Present: Janie Snieder/a better Way Therapy, Leticia Garcia

Dakota County Connections (DCC) Meeting Notes from:

Date/Time of Meeting: June 9th 2016 @ 9:00 am

Location of Meeting: Law Enforcement Center South Sioux City

Present: Janie Snieder/A Better Way Therapy, Leticia Garcia/Goodwill of the Great Plains, Nancy Oates/ResCare, Tonya Bauman/Building Blocks, Nicole Stack/Heartland Counseling, Corrin Mikkelson/NWS-YMCA, Josh Martin/DHHS, JoAnn Gieselman/SHIP &DCC, Yesica Saldana/Dakota County Health Dept., Marian Burnett/Crittenton Center, Linda Philips/Siouxland Cares, Jeff Hackett/Boys Town, Judy Stanton/ Senior Lifestyle Advantage, Linnea Fletcher/PP Heartland, Kathy Moller/NENCAP/Ed Specialist, Lance Hedquist/South Sioux City, Sarah Deck/Juvenile Diversion, Corrinna Lenort/HyVee Dietitian (Voices For Food), Stacey Schenk/DHHS EACSS, Matt Ohman/Ship, Cheri Matthews/ESU#1, Lisa Monk/NENCAP, Abagail Engel/ESU#1, Brad Bergeson/therapist, Margarita Ramirez/CAASA, Susan Strahm/Early Learning Connections, Sally Reinert/DCC Board member, Dawn Kimmel/Simpco KNNB, Robyn Watchorn Newbrey/ Therapist, Jordan Hunter/Boy Scouts, Pastor Janell Norton/River Hills Church

Agenda Item #1 Welcome/Introductions and updates:

Discussion:

Group sharing: Everyone introduced themselves and shared information that builds community!

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  Linda Philips with Siouxland Cares- shared that Comprehensive Strategies will have a meeting July 20^th from 9-11 at Briar Cliff University. They have put together community data that includes Dakota County, Woodbury, and national data. Sioux City Schools will be looking at the data to see how poverty and attendance affect children’s learning. We hope you can come!
  
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  Cheri Matthews with ESU#1- shared she is part of the DCC board and is our Chairperson!
  
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  Susan Strahm is with Early Learning Connections- They help with training for Early Childhood providers in Dakota County and support Rooted in Relationships. Oct. 1^st will be the Tri State Conference for Early Childhood providers.
  
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  Linnea Fletcher PP of the Heartland – Shared they have put together a youth advisory committee with kids from Woodbury and Dakota County. These youths are discussing and giving input on some very good ideas on how communities can impact the number of teen pregnancies.
  
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  Jeff Hackett with Boys Town- Currently working on a program that may be a couple years down the road but would offer in-home support services for non-system families. We don’t want to wait for families to fail and get involved in the system, we know it would be best to get support to the families earlier.
  
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  Yesica Saldana with Dakota County Health shared they have started health classes for families, some examples of the classes are: pre diabetes and diabetes, obesity
  
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  Stacy Schenk with DHHS and economic assistance- Shared they now have the ability to take applications by telephone, not just on line and paper. Stacy shared that access Nebraska has improved and she presented the group with great statistics to show the improvement. Sally asked if the SSC Library is helping families fill out information and Stacy said they have been very helpful.
  
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  Nancy Oats- with ResCare Workforce Services works with individuals who are striving toward self-sufficiency and referred from the state. Nancy shared they have a case manager position coming up.
  
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  Brad Bergeson therapist shared that he was downtown in Sioux City at a meeting and heard they are now offering Love and Logic lunches for families.
  
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  Matt Ohman with (SHIP) Siouxland Human Investment Partnership- (SHIP is the backbone for DCC). SHIP is we are expanding their Beyond the Bell to South Sioux City, they plan to expand into all 6 of the elementary schools with the hope of at least 30 students in each school. If you know of families that need after school care, please call Beyond the Bell at 712 277 3600. The cost will be 45.00 a week, if they have 2 or more children there is a discount.
  
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  Judith Stanton with Lifestyle Advantages that provides consultation services to connect families to services they need to support parents or grandparents. Judith encourage you to adopt a grandparent they are amazing people. She has a New Magazine coming out- if you have any questions please feel free to contact her at 402 200 9334
  
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  Pastor Janell is the children’s pastor at River Hills Church, she also helps with a camp called Royal Family kids camp. The camp is for kids that are abused or neglected, please contact or called Pastor Janell if you like to volunteer at this camp in Fremont or would like to be part of starting one here.
  
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  Tonya Bauman is with Building Blocks for Kids a wonderful foster care program, and she shared they just concluded May as foster Care Awareness month and treated all their families to a dinner and a date night. Tonya also told us that legislation on the sex trafficking and safe families act requires them to have all their families trained on a reasonable and prudent standard that allows families to make reasonable decisions on other people their foster youth may go with or be with. Tonya shared they are always looking for new foster families, please let her know if you are interested.
  
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  Robyn Watchorn Newbrey shared she has her own Mental Health therapy practice and is also on the Foster Care Review Board. She told us the group is looking for a new board member. Robyn explained she set up summer school class for June that offer social emotional skills with second step curriculum and Janie and Elly are teaching it.
  
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  Lance Hedquist expressed to the group that he recognizes the great work you all do and appreciates it. Lance shared that one of the things the city offers is they have different students from the schools that come up to the City Chambers and get to do all the things Council members do and it is a great experience for students. He did share about one young man that recently came that could really benefit from some of the resources in the community to build self-esteem, and that is why the work we do is so important.
  
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  Nicole Stack with Heartland Counseling shared they always have a lot going on to support the community, you can find their Day Rehab Life Center, Crisis Response that you can call, they go into people’s home to support them in many ways for example to help with social skills. The Heartland groups work great as team.
  

Agenda Item #2: Grants: We received-

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  #1. Rooted in Relationships Teaching Pyramid Model expansion- (135,800.00)
  
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  #2 &3. Nebraska Child Abuse and Prevention Continuation and Expansion grants for Parents Interacting with Infants (PIWI)- (5,000.00 & 22,500.00)
  

Agenda Items # 3: Collaboration Survey results: We always want to improve as we move forward, and we discussed the following ideas as possibilities of doing that:

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  Reach out to others to encourage them to attend our DCC meetings as much as possible, the face to face interaction is so beneficial to all of us!
  
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  For those new to our group we need to be careful/respectful and not to use abbreviations without including the definition stated in the agendas or sharing.
  
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  Look at a different way to organize our Resource Manual so it is even easier for agencies and families to use.
  

Agenda Item # 4: Information Table-Come check it out!

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  Bring you handouts, brochures and other information you want to share to our DCC meetings and put them on the table.
  

Agenda Item #5: Focus Groups

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  Community Response (CR) Meeting:
  

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  We will begin setting up a focus group later this month to look more closely at how we can move forward with CR.
  

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  Safe and Healthy Youth:
  

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  We are excited about the afterschool programing in our South Sioux City Schools! We are now beginning to explore the possibility of a Youth Center for our community!
  

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  Parent Education and Engagement:
  

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  By trying to identifying what is working for our community and what the needs of our parents are, the group selected Circle of Security put on by Crittenton Center, Common Sense Parenting with Boys Town, and 6 Rooted in Relationships Teaching Pyramid parent module trainings with our coaches for the coming year. We are also discussing offering incentives to parents for attendance
  

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  Street Project (Organization: Reporting and Retooling): -Our Focus Issues are: Identify a Mission statement, Identify levels of homelessness and appropriate responses to each.
  

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  All notes from these meetings are on the Siouxland Human Investment Partnership (SHIP) website.
  
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  The last large group meeting was May 17^th, 9:00 am, at the Sioux City Public Museum
  

Agenda Item #6: Rest of info on agenda

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  Do to time, other information on the agenda was written out to view.
  

Agenda Item #12: Presentation by: Corrinna Lenort-Hy-Vee Dietician-Voices for Food and Cooperative Garden

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  Dakota County Voices for Food is an open community group, dedicated to promoting the development of healthy, sustainable, and equitable food system; while addressing the food security for all people living in Dakota County. The council is made up of volunteers and representatives of agencies that are working to eliminate the risk of hunger in Dakota county. Voices for Food has a Cooperative Learning Garden that you can come volunteer in and at the same time learn more about gardening. For more information on this contact Marion Cain at [e-mail] or call 712 389 2478.
  

 

Next Meetings: Time 9:00-10:00

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  July 14^th @College Center room 126c
  
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  August 11^th @ College Center 126c/Law Enforcement..?
  
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  September 8^th @ College Center 126c
  

Speakers for Upcoming Meetings:

July 14^th: Lance Martin- Juvenile Justice Ministry

August 11^th: Nancy Oates-Res Care

September 8^th: Dave Faldmo- SCHC Medical Director SSC

October 13th Sarah Deck- Dakota Co. Juvenile Diversion/Teen court

November 10th: NENCAP- Head Start/ Early Head Start

December 8^th: Jennifer Jackson-Heartland Counseling Services, Inc.

January 12^th: Judith Stanton-Senior Lifestyle Advantage

February 9^th: Jeff Hackett- Boys Town

March 9^th: Margarita Ramirez-CAASA

April 13^th: Barbara Mickelson- Big Brothers Big Sisters

May 11^th: Julie Dorin- STARS

June 8^th: Leticia Caballero- Goodwill
Dakota County Connections believes that strengthening our community requires all of us working together. This includes:

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  Maintaining open communication with our partners and the community
  
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  Identifying community strengths and needs
  
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  Actively coordinating and sharing lessons learned
  
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  Defining common outcomes
  
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  Aligning individual community needs and resources to meet those outcomes
  
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  Seeking additional resources to help reach our goals
  
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  Using evaluation and community data to strengthen our programs
  

Dakota County Connections does not provide programs, it serves to provide a common table for community partners to gather around and collectively address community needs. We support all the organizations and individuals that are directed toward our common outcomes.
For more information, please see our Website at: dakotacountyconnectins.com

Would you also add the DCC website on your website so families can find the online resources DCC has to offer- Thank you!