They may suffer from Alzheimer's, dementia; individuals where they were drunk, you know. There was one worker they noted where they were trying to offer, but the person was very intoxicated. So trying to fill out the forms did not work in that instance.

So you do see that, though, a lot in adult protective safety. The hotline, though, both for family safety and adult services, adult protective investigations, the workers state that it is -- they know that's on that form. So they know where to look when the report comes in. They also review previous information before they go out to the home, and they are required to put in their case notes any of the family members are deaf or hard of hearing and how they communicate with them. So they are getting -- it's becoming more and more aware. So staff are prepared when they go out. Because sometimes when you have an investigation, they might be able to understand (dropped voice).

We did have a secret shopper that went out, and I already talked about those. Nod if you want me to reiterate. I also referenced the secret shopper form that was done.

The customer feedback forms. Unfortunately, they only received 23. Many of the forms were not completed. Most of them were positive, actually, because they would put like -- they may not complete everything but they would put, "were you denied?"

"No." And they would put in, "Did staff treat you with respect?" "Yes." So the boxes that they did fill out, the majority of those were positive. There was

one customer that did feel that he or she was discriminated against, but they didn't provide any contact information. They were only provided information regarding the child protective investigator and the name of the judge, and they were -- their dissatisfaction stemmed from the court proceedings.

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So I did provide that information to DCF to kind of follow up just to make sure with the child protective investigator -- I don't think they can find that case, but whatever information I had, we did provide that.

There was one other person on the feedback form that stated that they requested an interpreter and the agency contracted to obtain an interpreter but the interpreter had the wrong date and time and didn't show up.

Unfortunately, though, there was no information on that feedback form to even try to go back and figure out where that occurred.

Again, I agree with what Rick was saying yesterday, getting information, yet you can't follow up on it. But on that form, we did put -- I did provide everybody with copies, and we put program area, and location. So you know, hopefully, we might be able to start getting some information that way.

>>VALERIE STAFFORD-MALLIS: While we're stopped, what do you think? Would it be possible for us to get an electronic copy of this so we can read it when we get home and refresh our memory and reflect?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I don't have a problem with that. I give it to DCF, so --

>>MERLIN ROULHAC: It's a public record. (LAUGHTER.)

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: The self-assessment plan and the tool, again, I already talked about the self-assessment, so I'm not really going to go into much detail. The only thing I will note from the self-assessment is that, because of the way that it had a lot of open-ended questions, and I think the reporting format -- because there were some agencies where I think they submitted it 18 times. One person submitted it 18 times, but it logged it all 18 times.

There was an overwhelming number of open-ended questions that made the report about 800 pages long.

Yes. However, when you pull out just the general information about how many times do you have Policies and Procedures, do you have -- overall, it was do you have Policies and Procedures, they are implementing the Settlement Agreement, they are providing those Auxiliary Aids and Services. There were a couple, though, that had questions, and so what we have done is, DCF is going through those self-assessments; and where you saw a negative response, or a response that was, again, where the question was trying to elicit -- I don't want to say positive or negative, because it could be a "no" response is what you wanted to receive versus a "yes." But on those where it was contrary to what you expected the response to be, DCF is following up with those agencies to ensure that wasn't an error, a misunderstanding.

We are also working to redo the self-assessment to try to redo some of those open-ended questions to do more forced-choice answers. Because I did see, for example, where it asked, "did you deny" -- this is the one that popped up for me -- "did you deny in your agency any requested Auxiliary Aids and Services?" And I think there were about -- I don't know how many we found. And there was a low number, like 10 to 20 out of the 800 that we got. However, when the question would say, "what was their reason for the denial," the majority of them was because the client didn't waive -- did not want any services.

I don't know why they think that's a denial, but that's what we saw. So we are following up on that, and hopefully the next assessment you will be

able to deduce that, and it will be in a more user-friendly form. We are, however, looking at all of the responses that we were given to help us

design the forced-choice responses. So that we will still have an Other category, but we are able to limit those, so when the data comes in, it is more able to concatenate that and have it in a user-friendly, readable format. Because when DCF gave it to me, I was like --

Training, too -- a lot of the staff, for example, said they had been trained, even though they hadn't really received the DCF training. And then they would put that they

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wanted additional training. So in some cases, if a layperson was just looking at that, saying, "Well, DCF is not training," well, it is because that assessment was done before the training was accomplished. So you are doing that.

But adequacy tool. Unfortunately, I think that it was sent out to -- approximately 98 surveys were sent out to local advocacy organizations. Only 11 responses were received. So unfortunately, trying to get information from the advocacy organizations, we didn't get a lot. There was an 11 percent response rate.

We're hoping that next year we will see a better response rate and more individuals will provide a response, because you want to see from another side, not -- You want to see an increase in customer feedback forms, but we also want to see a response to advocacy organizations to find out from their perspective how things are going.

The advocacy tool sought information from the organizations regarding their beliefs about what their DCF and contract agencies --

(Laughter) >>GAYL HARDEMAN: Slow down, please. :) Go ahead. "The advocacy group

sought -- " Go ahead. I'm, sorry, Michelle. >>MICHELLE RISKEY-MORRIS: The DCF sought information regarding whether

DCF and its contract agencies were providing services -- appropriate services to assist individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing in accessing DCF's programs and services.

Out of those that responded, the 11, three had difficulty in working with DCF or its contract agencies. DCF was given that information to follow up with those three organizations to find out how they can better deal with that.

And if there was no particular -- or if there was a coordinator that wasn't responding, what was going on. If there was a particular program area, you know, where is the problem happening so we can try to fix it.

The majority of the organizations worked with individuals who were deaf or hard of hearing for more than -- and accessing DCF programs more than ten years. So these are organizations that have been around for a long time. And they serve more than a hundred individuals on a yearly basis.

One organization did say -- most of the respondents, I'm sorry, referenced that the type of services they helped their clients with are Medicaid, food stamps, Access. One organization stated that they have found DCF's Adult Protective Services to be very pro-active.

Less than half the organizations had contacted DCF or DCF providers in the last year to address the needs of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing four or more times. It was almost like a third, third, third. A third had more than four times, a third had contacted DCF between one to three times, and another third had not contacted in the last year.

So we're seeing -- again, it's hard with only 11 responses to get a true feel for how long these organizations have been contacting DCF.

36 percent, which is four, were satisfied with DCF process to address the needs of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. 27 percent, which is 3, were either not familiar or remained neutral. And then 4 were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Common reasons for their dissatisfaction were staff not returning phone calls or not getting interpreters for clients who need them.

They also did note lack of knowledge by DCF staff regarding the needs of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, was also a need, and a need for more training.

This Advocacy Survey went out at the same time as the Self Assessments. I think it went out in July of this year.

Positive comments referenced that the relationship between the agency and DCF has improved and that DCF has improved their services. Another organization noted that it has seen a 90 percent increase in contacts from DCF in order to assist them in obtaining interpreter services.

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Three of the 11 organizations have filed complaints or grievances against DCF direct service facilities or contract agencies in the past year. However, DCF only had one complaint that was actually filed. So the only thing I can think of is that they may have been filed internally with a contract provider and it never went father than that. Or, they were not necessarily a written complaint or formal complaint; maybe a phone call that was made.

So what I anticipate doing is the Advocacy Tool that comes up next year, better clarify what we mean by a complaint or grievance; whether it's just concerns that were called or whether or not it was a formal complaint pursuant to the Policies and Procedures.

One organization did state that they were dissatisfied -- oh, they were satisfied, excuse me, with the complaint resolution process. Three were dissatisfied, and the remaining were either unfamiliar or remained neutral and didn't express an opinion.

Of the few respondents who were dissatisfied, two said because of the quality of the resolution process, and timeliness. So that was what they were not happy with.

Again, if you guys get the report, you can see. But a lot of this is reporting what one person said, or I can't give you a general trend.

The final question, though, asked agencies for any additional comments or recommendations. A few agencies remarked that DCF needs to learn about the ADA law and how to take care of the needs of their clients. And also, the difficulties the Deaf community has had in working with the Access program. So we all know that that's difficult, that DCF has to work for it.

The Training Plan. You have seen the training; it's been completed. So I'm not really going to go into that. It just reports on that they have completed those and that we're working to get staff trained.

At the time I did the survey, I think 98 percent of the staff, something like that, had completed the online training.

And DCF is -- 99 percent of DCF staff had taken the online training. So that, DCF is pretty much right onboard with that.

At the time I did this, all the ADA coordinators, of course, had been trained, and 90 percent of the SPOCs had received the classroom training.

Only 9 percent of the DCF direct service staff had received the classroom training in August, 9 percent of the DCF direct service staff. 90 percent of the SPOCs. So I think the requirement is by December of this year, the end of December, all that should be taken care of.

They don't really track the contract providers. However, DCF will now start tracking SPOCs completing -- the DCF contract provider SPOCs completing the training. So that will be incorporated into tracking as well.

Monitoring Plan, that has been completed as well as tools have been submitted, and we're utilizing these in all of the site visits.

The last thing I have was the complaints and grievances. One complaint was filed against DCF since the Settlement Agreement. This was relating to providing ALDs, and DCF entered into a corrective action plan which required the purchase of Assistive Listening Devices. They purchased 405 PockeTalkers and 33 Motivas, and to my knowledge, my report, when it was written, stated that they had distributed those PockeTalkers and Motivas to four of the six regions, but I think it's been completed now.

>>MERLIN ROULHAC: Yes. >>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And they also have done training with staff on the

Assistive Listening Devices. And, in fact, many staff, when I talked to them, had received training. Even though I know they hadn't received the Direct Service Training, they said, "Yes, I got the training on the ALDs". So staff have been trained in that.

I was aware of four incidents that also occurred, because I reported on any time that I got information, not necessarily a formal complaint or grievance being filed, but

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any type of incident that I became aware of, and how DCF is responding to that. There were four incidents that I became aware of since our contract began. One was a complaint where DCF did not provide an interpreter for a child who was placed in a Mental Health Resource Center in Jacksonville. When investigating, the coordinator learned that a child was placed in the Mental Health Center in the evening, and the next morning the interpreter was there at 9 a.m. when the physician visited with the child.

The child was in facility over the weekend, and the facility arranged to have an interpreter there for the weekend.

The second incident involved a homeless individual. In April of 2010 the customer completed an online application with the Access program. He then requested a Sign Language Interpreter. The next day the customer was contacted to inquire when he would like to come in for the appointment with the interpreter. They used the Video Remote Interpreting. He actually came in that day at 10:00 in the morning and was provided the Video Remote Interpreting.

The third incident occurred in August of 2011. The previous one was in April of 2010. Excuse me. This one occurred in 2011. A Child Protective Investigator went out to a home,

pursuant to an allegation. When they arrived, the CPI and a supervisor attempted to have the client complete the Request For Services form to indicate what they would want. The client refused to sign any forms or indicate what he wanted, but he did that on the advice of his counsel -- legal counsel. We had to contact the worker and inform them, just because they were refusing, don't sign it, it doesn't mean you don't go. You have to provide them with an interpreter if you need it.

They were investigating children and the individual told the worker that the children would be returning that day. The CPI and investigator were told they had to provide an interpreter. Even though requesting, they were told they needed to provide an interpreter.

The next morning, the CPI went back to the home, brought the interpreter with them.

>>So since they had Video Remote Interpreting, one of the things that they had counseled the individual was that, bring it out with you, don't go out the next day.

And then the workers were advised that, in the future, just because you refuse to sign the form, that doesn't mean you don't provide the interpreter. If you need an interpreter, we need to make sure you have one.

The other issue is the one that Rick had brought up with the Access facilities and individuals having difficulty calling in. We met in August with management staff from DCF, Access, I don't know if it was the Director or the representative was there, trying to find out what they were doing to try to address this issue, because it was -- they already knew about it before we got there, and they are trying to work with -- they are currently working with Sprint, who is also the Florida Relay service provider, to establish a dedicated line for the purpose of Florida Relay calls directly to the Access program. So they are trying to do a dedicated line that only individuals who are calling to try to access Access, that they can get that.

What is happening is, individuals who are trying to call Access, like a recertification or a question on their benefits, they can't connect, because it's an automated system. So what DCF is trying to do is, when the person calls in, there's an actual dedicated line for individuals who are using the Florida Relay system, for example, that will go directly to an individual, and the person would not be routed through that automated system where they get hung up, disconnected.

>>TERRI SCHISLER: And that would be great if you all could provide a dedicated line for the Deaf and hard of hearing. It would sometimes be confused with rerouting to a TTY-accessible line, which a video relay call does not get rerouted to TTY. But you can also make an option in your phone tree so that they can -- in the first phone tree option, they can pick an option that will get them to the end of the line rather than

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multiple layers of choices. VRS can navigate phone trees, but if you can simplify the process, it's wonderful.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And I think actually, some of what was happening -- and I'm not a hundred percent positive, but I thought that on the forms it was actually giving them the Florida Relay number. So they are not even getting access.

>>RICK KOTTLER: Yeah, it's on the back of the form, and it's an 800 number, and it looks like it's an 800 number for DCF; and, in fact, it is the 800 access number for the Florida Relay.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: And then Florida Relay, when they were trying to transfer them, would get disconnected. So they are working on that. We actually are setting up another meeting with Access to talk about other stuff, but this is also going to be put on the agenda as a follow-up to say, "okay, we talked to you back in August, what's happened since then?" You know, "Are we addressing this?"

>>TERRI SCHISLER: I would think that it was more a factor of not having the correct number. They don't need to be given the Florida Relay service to call, they need to be given a proper number to call at DCF. And if it includes a phone tree that is not as problematic as being given a TTY-accessible line.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: Right. So we are following up on those. But those are the only complaints I actually became aware of and there were no other actual complaints that were filed with DCF.

Overall, I think that, generally speaking, DCF is in compliance with the Settlement Agreement. They are meeting the time frames. They are meeting their obligation in terms of implementation.

The only difficulty that I do see, and I continue to see, but again, these are prior to the DCF training, are the forms not being correctly filled out; not proper documentation so you don't know exactly what is going on; and then it's kind of like this elusive area where you are not exactly sure what is happening, even though staff may tell you "Oh, no, the client changed their mind, they didn't want this." We don't really have verification, which I don't like.

So some of this, a lot of it, is working with staff and training on them. So in addition to the training that the staff are receiving, we are going to -- or I guess I should say I am going to be doing -- a Webinar for the SPOCs and going over what I'm seeing when I go in and do the case files, and what am I seeing when I review the forms. And my site visit reports will reflect that. And there are agencies that are going under Corrective Action Plans.

I talked about the ones previously, some are technical assistance, some require Corrective Action Plans.

In the August site visit, again, I saw where there are instances where -- I'm not saying that they are denying the services. A lot of it is lack of knowledge and education, but what is happening is they are going out there and I don't see verification that they provided those services to that individual. So they need to better -- they need to correct that and make sure it doesn't happen in the future.

I did see, for example, one instance where there was an individual who was with Adult Protective Services, the individual was Deaf, when they went out to the home for an investigation in March, they did not provide an interpreter. They didn't fill out any of the forms. The worker informed me that the house mother, where the individual was living, helped provide communication. But if you review the case notes, he even remarked a difficulty understanding her.

And second time there was another abuse allegation where she filed an abuse -- the client did -- I won't go into specifics, but she filed one. When she did, the worker still didn't complete any forms. She said, "Well, she was provided an interpreter, because law enforcement did."

Well, okay, law enforcement did, but you should still be going through the same process. And even though the only time you met with her was when law enforcement

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was there -- she had been in the hospital, and they had an interpreter -- you still need to go through the process to make sure that the next time you meet with her that you have an interpreter and you are not just relying on the housemates.

So that's, for example, some of the things that we are still starting to see. Now, for the second time he was going out, they knew he had to do the

paperwork and stuff, but six months previously, he didn't do it. So some of it, again, they have to, you know, worry about what they're doing. And also instructing clients. For example, if you go out and do an investigation

and you realize that you do need and interpreter, don't connect an investigation and say "oh, we'll come back." Document the situation, unless it's an emergency situation for the safety and well-being of, for example, a child or someone in the home; but you need to follow up to make sure that you have that interpreter there.

But I will say that I am positive about what they're doing, and I think staff are dedicated.

And I will say the coordinators -- once you call those coordinators that there is an issue, they respond back immediately.

I remember we received a phone call for one case -- actually, Caroline; she's not here -- we received a phone call from an individual from I think like a Deaf Service Center who was calling about one of her clients, saying they didn't provide an interpreter. And this was the instance where the gentleman didn't want to sign any forms, saying "I can't talk, do anything on advice of counsel." Before I even got on the plane, I had already received streams of e-mail about what they were doing. So they will address them quickly.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Very comprehensive. Anybody have any comments for Michelle?

Okay. Last piece of business that I have are the flyers that Michelle and DCF would like to have back as soon as possible so that they can create a visual, branded type of -- I am sure you have more resources as far as marketing and visual aid and so on.

I sent you a couple. I think Terri is working on one now. Can we as a committee to just make a few comments, type them up, and send them to Merlin? And can you get it to your marketing department? Anybody else have an idea? Michelle?

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: The only thing is, I kind of took what you had sent me for the flyer, and I put some of what DCF had put in their flyers to simplify it. So this is one that would go out to like the focus groups, and if they can't go to the focus groups to, call in. That's the one I sent you -- or I put out today. The only thing, though, I think we are going to need a separate flyer for the Advisory Committee meetings, because I was thinking about it, and, although you tell them that they can come for the full period of time, they may get upset -- an individual may get upset if they come here for a full day and when they get here, they are told, "Oh, well, you can only comment at 4 o'clock," and they have come in at 9:00. They may not want to be here -- not like all of us who love to stay for the entire six hours -- they may not want to. So I think we might have to have a different form for the Advisory Committee. It can look the same but provide additional information for those.

The focus groups that we're doing for the interviewing -- those are only a one to two hour slot period of time. Actually it is their opportunity to talk the entire time, so --

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: Two things on that. One would be, really do put "Refreshments will be provided." I am so serious about it.

>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: I was going to put that, but that is -- I was putting that -- to talk to DCF. And I didn't want to put that and they would come back at me and say, "Well, it's coming out of your contract."

[LAUGHTER]. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Instead of putting "Interpreters will be provided," you could

use a picture icon and make it visual instead.

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>>MICHELLE RISKE-MORRIS: The one's that I'd gotten -- the one somebody e-mailed me, I couldn't copy those particular ones, and put it on there, so I think that's a good idea to put those on there.

>>SHANA WILLIAMS: All right. Can we have a motion to close the meeting? >>RICK KOTTLER: Moved. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Second? >>JUDY MARTIN: Second. >>SHANA WILLIAMS: Final comments? Motion carries. See you in

February -- 23rd. (Concluded at 1:12 p.m.)