RPAB Meeting 07-20-2005

 

Regional Provider Advisory Board Meeting: 7/20/05

NOTE: These minutes are being sent to all who were present and others who are on this board. I will wait one week for any corrections (send to: jlgagnon@maine.rr.com) and if I don’t get any, I will have the minutes posted on the CDS web site.

Present: Lori Whittemore, Denise Gobeil, Jenn Lovejoy, Nancy Steeves, June Gagnon, & Kate Marro

1. Progress Report Form: Lori W would like the form to be used this September. A training session is available; not required. Therapists do not need to use the new form for kids being discharged to kindergarten. There will be training on writing outcomes for Part C.

2. Fingerprinting: Available Aug. 6 in Westbrook & Aug. 16 in Lewiston. Westbrook will probably be for people who got cancelled at PATHS. If unable to get fingerprinted by Sept. 1, call Certification at the State and ask them about it. Let Lori W know if people can’t get it done in time but have it scheduled.

3. Two Special Purpose Programs would like to open. Sue Shea would like to get space in a Child Care Center and Ruth Hughes would like to open in Scarborough. The Dept. of Ed. has stopped approving new programs until they get procedures in place for assessing quality programs. Lori Bertoulli is working on a provisional approval for these two.

4. Providers: If someone meets the basic level of quality, they must be given a contract, but that doesn’t mean they have to be given referrals. A standardized assessment tool “Quality Indicator” will be used to assess Autism programs. There will be program review & credentialing review. All DT Programs must have an established curriculum & an assessment tool. The assessment toll can be any published assessment; curriculum-based assessments are OK. Colleen Foley-Ingersoll will probably evaluate the autism programs, which involves a self-assessment by the program. Other programs will use the Eckers (?) or a DEC tool.

5. New Hires at CDS: Lori W. hired a DT specialist, Cheryl Hillicoss, who has lots of experience. She has an offer out to someone else too for DT. One of them will do the program review of non-autism programs. Deb Riley was hired as speech pathologist to replace Heather Yaeger. Still about 50 kids waiting for speech.

6. Developmental Delay Criteria. A committee that Lori is on discussed possibility of changing eligibility to 2 SDs. That would eliminate a lot of kids and save a lot of money. This was not recommended to do this at State level. Was recommended to tighten up language. Change to “at least 1.5 Standard Deviations,” rather than approximately 1.5 SDs. Define DD as 5 domains, not areas. Receptive and expressive would be one domain. However, kids with speech delays would probably qualify under Speech, not Developmental Delay and there is more flexibility in that category.

7. Mainstream Programs: Lori only knows 4 so far, for sure, that can meet all the criteria. These are Children’s Odyssey, St. E’s, My School & Building Blocks Barn. There will probably be more recommendations for IDT.

8. Special Purpose programs: can now have typically developing kids in their programs. Reach School will have 5-6 typical kids in the 3:1 class; may eventually have typical kids in 2:1 class. They are moving toward making the 3:1 class a half day.

9. Letter re Provider Advisory Board: Denise wrote letter and it was included in all contracts.

10. Next Meeting will be: Wednesday, August 17th at 3:30 at CDS.