President Brandon opened the meeting and Tammy Miller led in the pledge and prayer.
ATTENDANCE: 32 members attended which is 43.56% of total membership. There were also 3 guests in attendance - Mark Albright Rotarian with a Club in Brazil, Kristin Warner, New Hope Ministries, and Alicia Stanley, Hoffman Homes
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PROGRAM: Melissa Leathery and Alicia Stanley, Hoffman Homes For Youth
Melissa explained that Hoffman Homes for Youth is a residential treatment program for youth with significant behavioral health and mental health issues. They operate a psychiatric residential program and a school program. She spoke about the impact that Covid had on their program. Essentially while they stayed in operation with the residences, treatment, and school all visits outside the campus and visitors coming in were halted effectively shutting them out from the outside world. The students wore and are still wearing masks anytime they are indoors unless they are eating, sleeping, or bathing, day and night. Funding continues to be a major issue. Most funding for the treatment programs is from medical assistance. Maximum rates they can charge are determined by regulation. Different counties allocate $ for such programs at different levels - some fund at or near actual cost of the programs and many are significantly under the actual daily costs. Since they operate the school program HHY can charge the home school districts for the cost of education.
Staffing has been a particular problem for HHY as it is for almost all businesses. They lose staff to other occupations which pay higher salaries and they have difficulty finding certificated staff to fill vacancies. State guidelines require a staff ratio of 1 to 8 for day time and 1 to 16 for sleeping times. HHY staffs at 1 to 5 and 1 to 8, respectively,
They are looking for Grant programs and fundraisers to supplement their income to run their programs. HHY is initiating efforts to identify what services they could provide to the community in an effort to increase their income. Additionally they try to lobby State representatives to allocate additional funding for Mental Health funding.
NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM: DR IVY BUCHAN, HELIX STRATEGIES - LINKEDIN AND HOW TO BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND