26 may have roll call, please.

Not a mask, present.

Advisor Camp, present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Can you go through instructions on participation?

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Only matters within the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed.

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Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I would like to start with the first informational item, which is the advisory commission on aging.

So we'll call um Laura.

Laura Michael, uh, thank you.

I'm the chair of the advisory commission on aging.

Oh, there we go.

We are the advisory body for the area agency on aging, and we are appointed by the Board of Supervisors and by the Mayor's Conference to provide advice and oversight to the area agency on aging in terms of funding for local services for seniors.

We advocate, we advise, we provide a conduit for information to flow between local seniors, the triple A providers of services, and the board of supervisors, and we are planning to speak in front of the mayor's conference, although we're still in the process of setting that up.

I mean, currently we have about 11 commissioners.

Our full number would be 21.

So we are really looking to get some more commissioners appointed.

The board of supervisors has been doing a great job of that lately.

The mayor's conference, not so much, so that's why we wish to speak to them.

And in terms of our accomplishments for the past year, we are continuing to put out our quarterly senior update newsletter, which has articles on various senior resources throughout the county on Medicare, Medi-Cal, health and mental health issues, recipes, advice.

Um, and I think we get a lot of positive feedback on that.

We also did a webinar this past year on grandparents raising grandchildren and hoping to do some more webinars in the upcoming year, um, particularly around senior isolation, which is a big issue in Alameda County and elsewhere.

Um, we have been advocates, we have signed on to letters.

I think I said that before.

Well, but we've signed on to letters, and I think the letters make a difference.

You look at those letters, and you think is this really gonna help?

It has helped, it's helped with the budget impacts on the budget.

We also did uh holiday baskets, that's an annual thing that we do.

It's as much fun for us as it is for our seniors that we deliver to, and it uh kind of helps get us out to the community.

Um we serve on the request for proposal review panel, which you know I've just finished one on INA.

We did nine bids and we sat and we rated and provided feedback on the bids for funding for information and assistance fines.

In terms of our committees, we have a legislative committee which keeps track of legislation that affects local seniors, helps the commission to determine recommendations to the board of the super board of supervisors.

We have uh one um California Senior Legislature member and another one who was previously on our commission.

So we are kept up to track on what's happening with them.

We also have a public relations and outreach committee that interacts with local seniors, provides information and support through our newsletter, attends the events, as I said, our senior update newsletter, which seems to be well received and has a pretty wide distribution.

And we have a services delivery committee, which has been very active, going out to the community, um, visiting some of our funded agencies, meeting the clients, coming back to us and letting us know what's going on and what the needs might be.

We're also a presence on the um senior services commission and um the uh age-friendly commission, or age from the council.

And in terms of what we want to ask for from Board of Supervisors, just keep an active channel communication open, acknowledge us if we send you information.

Maybe we could set up some meetings to have some representatives come and speak to you guys and let you know what's happening with the seniors in Alameda County.

Um, let us know about concerns that are coming up in Alameda County.

Actually, we have pretty good conduit of information.

We hear a lot about what's happening, what's coming up.

We were really uh well informed regarding Measure W and that funding that for seniors in the county and um we will come in, continue to submit budgets in order that we can attend local and national events, collaborate with other commissions and bring back uh information to the county.

We also do our strategic planning retreat.

We're in the middle right now working on a vision statement, a mission statement, some objectives.

So are there any questions?

Thank you for that presentation.

Um let me start with supervised front and on this question.

Yeah, thank me, Chair Tam.

Um thank you so much for this report as well as for serving as chair of the um advisory commission.

Um I firstly, my team is uh working to fill our vacancy.

And um, you know, we're also trying to make sure that folks can attend the meetings, uh, which is the key thing.

We want to make sure people are actually able to follow through and participate.

Um, just a couple questions.

Are you seeing any trends in terms of say food security, uh, knowing that there are some upcoming changes like work requirements for Cal Fresh around food security or other important issues?

Have you been seeing any trends that we need to take into account?

I think these things are playing out gradually over time.

I mean, I haven't heard that there are unmet needs.

I know that meals on wheels, I'm actually a volunteer for Meals and Wheels, and I know that they've been able to meet the need, but I know that there are changes coming up in terms of the requirements and nutrition requirements, and they're going to have to meet those.

And so there are concerns as these things get put in place, you know, sitting in the various meetings.

I'm hearing about this is coming up in June, this is coming up in December.

So the changes that are coming in from MediCal and the other programs are being implemented gradually and will be felt.

But I I haven't heard a lot.

I don't think we've heard a lot yet.

I mean, we're signing on to all these letters, trying to say please don't cut these funds.

I don't think it's being felt quite yet, but I'm sure it will be okay.

And then, you know, we just had PAL this morning where there was some conversation about uh the current farm bill, and that could be an opportunity to push back on some of the CalFresh uh changes.

And so, you know, it's not so much about our delegation here in the East Bay or the Bay Area, it's really um other electeds around the country.

However, you know, we do have to do as much as we can to ensure that these really harsh changes don't go into effect if at all possible.

Seniors make up 40% of the homeless population right now, so they're gonna feel it.

Yeah, for anybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you also for your service and sharing.

Uh I do have coffee with the supervisor every other month, and so my two appointees typically come and fill us in on what's been going on at the AAA commission.

Um, one of the things I'm curious about in terms of, uh, do you need a quorum?

Are you having trouble getting quorum if you have 11 members out of 21?

The forum is just the over half of whatever our number happens to be at that particular point in time.

Oh, so over half of 11.

Okay.

That's good to know.

Um, in terms of like what you're seeing, because you you volunteer with Meals on Wheels, and I've visited the senior centers a number of times when it comes to um the contracts that the county has to provide um meals that's a lot of these centers.

Are you seeing an increase in need or has it been fairly stable?

I think it might be going up a bit.

I mean, I know like I also volunteer with Mercy Brownbag and I see less food being distributed.

So there's less available.

So in any case, you know, the need would have gone up because um okay that's good to know because we just got a contract uh approved for Mercy Brown bag yeah yeah it's been kind of hard lately because we have less to give to people off the truck so yeah I mean I don't know if the need has gone up with the what's available to fill the deed feel like it's gone down really good to know thank you again for your hard work are there any public comments on the advisory commission on aging update thank you very much.

Let's go to the next informational item which is the disaster preparedness and emergency management updates.

We'd like to call Lorena Barsenhout and Pamela Powell executive program coordinator to the podium.

Good afternoon Supervisor TAM Supervisor Bass as mentioned I'm Pamela Powell the executive program coordinator for the Alameda County Social Service Agency and I'm responsible for managing the Office of Public Affairs it's a pleasure to be here today as I'm joined by Larna Fircinio Senior Management Analyst who oversees our disaster preparedness and emergency management team or DEPEM we appreciate the opportunity to share how we're strengthening emergency preparedness across our agency next slide so today we'll share how our DPEM team ensures we're ready to protect those essential services when it matters most our accomplishments over the past year how communication and partnerships are critical in carrying out the team's mission and what the team and the agency looks forward to in 2026 and with that I'll hand it over to Larnay.

Thank you Pamela good afternoon Supervisor TAM Supervisor Fortunado Director Ford Community Members and staff as mentioned I'm Lorena Briceño I'm the manager for the disaster preparedness and emergency management team with the Alameda County Social Services Agency the Office of Public Affairs let me take a moment to introduce my team member Michael Osborne disaster preparedness and emergency coordinator who is sitting in the room absent is Berenice Rodriguez.

She was not able to attend in person without but she is virtually supporting without their dedication and support to the work that is being showcased today it would not be possible.

The disaster preparedness and emergency management program also known as DPEM helps ensure our agency stands ready when emergencies strike.

Effective January 2025 DPEM strategically aligned under the Office of Public Affairs this is important because emergency response without coordinated communication creates confusion and communication without operational grounding creates risk.

This structure integrates crisis communication with operational response strengthens executive situational awareness aligns preparedness with policy leadership and reinforces accountability and transparency it ensures that when we lead we speak in one voice informed coordinated and credible as an agency we are responsible for mass care and shelter operations during emergencies DPEM leads these operations at the county's Office of Emergency Services coordinating sheltering food child care family reunification and wraparound services needed to secure these essential supports we support residents in unincorporated Alameda County aid cities when they have exhausted their local resources ensuring residents across Alameda County receive coordinated and equitable assistance.

We prepare our agency to respond quickly and effectively connecting people to the support they need through planning partnerships and teamwork.

Our work is guided by the agency's core values.

Dignity.

Ensuring every resident is treated with respect vulnerable during vulnerable moments.

Compassion, recognizing the human impact of disaster, integrity, operating transparently and responsibly.

Shared purpose, collaborating across jurisdictions and sectors, and finally accountability, delivering measurable outcomes.

Preparedness is how we uphold those values under pressure.

This following slide illustrates that this work is powered by a dedicated team with strong executive leadership.

Our expertise ensures when disaster strike, our agency delivers with dignity, compassion, integrity, shared purpose, and accountability.

Preparedness is not abstract.

It is carried out by people committed to public service.

DPEM is a small but mighty team.

We play a critical role in supporting our agency and community during times of disaster and emergencies.

What do we do?

You should ask yourselves.

Our program operates across the full emergency management lifecycle.

Mitigation and preparedness guide are year-round planning and risk reduction efforts.

We prepare staff through training and exercises.

When an emergency occurs, we shift into response, activating coordinating structures.

Recovery allows us to stabilize services and operations, evaluate performance, and apply lessons learned.

Preparedness never pauses.

It means if a wildfire displaces a family, we are ready.

If a power outage impacts medically fragile residents, we are ready.

When families are displaced, we coordinate where they sleep.

When food access is disrupted, we coordinate food distribution.

When children are separated from caregivers, we are there to help loved ones reunite and find one another.

How do we do this work?

Preparedness is operationalized through a structured system.

We maintain an annual preparedness calendar, aligned with seasonal hazards and statewide campaigns.

I'll uplift a few.

We write, update plans, trainings, and exercises.

Yearly, we coordinate the National Preparedness Month in September and the Great California Shakeout drill in October.

In January of 2025, the county's Disaster Council formally adopted the Mass Care and Shelter Plan Annex to the county's emergency operations plan, strengthening operational clarity and accountability.

Operationally, we supported Cooling and Warming Center coordination, activated our continuity of operations plan during the 2025 federal shutdown, and supported the Oakland Local Assistance Center in January of 2026 in response to the Broadway apartment complex fires, where we supported the assistance of 80 residents.

Now I'll speak a little bit about additional accomplishments that we've had throughout the year.

Again, preparedness begins internally.

In the next slide, you'll see a few of the initiatives will uplift, and I want to say that I'm proud to say that 96% of our agency staff have completed a shelter's fundamental training, reinforcing their disaster service worker responsibilities.

We coordinated stop the bleed training for our department liaisons, many of which oversee their facilities.

This month we launched the shelter manager training in partnership with the American Red Cross to strengthen leadership capacity.

Our updated continuity of operations plan now integrates cybersecurity protection safeguarding service continuity.

This was achieved with the valuable assistance from our county ITD.

These protocols align with and reinforce the countywide cybersecurity policy.

We tested systems through countywide tabletop and emergency operations exercises.

We released a new earthquake safety flyer to empower the public with accessible guidance.

And we developed an integrated crisis response guide and toolkit currently under review by our agency executive team.

This was done in collaboration with our contractor and all the staff of the Office of Public Affairs.

Preparedness is not reactive, it is disciplined, continuous improvement.

Every training strengthens competence.

Every exercise strengthens coordination, and every update strengthens continuity.

Communication equals empowerment.

Preparedness without communication fails.

Communication without preparedness misleads.

Clear communication reflects integrity and accountability.

We socialized our mass care and shelter plan across the agency to clarify roles and expectations.

We issue timely bulletins to staff and the public.

We provide situational awareness briefings to leadership to support informed decision making.

We lead the agency's Collab Lab Disaster and Emergencies Communication Workgroup.

A major accomplishment in 2025 was our DPEM Roadshow.

We delivered 33 presentations across six agency sites, reaching staff and strengthening agency-wide preparedness.

In May, we also partnered with our Department of Adult and Aging Services, who is here today for older adults month, participating in Flip the Script on Aging events and supporting outreach at the Alameda County Community Food Bank, extending preparedness messaging into the community.

Through community outreach, we reinforced preparedness messaging grounded in dignity and compassion.

Communication builds and preserves public trust.

Trust is built before a disaster, not during one.

Partnerships equal synergy.

Collaboration fuels impact.

Partnerships translate into planning outcomes.

During the 2025 federal shutdown, coordinated efforts with our operations workforce and benefits administration department, the Alameda County Community Food Bank resulted in more than 119,000 pounds of food distributed, supported over 4,000 households and more than 13,700 individuals.

DPEM serves on the Alameda County Volunteer Organization, Active and Disasters Executive Committee, the County's Access and Functional Needs Advisory Committee.

We are active members of the Alameda County Emergency Managers Association, and we chair the Mass Care and Shelter Work Group with the Managers Association.

At the Office of Emergency Services, we coordinate closely with county and state partners to ensure unified response.

Shared Purpose is how resilience becomes real.

Every action and every partnership counts.

We lead with intention to advance preparedness and we strive to turn readiness into lasting part progress.

The goals for 2026 and beyond, the risk of our environments are evolving.

Climate events are intensifying, fiber risks are increasing, infrastructure disruptions are more complex.

Looking ahead, we are focused on institutionalizing preparedness.

We will continue to expand disaster service worker readiness and shelter leadership capacity.

We will enhance crisis communication systems to protect our public trust.

We will deepen coordination with cities to ensure seamless support when local resources are exceeded.

Our commitment remains grounded in our core values of dignity, compassion, integrity, shared purpose, and accountability.

Preparedness is invisible when it works.

It requires sustained leadership and investment.

Today, we respectfully ask your continued prioritization of emergency preparedness and county policy and budget decisions, sustained funding for mass care and shelter readiness to support unincorporated communities, and we ask for your partnership in amplifying preparedness messaging across your districts.

Investments today protect sustainability tomorrow.

With that said, I'd like to invite you to stay informed as it's one of the most important steps of preparedness.

Please visit our website and use our contact information as a direct line to our team.

We are here as a resource, whether for planning, partnership, or emergency coordination.

Together, we ensure Alameda County Social Services Agency remain a safety net, a way forward before, during, and after emergencies.

Thank you, and I welcome questions.

Thank you very much.

It's really good to know that we have a plan, coordinated, and a concerted effort, even with man-made disasters like the shutdown that we experience.

Supervisor Fortunatas, questions, comments.

Yes, thank you.

This is terrific.

I am just really heartened to hear how comprehensive the work is.

And yeah, it's it's really great to see this uh very holistic approach to emergencies.

Um, you know, as I represent the county on the East Bay Coalition of Governments on wildfire issues, this work is really critical.

So it's great to have an overview.

Um I do have a few questions in terms of the plans that you mentioned, the agency continuity of operations plan, mass care and shelter plan, those two in particular.

Um, are those plans that come to the board for our information, or is that something I could meet with you about just to have a better understanding of what those are?

They do go to the board and they go to the board on behalf of the office of emergency services, so that's done through our sheriff.

So our master and shelter plan is an annex to the overall county emergency operations plan, and it is also taken on by the disaster council, and our director shares that information with our county administrator, share that over to the board of supervisors.

Okay, and then the agency continuity of operations plan.

I guess that's within social services, correct?

So I could learn more about that from you, Director Ford.

Yes, and we're updating the current plan, it should be completed within the next couple of weeks.

Yeah, we have our updated continuity of operations.

Um, it's been reviewed, it's been a collaborative effort between our departments as an agency, and right now it's under review by our executive team for review and signature.

Once it's signed up, we will be presenting it and it is an internal document so that we preserve our continuity of operations during any disaster.

Okay, great.

And all of this really dovetails with um some of the work that the board recently did around immigration enforcement response plans.

So I know the administrator will come to our ACT committee next week with an update and status report.

Um, but this is all sort of what we can, I think build off of it's another type of man-made emergency where we have to ensure people have the information they need, can access services, we can keep families together, etc.

So, um, is this um effort sort of coalescing with some of those conversations with the administrator around how to potentially respond if there is an immigration enforcement surge?

We have to focus in particular.

Um is that something you would like to see if there's a place?

Um, possibly.

I mean, I think the the idea is to sort of build off of our emergency operations plans, um, so that we're not starting from scratch but sort of building off of what exists.

Can we can work in terms of to identify if there's some alignment and how we can align and then bring back through Director Ford back to this committee?

Actually, Lorena was at our first know your rights um workshop that was the most well attended that you and I co-hosted.

Yeah, and she brought um a number of people together to make sure that we had language access to maybe I can also follow up offline.

Um then you mentioned that uh our office of emergency services is um run by the sheriff in times of crisis and emergencies.

I'm just curious how um the sheriff interfaces with this effort.

Like are there regular meetings?

Um, I assume there's just there's very clear protocols in terms of how to work together if a crisis happens.

Yes, we are um we do meet on a regular basis with our Office of Emergencies Managers.

We also, under the Emergency Managers Association, that's where cities, various jurisdiction special districts, along with our Office of Emergency Services, they come together and we exchange information during an activation or in preparations where we're anticipating there might be an activation.

We do have coordination calls which involve the Office of Emergency Services and all the branches, Mass Trans Shelter is one of the branches that are there at the Office of Emergency to support.

So an example was when we had the Super Bowl, there were, you know, if there was any fear or anything or any indication that there might be some need for the um our emergency to be activated, our emergency services office, we were all called together and we were coordinating and ready to assist and support how the different branches would come into play.

And then example also was with the um Broadway fires, the city of Loceland was able to manage that emergency up front, but then at the end they opened up the access center, the local assistance center, in which we came in as an agency and provided wraparound services for the individual.

So there is a strong coordination and communication effort as it relates to any type of incident.

Right.

And that's great to hear in terms of the Broadway fire in Oakland.

My final question.

So I am curious if the county is working on any resilience hubs in our unincorporated areas.

When I was in Oakland, we started an effort to convert Lincoln Rec Center as it's renovated and expanded into a resilience hub.

And so I'm curious if that effort is taking place here at the county as well.

What we have done in terms of sheltering is we work very closely with our American Red Cross partners, and we've determined locations across unincorporated areas that would serve as hubs in the event of sheltering.

One of them is our reach center.

We also have relationships with our cities that if there's a need, we can open up and utilize some of our community colleges or some of our high schools to uplift and stand shelters in the need.

Okay.

I know that Ava Community Energy has a program to support resilience centers and hubs.

And I believe California Forward does as well.

And so if we're in a place where we want to upgrade and use solar instead of the electric grid, which could go down, for example, those might be some things to look forward to, just to have more resources over the long run.

Definitely we'll take that into account.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Once again, appreciate your leadership, especially during some of these unusual disasters and emergencies.

I wanted to just understand a little bit more about the partnerships and the synergy because I know two years ago we were at the Office of Emergency Services, all the department heads were there and board was there to go through a drill on disaster preparedness.

And then there's like basically steps that are taken in terms of where the information comes from and who disseminates the information.

But when it comes to like you talked about the Broadway fire, or you know, we had a fire over down the street on Madison and 9th.

When when does your office get involved and help out?

Is it on an as needed basis based on calls from the local agencies?

Well, we do we maintain a posture of monitoring.

So staff is continuously monitoring in conversation with our Office of Emergency Services.

And the way the jurisdictions work is that at the local level, the cities are responsible for their jurisdictions in the event that they're not able that they've exceeded all their resources.

They reach out and that happens through our Office of Emergency Services.

Then our Office of Emergency Services is the one that contacts the various branches to um depending on what the need is.

And most of the time, something always revolves around mass care and shelter which is shelter food child care or family reunification services so we're looped in right away into those conversations and we are on standby to see how we can support and assist and we keep our directors director forward advised of what potential impacts might come up come about to the agency and what we might need to be called upon to respond to so it's basically a conversation that's had and we're at the directive of the Office of Emergency Services and there are hub for filtering the communications down to the respective agencies who manage the respective branches that would be involved in the response thank you at what point for example does the Red Cross get uh called into some of the uh relief efforts Red Cross is a two-way street a lot of the times because um Red Cross directly supports the cities and we're for um Alameda County for unincorporated areas if it's a city emergency Red Cross gets contacted by the city's emergency operations center and then from there depending on the magnitude the Red Cross is kind of assessing if they might also need involvement from the county and in that case our representatives from the Red Cross are usually contacting staff Michael Osborne saying do you know about this what's going on and then we it initiates the whole response right what does our Office of Emergency Services what do they know where are we with resources what's the need and then it just kind of trickles the communication efforts moving forward and that's where it starts or other times it could start at the county level and then we're reaching out to Red Cross saying that we might need their support in terms of opening up a shelter and providing any services in case management.

Okay.

What is it you think you need from the board besides continued support and funding for the program that's it's the latter funding and amplifying awareness and your participation when we have exercises and drills.

Thank you very much very helpful thank you are there any public comments on VPEM or disaster preparedness comments appreciate it.

Thank you Lorena and Pamela um next Raman we'll give an annual update on refugee resettlement agencies and support services and directors for this opportunity to provide updates related to resettlement agencies and also supportive services for refugees.

Next slide please today we will cover the following the background of refugee resettlement agencies summary of emergency reception and placement funds updates and currently available federal funding for resettlement a brief update and contract extension to implement refugee uh housing support program and refugee support services and updates reception and placement services was poor part of the US refugee reception resettlement for the first 30 to nine days of their arrivals reception and placement was until January of the 2025 coordinated by US department of state bureau of population refugee and uh immigration PRM.

The goals were meeting the Fugees's basic needs of an arrival, supporting transition to self-sufficiency, and promoting early community integration.

Key services by resettlement agencies were airport reception and housing, such as safe furnished housing, utilities, household items, basic needs such as food, clothing, initial financial assistance, documentation and enrollment such as social security numbers, benefits, schools, health cares, employment orientations such as job readiness, referral planning, cultural orientation such as US laws, norms, financial literacy, and transportation.

Additional support in case management such as individualized service plans, progress monitoring and resources connections.

On January 20th of 2025, federal administration signed executive order re-evaluating and realigning United States foreign aid, which impose a 30-day pause on most of US foreign development assistance programs.

The order directed federal agencies to assist whether existing programs should continue, be modified, or be terminated.

As part of this directive, all new obligations and many ongoing disbursements of foreign aid were suspended.

Four days later, on January 24th of 2025, the US Department of State Bureau of Population Refugee and Migration, PRM, issued formal guidance to the network of resettlement agencies that implement federal refugee programs.

This memorandum stated that the resettlement grants funding was immediately suspended, pending the outcome of the broader foreign assistance review.

As a result, resettlement agencies were inspected to stop work, and not incur new costs on the existing federal awards.

Although the executive order and subsequent state departments communications did not clearly single out refugee resettlement funding agencies administering reception and placement and related grants that funds dedicated to assisting refugees who have already arrived in the United States, were included in the broad funding pause.

This action prevented resettlement agencies from dispersing federal dollars or providing services funded under those agreements, including housing, support services, case management, employment assistance, etc.

The combination effect of these measures was twofold.

Not only was the US refugees admission program suspended, halting new refugee travel to the United States, but the funding that enables resettlement agencies to support refugees already in the country was also frozen.

On February 4th of 2025, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved the three-month contract with three resettlement agencies to provide emergency reception and placement services in Alpeda County.

These resettlement agencies were international risk committee of Oakland.

Jewish family and community services of East Bay, and Jewish family services of Silicon Valley.

The total contract amount was 876,050.

These services were established to support the immediate needs of newly arrived refugees and other eligible population.

Contract services, including housing, transportation, employment services, and case management assistance with the term of February 1st of 2025 till April 30th of 2025.

Emergency reception and placement funds were used to address immediate stabilization needing those needs during the initial resettlement period of the 30 to 19 days.

The fund supported the following critical services areas.

Jewish familiar community services, east base 56.3% of their allocated funds.

This slide shows breakdown of individuals served by boss district and resettlement agencies.

Provided population specific funding to allow services providers to continue supporting newcomers.

IRCO CLANDES, one of those 21 resettlement agencies in California approved to participate in the peer program for fiscal federal fiscal year 2026 and is projected to assist with the initial resettlement of approximately 175 refugee cases.

On July 8th of 2025, Board of Supervisors approved an amendment to the emergency reception and placement services contracts to include administration of refugee housing support program, RHSP, with the allocation of 787,999.

Refugee housing support program developed by the California Department of Social Services, helps eligible population transition to long-term housing.

RHSP is funded through federal refugee support services allocation, and it helps with security deposits, rental cost, and utility for up to 12 months.

Eligible population includes individuals whose or our eligibility begins after October 1st of 2024, and of course, who reside in Alameda County, provided that they fall into the eligible categories such as refugees, special immigrant visa holders, asylumes, Cuban and Haitian entrants, victims of trafficking if they are certified by Department of Human Health and Human Services.

Also the Afghan and Ukrainian parolees.

One was ACED, and that stands for the Afghan Support and Integration Program, and another one was the housing assistant for Ukrainian program.

And now clients who did not receive any support from those programs will be eligible to receive refugee housing support program.

From October 2025 to January 26, refugee housing support program served 61 clients across five districts.

And they utilized 119,706.

The refugee support services program includes employment services, vocational English as a second language, social adjustment and social integration services, services for senior or older refugees, trafficking and crime victims assistance program and refugee housing support program or HSP asylum.

Due to the needs of refugee community in Alameda County, Social Services Agency currently has a couple of refugee support services related contracts in place.

The first one is for core services, the employment services, whistle or the vocational English as a second language, and social adjustment.

The current providers are low family community development with their partners, international rescue committee, refugee and immigration forum, the Burma Refugee Families and Newcomers, Lenny College, East Bay Refugee and Immigration Forum.

La Familia also goes by the Alliance for Community, the Wellness Name, their partners are International Rescue Committee, Burma Refugee Family and Newcomers, Hayward, Adult School, Fremont, Adult and Continuing Education.

The total funding is from state and federal sources, and it's 14 million 15,000 from October 2021 till September of this year, and currently new requests for proposal RFP is in progress.

The other contract is social services integration.

Provider is refugee and immigrant translation, that they are helping refugees and immigrants build connections, adapt to US culture, and access community resources for successful integration.

The contract value is 1,322,000.

And the duration is from August 20 of 21 till August of 2026.

And the new RFP is also in progress for this contract.

And then we have the trafficking and crime victims assistance program or TC VAT.

Provider is international risk committee, Oakland.

And they provide emergency assistance case management and support services to refugees and immigrants for victims of trafficking or other serious crimes.

Funding is state and federal from federal sources, and the current contract value is 1,216,000 from October of 2025, then September of 2028.

Any questions?

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Thank you.

On slide 15, the refugee support services updates.

You know, for these service providers.

You know, what impact they feel they're having in terms of both reaching refugees who are able to access these services and the service provision as well as the outcomes.

You know, it's very important work in terms of transitioning people into our community, and is there any information on the outcomes?

Well, they are meeting their goals.

Some cases, they are exceeding their goals and reaching the population.

Of course, the number of clients are sharply declining, and that's as you know, based on a couple of factors, the federal policies, and uh ban and travel from more than 50 countries.

All these are affecting the number of clients which will benefit from that.

And when we look to the number of clients, the new arrivals to the county, it was sharply decreased.

And uh March of March of 25, the new arrivals for the for the state of California were 665, and it's sharply uh decreased in April to 267.

Wow.

For the January of 2026, 105.

So looking to the decreased number of clients, they're more focusing on the quality of the services they're providing.

Of course, sometimes it's very difficult when we talk about self-sufficiency, which is a goal for these programs, it's very difficult.

Even for other residents of this county, a couple of factors are affecting that's the entry level of jobs with the minimum wages, and also high uh cost of living.

That's one of the reasons some of our clients who initially decided to leave the county or if we can give the other counties where the housing or somehow affordable.

Thank you for that.

It's uh obviously a very fluid and dynamic situation under this administration, so it seems important to track how things are changing and the challenges folks are facing.

One final question, given that uh some of this money, a significant portion of this money is from the federal government.

Do we foresee funding stream changing?

Of course.

Uh the first of all, related to eligibility, see that, for instance, for refugee cash assistance.

In the past, the duration of assistance was eight months.

It was increased to 12 months in the previous administration, and now it's four months of cash assistance, so this is a very short period for these clients to find jobs, and also to become self-sufficiency.

So they are too much pressure.

And then they are utilizing complex formulas, which is counting the number of clients, the new arrivals and clients at the program.

So the numbers are low, the budget is also lower.

Right, okay, this seems like it requires some attention, maybe some attention from as we're looking at public benefits as well, um, how this community is being impacted given the decreasing services that are happening.

Thank you.

Thank you for that information.

Uh I distinctly remember being on this committee when we had to uh deal with 300 families that were stranded and having to approve the 876,000.

It's just curious that at the end of the day, only 38% of it was used up.

Was it because um uh of the the way the funding worked or the need change?

Because like the Jewish family services of Silicon Valley used up all of their 171,800 requests, but that was also shared with Santa Clara County because we were I think focused on the residents that were coming into Alameda County right and then Santa Clara had their own separate um services uh we were supporting three resettlement agencies uh IRC Oakland was the main organization house house in Alameda County and two other resettlement agencies from Contra Costa and Silicon Valley were also housing their clients in Alameda County and there were a couple of reasons one because of their the clients' relationship and preference if they had the family members or friends here they wanted to be resettled here or in most of these cases supported by their families for the initial housing accommodation at that time if you uh remember the number they presented were the number of new arrivals within that 90 days in Alameda County and uh so the allocation of funding was based on the numbers they presented there was also mentioned that if they receive any federal money then it will be sort of a loan and they will pay back the county one of the reasons why uh IOC spent less of the money was because they received some funding from the state and we saved the county uh general funds that will be the and then in the similar situation the other two organizations one of them I believe it's since it's house outside of Alameda County we don't have too much information regarding how they serve their clients but uh they expended the entire amount of the hundred percent of the based on the numbers they had and I think part of that was and that's my understanding I don't have any data on that that they also because of banan new arrivals and also work stoppage they laid off a couple of their staff members as well so they were uh focusing on helping these clients as much as possible but they did not receive any federal funding for that area.

Okay thank you that's helpful um I was just looking at the um the breakdown in the number of clients that were served by our agency uh by supervisorial districts uh when it came to providing services to mainly a lot of the Afghan community district one had the highest but then when it came to serving over all the immigrant communities district two and district three had the highest is it because of the the immigration um population is more geared toward the Afghan community in district one most of the location the housing costs and also relationship with the other family members and friends was a factor so uh majority of them are using new arrivals despite of Fremont being called the little call with the larger concentration of Afghan population uh the housing cost is higher.

So does housing costs and also uh I being closer to other relatives and friends in this difficult time is one of the factors that we have.

Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Appreciate the progress that we made and our ability to actually move things that quickly back then.

So thank you.

Are there any public comments on item three?

No, there are no public comments.

Thank you.

I bring it to item four.

Jean Roses, I think wants to speak.

They keep raising their hand and not raising your hand.

This is for item three.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry, this is Jean Moses, and I'm not used to using team.

Thank you for the uh the really excellent presentations and for the services that are being provided.

I would like to ask a question of um Mr.

Zamani.

And with regard to the decline in um clients, do you see that some of that is coming from people who do not want to come forth because they risk being identified by federal agents?

Do you think do you think some of the decline is just from people hiding?

Excuse me, Jane.

Please finish all your public comments so that you can use up your timer and then I um I can give up the rest of my time.

I don't I don't need to.

Thank you.

For the public charge as well, there is a lot of uh rumors and certainty.

But uh when it comes to policies and procedures, the development and social services agency, they are very clear that the information which is provided to the programs are not shared by with any other organizations, so that I know, but uh how much it's affecting the sphere factor is affecting utilization.

Uh I don't know.

Thank you.

Other public comments.

Okay.

Now we'll move to item four.

Okay, um, the last presentation is um an update about the Department of Children and Family Services status update number five on the findings of the state auditors report to the joint committee on legislative audits and machelle love, assistant agency director for children and family services.

Good afternoon supervisors Tam and Fortinata Ballas.

We're here today for um an update on where we are with the status of the audit.

So the agenda will give an update on the audit implementation uh task force um review of the 2024 108 audit report timeline.

Progress on addressing recommendations specifically, we'll be looking at the diverse ideas work group, child welfare worker caseloads, and hiring and recruitment efforts, department highlights and opportunities, next steps, and um the additional items that are in the appendix for you all.

So the task force meeting, the next one is this Friday.

So we will be presenting there, but in terms of our audit report timeline, the next thing on the timeline is the six month progress to progress stoop.

And it'll be due March 23rd.

So we will give an update of what we will be presenting at the board meeting in March so that you guys have all that information.

So progress on addressing timelines.

Recommendation one is in progress, and we are hoping we'll reach some completion by April 2026.

Recommendation two, we anticipate will be in progress throughout the entire audit timeline.

Recommendation three is in progress, same.

We expect that to be completed in October.

Recommendation four, survey staff to identify impediments.

That process is a years long process.

So we anticipate it to be included as part of this audit, but to go on for the next couple of years as we continue to survey staff and get their feedback.

Recommendation five, hire additional bachelor's level child welfare workers for the emergency response program that is also in progress.

Recommendation number six has been successfully implemented.

Recommendation seven has been successfully implemented.

Recommendation eight is in progress.

You all actually will go to your board hopefully by the end of March.

Recommendation nine, the location and notifying all relatives within 30 days of removal has been successfully implemented.

Recommendation number 10 update system improvement plan to include provisions for sibling engagement when siblings are not placed together.

That has been successfully implemented.

Recommendation 11 develop policies and procedures to track and minimize transitional shelter care facility overstays has been successfully implemented.

Recommendation 12, I'm sorry.

Do you mind slowing down?

I will.

I'm sorry, trying to be mindful of time.

I know.

It's important work, and I want to make sure I can listen and think at the same time.

So we'll do slowing down a bit.

Thank you.

Okay, so recommendation number 12.

That's the implement policies and procedures that go along with the transitional shelter care facility, and that we anticipate um we have to have the facility open before we complete those last of those measures.

Recommendation 13 develop and document a process to track core and continuing training.

The process has been developed, so we consider that successfully implemented.

Recommendation 14, establish a process to hold supervisors and workers accountable for completing training hours.

That is in progress.

Recommendation 15, ensure all contracts include RBA measures specifically regarding timeliness.

We anticipate that being concluded at the end of March of this year.

So for recommendation number one, to ensure that it timely initiates and completes all investigations of all immediate and non-immediate referrals, the department should by January 2026 ensure that supervisors review and approve investigation report in a timely manner to ensure that they agree with the disposition.

They also received additional training and instruction on referrals that need modification to be closed.

So we wanted to make sure that they were adequately using all parts of CWS CMS so we could see where cases were.

They'll get an annual refresher training for that.

We, in April 2024, we actually hired a retired innuitant to assist with case closures, and we've hired a former child welfare supervisor to assist with closing cases.

Collectively, they do about 30 cases a week.

We are in the process of a meet and confer with PACE, which is the Child Welfare Supervisors Union regarding time frames for case closures.

That started in March of this year, and that process is ongoing.

Recommendations two and three have to do with timely initiation and completing of referrals.

We should by January 26th periodically review the status of all referrals.

Actually, to make sure I don't go too fast, I'm not going to read all of that because it's going to seem like a lot.

So I'll just focus on what's in progress.

So dedicated time was implemented in July 2025, and our child welfare workers are closing about 200 referrals a month.

We are still using our case assistant program, and that is former child welfare workers, a retired child welfare worker from another county, clerical staff that can assist with some of the paperwork, but we're using them to help set up the investigation narratives for child welfare workers to help them with their timeliness.

To set up an investigation takes about 45 minutes.

So now when workers are done with their investigation, they can go right in and implement all the information without having to worry about setting up the narrative.

The diverse ideas work group has been meeting.

They have started meeting monthly, and they are addressing all the issues that staff, blind staff, are seeing as pain points and looking for resolutions.

Safe measures utilization, as I mentioned earlier, retrained supervisors in September of 2025, and the program managers are also using safe measures for their staff and offering support as needed.

When I looked this morning, it looks like there's about 131 supervisors that are regularly using safe measures.

So the diverse ideas work group.

This group meets monthly.

It's comprised of child welfare workers, child welfare supervisors, program managers, and the division director over the front-end programs.

They are addressing issues identified by all parties.

One recent example is the group identified the timeliness of assignment of referrals simply since we implemented the emergency response referral document.

And that's the document, it's like the beginning of the process that used is used by CWS CMS.

Prior to that, we had used a blue sheet because our county, when CWS was implemented, felt that our paper document actually contained more information than the state computer document.

But the diverse ideas work group created a subgroup that was able to identify where the problem was being generated.

As a solution, they've decided that instead of all the work going to the clerical supervisor and then working its way back to the child welfare supervisor for assignment, they're doing a joint assignment.

So the clerical staff is doing what they need to do while the supervisor goes ahead and assigns the case immediately to avoid any delay in the worker being able to start their work.

Recommendation number four.

I previously mentioned the survey that was conducted.

Upcoming at the end of last year, we did presentations to staff between November 20th and December 8th.

We have additional presentations scheduled to other divisions that begin February 23rd and will continue through March 3rd of this year.

We will also be starting our focus groups.

They're scheduled for March 2nd through 6.

And then we'll take the feedback from both the presentation sessions and the focus groups to synthesize the opportunities for improvement that are existing in the feedback that we are getting from staff.

Okay.

Continuous hiring of bachelor's and master's level staff.

Again, we have filing exam deadlines that are upcoming.

The next one is March 16th, 2026.

We are also working with the California job analysis and job redesign pilot study.

And that's a study to look at how work is divided for child welfare workers in California.

California, the Department of Social Services acknowledged that the work may be too much for one person.

So they have hired Anita Barbie out of the University of Kentucky, Kentucky to look at are there ways that we can split this work?

How much of it really needs to be done by a social worker?

The study is showing positive results, and I've had several meetings with the Dr.

Barvee and her staff level assistant to see how Alameda County can participate, see if that will assist us in what's happening with emergency response.

Okay, the child welfare worker vacancy rate.

I believe Supervisor Fortune out of Bass, you'd asked that we not just include percentages.

So we wanted you to note on this slide we've actually added the staff numbers so that you can see it.

So this just gives an idea of where we were pre-pandemic, and it shows the beginning of our starting to have issues with staffing at the beginning of the pandemic, but it also shows that we are starting to have a significant decline in terms of vacancy levels.

Alright, the child welfare worker one exam.

Do you have an update?

We are down to 12 accepted, and that are currently going through the onboarding instead of 17.

But it does look like for this next exam on March 16th, so far our human resources has received over 140 applications, and there's still two weeks left to file.

So we will update this funnel for our March presentation, but all the work we've done in the last few months with the media and all the stuff on social media, it does seem to be having some positive bearing for us.

There aren't any updates for the Child Welfare Worker 2 exam, but we will have additional information at our March presentation.

So we've participated in the title for e job fair on February 20th.

We've printed recruitment materials that were mailed to 68 community and faith-based organizations.

We've printed recruitment materials that were mailed to eight colleges and universities.

Just to remind them that for hiring and that their students are made aware of the opportunity to come work in Alameda County.

Recommendation number eight.

The language has been drafted, and we're actually trying to finish the board letter.

So to get approval for the MOU to be signed by the three department heads that are in the county for this item.

This item was to update our 2083 MOU.

We'll also be presenting at that time an additional MOU with the regional center.

It has the same things outlined as the 2083 MOU, but we are seeking to find a closer way to work with the regional center to get the needs of our children met.

For recommendation number 10.

This has been successfully implemented, but we um did include our system improvement strategy that went to the board in December.

So our SIP has been updated to include that.

The reason why we continue to have this here is because we want to be able to give updates on our new contract with Victor Community Services about family finding and engagement.

We think that'll also assist in connecting children to their family members.

For recommendation number 12.

Most of the items for the transitional shelter care in terms of policies needing to be written have been conducted.

But the last two elements of this recommendation included discussing those items as part of an ongoing process while we wait for our transitional shelter care facility to be licensed.

We cannot complete those last two elements of having the assessment center board review what is happening in terms of overstays.

Recommendation number 13.

So we do have a pull out slide on this.

Staff completing their training.

So for supervisors, the number of staff that have completed their core training has gone up from the first quarter to the second quarter, with the second quarter showing 27% having successfully completed all of their hours.

For the child welfare workers, we have 37% in the first quarter going to 40.7% in the second quarter.

This data is reviewed over the course of a fiscal year, is how uh CDS reviews it.

And this information is pulled from our uh learning management system totals.

We continue to receive side letters back from the contracts that uh needed to have a timeliness measure.

Those continue to come in on a flow basis, and some of the contract amendments have actually started to be processed to flow to the board for your signature and agreement for the soudit dashboard.

So we've made a lot of adjustments to the audit dashboards that we wanted you to be aware of.

So for slide 25, the dashboard now goes back to July 2019 to present day.

Um the target total has been adjusted to 800.

So the reason for that, we had to look at how many referrals we expect to receive.

Referrals can be open for 30 days, and the 30 day starts, not at the beginning of the month, but when it's actually received.

So we're using an average of a three-month total for every child welfare worker to get the number of 800.

Oh, immediate response referrals.

This is 10 day.

Yes, we're at 82.5% for 10 day totals.

All the dashboards are now going back to December 2019.

The goal, again, should be 90% of completion.

And this measure is based on the number of timely completed first contacts and does not include any first attempts.

So what that means is if I go out to your home to, if I go out to a client's home to see to follow up on an investigation, and let's say I go four times, none of those attempts count.

It only counts when I first make contact with an actual person.

So if you look at the actual attempts, that's about 94%.

So we are going out.

We just need to make contact with the person.

The state understands that, which is why the measure for success isn't 100%, it's 90%.

They understand that we're relying on the community to give us the location of where people are hoping.

You know what I mean?

The school sometimes works, but if we're going directly to the home, the address may not be correct, or somebody may not be home.

So that's why it's not a hundred percent measure.

Next slide.

So the next slide is 10-day response referrals.

We're currently at 35%.

Again, this measure goes back to 2019, so you can see it over time.

Um, our goal right now that we have is 58%, which is what the statewide average is.

We're trying to get to the statewide average and get better.

So this measure is based on the number of timely completed first contacts and does not include attempted.

Again, our attempted number is better, it's like 43.8.

It doesn't count for success, but we wanted you to have that number so that you would understand it's not that we're only going out 34% of the time.

We're going out, we're just not successfully making contact every time.

So the vacancy rate for both bachelor's level and master's level staff.

Here we've also put in the percentages.

Um, but you can see it's like the graph I showed earlier where we were 2019, how we've gone up, and how our graph starts to go back down again.

The next slide is the exact same slide, but instead of percentages, we actually use numbers because it's a little easier to understand.

So right now, today we have 70 vacant child welfare worker positions.

Siblings and foster care, this measure looks at whether or not all or some of siblings placed together.

So sometimes children are not placed with their siblings for a host of reasons.

They could have been placed together at the beginning of time coming into care, and one may have needed a higher level of care, which resulted in them moving placement, or they could have come into care at different times.

As children, as parents sometimes continue to have children that need to be in foster care, they may not go to the same placement.

Right now, all or some of all siblings placed together.

We stand at 75% of the time, they are placed together.

We're a little under the statewide average currently.

The bottom of each measure also gives an explanation of how do we get to these numbers.

So when the community looks, they just don't have to look at the graph and try to figure it out.

In the bottom left-hand corner, it also explains how to what methodology methodology did we use to get the number that they are seeing.

This graph is always going to be a little, I've been trying to think of a good word to use it all morning.

For lack of a better word, it's always going to be a little wonky.

Our medical and dental information is put in by our health and education passport unit, and they take information they receive from court rewards, which are done every six months.

So this dashboard and the dashboard for medical, they will always be overriding the data that you see as it gets updated.

Okay.

All right, last um presentation.

I'm knocking us long at you.

You asked for information about child welfare worker caseloads.

So we wanted to give you those so that you have an idea of the system overall.

For emergency response, the way we set these slides up is the top blue measure, the top blue squiggly represents the total number of cases per month.

The orange represents the number of staff that were available.

So for emergency response, when this was pulled, 296 cases came in, and we had 31 workers available to um to handle them.

That came to um for immediate 10.

And if you look at cases open longer than 30 days, some of them had 25.9.

So they got 10 new referrals in the month, but some of them had other ongoing cases that were continuing for 25.

When you look at dependency investigations, we have 17 workers in dependency investigations.

For the month that we pulled this data, we received 154 cases.

Dependency investigations is a little different.

Their cases are counted in two ways.

The new cases they get every month, and any ongoing cases they may have.

Dependency investigations is the beginning of our court system.

So these cases may be going to trial, or their jurisdictional hearing may be out past the month.

Those ongoing cases, they have a different case than them.

But the average, they're basically nine cases that they're currently assigned.

For family reunification, we have 19 workers.

There's a total of 245 cases in the program.

For family maintenance, this includes both our informal and formal family maintenance program.

The total number of cases in the program was 126.

We have 10 workers, and they have 13 cases currently assigned to them.

All of those numbers are below the most recent um March 2025 agreement for caseload guidelines.

For permanent youth connections, this is the program where children, their parents are no longer in the process of trying to reunify with them, and our focus is solely on the child.

We are no longer paying for services for the parent.

We have 421 total cases in the program, 25 actual workers, and their um the number of assigned cases per worker as an average is for adoptions.

We have 118 total cases in the program, five workers, and they have 24 cases assigned to them.

Our next reunification breakfast will be on April 22nd of this year.

And next steps.

On the public website.

We have a scheduled meeting where I have a scheduled meeting with Cal State East Bay University about some discussions that were had with them about a grade or funnel of their uh students to our agency.

We actually hire a high number of eSpace students.

Um, our six-month response will be submitted on March 23rd.

Our 12-month response is due September 23rd, and we have additional presentations scheduled to your board, with the next being the March presentation to your full board.

Um, I do want to think there were some other things I want to include.

Some next steps that have arisen since the presentation was submitted.

We'll be having an on site meeting with CDSS sometime in the next few weeks, and we'll let you know the outcome of that at definitely our March presentation, but you may also hear about it in your one-on-ones with Andrea.

Um, and then because I haven't put in any of the other presentations, I do want to take a moment to thank the staff of the Department of Children and Family Services from our line staff to our executive team who have through a lot of intense scrutiny, a lot of it sometimes directed at the quality of their work, have shown up every day with full hearts ready to serve the community of Alameda County, and they have pivoted well.

They have really taken to heart um the findings of the audit and have made every effort to complete those as successfully as they can.

And so, with all that, I want to say thank you to all of them for the work that they continue to do for us to be successful.

That's it.

Thank you very much for responding to a lot of the questions we brought up at the last meeting, including uh including like 2019 and the timeline and the audits.

Let me start with supervisor fortunately fast.

I have a few questions.

Thank you, Miss Love.

And um, I want to piggyback on your gratitude to our staff.

This is obviously incredibly important work for our community for youth, children and families, and it's only possible with staff who are well trained and committed and also have the support they need in terms of full staffing, training and budgets to really carry out the work.

So thank you to the folks who do this work day in day out because it is hard and it's also very important.

Um, I did want to also um recognize and appreciate um adding the information to the dashboard, going back to I believe it was 2016 for the staffing levels and then going back to 2019 for some of the other metrics.

It's it's good to see that there's um even more information in terms of a longer period of time, some numbers in addition to percentages, and then even more metrics that are on that public dashboard so that we have an opportunity to really assess our progress.

Um, I think my main question is to really understand um some of the outcomes, the positive outcomes that we are achieving.

Um, a lot of the audit and a lot of this information is really focused on timeliness.

Um, and that's obviously a really important metric, so that especially if there is something that needs to be addressed, it's it's being addressed in a very timely way.

Um, I am interested in hearing a little bit more about some of the uh recommendations that we've completed in terms of the outcomes or sort of the quote-unquote quality of the work.

So, for example, recommendation seven.

Um, so we've completed ensuring documentation of timely services for foster youth, and you know, some of the caseload is going down, for example.

Really great to see that progress, and at the same time, um, if you could explain to me how you're also looking at um, you know, the assessments being accurate, for example, like how do we get at the outcomes or you know, for lack of a better word, the quality of those um timely closures.

So, for number seven, it focused primarily on documentation, and so we have chosen to pursue this in two ways.

One, we've updated what should be in your documentation.

So everyone is clear.

I think when we had less staff, the focus was on see your kids, make sure that documentation was in there because you have to triage when you have a lot of work and fewer people.

We've gone back to messaging to staff, you should be documenting everything that is in your case.

So there's two ways we're doing that.

One, we're doing it through contact notes.

And some supervisors and managers are randomly pulling that information.

But because we have other stakeholders who are interested in how we were actually fulfilling this audit requirement, we've also modified our court report template.

And so all the questions the auditor had about timeliness of a referral for therapy, how often the kid is going, how successful it's being, all the medical and dental, where they're going.

If they're refusing to go, because that is part of our issue, is some kids are just like, I'm not going to the dentist, or we lose track with teenagers who feel like they have more choice about whether or not they go to the doctor.

We have added all of that information in our court report template.

So what it does is every time a court report is done, the other stakeholders who had questions and who are privy to that information, the children's attorneys, the parents' attorneys, the judges themselves who have asked for meetings and had questions about it, they can also see that it's being done.

So it isn't just that we're saying, hey, go out and do it, and we're counting it as done.

We place the informations in place where there are other stakeholders outside of our agencies who can regularly view this information.

So the court has already started to see this new information present in the templates.

They understand why we've included it.

Um so we have other eyes, because you know, everything in child welfare is confidential, but we have other eyes who are privy to this confidential information, also holding us accountable for it being done.

Thank you.

That's helpful to hear.

And then in a similar vein, um, recommendation number nine, identify, locate, and notify all relatives within 30 days of removal.

That is complete.

Um, I am curious if there's also information on whether placements are increasing because of that family finding.

That I can look at and try to pull and see if it's changed, whether or not it's made a difference in family finding.

To be fair, we are first notified of all the relatives available at our child and family team meetings when children are first removed.

That is a moment of crisis where the whole family typically coalesces around what can we do to solve this issue.

What this does is for the children who don't necessarily have an active village of family and extended family around them, it notifies them like, hey, this kid coming in the care.

You often hear the worst case scenario, a child's niece, like my niece can be in care, maybe I didn't know.

This makes sure that relatives who may not immediately be involved with the family are notified.

Hey, your niece or nephew or cousin is in care and you may want to take an interest.

So it's more for that smaller group of kids to let them know your family member has been involved in our system.

But in terms we get the most hits honestly from relatives from that child and family team meeting where we encourage the family and by everyone you think is a support to you, be it your relative or the kids' teacher, all the members of support because they all can play an active role in terms of placement with relatives or with an extended family member.

And then recommendation 10, the SIP, system improvement plan in terms of sibling engagement.

So it looks like there is something on our dashboard around sibling placements.

And so with that in place, hopefully we'll see improvement here in terms of sibling placement.

Is that correct?

Well, remember that's actually on the dashboard.

So that's one of the things.

So all or some of children are placed with all of their siblings, 75%.

So our goal is always to be higher.

It's not a low number right now.

I think what they wanted to see was when children really aren't visiting with one another.

They want to know why.

Same attorneys.

So if something happens five years ago, everyone may be aware of why we stopped having Brittany visit with her siblings, and they stopped mentioning Brittany sitting right there.

That's what we're looking here.

She, um, they may know why she stopped visiting.

And so we have stopped in the past including it.

We've gone back to making sure all that information is included so that they have it.

We are also in the kinship accelerator and partnering with the state because we do want to improve our first placements with relatives.

Um we want ideally for most kids to come in, and your first placement is not in foster care, but it is with someone you know, be it a relative or extended family member.

And it was an opportunity for us to get additional support from the state and the people that they have running the kinship accelerator program to assist us with that.

Okay, thank you.

And then in terms of staffing, uh, great to hear there were 140 applications for the child welfare worker one uh position.

I definitely have been seeing the ads in various places, so that's been positive.

What is the timeline in terms of the exam, getting to having staff on board and um completion of training and just really feeling that additional capacity?

I don't have all of that, um, how the process goes.

I can give you a general what happens.

Right, is it?

So an exam occurs, like the next one will be March 16th.

After the exam occurs, um, it goes to Central HR where they create a list for us.

What we've been doing because our hiring is less, we've been hiring everyone on the list.

Um, the onboarding process takes about eight to 10 weeks to go through all the background checks and then get them ready to start on a date.

We've been trying to start the child welfare worker ones and twos at the same time for training purposes because it's the same training program.

So that's our goal.

Probably it's overlapping, all these processes are actually overlapping, like right now, they are still doing the onboarding, which is all the background checks for our exam while they're preparing for the next exam in two weeks.

So it's an ongoing process for our human resources department.

And how long is the training?

What staff have been hired?

Um, training for child welfare workers is mandated by state is core 3.5, it's 10 and a half weeks.

So if people are coming in in their office cycle where we can send them directly to a training, we've been bringing them into the department where they're able to shadow people, um, go out, go over some cases with the OJT supervisor.

So we don't want to lose anybody waiting for the next core training class.

Okay, those are my questions and comments for now.

Thank you.

Um I wanted to just focus on some things you said about the diverse ideas work group, particularly around like the timeline.

Um, so you said that on average the timeline to respond to referrals is about three months.

Is that right?

No.

There's variations, there's cases of so we're trying to figure out, well, at our last meeting, Supervisor Fortunato Bass wanted us to come up with what is the metric we're using, what's our magic number that we want to be under?

You can't use 30 days because the 30 days follows into the next 30 days.

And the way the months overlap for then a supervisor has two weeks to close the case, three months is what we're using by worker.

So we're taking the case book guideline is 12.

So we're taking for each worker 36 cases being open might be an okay number for us to look at what are we trying to get in.

And so that's where we came to 800.

It's just because for every time you get assigned a case, that case picks up not for the month, but for that day the next month.

Okay.

So basically you're saying from open to close.

What I was thinking about, like is in terms of referrals and um what's like the average timeline to process to get through and finish a case.

They should be done in 30 days.

The average timeline can vary depending on what happens in a case.

An immediate case that comes in, and we need to actually remove the child, that case will happen much quickly because it has to go to court.

So it has to be in the court unit, the dependency investigations unit by noon the next day of after a kid came into care.

So that referral is closed immediately.

The ones that are open, a worker may go out one or two times to see what's happening and then close their case to make sure it's steady.

So it kind of there's a variance, right?

Right.

The removals happen the fastest because the referral has to move on in our computer system and our worker process as just part of the business of the work.

For those that don't need to go to dependency investigations, but maybe we want to refer them to our alternative response system.

There's a lot of other pieces that could happen.

So if you look at our um, I'm gonna refer you to our map because it's a clear understanding that this month we didn't include it in the appendix.

Thank you, you have it.

Yeah, studying it.

Thank you, thank you.

I'm glad to hear that.

So if you look at that map, it kind of gives you an idea of the flow of the cases.

But if a child is in ER and there's a decision made, the court, we get a warrant.

The judge says okay to remove, you have a very short timeline to move that referral on to the next process.

So it'll be closed quicker within 72 hours.

Actually, it's more like 48, depending on when we went out.

The other ones, because they aren't being moved, they're only going to be held in ER, those could take longer because there could be more work done or referrals to different places that happen.

What CDSS asked is that with all that work you're doing, it should be completed though in the 30 days.

If it's not, you can keep it open, but there's some other things you have to do if you're keeping it open.

What's the longest we've kept something open?

You know, so that varies.

So one of the reasons why we're in a meet and confirm with PACE, which is the supervisors union, is so that we can set firm timelines on cases.

One of the things of when we can expect and hold you accountable for the case being closed.

I will say with this audit, we've learned a couple of things about our computer system.

One, we have found that when a worker resigns and there are cases in their caseload, when we get rid of that worker's name, the computer system dumps cases in different places.

Sometimes places where we wouldn't expect them.

Like when we were going through last week looking at why is this case open, it had been done.

There was a case dumped in my division director's box, who never has an occasion or reason to look for referrals.

If uh law enforcement removes a child and the referral hasn't have any cases.

We also found we sometimes create duplicate referrals.

So that we can go ahead and get started and do the work.

We've had trouble going back, and one of the things this audit has shown us is we need to clean up some of those things.

Cleaning up some of those dummy referrals and getting done.

I will say our emergency response after hours.

There's some cases that we need to go back and make sure the supervisors and the after our program, those cases get dumped in our intake supervisors.

We need to make sure everybody's closing those cases, even though you wouldn't think that they would be there.

Those cases have to be closed.

And for our supervisors, part of the reason for the meeting confer is to close the cases that have been open a long time.

Yes.

So what are some of those obstacles to not being able to close?

I wouldn't say they're obstacles.

We had to find some of them.

We're discovering them.

I have a list that I was looking at today.

There's like 42 that are pretty old.

Some are supervisors, some are clerical staff.

And so the clerical manager is going through and she's been cleaning them out as she finds them.

Okay.

But for the ones that are held by child welfare supervisors, that is the intention of the meeting confer so that we can get some firm timelines for that supervisors have to get things completed.

Okay.

You mentioned that, like for the 10 day response, the state average was 58%, and ours is around 35%.

Significantly lower.

Yes.

Why is that?

And what is it a staffing issue?

It has been a staffing issue.

When you look at our graph, I can have it for you next time so you can see it.

When you look at the graph of as cases were coming in as we were losing staff, that number and percentage continue to decline about how well we were doing and responding to those cases.

We should expect it to start to go up, and it has.

It was as low as 23%, I want to say about a month ago, and now we're in the 30s, which is not ideal, but it does show an increase.

As we get staff into the program, as we train staff, we expect that to go up.

Also, as workers close the extra cases on their caseload and get down to that number of under 1,000, it allows them to be able to focus on all the things.

So right now, one of our focuses is closing all these cases that are old.

We need to get all these closed.

And so we're in a bit of flux as we ask for a whole bunch of different things.

I need all these cases closed.

I need you to be timely with your responses.

We're hoping within six months, some of that will coalesce and we'll be a little more stable, and the focus can completely be on closing your cases.

But it is the reason why we created dedicated time for child welfare workers.

So those with open cases, the first two hours of every day, we're expecting them to close those cases.

And when I looked at the um the appendix, the accepted and implemented uh recommendations are recommendations six, seven, nine, and eleven.

At least based on your appendix.

And so I'm just trying to get a feel for, you know, what are we looking at in terms of our timing?

Uh, because we're making progress, you're you're coming to the board and to our committee with the reports, and you are also sharing it, obviously in March with the audit committee.

So I'm just get trying to get a sense for how um how likely we are to make sure that all the recommendations are implemented and that they're accepted, just like six, seven, nine, and eleven.

I think the two recommendations I'm most concerned about are bringing the 10 days up.

We do have so many that need to be closed, getting that metric in place in time so that we've met that measure in six months.

Um, hiring, there's so many variables that go in to whether or not people choose to come to Alameda County, especially when every other Bay Area County is also hiring.

That has an impact.

Like people choose a variety of reasons why they choose to go someplace to work.

Those two variables are the ones I'm most concerned about.

The final one is the staffing for child welfare worker ones and emergency response.

I mentioned this briefly in March.

It the recommendation is not the best recommendation.

I think the recommendation is that you staff emergency response to the capacity you need to get the work done.

I am concerned about child welfare worker ones, the bachelor's levels and emergency response.

That is, those are cases that don't have an ongoing relationship.

We are assessing abuse at a time when it may be ongoing.

These are the knock on the door where we haven't met you before and there's no ongoing relationship.

Those cases should be staffed by our most skilled workers, which is the master's level.

We have found success with our bachelor's level staff and our other case carrying programs.

They're throughout the department.

But in our pilot for emergency response, we have not been as successful.

Of a pilot of five, I think there's two left.

It's two or three left because it just isn't as successful.

So for that, I am hoping to speak to the auditors with that we staff this program for what it needs.

But we should determine the level of success.

And I think they're feeling at the time as they're responding to, well, if you just hire once, you have staff and they can do the work.

But it's quality of work because we're stuck with the alliability of the outcome of the work that they do.

So overall, you mentioned like three things that you're most concerned about.

And so are there any challenges or barriers, whether it's budgetarily, administrative, legal, or operational, that would be going toward implementing these recommendations.

And can you also zero in on what the board can help you with?

I am not concerned about budgetarity.

I think the board handles that how they would or legal.

I think it's operational.

It's really getting the staff in, getting them trained, and getting them up and running.

When we bring someone into emergency response, they don't come in taking cases out the gate.

We do a separate onboarding, and then we slowly titrate up to a higher level of cases.

So they don't come in and we give them a full caseload.

They get one or two.

So even as we bring people on, it can be about four months before you're even taking immediate.

And so just the process of making sure staff are well trained to respond to these cases takes a while.

I don't believe the audit allows us that time to make sure people are thoroughly trained to do the work to be able to get the response out.

So that's my biggest concern.

They're they're operational concerns.

I think the things that are completed, my senior management team, we kind of looked at it and said, what of these things can we do most immediately to address the biggest concerns?

How can we further document?

What are policies that are basically written that we can push out the door?

So I think I wouldn't call them low-hanging fruit, but they were fruit that we could address quickly.

The documentation, the senior managers came together and we took a template, we used Solano County.

I had seen a court report that it done some of these things.

And so we used that and figured out how to train it.

So the things that are left are like the assessment center things.

We need the assessment center to be open.

That's two recommendations.

We also need the mean confer to be positive so that we can hold people accountable for how they are doing their work for the supervisors.

But they're operational, and we're we'll continue to push through to get as much done in the time frames that have been given to us.

And you've been having dialogue with the audit committee, where they are coming to the absolutely for that last recommendation in November, you know, they have an upload, they have a computer system where you upload everything.

For everything that they asked, I had to give a lot of proof that it was done.

Like, it was a lot of dialogue between me and Chris would tell because he'd be like, that's not enough proof.

Like I sent the slide that this is how we trained all of our supervisors to be able to monitor the training process that we've created to monitor training.

That wasn't sufficient.

I had to go back and find the sign-in sheets that could prove that there was actually somebody in the training doing it.

Um shadowing is part of the training for child welfare workers.

It's not made up.

The reason the auditors included it is because the auditors felt that if you have staff shadow the way they do professionally, it's less work on the supervisors.

That doesn't play out in a union environment.

A supervisor cannot, a worker cannot train another worker.

We can't hold that worker accountable for what another worker has trained them.

Only your supervisor can train you.

But it's important for child welfare workers to go out and see what they may encounter.

They need to do home visits, they need to go to court, they need to see what it's like the first time I knock on a door, and they're not expecting me.

So shadowing is built into our training process.

We explained all that, but I had to, we pulled our training program for four years to demonstrate that training has always been in the training process for child welfare workers.

I had to submit one worker's actual passport that showed where she had gotten initials that she had done her on-the-job training.

And then our workers do a thing that it's really organic and it's it's really awesome when you see it in process, where they hang signs on their cubicles like, hey, I'm available for shadowing today, and they're all over the building.

I actually had to send pictures so I could demonstrate that there were workers letting people shadow.

So it isn't just that we're saying these things are done.

The auditor required real proof that, hey, here's what we said we did, and here's what's happening.

The court report template, we sent him every court retemplate that we changed so that they would know that we're not just saying it's in the court report.

Here is actually the court report that we're submitting to the court now that is all the information you requested.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

I have no other questions.

Did you have any follow-up?

Um, I am just curious uh when this will come to the full board, when the next update will come to the full board.

March we have a day.

So that the March budget work session, we don't have a concrete date yet, but it'll be the March 10th or March 17th.

There are any public comments on this item.

No public comments.

We don't have public comments.

Okay.

Any closing remarks?

I'm sorry.

Former assembly member Eriner.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you, supervisor.

Um, I'm Dion Eriner, everybody.

Oh, okay.

I didn't know.

Okay.

Yeah.

Oh, because I have a hard time standing.

Well, it's so the camera can see you and record you.

Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Dion Erringer.

I'm a former member of the legislature.

While I was there, I chaired the actually the assembly human services committee.

So I was responsible for child welfare, and I staffed it for 20 years before that.

Um, I guess there are a couple of things I want to just mention, all right?

Because this all started quite a while ago, this conversation regarding the quality of care for kids now in Vita County.

Um, pursuing what you actually are courtesy that you've replaced with the city of Hayward.

But there are two things that I think still aren't being discussed, and that's what concerns me.

One of them is the status of the kids themselves.

We didn't talk about that at all today in the report.

You know, we we talk about the fact that we're closing cases and all of that.

When I chair the assembly human services committee, there were 115,000 kids in care in the state of California.

There are now around 55,000.

And the question I've always raised, and we'll continue to raise is so what happened?

You know, that we've reduced caseloads, all that's wonderful.

Does that mean that the status of kids in California is any better?

And the question is, is the status of kids in Alameda County any better because of the fact that we're closing cases and all of that kind of thing.

And so I think we need to start focusing on that.

But what do we know about the status of the kids that we're not bringing into care, right?

Or we're going into care somewhere else, or ending up, you know, in probation or whatever.

And the other thing that started this whole conversation also was the fact that there's still no mention of the community at all, right?

And the community is part of this, right?

It's one thing to have all this internal discussion going on in the county, county agencies and all of that.

You have a lot of you have 41 mental health agencies in Palamita County.

You have significant numbers of agencies to provide child welfare services in this county that don't do business with Alameda County.

What's that all about, right?

And are we ever going to have that discussion about what's going on and having the having them come in to have that discussion?

There was a beginning of that discussion after we came to the board originally a couple of years ago, right?

Where there were some management committees put together and things like that.

That's all just kind of dissipated and is not going on anymore.

We need to have a conversation about the fact that we have these incredible agencies here in Alameda County who for some reason don't feel like they're that comfortable about the fact that when they talk about coordination, that it's really not there, and it's not reciprocal between the county and those agencies.

So I just wanted to bring that up again to highlight why we all started this conversation, right?

That the state senator then got involved with, right?

Um, from the perspective of what can a state senator do, and that is to require the auditor general to come in and look.

But that's all just about accountability.

It doesn't tell us what the status of our kids are and what the status is with the relationships with our programs here in Alameda County.

So I just wanted to mention that to you again.

Thank you.

We have an online speaker.

Uh Ms.

Robinson.

Ms.

Robinson.

Hi, good afternoon.

Yeah, sorry.

Good afternoon.

Um I wanted to ask about the social worker two.

I and thank you to the speaker for giving us a wealth of information on the increase of applications.

And with the large number of caseloads, I just wanted to understand if there were data being collected about the social worker two, just taking a look at the posting and the minimum requirements for Alameda County versus the state requirements.

I did notice that there were um there were differences there, and understanding that we do want a higher quality of work and understanding that there are trainings, and um, as the speaker mentioned, the shadowing that will go on internally with the more senior workers.

I'm wondering if the if there's any data collected on possibly the second part of the minimum requirements where the post-backeret uh experiences required, if that has a negative impact on the applications or applications possibly being um rejected or not meeting the minimum requirements, and wanting to know if that is possibly hindering being um being fully staffed or bringing in more help for the workers or getting more social worker one in into the um child and family services.

So wanting, I'm not sure if that's a question that can even be answered today or addressed, but wanting to know if that plays a big part.

Um, I have seen where there are people who might be otherwise eligible who have a lot of uh experience with human services or working even with the county and social services and who have a passion for helping families and children, and who have the uh bachelor's degree, uh maybe not the master's degree, but the bachelor's in early childhood development or public administration, but does it meet that second portion?

That's all thank you.

There are no other public commenters.

Thank you.

Chair Tim oh go ahead.

I was gonna ask if the agency director assistant agency director would like to comment on responding to some of these questions that were asked.

I can I can on the both or just the one either one so go up to the front okay.

Um for the second question uh we do require some work for the bachelor's level that there is it's written in the job description that if you're bachelor's level we do require you to have some case management experience.

Master's degree for a different um field is not the same.

A master's in public administration is very different from a master's in social work or sociology or psychology what you're looking at in terms of assessments not present.

And so we have built in that yes there does need to be some other case management child work you know work to school or something like that.

That is part of the application but we think it's a critical part of the application um so that you have some experience coming into the work understanding at least a little bit of what it is we'll be asking you to do and that's also for retention you know studies have shown that people that are surprised by the work aren't as successful.

In terms of uh supervisor airiners that's the right thing to say supervisor assembly member okay assembly member airiner's questions we're actually um in March mental health is going to be presenting with me to talk about some of the things we are doing together um so and my agency director we continue to have our inner county our ILT and our agency leadership team with behavior health and others and our agency director participates in an overarching committee that actually was born out of the meetings you started back I guess it was two years ago with the other 2023 yeah with other member of behavior like the alliance are part of those so um former assembly member Aaron there the corner the children's system of care coordinating council still meets there was a pause for a couple of months um some change in leadership um Matthew was no longer with the behavior health collaborative but those meetings are resuming we have our first meeting um this coming Thursday the 26th um at 11 beginning at 1130 so they haven't stopped completely that's nice to hear good thank you the other the other thing I wanted to point out on your soul you've reached out to eight social schools of social welfare there are 18 schools of social welfare of the state of California just so you know.

I am well aware I think what we're trying to capture is the people that are closest to us the further away you go the Bay Area is expensive.

And people have to have money to move up here and so we do get applications from outside the Bay Area but we also want to have people that can pick up and come and maybe still be able to live where they're living and be able to be here right it's a big ask to ask somebody um from like LA to come up here.

A lot of students also in social work I was a four year student myself you become grounded where you are and so a lot of them are trying to get jobs at the agencies that they worked with.

Right and you know and those agencies are also trying to recruit the investment they've made and supervising an intern for a year.

So I think what's reasonable is to do the ones that are closest to us that you could commute to get here which is more reasonable.

But yeah we're well aware um I participate on the state workforce committee so we talk about workforce and how do we bring people and that whole getting around the state is not so simple.

George Georgia trains, Georgia graduates 6,000 social workers a year compared to our 2500 yeah I always joke and say, why don't we just advertise in Georgia?

They could afford to move here because they produce so many social workers.

It's amazing.

Sounds like you have a recruitment source okay not fast uh thank you, Chair Tam.

Um, thank you, somebody Marie Ariner, for your comments.

Um I think you said it well in terms of what's the status of our kids.

I try to address it given like the recommendations and how these metrics that are really numerical get to outcomes, get to quality.

And I do wonder to Director Love or Director Ford.

How can the next time this comes to the board?

Is there additional information that gets more to us knowing that our kids are safe and secured and well cared for?

Uh part of it could potentially be um sibling reunification, family placements, maybe there's other types of information in the system that could help us get there, but I think it would be really helpful if we had that additional information around knowing that all of these numbers and these charts and these graphs and this this map translates to knowing that our kids are well cared for.

So what I would say there are metrics that are very different from the metrics in the audit.

The federal government has a peer quality case review.

There's measures that we look at.

The thing is those metrics are over time, right?

So I could do a presentation maybe this summer.

I'm assuming this is every month opportunity with you all.

So maybe this summer we can uh or maybe May ish, um, we can pull some of those metrics so you can look at how we're doing on those measures, but those measures are all over time.

Um did a child remove is in the cohort of 12 months.

There's a there's it's a real technical.

We're happy to present that information.

Understanding, unlike the metrics for the audit, which are short term, right?

They're timeliness.

The focus of the audit was did the child get the services in so much time.

This audit was not designed to, except for maybe the sibling to look at the overall well-being of children and had some very specific measures, but we can come back and or I can come back and present the metrics on how we're doing overall, and those metrics, the federal government believes those metrics say how children are doing.

Did a child come in?

Did they re-enter?

That's a metric that they're concerned about because if you come in and in theory you ameliorate the issues that brought you into care, you shouldn't come back, right?

So we have metrics like that that we look at that are separate and apart from these.

But I can definitely present those to you.

It's not really something you could do every month because again, the metrics wouldn't change because the cohort time frames don't change like that.

Right.

And that's obviously also not just in relation to your department.

It probably touches behavioral health or maybe it touches homelessness or other departments as well.

No, ACF is looking at how we're doing.

Our work considers that we are reaching out somewhere else to get the service needs of a child.

So it understands that we don't do therapy, right?

We do case management, we we secure services for children.

Um, so the metrics the federal government looks at did a kid go home in a timely measure.

Um, did they get permanency in a timing measure?

You know, permanency being that you were either reunified with your parent, like Leo Guardianship, adoption.

It looks at those measures.

How are you doing for what the federal government has deemed?

These are what we believe are well-being measures for children, but we could present on that.

Our team actually looks at we have a continuous quality improvement meeting internally where we're continuing to look at those measures to see how we are doing as an ongoing basis.

We've added the audit measures to it, but we've been using the dashboard process to track how are we doing in terms of success on these measures?

That sounds like it would be helpful.

And then if in future meetings, we could also hear um any status updates in relation to community meetings like the one that will happen in April.

So we've got that additional context too.

And behavior health is going to come with me in March that you can also hear because they're part of the sport.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So, are there any public comments on items not on today's agenda?

Yeah.

Can you just sign up later?

Oh yeah.

There well she'll ask you to fill in a form later just so we okay have it on the record.

Okay.

My name is Cynthia Oliandry and I'm a social worker three and I'm also um the vice president for services in the SSA chapter.

I just wanted to ask Director Love the earlier comment uh from um a colleague regarding um the um the child welfare worker one path and um and and having um case management um what I'm just curious what kind of case management experience because most of us that work in social services are managing cases so is the is a case management um specifically in in reference to um uh working previously and with uh child welfare cases or working in um you know uh children settings um or can it be other um um case management um experience because that could potentially be a um pathway to get more um workers you know in so i'm just asking the question please yeah cynthia i'm gonna take it um thank you for your question um that's really a human resources question and we can take online um but the job description is pretty clear on what's required um and it's under different patterns pattern one two or three education education and experience so it's taking everything as one and each case is looked at separately we can't give you a global answer to every situation okay I should look at the actual um description thank you thank you thank you everyone for your insightful questions and participation this meeting is adjourned