Um health human services and the arts committee will now begin.

We're going to bring up the music music school settlement, and then we'll go into um after that, uh, to the health department.

We did that with you, Dave.

So we'll do the other piece first.

Um we got the music school settlement.

Um, this is your first time coming here to the table, is that correct?

Third time.

Fourth, or fourth, or fourth.

Great, great.

So, um everyone introduce themselves, because uh we have a new team here.

So we'll start moving out.

Good morning.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

I play at home every single day.

Well, yeah.

I could do it.

Yeah.

Um, I grew up in the um music schools.

Settlement.

Not only did they teach music, they would teach character.

Um curiosity, it's a great character.

So we learned a lot of that.

And uh the music school settlement system, uh, Magnolia Drive, however, is connected to the Glenville community.

In the Huff area, the whole nine years, so many back then.

Garages and the basements.

Argument why Cleveland.

And a lot of us learn, and we studied with you guys at the music school.

Every single street.

Guys, you probably never thought about it.

You're in there, paradigm.

Paradigm when you deal with the director.

Well, thank you.

I thought I was talking loud enough.

Oh, okay.

Yes, you need to turn it on so when I turn away.

So um director.

Well, thank you.

Good morning again, and thank you, Councilman Conwell.

First of all, I love that tie.

And maybe I'd like to wear it with the keyboard.

I'm a pianist.

Um it's great to be here because we've got several alums early childhood in this room, so I know I know some of you are familiar with us.

Um first of all, I just want to thank you for your past support.

You have supported our kids in camps for several years in the summers.

You've supported our creative aging program, music for life program, which is fairly new and important with the aging population in our country, and um you've really impacted thousands of lives probably already.

And also, I just want to thank you for the work that you do.

You are public servants.

I know your jobs are really, really hard.

You've got large some of you have larger wards now.

Um your emails blow up every day, your phones, and so we just want to thank you.

We know for your work in the community and in all of your constituents that we serve.

So again, you are familiar with us, but I'm gonna give a real quick, you know, one minute, just 50,000 refresh to you all.

We're 114 years old.

It's amazing.

We've survived two world wars, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, a little pandemic, you know, we're still here and we are thriving.

No, we were we started out downtown, and it wasn't until the mid-30s that we ended up in university circle.

So they had a couple other locations.

And you talked about Dick Kaufman, who had this really well-known tea, and I think this is what you were referencing, teens in training program.

And maybe you were one of them.

Took teenagers to mentor and coach other inner city kids.

We have heard from some of these kids, they become music teachers in their lives, and and it's just very cool.

Um, and then we were Harvard East, and we were rainy at one point.

We were rainy school.

But now yeah, so we um were founded, and this is what I'm really proud of, is a community music school settlement house.

And it was for immigrants, it was during the settlement area when the immigrants were coming from Europe.

So many of our first students were immigrants.

Um the mission has always remained the same forever, and the key thing here is accessibility.

We welcome everyone, every age.

We have uh babies from three weeks old to people in their 90s, end of life in music therapy.

We have um all abilities.

Uh some people think they can't even do music, and they find out they can and um all backgrounds.

And we do this work in three centers.

We have the Center for Music, which um Jeff Brown represents leads, and he'll be talking about that.

And we have the Center for Music Therapy.

I was a music therapist for five years before I went on to my legal career.

I'm still a music therapist at heart, but using music to heal.

Um and then we also have our early childhood program, which is very well known.

Some of you are graduates.

Um this is 70 years old.

We celebrated 70 years last year.

It's an arts-infused art, music, dance, drama, and science.

It's one of the top preschools in the state, and we also offer kindergarten now.

And then our Bob Stop, which many of you know.

Have you played it?

The Bob Stop Councilman?

Okay, let's talk.

You said you're retired, we'll get you back out there.

Um, but the Bob Stop, which is a premier award-winning jazz and blues um gift to us in 2014, and it's it's a nonprofit.

It is not a for-profit, it's an arm of us, um, but it supports our mission.

You are yeah, he does.

Yeah, that's right.

And maybe you've been there.

Um, we do this work on two campuses.

So University Circle right now since the mid-30s, as I mentioned, and then we um built and opened up our Ohio City campus in 2018.

We did end up closing it for a year during COVID, which was a tough time.

Um, but we are up and running again there, and all of our centers do work there, and of course the bob stops two blocks away.

Um, but we work all over Northeast Ohio and we serve many of your constituents.

So just to give you a real quick depth and breadth of the work, because sometimes people know the early childhood and they don't they're not aware we do music therapy or that we own the bobstop.

So, Jeff, would you give some of the statistics?

Sure.

Um, so in fiscal year 25, um, just to give you an overview of the community that we serve.

Uh, we had 1,200 on-site music education and music therapy clients over the course of the year.

Uh, 51% are from historically underrepresented communities.

Of our music therapy clients, 90% had a confirmed health diagnosis or disability.

So very important work with our music therapy clients.

Um, we have partnerships and contracts with other nonprofit organizations throughout the city, over 20 in the last fiscal year that served 1,600 um students off-site through our various programs.

In our early childhood center last year, we had 250 um kindergarten students, preschoolers, and summer campers.

Um, our bop stop, which was just mentioned a minute ago, um, served 13 over 13,000 um audience members over the course of the year.

It's an astounding number of events.

They gave 255 concerts over the course of um if you weren't aware, Bobstop also has a broadcast that is um broadcast live on over 75 radio stations nationally and internationally.

Um so really um broad scope of people that we serve there.

Um 44% of all students and clients at the music settlement received some sort of financial aid last year.

Um in total, we offered over $500,000 in financial aid allocated to our students and clients.

Um with our free community events, uh, we served over th uh 3,700 community members at events, performances, master classes, and other community engagement.

Bob stops it was built specifically.

Right, right, right.

Arts.

Oh, yes.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

And the important thing is it's local.

I mean, we present local artists as well as national and international, and students perform there.

We do work with Oberlin, so um we hold fundraisers there for other organizations.

Um it's well utilized and very very treasured by that community.

Is he trying to get on stage at the Bob Stop?

Okay.

We'll talk.

Um importantly though, uh so we are we are part of this wonderful fabric of arts and cultural and music organizations in Cleveland.

We're so fortunate.

And here we are located in University Circle with the Cleveland Orchestra down the street and the Cleveland Institute of Music around and Art Museum and all of that.

But it's really important that we distinguish ourselves from these other wonderful organizations, and that we're really grassroots boots on the ground.

I mean, this is where a lot of people start that end up at those places.

And in the aggregate, no one does what we do.

If we were to go out of business next month, no one would be filling our shoes and giving you the statistics that Jeff has.

And we distinguish ourselves in several ways, and one is what we really emphasize is the accessibility.

No barriers to entry.

Everybody, everybody is welcome.

And we do this by, as Jeff referenced, the very generous financial aid.

We give financial aid, financial hardship, and merit scholarships.

Um the other thing, we do some free programming.

So the last couple years, we've been at the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing District behind our Ohio City building, going up there to give lessons and um to create trust and relationships within the community.

We also do STEAM and STEM programs, which are wonderful.

A lot of Saturdays, Karen's got that starting up again, free to the community, and um there'll be me?

Okay, cool.

Cool.

All right.

Our Steam and STEM programs sometimes have between 80 and 200 community members attending, and those are free as well.

So the accessibility.

The second thing is there's no prescribed lessons or classes.

Everything is custom designed.

I mean, so we try to meet the evolving needs of the community and the interests of the community.

So when Jeff's faculty goes out into the school systems, CMSD, private schools, everywhere else, they may want African drumming, they may want songwriting, guitar groups, strings, brass, whatever, rock and pop.

So his faculty goes in, and there's something for everyone.

There is a program for everyone.

And even if you're not a musician and you say you have no ability, you can go to the Bob Stop and listen.

Or he has a series of, we had a Disney series about Disney movies, and we had um the creative aging folks attending that.

The third thing is that we work in partnerships.

And I learned this in my real estate legal career at Four City.

Partnerships are really important.

Working and aligning with P with other organizations, similar values, similar mission, because then we have a greater impact on people.

So as he referenced our music therapists are in social service agencies, hospitals, schools, nursing homes.

And Jeff will talk about some of the places that the Center for Music is in as well.

And lastly, again, this is what I'm most proud of, and it's it's what you all do too.

We are here for the community.

We are here to serve all members of our community, and um again, meeting their needs and interests, which are constantly evolving.

So again, and in Jeff will reference this as you all know with the financial issues that CMSD schools are having right now.

They write, they often cut their arts programs.

So yeah, so there's important needs with aging population, the orchestra needs those young people learning about music and becoming future audiences.

Um there's just so much a need, and I just believe that music education is a right, it's just not a privilege.

Um Councilman Conwell, I quote you a lot, and we have just done a campaign video.

Um, and Councilman Conwell was a part of this.

And I I quote you a lot when you say put instruments in these kids' hands, not guns.

So we were part of that program too with the rock hall and the orchestra um sending instruments into the uh CMSD schools for kids.

So we're here today to talk about a project.

So we have run out of space in our university circle campus, and our beautiful 1910 mansion that is 42 rooms, doesn't have um acoustics.

It's it's just not a good building for music lessons.

They didn't, it wasn't built for that.

So we embarked upon a project two years ago.

Um we are rehabing a 1912 home on our campus.

Um it's called the Grease House.

It used to went through many lives.

It was a plastic surgery hospital, it was a nursing home, and then most recently we had done Suzuki lessons and piano lessons, but it became in very bad disrepair, and I closed it during COVID, so we lost that space.

Um I want so we've embarked on this project, and Jeff, you want to talk about it?

Just a bit.

Sure.

Um so I will start by giving a very brief overview of the types of programs that we offer in the Center for Music.

Um, as Jerry mentioned, since we are a community-focused school, um, we are there are several things that make us distinct from other music schools like this.

Because we are there to serve the interests of the community, we offer a very broad array of programs so that we can offer something for every interest in the community.

We have over 60 part-time faculty with expertise across every instrument and musical style.

Um so we offer lessons on every instrument and voice, um, but important to note that it's not just classical, which is a lot of uh people's first entry.

We also offer rock lessons, pop, um, folk, um, chamber music groups of all types.

Um so we really want to make sure that we are evolving uh with the interests of the community.

Interests and education changes over today.

So we've done a very good job, I think, of evolving um to reflect the the community.

Uh, we beyond lessons, we offer a variety of ensembles and group classes, everything from orchestras to a rock and pop band, an immersive jazz ensemble, and workshops and lectures.

Um, so very diverse array.

We have a few immersive programs.

Um, our jazz program is a half-day program on Saturday where young students come and spend from 9 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

Um studying ensembles, jazz theory, um, as Jerry mentioned, it's also really character-building experience.

These students work very hard at what they do.

Uh, we are partner with the Berkeley City Music Network.

Um, so we have an endorsement and our missions align to make sure that um jazz education is accessible for for young people in the community.

We also have the largest Suzuki program in Northeast Ohio serving over 250 students.

Suzuki is a unique form of music education in which students learn music like they learn a language.

It's immersive, it's rote learning.

Not learning to read music as the first step, but really engaging through listening skills and builds great memory.

It also involves the parents as part of the education.

So they are sitting in the lessons, they are working with the students at home during their practice.

So it's a very um collaborative approach to education.

And another of our unique programs to question go back with the I'm very interested in the parenting piece.

Yeah, so Suzuki was an educator in Japan that had the uh concept of teaching music like the mother tongue was his term.

So we don't consciously make an effort to learn a language when we're developing as babies and children.

Um you're immersed in this environment and it um gradually develops.

So he thought that the language of music could be learned exactly the same way.

That instead of sitting down and learning the what the five lines and spaces on a staff mean and what all these notes are, that we teach the language of music completely through listening.

Um so he um gave the image of a three-legged stool in which the teacher, the child, and the parents are all equally involved in the educational process.

So students will uh parents will sit in lessons and take notes, and then they will be at home in the practice sessions every day with the students to reinforce what they learned.

Um but it's a lot of listening rather than note reading in the early stages.

That engage parenting.

Very, very important.

You know, you keep the family together with engaged parenting and um and the children can start at as young as age four, right?

Yeah, yeah, four.

And it reinforces, I mean, I I'm a pianist.

My I started when I was four years old throughout most traditional um learning experiences.

You have 30 or 60 minutes with an instructor once a week, but the majority of your um 30 to 40 hours of practice over the course of the week are completely by yourself.

So involving the parent at home to reinforce that helps accelerate the the learning process.

How many how many children?

Because I'm looking at engage parenting.

You need that in the school system, engage parenting is very, very important.

Have that father figure or mothers and families together, and and you can do it through the arts as well.

Yeah, what do we have though?

200 students?

Quite a quite a number of students too.

Over the course of the year, we have a full-year program and summer lessons and a summer camp.

Um, but in this in that program, we have over 250 students per year.

Um, all in all, in the Center for Music, we have about 1100 that we serve.

But the great thing too is these kids, a lot many of them begin when they're four and they continue till they're in high school.

So then they've also formed lifelong friends.

I mean, in the families are close.

It's it's community building.

You know, that can help us with um with engaged parenting.

Um we always try to find a way to get um earlier the mother and the child and and the fathers and families together, and then when they go to school, they uh it's transferable with mathematics, writing, reading, the whole nine yards, and you can do it with the arts or doing a project together with the family together and engage and promoting engaged parenting.

And I mean a lot, because even when I talk with you, we always get to the parenting part.

Absolutely.

It's very important.

Because I want to take a look at that.

I definitely want to make a lot of people.

Um, one other program that I don't want to neglect is our creative aging program.

Um we are all aware that there's a growing need for um engagement for our lifelong learners, our senior citizens, um, as that segment of the population grows.

And so we have a robust offerings for older adults and intergenerational ensemble.

So that includes adult orchestra, a choir, um, more passive experiences for those that don't play an instrument like lecture series and other ways to engage with music, but also to engage with fellow community members.

Um there are many benefits of offering these types of engagements with the arts for senior citizens that combats depression, loneliness, isolation, and continues to engage people, strengthen their cognitive still skills late in life.

And continues to engage people, strengthen their cognitive still skills late in line.

Councilman Conwell knows we started a steel drum group.

And that was pretty much um had waiting lists as we brought adults in that had never played music, even or whatever, and teaching them steel drums, it's a blast.

So that just gives you an overview before I dive into the um the capital project.

Um we mentioned already the financial aid that we get.

A question.

Sure.

So last year, you guys put in funding for the senior and that's therapeutic for them.

And um, I don't know how that turned out, and we'll get to it later, but I want to fund it again, and I want you to have relationships with um Mary McEnare.

Right.

You know, we do a senior day, right?

And have some seniors, because she has some seniors, they play piano, trumpet, drums, whatever the case may be, and then they can visit senior citizen homes or whatever the case, and um and push goodwill with the city with um with the seniors playing.

And um that's that's just my vision um for that, and we had a singer day.

It would be great to have um you guys play there.

Somebody from her office visited with us and they did tell us about that la couple people.

So thank you for reminding us.

Because somebody's seniors might want to join the um, you know, we do senior walks and Mary McIntyre is great, she's fantastic with seniors, but to get them engaged, as you mentioned early, because some of them are lonely, and while they're at home, you give them a reason to practice their instruments.

So very interested in that.

So, and all of our seniors are eligible for discounted accessibility is really the heart of um our mission, and so just wanted to offer just a little bit more detail on how that's approached um to make music affordable for students.

Um so we offer a variety of merit scholarships, which students of all ages can earn um through an audition, but we also offer robust financial aid and hardship assistance.

Uh we collect um similar information to a FAFSA form with um basic financial information from a family, and then they're eligible for discounts.

Um we base our discounts on the federal poverty guidelines.

So a student registering for music lessons um could receive up to a 90% discount, um, which is substantial.

Um all seniors receive a discount for lessons as well.

Um so we really try to remove as many financial barriers as possible.

I'm going to introduce you to Joan Mazaline, and we could put it in our newsletters for the seniors.

I mean, she just did a postcard for me, and Joan doesn't know that uh with arts inspired learning.

A lot of residents and a lot of seniors reached out to my office as well as to um arts inspired learning because they want to do something with the arts and to deal with loneliness and the whole nine yards.

I'm very interested in that, as well as to steel drums, because you know I play steel drums also, you know, uh, we could do some Jamaican music or some music from Trinidad, whatever the case may be, and I want to be a part of that as well.

Some there.

So finally, our our capital project now.

Um, the house that Jerry mentioned earlier um was previously used for lessons and classes.

So we experienced a reduction in um instructional spaces when that was closed, and now we are uh really at capacity and even using spaces on our campus that are not designed um for to be instructional spaces.

So um there are several facility limitations um with our current um situation, and this project will will greatly enhance that.

Um the vision behind this, um, there are really three main pillars.

Um, this is going to be a state of the art facility, so that even though we're making music accessible to everyone at a low cost, um, it's not low quality.

We want them to have the access to the finest educational spaces possible.

Um the community engagement aspect is significant in this.

We will have um it will increase our ability to offer more programs.

We will also have a community space, um, a an outdoor music patio um that as we expand our footprint in university circle, um, we'll also um offer more free opportunities and musical performances um for the community.

Um and the last pillar is a state-of-the-art technology lab that's going to expand how we serve our students as we're moving through a really rapidly changing time where technology and artificial intelligence intersects with what we do as musicians.

And so that would offer students the stepping stones for everything from basic sound editing, the software that people use for to edit film scoring, video game music, which is a rapidly growing opportunity in the arts, as well as our jazz students through the Berkeley City Music Network.

So your group play with me at Way Wednesday some years ago.

Jazz.

The jazz group.

So whenever we play, maybe in June or July, because at least 10,000 folks is there.

And we we'll put them up front.

I I want to add to this this project is a must have.

And as we've told the board, if you're not growing and you're not innovating, then you're not sustainable.

We just you just can't last.

So in order to be around for decades more, this is this is what we're doing right now.

There's a lot of information in this folder that you can peruse later, but we want to draw your attention to a packet.

It's on the left in the left folder, and it starts with a photo.

This will give you an overview as I'm explaining the facility.

Um the full page towards the back on the left side.

Um so the in this photo um you can see the existing house, which is in red brick.

Um it will be completely transformed, both on the outside and inside to make it more suitable for music education.

Um, and the architects have done a great job of merging the his retaining the historic aspect of the existing home and then adding on to that through a substantial addition that they're not trying to match because it would be impossible, but to make it complementary.

So the more modern part that you see on in the dark brick is going to be the new addition.

So overall, this will expand our instructional spaces on the university circle campus by 50%.

Um we will go from 28 teaching spaces to 42.

Um in this building, um, there are 14 instructional spaces overall, eight in the existing house, and six in the new space.

Um what we have um found through careful study and conversations with the acousticians is that the addition, which is the more modern part, because it is new construction, will have the highest level of acoustic separation possible.

So that will be where we put our loudest things percussion, jazz, rock and pop.

Um, so those six rooms will be ideal spaces, and we have nothing like that on our campus right now.

Make the most with what we have, but our jazz ensemble is squeezed into a small room that you can hear all over the building.

So that will that will not be the case in this um building.

A couple of other unique aspects in here.

The um technology lab that I mentioned will have eight um keyboards, computers, digital audio workstations, so that can have the building blocks to programs like Tri-C.

We've been in discussions with even offering some classes where students could earn credit at Tri-C that could be applied towards a future.

Um we're really looking at every opportunity um to for those pathways for students.

Um, and then you have the floor plans in here as well.

Um, but just point out that each um each space in this is thoughtfully designed with the architects.

They have gone through extensive discussions with us of how each room will be used.

There is a dedicated percussion studio, harp studio, technology lab, um, so that each room is really custom designed for what's going to be in there.

Um so that gives you an overview.

One last thing that I wanted to mention about this project, um, the technology lab is going to offer open access to our community members, whether or not they are enrolled in a program at the music settlement, they will have an opportunity with under basic supervision and training to come in and have access to computers and music software that they would not otherwise have, similar to programs that have been started in a lot of public libraries as well.

So it's another way that we want to reach out to the community members surrounding us.

Jeff, and then just to give you the important information.

So we started a capital campaign a couple years ago.

I have got a really talented, wonderful team of consultants, a capital campaign consultant, and then the architects on this project.

And we are very fortunate, are both musicians, and actually one of them also had um his daughter in our early childhood program, the percussionist.

Um John Williams is a guitarist, he's also an artist and architect.

Um he was an arts prize winner.

He designed the Heinens building downtown, did the Transformer Station, many other, so they're very familiar with rehab and adaptive reuse.

And then we've got um Peter Bohan from Prospectus, also a very outstanding in there working together on this project.

We are working with Maroos Brothers construction, so we've you know, again, want to limit liability and contain it.

So we've got they are construction managers at risk, and then we're now waiting for the final guaranteed maximum price contract, so it's not an open checkbook for them.

Um we are excited to tell you that we've gone before landmarks commission a couple times, the commission that for which we need approval, and they have approved the project that that um Jeff has shown you, and we are now going after the permitting process.

Um the construction documents will be done by the end of the month, so we're pretty far along.

And a shovel's supposed to go in to the ground April or May in 26.

It'll be 13 months.

We hope it to open in the fall of 27.

The really great news is is this is about a 12 million dollar project, and to date, five months before we're even gonna set the shovel in the ground, we've raised over 10.1 million dollars.

So we are yeah, we are on the end run of this, potentially hoping to receive new market tax credits of a million six, but we're not sure how that's gonna go with the treasury and the federal government at the moment.

Um you need help with anything you have to tell us.

Okay, well, this is this is what we want you to know, and then this is the other good thing is um Mandel Foundation had been giving us uh general operating funds for many years.

We presented the project to Mayor Michael White and um their other leadership, Steve Hoffman and Yahoo Dr.

Reinhardt, and they are so enthusiastic and excited about this.

They have given us 3.3 million dollars, and they are naming this building.

So it'll be the Jack Joseph and Morton Mandel music house, the Mandel Music House.

So we are really thrilled.

Um just with the alignment again with the alignment, it is it's huge with the alignment of the values and the mission and again the serving the community.

So our goal here again is um just to get in these last um dollars so that we can finish this and get to the budget.

And then what I'd like to do, of course, is Jeff and I like to increase financial aid so that we can take more students, adults, children, everybody in from the surrounding communities, and that they will have the opportunity to participate in our programs and services.

And one last thing I want to add is a very important piece of this, especially for the Mandel Foundation was community engagement.

So we have just hired an outstanding young woman.

Um, Jeff is gonna be announcing this week to be our community engagement manager.

We are out in the community, we're trying to promote the visibility because not even though we're 114 years old, not everybody's aware of us.

Um, but this young woman will be in the community going into the schools, going into the libraries, going into the churches and just spreading the word.

So the key stakeholders.

So are we helping out at all in the city of Cleveland with your capital camp campaign?

No, not yet.

Yeah, I'll what I'll do, what I'll do is um thank you.

Introduce you and I'll set a meeting up and I'll see what the city can do.

You know about because it's a treasure, and never ask me for the city house.

When you're a city um honors you and your work, uh it makes it easier for you to talk with other key stakeholders and help out with the um capital campaign.

And it's important that you all know too that we're here to serve your constituents as well and what there is available for them.

So thank you.

Thanks for your time today.

And congratulations to all the new members.

We're excited to meet you.

I just had a quick question.

Um I I appreciate your time and thorough explanation of what you do.

It's I didn't know about this, so I really appreciate that.

I I saw in the notes here 40 percent, 44 percent of students receive financial help.

Um, what is the average cost for students that do not receive financial help?

So um because we have a wide variety of programs, tuition is set different differently, so I can give you a few examples.

So for somebody that's registering for private lessons, the full price is $35 for a 30-minute lesson, and it's 36 weeks over the course of the year, um, and the 70 dollars for a full hour lesson.

And the 70 dollars for a full hour lesson.

So the classes, the program is set based on contact hours, so a summer camp could be 200, whereas a full year orchestra is about 1100.

So it's really customs set based on the instructional costs and the contact hours for each program.

But could you give the example usually do if they the full cost and then if they receive fine uh financial aid and then they if they receive scholarship?

I mean it can get really good.

Yeah, so for example, um, if if somebody is taking a full hour private lesson that would normally be 70 dollars, they could, if they're eligible for financial aid and merit scholarship, they could receive up to a 90% discount.

So that $70 lesson would only cost seven dollars um per hour, and so makes it extremely affordable for the family.

Um early childhood is a full day preschool um or kindergarten, and so that's a much higher tuition.

Um and I I don't have those numbers off the top of my head.

Um but um yeah, so it's it's really um based on um the contact hours and the length of the program.

Some programs are only a couple of weeks in the summer, some are semester 18 weeks um for a half year, and some are full year.

So um it varies based on that.

And sometimes we get foundation funding, so the students say in a chamber group will get um tuition free because it's paid for.

Thank you.

Yeah, and we do offer some programs that are completely free um for those that um that can't afford anything for lessons.

So we offer a free guitar class for students um from the community to come in.

We give them a guitar, we teach them lessons um for a semester.

There's no charge for the instrument or the lessons.

They keep the guitar at the end, and hopefully that sparks something for them.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Councilman, um you could when we bring neighborhood, as well as um we put it in our newsletters, so the teacher.

Camping, that's what I'm trying to say.

A lot of different resources.

I have uh Kudell and Halloran.

Yeah.

Put it right there as well.

Yeah, we always appreciate that help because um most of our advertising is online, digital advertising, um, but we know that doesn't reach everyone.

Um so one of the um charges of our community engagement manager is going to be on distributing materials throughout a wide variety of of venues.

So yeah.

One more shameless plug.

We have uh outstanding annual MLK concert this Sunday at three o'clock.

Evelyn Wright, jazz singer, is singing.

Umar Gray, who's on our faculty jazz singlementary school teacher, many wonderful Obi Shelton, violinist will be playing.

We shall yeah.

Um it's gonna be a great program, free.

So if you're free this Sunday at three, please come down to the university circle.

Thank you.

Thanks for your attention.

I try to sneak in practicing as much as possible.

So sometime when you have events, um I'm at home just practicing.

Right in the neighborhood.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

You can have a seat over real quick.

I'm going to uh call up David Margolius, and why they are um narrating right here.

Okay.

And while they're narrating what we hear for, I'll be right back in real quick.

That way you get a good fire.

I'm gonna have uh you uh Councilman Austin chairing a lot.

I'm because you know get you in here for that.

I appreciate that.

All right, you got stuff to do.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll be right back.

Is there any more over here for councilwoman House Jones?

House Jones visited uh school settlement and she plays to harp.

And she visit the music school settlement with me.

Uh how long ago was that uh council lady, maybe three years ago?

Four years ago.

So she is a musician, so she knows the way.

Nobody wants to.

It just doesn't work.

Thank you for joining us here tonight, Director.

Today this morning, Director and Commissioner.

Do you want to start us off, Director?

So the chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council 2026.

I'm really happy to see you all.

My name is Director Dave Margolius, and I'm going to introduce Commissioner of Health Equity and Social Justice, Commissioner Lita Wills.

She's going to give a presentation.

I'm going to step in the back so that she can rightfully be the star of the show with her team.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Lita Wills.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Margolius.

Good morning, Council.

Happy New Year.

Welcome to folks who are in their new seats and also some new committee members.

This is thankfully not my first rodeo in front of the Health and Human Services and Arts Committee.

And Newly since the summer is Michelle Wilcox, who is our policy analyst, and she came to us from a long career at neighborhood family practice, and we're very happy to have her.

Also, if you'll remember within our purview at the health department, we have several programs.

So I will I do have some slides for you.

I will uh go over them very briefly.

Some of them serve as just a little bit of background for some of the newer folks.

Uh so we'll zoom through those.

You can have them.

Uh I believe uh Inez and Eba Coon have them.

I also provided us a short handout uh with some accomplishments for the last year, uh, so that you have them.

Okay.

This is just a little bit of context for the uh resolutions and ordinances that stood up this division.

We were founded after uh the city and Cleveland City Council as a whole uh adopted uh the resolution stating that racism is a public health crisis, and beyond that, worked with former mayor Frank Jackson to stand up the division of health equity and social justice within the Cleveland Public Health Department to begin to look at these issues, uh understand health disparities and figure out what are the things that the city can do to improve uh the gaps that we see when it comes to health outcomes that are based in race.

Uh some of the work that we do was pulled from those previous steps, but also uh I reference uh in building the work, the transition report uh in 2022, equity and action recommendations that appeared in Mayor Bibbs transition report uh in January uh when that admin first got started.

We also uh work closely with the Office of Equal Opportunity, which is directed by Tyson Mitchell, and uh we also have that declaration uh by council authorized the creation of racism as a public health crisis working group, which is now a coalition, uh and several members of the of the council body serve on that coalition as well.

All of the work is aligned with social determinants of health when we talk about equity when we talk about racial equity, using social determinants of health as a way to measure the equity work is a really really uh good way to define what these outcomes are, what the disparities are, and then how do we go about addressing them?

So if you look at all of these categories uh in terms of uh when we are talking about health overall, we're not just talking about your physical body, we're talking about our education access and quality.

We're talking about health, health care and quality of that health care, the neighborhood and built environment, such as housing, transportation.

Uh we are talking about social and community context.

So we're talking about anything ranging from returning citizens to the care and treatment of uh uh our our children in the foster care system to how we um are able to maintain quality of life for senior citizens, those types of things fall under social and community context, and then of course, economic stability, and I would add to that mobility.

Uh those are the things that help us determine whether or not we are healthy or not healthy.

Uh just so that you're uh continuing to be aware of the buckets of work that the division of health equity and social justice operates within, within CDPH, as I mentioned.

We have four programs that have been part of the Cleveland Department of Public Health and the City of Cleveland for decades.

They were previously in our health division, which is health equity and social justice is separated out from that, just to give a little bit more focus on the equity issues at play there and to make sure that we're giving some more support to areas where we see greater health disparities, especially for our brown and black community members.

So those programs are HIV, Minority Health, Moms First, which is a federally funded healthy start program, but also City of Cleveland provides a great amount of funding to that program as well.

And Omar is our Office of Mental Health and Addiction Recovery, which is currently very focused on opioid response.

Within the City of Cleveland, as we stood up the division to look at equity across the city, we stood up two bodies, which is the interdepartmental equity team, which I'll go into some more detail about here shortly, as well as we have a strategic plan, which we're kind of in the middle of for that body.

We are operating now using a health and equity assessment that I will briefly go over, but you also have access to that.

And then we have an equity advisory board, which, if you want to think about the differences in the work, the interdepartmental equity team is really looking at in what ways across the city government, every department from water, public safety, development, public health, aging, all of those, everyone really, how do we impact the social determinants of health for our residents?

So thinking about connecting dots between the work that we do every day, policy, practice, procedure, services that we provide to the community.

How are we impacting either well or negatively the health and outcomes of community members?

The equity advisory board is more of a body that we uh in partnership with Director Mitchell at Office of Equal Opportunity.

Um we compose and put together to take a look at across city departments where is equity happening, where is work on racial equity happening, where is work on uh economic equity happening.

Uh it's not to say that if you look at the City of Cleveland government, look at City of Cleveland website.

Uh previously, you would not have seen a web page or a department or a director of diversity, equity and inclusion or anything like that.

It doesn't mean that work wasn't happening.

That work has been integrated into all of our work for a number of years.

And so what we did was we found those places where there were diversity initiatives where there already were uh equity initiatives, where there was inclusion happening, and uh put them underneath one umbrella, invited the folks who were leading up that work.

In many cases, it's some some directors and some uh frontline staff, but to form an equity advisory group that basically was able to within that equity inventory of the whole city and all the work that we're doing, where are we improving equity for residents and in the work that we do, uh formed a committee to be able to come together on a regular basis to look at what are the things that we still need when it comes to being equitable for our employees in this environment when it comes to being equitable towards our community and residents when it comes to being equitable in our physical spaces in our infrastructure, right?

And so that group has come together with some recommendations, and now we're at the point where we are monitoring those recommendations and checking off progress and then making more recommendations for what needs to happen next.

And then within the community, as I mentioned, that first declaration spawned the race and uh racism as a public health crisis coalition.

That coalition work is still happening.

Uh, my office serves as a conduit between the mayor's office and that body.

So we do a lot of close work with them.

They're moving into uh their next phase, which is more uh implementation of the recommendations that they made last year, which uh we had the opportunity to update Chair Conwell on the progress of that group a few weeks ago, and you'll hear more about that as they launch what they're going to be doing for 2026.

But uh, it is a public-private partnership, and there are several community members, uh, community organizations that is currently chaired by Marcia Mockabee at Urban League, as well as Helen Forbes Fields at uh help me.

Thank you, YWCA.

Yeah, I just blanked.

All right, it happens.

Um, just so that you have this.

This is a this is what our division looks like.

We're we're fairly small in terms of who works with us.

We have our teams for each of the programs, and then our core team uh behind me here.

Uh, we're small but mighty.

Uh many of our projects are grant supported.

Uh so you may not see that show up in the general fund budget discussions, but they are there.

We do make sure that we report out regularly what the progress of those initiatives are in terms of how many moms and babies and families that we help, how many people get screened for drug and alcohol treatment, how many people get HIV tested a year, that type of thing.

So we do keep those stats pretty regularly and report them out.

Just a little deep dive again, you can have these slides, but it'll it's uh just tells you who we work with within these programs, where our funding comes from, uh, and what we're ultimately responsible for.

Um moving on to the equity initiatives, which I believe was the thrust of what uh councilman Connell wanted to talk about today.

So over the last uh year, uh I want to say this got a little bit stalled when we had the cyber incident at City of Cleveland, but after that, we're able to get the information around all of the equity initiatives up on the website, so you can freely go there and find the interdepartmental equity team, which is the team that's concerned with improving how we impact social determinants of health as a city.

Um you can find uh links to documents and information uh there, as well as for the racism as a public health crisis coalition, as well as for the equity advisory group, looking internally and externally at how we are promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as equity more equitable access.

So that is all there for you to have in your hands.

The interdepartmental equity team or the IET as we call it, just a little bit of background.

Uh, this was uh it's first um uh equity strategic plan that uh the city of Cleveland has uh put out in terms of being able to combine all the departments and that gives you a little bit of a timeline again.

Uh while we had the declaration in June of 2020, at that time uh in the country that there many cities made similar declarations, uh corporations were making similar decks, Nike made a declaration, Coke made right.

Um but uh for us and as a city, this meant the start uh not even the start, it has begun well before that.

That uh the folks who were supporting that uh declaration uh were working on it well before that happened.

It just that was a catalyst.

Uh and I think uh we can go back in terms of gathering the bodies who were in support of it together back to November of 2019 when our Office of Minority Health supported the 400 years of inequity Cleveland and Cleveland Summit, uh really deep diving into things like redlining and how that affected uh the makeup of our neighborhoods, but also the very fabric of our communities.

So this just gives you a little bit of background uh from where we were to where we are now.

That work group is intact.

We do have members from uh every department.

We are uh this year going to be on boarding some new members as things ebb and flow, things you know, people need to either roll off of committees and and do different work as you're well aware, um, or your time doesn't allow, so we're uh gonna be onboarding some new folks uh into that process as well.

And I'll get into what we're working on now.

Um you can uh find online the full strategic plan looking at the different health outcomes that we're tracking that tell us about the relative social determinants of health of Cleveland, uh, how we're doing with regard to uh housing affordability, how are we doing with regard to availability of transportation, how are we doing with regard to our uh clean air?

Like how are we doing with regard to uh unemployment rate and jobs, all of these things uh make a difference to how our health count health and well-being and our outcomes are.

Um so those are the four uh categories that are our um our indicators are in, that the work that we do all falls in.

We kind of separate separate out into is this a built environment and neighborhood issue, is this an economic mobility and stability issue, is this about health and public health, or is this more a safety and community support question?

Um to that end what we did next was establish the health and equity uh assessments, and so basically what that means is we're able to take a look at any program, any policy, any practice, any procedure, it can be utilized as a tool to examine current programs or practices, procedures, or new programs, practices, and procedures.

Ultimately, um we've talked about this as an example, a way that city council might be able to use this is to say that if you're contracting with the city of Cleveland, you have to do this health and equity assessment as part of your application package if you're getting a grant or if you're you're gonna be uh contracted to do business with the C use it.

We've been using it internally for about a year just to really examine are we having equity equity gaps or negative health impacts by some of the programming that we do or some of the initiatives that we put up, really examining things to say that we we started this project to do something good, but we're noticing either a not everybody has access to it or is able to participate in it.

How do we change that?

Or we're seeing that we might have a negative impact that has been happening that we didn't intend.

How are we going to fix it?

And by no means does doing an assessment mean that you have to cancel a program or get rid of something, or tell someone they can't do that particular initiative.

It's about having the conversation to say how can we do it better.

So that tool is available on the website as well.

It is based on the toolkit from the network for public health law, and we consult it with them a lot as we adapted it.

We're the first city to adapt it to be able to use it on policy as well, to be able to examine the effects of policy.

It was adapted with their support.

It's a very simple accessible framework that guides us to uh assess potential health and equity implications.

Again, it's just it's a it's a fillable PDF form with six steps to it that our teams uh help to the interdepartmental equity team uh helps to guide the person through.

Uh we have I'll get to kind of where we are with those.

We've done, I think we're at we're on we have either eight, eight that are either finished or in progress.

I think there are two, one that's yet to start and one that's in progress at the moment.

Again, can be used for new or existing uh programs, policies, or procedures.

Uh it's also really nice, I would say, for if uh as if I was a funder uh on in philanthropy, or um I would use this if I were applying for grants.

I would uh as a funder love to see that the folks who are we're considering providing funding to have done a health and equity impact assessment to show us that the work that they do is equitable and it also has no negative impacts, health impacts.

Uh, this is kind of what the front page looks like.

It just kind of goes through what some of those steps are.

Um it's very very simple being able to discuss why the program or policy is is being reviewed and is proposed, who's proposing that we take a look at this, and again, it's not something that we're looking at, and we're gonna tell you it's we're looking at this together, we're having this conversation together.

Uh, it is also explaining the context of the policy program or process.

What is this?

What does it mean?

What does it do?

What was it designed to do?

So that the folks who are reviewing have a very good idea of what the history of the program is, what the background is, and what they were designed to do in the first place, uh, and then determining the impact and internal and of for internal and external partners.

It's very important to understand and take a look in a sort of a 360 manner who um who will be affected by this, who is it for, who benefits from it, but at the same time, who's not benefiting from it, who's not uh included, it needs to be.

Uh, and then we identify some of the potential outcomes, and then we uh throughout the the last two steps are where the team makes a set of recommendations with the program manager or whoever it is, the director that is proposing that we take a look at this, we make a set of recommendations for them to take away and apply later.

Uh so right now the pillar work groups are uh I believe this is where we are in terms of uh finishing some of the health and equity impact assessments.

Our plan is to, once we have a good mass of eight to ten completed, put them into a report that we could distribute so you can see how the process works and then understand what types of recommendations we're able to make after we do that very short process.

So the neighborhood and built environment group of the interdepartmental equity team is getting ready to take a look at the urban forestry program and do some uh do the assessment and understand what we should make in terms of recommendations to improve those outcomes.

Economic mobility and stability has completed taking a look at the minority help me, Lydia, minority business and the women in business enterprise process by which they apply for apply to uh for support for their their businesses, looking at that whole application process.

Also, the contract monitoring process, uh, they also reviewed uh the digital equity initiative, and they are working on Lydia's group is busy.

Uh they are working on the Cleveland Land Bank policy review.

And again, this involves taking in data, analyzing it, and then making some recommendations at the end of the day.

And that's where folks were encouraged to turn in their current lawmowers or old lawnmowers to receive a new battery operated mower, looking at who's participating in that.

How can you make it easier for residents to be able to do that?

Ultimately helps to have for us to have cleaner air and better energy.

However, there could be some barriers for multiple people trying to participate in that.

And then they are also, they've also reviewed the Lead Safe Living Program.

And then the group that I head up, which is social and community supports, we are in process of reviewing the social support specialist programming that happens through our recreational centers.

That's where we have trauma-informed care social workers housed at every social at every rec center that provides direct services and referrals to residents.

And so we've been working with that team to take a look at how it's going.

It's going very well, but also thinking about usage of the program on West Side versus East Side, looking at who are they most engaging with.

Right now it's youth, which is who they were stood up to to engage with, but they are also having a lot of success with seniors as well as adults on many different levels in terms of things like looking for jobs, looking for educational opportunities, not to mention the mental health resources, basic need resources, food, clothing, shelter, that type of thing.

So we're helping them take a look, and we will have an assessment done for them here shortly.

Just really quickly on our progress there.

Again, we broke into three separate groups looking at our people-facing strategies, meaning people who work for the city of Cleveland, community-facing strategies, meaning our residents and people who work here, who play here, who visit our city, and then also our physical and infrastructure strategies, which a lot of it is your what you're seeing here is the improvements that we've been making to our physical buildings in terms of equity and access.

We did a little bit of visualization around the types of equity recommendations that these groups were able to make to see kind of where we are about now in terms of where you see the bar graphs, that means that's about the percentage of items on the recommendation list that have been checked off or that have been addressed.

So there were a lot of recommendations across all three of those strategy areas around language access and equity, meaning City of Cleveland employees are looking for better ways to communicate with the various languages that are represented here in Cleveland.

We were also working with community groups to have you know better access, language access in terms of things like as simple as our website.

Now you can click on our website and see the information that you need in any uh almost any language that you're looking for.

Uh language accessibility in terms of signage, and sometimes that doesn't mean having signs in multiple languages, it sometimes it means us adopting universal symbols that mean the same thing in every country on a sign so that people are uh having a little bit easier time.

Sometimes it means if we have right now our number uh aside from English, our number two language is Spanish, right?

And so when we talk about things like filling out a form, um, how easy would it be to have the translation of the form into Spanish on the same form, right?

Uh again, taking out these steps, uh barriers that are our uh holding people back from interfacing with our system and our our procedures.

Um people strategies, again, this is uh meaning our our workers, folks who are employed here, a lot of work around training and development.

I know you've uh all talked with uh HR and uh about the new processes that are coming there with workday that should take care of a lot of uh this instituting in the last couple of years the use of Biz Library, but also encouraging directors and departments to provide training that is meaningful and development that is meaningful for helping to enhance the career and skill set of the workers that we have.

Uh again, that speaks to retention, that speaks to equitable recruitment, things like that.

Employee engagement was another another area, and we we feel like we've made about 50% of the recommendations that we made, um, and then that workforce advancement and compensation again, every uh legacy workforce, anything that good morning, how are you?

Good morning.

Anything that has been around for a long time, like the city of Cleveland is gonna have to at some point and has been really looking at advancement and compensation and making sure that we're doing this on a way that is equitable and not fragmented.

The community strategies, again, there was a lot of work around language access and accessibility for residents, uh, community engagement and collaboration.

Again, how do we meet the people that we we serve?

How do how do they have access to us, how do they have access to services, increasing those things?

And then um we also determined there was a lot of work in terms of uh community outreach that still needs to be done that we can do better.

Um, and so the recommendations that that group made uh as we're monitoring now, we're seeing things get checked off little by little.

But those are uh the areas that community strategies is uh concerned with, and lastly, the physical structure strategies.

I think uh we see a lot of progress there because this has been a season of um remodeling, renewal, uh trying to uh recreate some things uh in terms of uh we looked a lot at things like uh disability access, um, even very plain things like wayfinding improvements like signage in the garage or the different painting projects that they have to let you know where you are uh in a building.

I can't tell you how many times I've had people lost in the parking lot, you know, can't find their cars, can't find where they're going.

These types of things improve our physical accessibility, but also uh our engagement.

You know, how many before we did this work, how many people got frustrated and went home and didn't finish what they needed to finish here, the business that they needed to uh finish with the city.

Um so we take within that physical structure group, we look at strategies around accessibility and safety, uh facilities and wayfinding improvements, uh, community and online engagement, uh, sustainability infrastructure and comprehensive accessibility and improvements.

So just again, making sure that we are using the facilities that we have to our best ability, and that uh you know, we refer to uh City Hall a lot as the people's house, and uh we have to make that a reality.

Uh that wraps up my slides.

I do want to just give you a quick um heads up about some of the things that we are working on in terms of being able to be uh nimble and uh responsive to uh uh to uh emerging issues.

Um you are all aware of the changes within Medicaid and SNAP uh funding, and so our team is very focused on that, and to that end uh you may recall that uh two years ago the uh Mayor Bibb and uh county executive Chris Ronet signed on for Cleveland to be a fast track city, which means a commitment to ending uh the HIV epidemic and ending new HIV infections by 2030.

That group uh which consists of um medical providers or group that came out of signing that declaration is medical providers, pharmacists, social workers, people living with AIDS, uh representatives from the health department here at the city of Cleveland, as well as the Cuyahoga County Board of Health.

Uh, we've turned our focus of that group to really trying to hone in on uh understanding the outcomes of uh Medicaid um work requirements uh and how that might impact the folks in the city of Cleveland as well as in Cuyahoga County that rely on Medicaid for their HIV treatment and medications.

Um why we look at that particular population is because it's very vulnerable.

Those medications aren't something you can just stop taking, and they are very expensive.

And so when that infrastructure is threatened, which means you know, we have about 5,000 people uh, maybe a little bit over, actually, that rely on Medicaid for that level of treatment.

If that infrastructure is rocked, that means more people are going to have to rely on the the last safety net, which is uh the Ryan White Fund, uh, which provides treatment medication, um, and that's run out of Cuyahoga County Board of Health, but all of these services are our regional that cannot sustain having you know 5,000 people so to that, and we've been working to uh come up with recommendations and to think about what is it gonna take if we suddenly have to start supporting in some way, whether it's through philanthropy, whether it's through compassionate care with uh in partnership with pharmaceutical companies, but we have to be ready for what is it gonna look like if we have people who suddenly cannot access their health care.

Uh that was um also exacerbated, of course, by the cuts in SNAP, the work requirements in SNAP.

Right, right, and so we're now looking at not just this microcosm of uh people by health issue, we're looking at the thread and fabric of this community potentially breaking apart when someone uh loses food benefits, when someone loses health benefits, we have a much bigger problem on our hands.

Yeah, uh also what they've correlated.

Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

People need food, their medication and um yeah, and that stability, right?

I mean, most of us can't uh imagine um having a medical condition that depends on you being housed in a safe environment.

Are you having something like heat and electricity, right?

Uh so uh these issues are very connected.

So that Fast Track Cities group is focused on that.

I wanted to make sure I shout out um some of our participants uh whose impetus to move that forward, Gil Kudron from Act Up as well as uh Julie Patterson from AIDS funding collaborative, but we have a host of people uh that meet every two weeks just to make sure that we understand what the numbers are, who are our folks that are dependent on this and what do what's what do we stand to loose if we if we're not um uh creating strategies to keep people enrolled in their Medicaid and able to get those uh benefits to that end.

Uh Chris Renane's office has also stood up a Medicaid task force, and he invited me to represent the Fast Track Cities um group onto that, which I had the chance to sit at the table with your wife.

Uh, she is a part of that task force again, really looking at those crossroads between what these changes around SNAP and Medicaid are gonna mean.

And what I learned from that um is that a good majority of people who are receiving these programs still qualify, but this is gonna be a battle of paperwork.

This is gonna be a war of paperwork, meaning uh for I believe it's for SNAP that they have the recipients are gonna now have to reapply every six months, right?

Um so things like reapplying, things like being able to make sure that your uh contact information is up to date in these uh state systems so that you don't miss a message and suddenly get knocked off of your your food benefit or knocked off of your Medicaid.

Um, but the vast majority of folks are still gonna apply that we just all need to be educated on how do we do that, right?

From community health workers that provide services in the home to our clinics to our social service agencies, making sure that all of these people that do this work and have contact uh with residents are able to know what um what the changes are and how people can stay up to date and then making sure that we have uh the the way to uh resources to turn them to the right place to keep getting that uh getting them if they have to be updated, if they have to report uh uh that they have they meet the work requirement.

The mo most of the people do meet the work requirement.

Um, one of the things too is that uh understanding what those work requirements are, and they're not drafted yet for Ohio.

I believe they have until the end of this month to have those rules laid out, and so it's a little bit of a waiting game of as soon as we know what the new rules are, then we can start that education process.

But there are a number of groups around town that are very focused on this.

Um, also the UH uh Medicaid Optimization Group.

Again, this is all about making sure that people stay enrolled and get enrolled if they if they if they can uh while that window is open.

Um so again, yeah.

Um we need this, and and I was mentioning to the uh that with the health department, what they do when you have your community meetings, they will come out there to talk with the residents there.

So hubs also the hubs with other key stakeholders like um in the libraries, yes, as well as in the schools, so that uh director, so that we can um be you're able to touch people, and they have collaboratives also uh with uh murder's tailor as well as with uh Martin Deport Center or whatever.

How do we work with them to um so that we can do prevention because with these cuts and Medicaid, the cuts with the SNAP program, also cuts with RTA, also cuts with libraries coming up.

Our residents need to know the way.

Sure.

Uh, and there are a number of community hubs that are established.

We we uh recognize those partnerships back in COVID as we were able to stand up community health workers, stand up testing, stand-up vaccination sites.

We use those same channels, whether as we're working with the ministers' groups, whether we're working with um the community health workers groups, we're working with libraries, we're working with schools.

We have those connections in place and those relationships.

Um again, these are the people that I'm seeing around these tables concerned with the Medicaid changes and the SNAP uh changes.

Um, and it's about really keeping those relationships together, keeping the lines of communication opening open, and then availing ourselves of this is what the health department can do, right?

A lot of times what the health department becomes is a convener or being able to connect this party to this party to the people, right?

And so it's about us being able to be nimble and being able to be up to date on what is happening.

You can't sleep, you can't slack, right?

You have to pay attention.

I think the impetus for us all in our personal lives is to turn off the news and look away because it's a lot.

Well, we can't.

We can't.

We can't create a strategy to respond if we don't look at it, right?

One other thing I wanted to just get to you touched on it in terms of responding to changes in federal funding.

Many of us who have federal funding, our mom's first program receives federal funding, our um Office of Mental Health and Addiction Recovery partners with some federal funds through the County Board of Health, as well as our HAPWA, which is housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, making sure that people who have an AIDS diagnosis have access to emergency housing uh assistance, as well as our CDBG dollars, which we use CDBG dollars from uh the community development department in our uh HIV program to promote testing education, uh preventing those new HIV infections.

Uh when we get changes, we might get the funding still, but now they suddenly have uh uh new uh conditions on the contracts.

So we had a lot of presidential orders that rolled out in the beginning of last year that are affecting our federal funds, meaning are we able to use those funds without violating these presidential orders if we comply with the presidential orders?

Are we violating our own municipal laws, right?

Um and so that's something that Director Margolias and I, as well as the mayor have been working really closely on to make sure that we're able to keep that federal funding uh without harming the people that we serve, but also without um uh receiving some consequences from the federal government that now come along with uh dollars that have supported this programming for decades now.

Are you able to I know it's back funding from the state?

I have to go down their downstate to lobby against it.

Are you guys open to do that?

Of course, uh thank you, uh Chair.

We uh within our whether it's our funding bodies or uh uh the issues that we work on.

There are a lot of times we do go down to the state to testify on the importance of that funding for particular issues.

Um we might be going with first year cleveland, we might be going, you know what I'm saying?

But uh again, it is it is our job to educate our our state legislators on how these decisions that are happening at the federal level impact real life people and our real life communities, and so I I certainly stand with you in terms of anything that we can do to make sure that truthful information uh gets in front of our state legislators to help them understand as they're making their own policy decisions and their own funding decisions, just exactly the impact that stands to happen, such as the the changes in our our Medicaid and SNAP programs.

So you know, health and safety are directly correlated.

Um districts, for example, the second district or the first district, and you're there and you talk with the residents.

Um the first district might have a community meeting on the second with the uh commanders.

Yeah, uh thank you, Chair.

Uh we when we're invited, of course we go, and sometimes we are, but we also uh of course attend ward meetings for you know our various programs.

We'll do tabling there or any community event really, but also uh we engage those parties within our programs.

We have within our minority health program coming up in April for Minority Health Month, uh, a couple of events that are happening out in the community.

I believe we're doing a uh health walk, minority health walk over at Zelma George, and we're engaging uh public safety as well as fire to be there on premises so that they have access to educating um residents, and we're all there with uh our our health partners.

Uh we also uh make sure, like I I think we've highlighted in the last couple of years, our mom's first program has a partnership with the fire department in terms of um helping safe sleep for babies where we uh use safe sleep kits, which include like a pack and play, which you can have a baby sleep safely alone in it as well as well as some information and other tools that families can use.

Uh, what our work with the fire department is is we've uh purchased for them about a hundred to start uh safe sleep kits so that when they go on a call, say it's an elderly fall, but they also notice that there is a baby there that does not have is sleeping on the couch or sleeping with mom or dad, doesn't have a crib, they can just call and the the chief can run a safe sleep kit with a pack and play out to them.

That's for folks who are not part of mom's first who wouldn't have had this already, right?

Um, and again, this is just uh helping to saturate that service throughout and across all city of Cleveland services.

Of course, fire should have a hand in promoting safe sleep for babies and and and uh promoting um thriving infancy and so that we can reduce this infant mortality rate, right?

Of course, police should have a hand in that.

Um, and so we're trying to work together across the departments to really understand at what point they are connecting with folks, when are they interfacing, so that they can swoop swoop us in, and vice versa.

Right.

I'm talking with my hands a lot about that.

That's okay, that's okay.

Um wait for them to invite you.

Um time and then is it them?

Because you wait on them because they don't know what they don't know what you know or what the doctor know, but you could yeah, we do, and we do uh try to provide just even updates and materials.

Uh we've also done training on safe sleep with the fire department.

We've recorded that so that they their new recruits can watch it.

Um understanding this is all about connecting the dots, you know, how we're all working toward the same goal, they may go about it a little differently than we do.

And inevitably, as you work through City of Cleveland departments, if you were to mention something about mom's first, you're gonna hear people go, I didn't know we had that, I didn't know we did that, right?

Well, we do, right?

And so a lot of this is about raising the visibility of our programs, raising the visibility of our services, and making sure that people have access.

So you're absolutely right, I agree.

Um we sit back and we discussed um also purchasing and procurement, because that's ongoing benefit uh minorities.

Um that is uh Office of Equal Opportunity more, but yeah, they're uh with uh Director Mitchell.

But there are the City of Cleveland has a lot of policies in place in terms of who we do business with, who we purchase from, making sure that those are those um opportunities are equitable, uh, but those particular policies and procedures fall under Office of Equal Opportunity.

How do we I gotta figure out how do we get guidelines just there?

Started working on some years ago.

Like it's been thrown out the window, and I sit back and report earlier.

Um Chair, the the best way that I can address that is um you really have to uh dig a little deeper to understand what the presidential orders around DEI mean, what the state orders around DEI were and are, which mostly the state level um the things that came down apply to uh education and schools, especially uh colleges and universities, state colleges and universities.

Um orders, many of those new policies in my mind don't affect us, at least they don't yet, because we're in municipality, right?

Um the the way that they can influence how we do things is when you see things like if we've been getting a federal grant for decades, and suddenly we have a new condition in the contract that says you can't receive this money if you have any uh diversity equity inclusion supportive policies, or you can't receive this money if you support gender inclusion, like those types of things, which is what's happening.

So when I talk about barriers to us utilizing our fund our federal funding, it's because we have some of those in terms of the diversity equity inclusion ban, um, really read it because it's kind of toothless.

Um, but it's not that's not a good translation of what that order is is a ban.

Um, but we did not have that on, say, for instance, our mom's first contract with the federal government, which again, federal government isn't the only funding that we receive for moms first.

We receive county funding, we release we receive City of Cleveland funding, we receive first year Cleveland funding, and we're very adept at um moving those dollars around to where they need to be when we get cuts or ebbs and flows and other types of funding.

Um we did not receive that, but uh in terms of what we're doing here, the questions that we get a lot are are you gonna change the name?

Can you still say equity?

Do you still have a job?

Yes, we're still here, we're still doing this work.

Equity is still a thing, diversity is still a thing.

You don't get to do anything in the city of Cleveland without diversity.

It's not a thing.

We we're our our our population and the people that we serve and who we are, even look around this table, right?

This is a diverse city.

You no matter if you don't say it, if you if you whisper it quietly in the dark, is still here, right?

We're still a diverse city serving diverse people with a diverse government.

Um so that doesn't worry me quite as much.

I have not been ordered or asked to change the name health equity and social justice, although if you look at the list of terms that were you know, hot button terms or things that were uh decided that we can't have anymore.

We're on there, like my my title, my whole every my job description is that stuff.

So uh, but so far I'm still sitting in front of you.

Um we're still gonna keep doing this work because at the end of the day, equity impacts our health, our well-being, our very lives.

And so at the the charge of public health is to protect and preserve our health, our well-being, and our very lives.

And so we're gonna continue to do that until we cannot do it anymore.

And as long as the folks at this table, the folks in the city of Cleveland uh are want to have improved health, improved housing, improved uh well-being and daily lives, we're still gonna be here doing that work.

That's important because I was wondering, you know, you guys did a lot of work on it, and I said, Oh man.

Still there.

All right, good, good.

So we need to keep out to you here and I'm strategies trying to make City Hall and any other buildings in City Hall open to the people.

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know about it, uh, director.

So that's very, very important to us.

And I'll add the councilman Harsh also put himself on the list for questions as well.

Um through the chair, Commissioner, thank you for being here.

Your your words were really inspiring at the end there, especially about our decision to keep standing with the modern civil rights struggle of our time.

Um just a to build on the chair's point, the physical infrastructure is important to me, important for folks in mealchairs, important for folks of strollers.

Um, but we're all on the same page.

Let's figure out some solutions.

Uh in my neighborhood around the corner for me is Merrick House, which has been a mom's first uh provider, a hub for quite a while.

Just uh love Merrick House and they've been doing amazing work for generations.

Could you just tell us a little more about the what the Fed's been doing on the mom's first program?

Like, is there reason for concern?

Are we go ahead?

Sure.

Uh through the chair.

Uh so uh in of course, Merrick House is one of our our longtime partners, and just for the new folks, moms first is a is a healthy start program, which is home visiting for pregnant moms uh and babies.

We and uh we provide services to the fathers, to the families, anyone who is uh has a uh hand in uh uh creating a home for and raising their child.

Um, and so the home visiting program starts at in the woman can enter the program at any point during the pregnancy, they receive um uh a their very own community health worker that makes home visits also contacts throughout the week in between visits to make sure that they're okay, helps to make sure that they are able to receive their prenatal care, getting to and from appointments, uh, whether we need to provide bus tickets or find some transportation in some way, providing uh supplemental food, connecting them with other resources, uh providing diapers, uh pack and plays, car seats, anything that they need, if it's help with clothing, that type of thing, and we stay with that family.

The community health worker stays with that family through the pregnancy.

Sometimes our community health workers are requested to be present at the birth.

And then we they keep that same worker until uh the baby's 18 months old.

If the family still needs that level of support after the baby's 18 months old, we transition them to bright beginnings, which is a county supported program which does basically the same thing.

But most of the time uh people feel you know that they can graduate the program and and to be out of fathers in there of course.

The baby's firstborn of course uh and again I think the important thing to note about our fatherhood services is that um the mom and the dad don't need to be in relationship together for the dad to receive those services as well as mom to receive those parenting services.

It's all a lot of education uh a lot of parenting education a lot of health and uh uh wellness education uh we do a lot of work around helping um if though if if the uh through the pregnancy smoking is an issue we help with that cessation uh we help with education around breastfeeding and coaching to make sure that they have that opportunity as well it's really to improve birth outcomes in the city of Cleveland and so uh we uh have not had any um huge issues until now with our federal funding our federal funding uh with moms first it's a five year grant and so we're in probably uh we've been in this project with the federal government since like 1998 so it's many cycles of five year funds um and this year so our grant year goes it's an April one start to March 31st so it's not on the calendar year not quite on the fiscal year but that's what we get from HHS uh at the federal level uh it comes through HERSA and so we started the we're in year two of our five year cycle and so we started that year two on April one began our contracts but if you recall this April one government was shut down and so they were um just before the shutdown they were able to or get us uh uh in alignment with the continuing resolution they were able to give us part funding so we got about 42 percent of the mom's first healthy start award uh that started in April and we contracted out based on that uh within that contract we had no um new presidential orders no new compliance points uh when we got the rest of the funding as um the next continuing resolution came out we got another award letter uh by the uh middle of September we had our full uh funding for the year which goes till March 31st however when we got those second two um award letters there were some new presidential orders on them around um not being in violation of uh the order that he made against gender inclusivity so basically uh saying that you can't um recognize more than two genders uh if you receive this money within the uh mom's first program this again this is a hearsa program and healthy start uh basically before that went into effect they changed their database so that we no longer can report more than two genders um they uh changed uh our report format in terms of how we collect data and how we report data um to comply and so what I think that was is that HERSA was uh being hearsa itself was being in compliance with the presidential order so that subgrantees of the program could not you know not comply because they changed right however um in interpret the you may uh be aware that several cities uh have sued the federal government to be able to accept their accept their funds without complying with these orders especially when they're considered to be discriminatory orders themselves um and so uh the we when we got those compliance orders we immediately put them to the law department to be able to uh review to decide if we're okay to accept them and spend the money and try to be in compliance or if those orders are uh discriminatory and so by complying with them we are now on a uh a file of our own municipal uh laws and so that is still being um reviewed through the law department so we have not created uh the uh the contracts that would give our partner agencies the rest of those dollars on the federal grant just yet while we're making sure that we um aren't not come noncompliant on either side of this so it's it's really uh the the most that it's done so far is created a lag in us being able to um amend the our our current HERSA contracts to uh add their full amount of dollars to it so and it is concerning through the Chair of the Commissioner thank you for explaining that I it's concerning but it's glad I'm glad to hear that it's a five year roll out so we have three more years before the worst of it could fit it sounds like you're shrugging we'll see uh just uh uh separate subject is thank you again for um engaging on language access across the city it's been a uh an ongoing concern for many years and um it the website's you know much better than

So it is concerning.

Through the Chair of the Commissioner, thank you for explaining that.

I it's concerning, but it's glad I'm glad to hear that it's a five-year rollout, so we have three more years before the worst of it could hit, it sounds like you're shrugging.

We'll see.

Uh just uh uh separate subject is thank you again for um engaging on language access across the city, it's been a uh an ongoing concern for many years.

And um it the website's you know much better than it used to be, but there's always more work to do.

Oh, of course.

Do you have any more um projects initiatives for the immigrant community that you've been working on?

Um I think if you go back to sorry, through the chair, if you go back to the recommendations for the the equity um advisory group around language, um again, it's uh right now most of us have access to the language line, which if we need an interpreter, but we're looking at something um more uh uh intense for that, or or m something more like on site interpretation or also being able to understand uh how many staff that we have at City of Cleveland that speak more than one language, and then if we are able to utilize staff in different departments that have a different language skill, then how do we compensate them, right?

Um and so to make sure that we if we're if we're moving in a direction where uh we want to be able to utilize uh the staff that we have and the language um capacities that we have under our our our roof already, uh how do we do that in an equitable way as well?

Uh and then also uh again and just sort of making sure that we are being um aware of the current climate uh and trying to uh provide care and concern, but also looking at how we do things.

So right now, mom's first is uh a case in point.

This is a home visiting program, and so for our immigrant uh population that utilizes this service, uh many do not want a government worker coming to their house, right?

Um are afraid to leave their home, right?

So we've had to get very creative in making sure that um, and again, we have we've had people leave the jobs at um some of our partner agencies because of this.

Uh we've had people refuse the service because of this, and sometimes it's not even the fact that uh their immigration status is in question, but maybe someone in their house or someone in their family or just the general outright fear, and as you have all seen, um it no longer matters what your immigration status is, you are still a target, and so uh this uh we have to be very careful of that we're not only executing these programs on paper, that we're doing it person to person, face to face, and understanding what does it mean for you to come and access this service and what do I need to do to help you get this service uh that is real in real world world time.

So again, being nimble uh and being able to pivot.

Chair, thanks for your thoughtfulness.

No, that's all for me.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, to the commissioner through the chair, uh appreciate your time and walking us through this process.

I just had a couple questions following up on the language line.

I see here in the um paperwork you you handed to us that the contract for the language line was set to um end in September of 2025.

Has has that been renewed?

Through the chair, I believe it's been renewed.

Um at the time of this that this update was created.

Uh we were that was the last um note that we had on it, but we still have it.

So my uh I think they were looking for uh whether or not they would engage with a different provider for that, but um in any case, even if a transition to a new provider is to happen in the future or sometime this year, which I'm not 100% aware of, my uh understanding is that the language line will still be in place until a switch is made.

And so as uh our last update that we had was that that contract was going to be ending in 2025, but my assumption is that it's been renewed, but I can certainly find out.

But we still have language line access.

Okay, that's important, of course.

Um, and um just another question uh regarding the uh report.

I as I was overlooking the strategic plan, I see one of the components of it was that each year the interdepartmental equity team will produce an annual report and that's provided and made available to the public.

Uh I wasn't able to find it online.

Is that posted online?

Uh uh through the chair, not just yet.

We will have uh I don't know that we completed one for 2024.

Uh we have uh we've completed the data, so it'll be just about around publishing it.

So if you're looking at the strategic plan and all of those indicators uh like RTA ridership and uh average sale price of homes up or down, right?

We do have all of that loaded into a database that we can turn around into a report.

And so when we get the uh that that uh sort of interruption that we had with our our computer services for a few months there was uh uh kind of hit us uh quite hard.

But uh when we create the 2025 report, we'll make sure that that 2024 is published so you can see the through line.

Absolutely.

We um before we go into the uh the mayor's transmitter.

Um present to us, we will hearing on their do that um every year, right, Doctor?

So you will have that before um the February before the mayor introduce us.

Absolutely.

That's a good question.

Strategic planning is very, very important.

Yeah, and you know, to the commissioner through the chair, I want to just reiterate.

I think um the work your team has been doing has been um really great, and I think to get more buy-in from the public, uh, making this data more available um so you know folks can keep track of it and understand that our city is working on this, and then it's not just on the back shelf, which um to your credit, we can see that works.

Through the chair, yes, that is the the plan is uh so basically we're utilizing um a database called Clear Impact, which most health departments have access to, and a lot of larger uh nonprofit initiatives use to demonstrate their progress.

Uh I previously worked for uh United Way and globally United Way uses Clear Impact to track, and so basically what it does is whatever it is you're tracking, whatever indicators you're tracking, it turns around a scorecard for you to show whether you are moving closer to your desired goal or you're getting farther away from it, and so we'll be able to show um ultimately year after year of uh that readily available data.

And again, with the data, those indicators that we chose, uh we did not want to kick this project off going.

We need to get data.

We have data.

There is a ton of data in the city, use what you have, right?

And that's why we're looking at um the data that tells us are we getting closer to our desired goal or not?

And so using what is already available and what we already have, sure.

Thank you for your time.

That's it for me.

Um council member Joe Jones.

That I'm interested in first uh you just tweak my mind with the the clear impact database.

How does one assess that?

Um so uh the clear impact database isn't public, uh, but we are happy to uh share our our scorecards with you, share the reports that we'll be able to generate out of that with you.

Um we have access to it because uh the Ohio Department of Health gives uh state or or gives local health departments access to that, but it is um available for us to track our projects and processes.

So will Cleveland City Council have the opportunity to access this data?

You'll have you'll have access to the data by way of reports.

Absolutely.

And and uh just further, maybe on the sidebar, uh, when you get a chance, want to really sit down and talk to you about it because I don't want to take up too much time in the committee to understand the fundamentals of the clear impact database that you have.

And we can certainly properly access that database.

Through the chair, we can also share with you the data sources that we use for that data.

Basically, it's like if um we're using for some some health outcomes, we use uh EMS and hospital data for some outcomes where you're we're using um other available open data sources.

What Clear Impact allows us to do is take all of the data points that we're tracking from here, here, here, here, and putting it in one place so that we can have a clean report, right?

But we can share where we get the data from and we'll share the reports in their own.

And the clear packed data is uh basically just make sure I'm on the same point, a state-based database.

Does that include all the state of Ohio?

How does it work?

Through the chair.

What is it collecting?

Through the chair, no, uh it is uh basically Clear Impact is uh is a is a database that let allows uh the user to um you uh organize their own data.

So if you are running a program and you want to uh every month put in your data points how many people use this program, um, how many pe events that we have, how many people do we serve, all of those things.

You want to track that yourself, you could use Clear Impact to do that.

So it's a way that we're tracking all of the data points that we utilize that are mentioned in our strategic report.

The data sources, where we get those data points from may come from a number of different um databases or openly sourced database, uh our urban AI tracks a lot of this data, but uh Clear Impact allows us to organize it for the equity use.

I see you you just going back further on your slide um about mom's first program.

I think by the way, um has improved, but I'm not sure where we are uh with uh neonatal care in the city of Cleveland at one point it was worse than the third world country.

How have we improved?

Sure, through the through the chair, uh again uh things like infant mortality rates might ebb and flow at times, but we're uh nowhere near uh where we were when we had some um that were in the 20s in terms of 20 percent of infant mortality deaths.

I bel uh we've had some swings up or down this year.

Uh our infant mortality data tends to be staggered because it takes a while to process those numbers, um, but this year the the county numbers are out and the county numbers are lower, and so that tells us that we're gonna be a little bit lower.

Um, I believe we're hovering somewhere.

I think our highest in the last two years was for an infant mortality rate around 14.2, and I think we've come down at least a percentage point.

If not, we're in the 12th point.

But again, our 2025 data is not out yet, but it's coming.

I can't tell you that the county level did go down a bit.

Okay.

Of course.

Infant mortality rate, break that down when you guys come see us with your strategy.

What I mean is it in the Harvard area, is it in majority?

I care about the whole city, but I want to know where, so we could do the background history of it.

So the chair, we can all of our our health sources, we look at in a uh geographic way, right?

Looking at our wards, looking at our neighborhoods, we know we're at the centers of certain things are, uh, and that helps us to make decisions and understand where we need to put the resources, right?

So we can absolutely if you go to uh Cleveland Health.org and look at our uh most recent, we we do an infant mortality overview, probably about every three years, so we're due for another one, but it does give you a little map that shows you sort of where the areas of most concern are for sure.

That help us out.

I'm sorry, councilman.

Councilman, you know, it's it thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, Mr.

Chairman to um the distinguished lady.

Um reason I asked that question, and just to kind of like touch and answer your uh question um is that 44128, which is the Lee Harvard area, one of the zip codes.

Um I'm really interested in that because when I first got into office, Mr.

Chairman, in 2017, 2018, um, what we found was that um this situation was massive major.

Uh never had I before uh in being an American citizen uh in a major city uh experienced third world situations happening in the city of Cleveland in my neighborhood.

So I would request Mr.

Chairman to the director, I don't understand what those percentages and points or improvements or what that is is um to have a little bit more deeper dive to to figure out have we fundamentally improved from 2017 to where we are right now.

Um and we have seen national reports on how black women uh have been mistreated in the medical facilities and industry throughout this nation and how uh their health care has been diminished.

And so for me sitting here at this table representing um uh a 96% minority neighborhood, um we're really concerned about has that improved, one, and then two, how can we, through our local development corporation, establish some kind of working relationship with your department um to really fundamentally deal with this issue that we see as a still ongoing situation, and nor have we been given any clear um data or information from this administration or any other administration on where we are and have we actually improved in terms of our zip codes.

So, Mr.

Chairman, if we want to really fundamentally understand this particular situation, I think what you're saying here in terms of understanding how does it impact the city of Cleveland as a whole, uh I think would be important if we could break that down in terms of prenatal care and and how our medical facilities supposed to be top notch in this country is missing an African American female population and continuing to do it year in and year out.

So when we talk about equity, uh certainly that's not the case here.

Through the chair, uh to the to the councilman, absolutely you're you're correct.

Uh while we are uh far and away not in the situation that we were in in 2017, uh we still do this is why we're still doing this work, right?

Uh while we're uh we are seeing those numbers come down a bit, um, it is coming down too slow for black and brown populations.

Uh however, uh right now the the biggest concern, the leading cause of of infant death when we talk about infant mortality, we're talking about babies not reaching their first birthday.

Um, and so uh it is encouraging to see that the the county overall uh in the last year has has experienced um a little bit of a downturn in that that's encouraging.

We need more.

Um the leading cause is going to be from uh premature birth.

So when we have low birth weight babies, babies that don't aren't carried to full term.

Why does this happen among African American and uh and other um minority populations is because of yes, the prenatal care, but also um the the basic needs, right?

Uh of healthy home, uh enough food and nutrition, all of those things, access to care, getting to care, uh, but also uh as is demonstrated in the um the uh short film that uh our department helped to produce a couple of years ago toxic.

When we talk about a toxic pregnancy, we're talking about toxic stress on the on the mother that results in uh poor outcomes for the baby.

And so that stress can be anything from um economic and financial stress, that can be anything from um relational stress uh and human interactions to racism, to not being heard, to uh uh not experiencing the full uh extent of care that we have available to us.

What we're doing is uh one way that you all can get involved is uh in the last uh year we've officially launched what's called the civic, it is a Cleveland Infant Vitality Group that is headed up by our mom's first team that uh we meet uh all over the city, but we are working in conjunction with Lexington Bell Community Center.

Um our moms first folks are involved with this, community members are involved with this, the moms themselves and dads themselves are involved in this.

Uh and that group meets uh we're back to quarterly meetings, but to get up and running, we're meeting um every month, and we also have small groups.

We have one whole group that's only wants to focus on housing.

We have one group that only wants to focus on safety, right?

Um, and so with those groups, uh we are creating um grassroots response and getting uh real live grassroots recommendations from the group and the community to us ultimately up to how we do this program, but also how we do this in the city.

Another thing that we're looking at in terms of best practices and understanding how best we can support women and families in this community.

Uh one of I know our pals at first year Cleveland as well as us have been taking a really close look at what's happening in Cincinnati where they are making wonderful strides around black infant mortality as well as black maternal mortality.

Uh one of the projects that uh we we look at there is I encourage you to look it up, is called um Cradle Cincinnati.

And what they've done is they've created a um a set of standards by which uh they are asking medical providers, hospitals, uh neonatal clinics to comply to these standards to be able to be what they call mama certified, and it means it's about I think 10 or 12 indicators that say if your hospital does this, we consider you to be providing equitable care to black moms and babies, right?

And so many of their hospital systems in the greater Cincinnati area have done all of the things to comply with that, and again, this is a charge led by black women, led by a black woman-led organization to say um you're doing things like making sure that your staff has uh biased training, making sure that your staff has uh uh up-to-date knowledge and training, making sure that you uh have uh equal representation for providers that look like us, right?

Um, so we're looking at how do we take some of those best practices that they've done.

And now that we it is one thing to provide uh services and direct care to mom and baby, right?

But we also need to provide some services, education standards for the persons providing that care, right?

So there's a lot of work still happening.

There's more to do, uh, councilman Jones, and I uh am definitely gonna be in contact to make sure that you're able to be abreast of that, but also involved.

Council member, can I ask just a quick question real quick?

Yes, Mr.

Chairman.

So we're 14% of 14.5.

And I want to say I I think that's a we might have been in the it might have been around 13.9.

I have to get the exact number for you of what it was last year.

So as two um I I don't recall.

I would have to I would have to get it for you.

But you say your numbers are are better.

They they are are making incredible strides in Cincinnati.

We're not putting Cincinnati down.

But I think if we're 14 now, I don't know where they're at.

Credible.

You said incredible.

Sure.

Alright, eight, nine percent.

I will look that up and get it to you.

So similar to the same.

Oh, so I don't know, is that because uh is it our I don't know?

Because when you look at even it's not compared income level, you have some figures poverty, the race chair.

I understand the point you're making, and that's correct.

It that when we see the same uh birth outcomes happening for black women, regardless of uh uh income, regardless of marital status, regardless of uh age of the mom, that does not make a difference.

Uh when we see those same things happening, like the example you gave to someone in Beechwood making six figures who has all the degrees versus someone uh in the inner city.

Yeah, my uh thank you, Brett.

My team just uh texted me that it was three 13.6 in 2024 was our I don't have it just yet.

Give me give me a sec.

Um but uh when we when we see those same outcomes happening, even though the the demographics, you know, the income, all of that is is very different.

That tells us it's systemic.

It's not the women, it's the system, right?

That means that however we're experiencing the medical system as black women is very, very different than how our white counterparts are experiencing the medical system because you can see um when you compare uh black to white, even in if it's uh lower education level, lower income level, white birth rates are still much better than black birth weights.

That's how you know it is the system and not the the people and the recipient of the system.

Thank thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um to Commissioner Willis.

Um that's exactly what our assessment has been.

We're less than you know, 200 feet away from another city, and it's totally a night and day difference.

Um and so for us, what I would like to to know more about this whole piece is you know, a comparison to where we were, how have we been successful from this particular period of time since 2018 up until now?

What are the major barriers or what are the issues preventing or blocking uh within the existing system of health care in the city of Cleveland?

Um are African American women uh being able to receive what all Americans ought to have a right to have.

And uh it's just to me, just a humanity issue uh that we shouldn't even be sitting here talking about at the table.

Um we should have already kind of like this should not be uh even a discussion uh uh here in this nation.

Um so um, especially in particular our city and our ward.

So I want to figure out where we are.

One, two, who's offering and providing services and from your department and maybe any other health care system or department, and then three, how do we begin the proposition to sit down and talk about how do we improve the condition and then bring the neighborhood as a whole into um the active process of uh resolving the issue.

Uh focus on um the commissioner uh Willis department, and that could be it could it could be right in right in the scope when he narrates it to us, so because he's writing things down, and that way he can answer some of the questions.

Well, I think that if we do it this way, then it gives me a better shot, you know, and I'm appreciative of the commissioner and her uh wide knowledge base of multiple topics on this issue.

Um so it would be great to to do those three things.

So I'd love to set up that opportunity to sit down with you and then start putting the the wheels in motion on that.

Uh one and then two, also understanding a little bit more about this database and what it has to provide and what it has to offer.

Um so I would love to sit down and that would be a separate, because both of these issues are separate issues, it'd be a separate time where I can sit down and really fundamentally understand it.

And then, Mr.

Chairman, lastly, one of the issues that's really important to this city, and we spent a lot of time, the the 118 and 116 councils um dealing with lead, and then we can go all the way back to the 90s when I was in elected public office where we still had this major issue dealing with lead.

The city of Cleveland has put a tremendous amount of money uh and institutions and organizations and nonprofits have put money into the lead program.

So what I would ask Mr.

Chairman is to get caught up where we are with this particular led program, who are our uh who are we contracted out in terms of services, who's who, and then maybe on the side, really sitting down to get a real grasp of this because uh, you know, all of the city is impacted by lead, and somehow some areas are focused on more than others, and and my neighborhood has a situation where we need to really start fundamentally dealing with that.

We don't want to be in a situation where all the funds and resources are used up, and uh and we have not uh got in what I would feel a fair share for the citizens of the first ward.

The house um the next meeting is is on lead, and we have community development will be here as well as um um the health department, and then we'll move forward with that, and that's our next meeting is about and our issues and concerns dealing with lead.

They'll tell us where we are, are we hitting our milestones, whatever the case may be, and what resources are there?

Um what we we have we have new people with the table director.

What we need is information before they're new, but he's new on the committee, so that way he can read to understand it.

Right, you got me to catch up, isn't that right?

Um, council member.

So we that can you give it to us today or you got it cool, cool beans.

Thanks, Mr.

Chairman, and I look forward to meeting with you, Commissioner Willis.

Thank you.

Council Councilwoman House Jones.

Good morning, um, through the chair.

Uh to Commissioner, uh, thank you so much for your uh very thorough presentation.

Um, I just had a question.

Um very uh a person about the significant grip growth opportunities the city of Cleveland needs to um communicate just across the board.

And so I guess I would like to know how and in what formats all of this depth and breadth of information that you are sharing today.

How is this communicated to the public through the chair?

Thank you, councilwoman.

Uh so right now uh each of our programs uh creates uh uh annual reports that basically shows how many people we serve.

Uh uh those are on our website, each each program, mom's first HIV, all those programs have their own page where you can get that information.

Uh we try to, whenever there is an update for the equity information, we make sure that we um update that website information.

We have not yet, but when we do the 2025 annual report, it is common practice to pretty much uh if you are releasing a report like that to do a press release so that everybody gets uh gets it in their inbox and is aware of it.

Um, but we're also uh hopeful we've done uh several uh lunch and learn opportunities.

Uh when the uh new uh our equity portion of the website launched, the city invited us to do a launch and learn for all city of Cleveland staff, which was also um uh streamed.

So that helps uh but we're uh open and welcome to suggestions for other ways.

We also like to come out to the ward meetings to give updates like this.

Um, and we try to just make sure that number one, we're tracking our data and putting it in a digestible form to be able to share out.

Uh, but we're definitely um looking at uh new ways to to make sure that we're providing these updates to not just the public but internally here at City Hall uh for all city of Cleveland staff.

Uh, and also we utilize our community groups quite a bit.

Um, as you'll recall when we um uh we work with uh racism as a public health crisis coalition.

So when they're doing community updates, we make sure that we give an update at the same time on that format so that we're in front of residents as much as we can.

One other thing that we do, I'm not sure if if this team is aware of, is our uh project managers in each of our our health areas, especially our minority health area are available to go out and do presentations.

That's a huge bulk of the work that we do is whether we're doing presentations for community members at the rec centers or uh wherever we're called to another organization to update their staff.

We do a lot of updating to um medical providers in the community as well, to uh schools will go to uh classrooms, um, but just making sure that people have updated health stats of understanding like what is the issue when we're dealing with what are we dealing with when we're dealing with high blood pressure in Cleveland, what are we dealing with when we're dealing with diabetes in Cleveland?

To that end, I'm a huge proponent of using I I'm very very proud of the epidemiological team at the Cleveland Department of Public Health and the Health briefs that they've been putting out with great quality uh on our our Cleveland Department of Health website.

We just put four new ones out, uh, three or four.

I I'm I'm blanking on the exact number, but at the behest of our minority health team, which we're talking about chronic issues a lot.

We wanted just a one-page or front and back to be able to, when we go and talk to residents or when we're tabling to be able to give them takeaway, they're in English and in Spanish.

There's one uh on asthma, there's one on high blood pressure and hypertension, there's one on diabetes, just to make sure that these chronic health issues that we see uh these numbers within Cleveland are accessible and can go in people's hands.

So those are available to you.

You can just download them and print them.

Um, and we're also happy to come out and present to any groups at any time.

Thank you for that.

Um the chair to the commissioner.

One thing I'm going to say is for the people that are recipients and beneficiaries of all the different programs, like more likely than not, they're not reading none of that stuff.

Um, and so this is where I'm saying, you know, beyond because your expertise is health and all things of that nature, and this is where the utilization of social media and its various forms, and just in the art of storytelling.

Like, this is one of probably one of the highlights in the city of Cleveland from my perspective, right?

And no one knows about it, right?

We get we have to be able to tell our story so that people can get a good feeling for the city of Cleveland.

Because right now, that's not the case, and we have to do a lot of communicating with our people to let them know these are things that we are getting right.

This is how we are fighting for people in a time where people believe that no one is fighting for them, no one is censoring them.

This is actually one of the areas that I believe the city of Cleveland is doing right.

So we really have to come up with a uh much bolder, brighter um messaging strategy to communicate to Clevelanders.

We are fighting for you.

We have your back in these ways, and this is how we can part with you.

This is my offering.

I don't necessarily know how to do all of those things, but what I'm saying is whatever team, and these are the things as we are going into this new budget where I there's a again an expectation that we are going to actually be investing real resources, and it is not enough to get beyond this thing of whoever is the one person that's supposed to be communications, they there's it's just their responsibility.

We have to find a way to make it all of our collective responsibilities to tell the good story of Cleveland, right?

And I'm gonna even include it in myself because child Lord knows I have a lot of constructive criticism.

But again, I I think you also need to give honor and focus on people who are doing the work, you know what I'm saying?

And so as I close my reward uh remarks uh for you, um I honestly just want to say thank you, um, Commissioner Um Wheels, uh, for you and each of your team members.

Um, I see you, I recognize you.

I am thank you for the policy briefs, even for the Cleveland Commission on Black Women and Girls, being able to incorporate that now.

We actually have a spotlight monthly that they send out those connecting points, right?

Things that people don't realize and recognize, and again, for me, you know, in a time where I feel like far too many people in this building are not operating of a place of excellence.

You and your team absolutely are too in my eyes.

And I know I am a very, very harsh critic.

All right.

So I'm just gonna say, no, for real, like you all are the things where it again, you're thorough.

You can see the actual work and data, and I hopefully other people will start to recognize that there are people in our city who are care who are vested, and it's not just in talk, it's in action.

And that's the thing that I can actually say about you and your team.

So kudos to you, congratulations, and I'm looking forward to this year.

I'll be calling you soon with our policy team to really think about how we actually start beginning to incorporate the um equity assessment tool for policy um for a policy body, Cleveland City Council.

We need to be incorporating that, and even giving us the good idea of giving that tool as an assessment for even those that we are uh re uh um investing dollars in for them to start beginning to think about how they tell their story and how we are moving the guidelines.

But so I just want again thank you so much for your leadership um for your excellence in the city of Cleveland, and I hope that other departments, divisions can look and see what it looks like when you are operating from a place of excellence.

The chair, thank you, uh Councilwoman House uh for those words.

Again, the point is taken um on making sure that we are utilizing all the um communication uh available to us, and I completely forgot to talk about our social media.

Um, our any of our staff that's watching back at the health department probably uh does not want to hear me talk about social media anymore uh based on how many times I've made them sit through social media training.

We just have another one off Friday.

Um but my feeling was is that uh the health department doesn't have a lot of dollars for advertisement, and so what we do have is the ability to utilize Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

We have not broached TikTok yet, but give us time.

Um but uh coming in, this has been the third year in a row that we've been able to uh uh connect to our our social media analytics, and we're watching that growth.

Uh, I require my program, so the four health programs that we have have to make a minimum of one post a week.

Uh, and that we have a system that that goes through uh whereby we're making sure that it is appropriate, that it is the right messaging, it's understandable, it's at the right reading level to uh encompass all um accessible accessibility levels here at City of Cleveland.

I'll just share with you uh thanks, Brett, for pointing me back to it in our conversation on our Facebook uh for the year for our our four health programs, not even just the whole the whole health department, um 29,780 views of our posts.

So that is engagement that we've not seen uh in in these programs prior.

Uh we have similar numbers on Instagram.

We had a uh just over 22,000, almost 23,000 total views, and then our total impressions on X are a little bit lower, but I'm not worried about X down to about 14,000.

But that is certainly something that we're making sure that we keep abreast of in terms of it's free, but it's our touch point to the community and understanding what it takes to make a good post that's gonna get good engagement, uh making sure that we're utilizing correct imagery, correct language, and a call to action within those posts and helping people understand what do I do next.

I seen this post that caught my eye.

I'm concerned with this, what do I do, right?

Um, and so that's something that is a part of public health, and this is what the public health department and all of public health should be doing is engaging with community.

We're trying to get better and better at that.

Uh, but thank you.

Uh, and point taken.

And my last little point, Alpha, because you just mentioned it through the chair to the commissioner.

You mentioned, and see, this is a thing.

This is from a trip.

When I talk about a level of excellence and how you're not just talking about you can act about it, the one thing you just mentioned was training.

The intentionality that your leadership has done to actually tell them.

No, no, no, no.

And I'm I'm gonna be for real.

See, this is the thing, it just didn't happen, right?

There's a level of intentionality that you have been doing with your team to get them to perform.

So if you can just get like a in our final closing, what do you what does it look like in a year for you to train your team?

I know and I'm I'm saying this because again, I'm speaking to Cleveland City Council right now.

I want them to hear what it looks like to have a team that is prepared to operate at a level of excellence.

Uh or even the striving.

Some days we'll fall short.

But again, and again, I was a beneficiary two-fold, is because I went to your mom's first training.

I was uh was able to to to witness, you know, kind of that that retreat things that you all had that was all day long, things of that nature, and then we have some other conversations.

But if you can share that with us, that would be appreciated.

Uh thank you through the chair.

Uh so one thing that we had the benefit of is this was a brand new division back in 2021.

We were standing up a new division within Cleveland's Department of Public Health, and so bringing on new people, uh, bringing programs underneath a different division on to into this division, bringing people all together, and and in my background, uh, every team that I've ever led, I I feel I cannot train.

I cannot or I cannot work with folks that I don't know.

And you don't get to know people if you don't have training, you don't have standards.

And so what uh one thing that I brought with me was to ensure that first thing off the bat we get communications training, not how to stand up in front of a podium and talk to reporters, which is needed, uh, but uh communication styles training, right?

Everybody here has a different communication style.

We also couple that with uh we utilize right now Clifton Strengths to understand everybody's top five strengths.

I want to know who I'm working with, even though my team is small, there's only you know 13 of us, uh, I need to know how best they communicate, how best they hear me, how best I can hear them, right?

When I'm talking about their strengths, I want to know what um how am I setting up their work, their tasks, their their projects to speak to what they do well versus trying to pigeonhole people into something that they don't do well and don't even like, right?

This helps me when I understand this about my team, when my teammates understand this about each other, we function, we function so much better.

And it goes beyond that to uh repetition.

Uh we open those types of trainings up to the whole health department, so now that's just part of our onboarding.

Speaking of onboarding, of course, we get some standard onboarding that the city of Cleveland does that they have to do for employees, but I understood that it was uh we were bringing in people, and if we didn't have a plan for how to accurately onboard them and train them, how many people are coming to work in a health equity division have ever worked in health equity before?

What right?

So we have an expanded checklist for onboarding where we're getting training about social determinants of health, about uh health equity, and that is uniform, so everybody's starting off from the same block, right?

I have folks that they're coming into public health, they may not have a public health educational background, but they're gonna get it, right?

Um, we utilize uh anything that we're doing, it's important for our team.

One because we're so small to know about one another so that we can cover for one another, but also um that everyone is building skills.

I don't care if you come here for a year or if you come here for 10 years, the point of having a job is that you learn and hone in on skills that are gonna be useful to you at some point, whether that's building you for something bigger, better, and brighter, great, then that's my job, right?

To help you get bigger, better, and brighter.

Um, and it helps us to function so much better.

We also anything that we're accomplishing, you guys have been here for the last couple of years when the city of Cleveland switched to Microsoft 365.

That's great.

But if you don't use it, what is the the point?

And so we did a lot of uh creating standards and trainings around how we use Microsoft 365, how do you use each of these applications?

That was before IT rolled out their Microsoft 365 univers uh university.

That would have been helpful for us three years ago, but thank you for doing it now.

Um, but we also have taken it upon ourselves to make sure uh I'm I'm not speaking ill of the health department or of anyone, but I think in a legacy government situation or any large organization, you have people who know how to do things and you have people who don't know how to do things, and sometimes those uh the the way that those instructions are translated doesn't happen.

You walk into a job, you have nothing in writing, right?

We wanted to change that, so we started to just write down standard operating procedures and make sure we're all on the same page.

Yes, I um ensure that we're all using email the same way, we're all using our calendars the same way, and we're sharing our calendars.

Calendar is communication, right?

If you don't put something on your calendar, how do I know what you're doing or where you are, or that it happened?

Um, but again, this saw this all seems like small potatoes, but somebody has to say it.

Somebody has to say this is how we do this here.

And so when it comes to if you if you go to anyone on my team, everyone knows how to put a porch purchase order in.

If you everyone knows how to do a travel form, everyone knows how to do their time sheet, like these are standard operating procedures, and so from that is a basis for everyone, but then adding on the new things that we need to know.

So, of course, we we're we're every year we have some new subject that we're training on right now, and we also look a lot at what um some people might consider soft skills training, but I don't.

I consider you know, we have to have training around uh things like uh those real world things around like uh not just communication but understanding what bullying and microaggressions are and understanding what is the standard we strive for here at work.

How are we going to handle these things at work?

Um I want everybody to have the same starting block.

Uh we just finished up a series, uh professional development series uh around looking at empathy and doing our work with empathy, uh hearkening back to our communication styles and understanding what our empathy styles are.

Uh we uh part of that was around also accountability.

We've also uh just finished on Friday.

Uh Michelle walked us through a vision boarding exercise for all of our our program and employees.

Again, this is about bringing intention to the work that we do every day so that even though our resources might be small, we can do as much as we can with what we have.

Thank you.

And this is how you get to excellent results.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman, and thank you, Commissioner.

Uh Councilwoman Hudson, take us home.

Through the chair.

Um, thank you so much for your amazing presentation.

As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, it can often feel like um as a nation when it comes to things like social justice and equity, we're we're backsliding.

So um I'm very um you know, just deeply grateful for the work that that you're doing.

Um so I have a question about you know you mentioned you know the uh the um the hubs and um that with the changes in SNAP and uh Medicaid benefits that we're facing a war of of paperwork.

Um so uh at those at the hubs, are there people that will be able to directly help people fill out that paperwork?

Through the chair, yes.

Um so right now, if you uh are not uh on Medicaid but you don't have insurance when you go to the doctor if you present, whether it's at a health clinic or at an emergency room, the f one of the first things they're gonna do is get you connected to someone who can help sign you up for for Medicaid if and find out whether you qualify and things like that.

Same with SNAP.

Um for our our our our women and babies WIC as well.

So all of those things that are benefits that have a process to go through.

There's someone to walk you through that.

And so right now we're trying to make sure that everyone who does that who has um that as part of their job, whether it's the social worker in the hospital, and sometimes it's the docs themselves that say, hey, you know, do you know about SNAP and let me connect you to this person that can help you sign up?

That type of thing.

So right now it's about uh we're waiting with baited breath to find out what how these new requirements are gonna roll out in our community, what the new rules are, so that everyone who does that knows, but also everyone who um doesn't do that but knows of the service and maybe in a position to refer someone knows what the what the requirement is also.

We're also gonna have to look at things like um those sort of like uh connected issues, like uh if someone is going to be impeded to their enrollment because their driver's license is expired and you don't have a valid ID now.

Like so looking at those connected uh issues and making sure that everybody in the social services and health field and and education and everywhere know what the new rules are and what some of the barriers are to help the people that they come in contact every every day uh with get over those humps.

And then you mentioned also the trauma informed care specialists at the rec centers.

Are those at every rec center across the city?

And are those full-time positions?

Um and are those um people also available to help with things like um SNAP and Medic Medicaid applications.

Through the chair, yes, that is through uh our uh PIYO, so that's prevention intervention and youth opportunities.

Uh the director of the program is uh Eugenia Cash.

Um, and in my uh conversations with them through the health inequity impact assessment.

My understanding is that that is uh one of the highest areas of need that they help with is connecting folks to resources like that.

Um and so, yeah, they're um um they have several social workers, but a lot of um social work trained uh and all all trained individuals to connect folks with resources out in the neighborhoods.

Amazing, thank you.

It's one of my favorite programs.

That's that seems like we're concluding it.

Uh, Commissioner, thank you for being here today uh and presenting on the RAFC and so many other amazing work that you're doing today.

Um we'll see you soon.

Thank you.

With that, we conclude the health human service committee.

That's right.

And arts great.