Illinois Coaltion Against Sexual Assault | ICASA



ICASA GOVERNING BODYMEETING MINUTESDecember 4, 20149:00 a.m.Doubletree, Oak Brook, ILI.INTRODUCTORY BUSINESSA.WELCOMEMegan Jones-Williams, Convener welcomed everyone to the meeting and invited introductions and announcements. Polly highlighted supplemental information in the Governing Body packet.B.ROLL CALL OF VOTING DELEGATES PRESENT:Arlington HeightsJim Huenink, Shelley PierAuroraMichelle Meyer, Alisa NearyBellevilleMindy Stratmann-SebolBloomingtonNicole Kirstein, Hilary PachaCarbondaleMegan Jones-WilliamsCharleston/MattoonErin WaltersChicago, YWCA Metropolitan ChicagoDebbie Perry, Colleen ZavodnyChicago, MLEANeusa GaytanChicago, RVASharmili Majmudar, Sarah LaydenDanville Marcie Sheridan, Carol KristerDecaturCathy Byers, Whitney SmithDeKalbMary Ellen Schaid ElginCarolyn Karp GalenaAnne HeimGurneeAdam Robinson, Alexandra BeirigerHickory HillsLynn Siegel, Patty MurphyJolietDonna PlierKankakeeTracey Noe, Cheryl ChamberlainMacomb Diane MayfieldPeoriaJulie Boland, Kevin Nolan, Heidi Van Heuklon PrincetonBruce McVety, Nancy CarperQuincyMegan DuesterhausRockfordMaureen MostacciSpringfieldCatherine Walters, Shelley VaughnSterlingCarol FitzgeraldStreatorValerie McCollumVandaliaMary HarringtonABSENT:Quad CitiesUrbanaICASA STAFF:Polly PoskinCarol CorganCarrie WardMary HillKelly GriffithSusan FaupelSean BlackGUESTS:Rhonda Clancy, Illinois Department of Public HealthC.SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 GOVERNING BODY MEETING MINUTESThe Governing Body reviewed September 25 meeting minutes. Debbie Perry recommended approval of the September minutes. Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus. D.CONSENSUS DECISION-MAKING PROCESSMegan reminded the Governing Body that the consensus decision-making process was passed around for review.E.STAFF REPORT1.Welcome Kelly Griffith, new General Counsel at ICASA. Kelly started her new position on Monday, November 24.2.Carrie and Yvonne prepared an ad and flyer for the vacant grants manager positions. Yvonne distributed the ad to newspapers, universities and other various organizations. Yvonne set up interviews and Carrie and Carol conducted interviews with eight candidates. Carrie and Polly conducted 2nd interviews with three candidates.We have hired two new grants managers! They will both begin their employment with ICASA on December 15. Yvonne Peter has been hired as the Grants Manager – Fiscal and Courtney Gordon has been hired as the Grants Manager – Programmatic. 3.The Constitutional Amendment for the Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights passed!!! Polly and Sean worked with the Marsy’s Law Foundation to prepare and conduct press events throughout the state to promote passage of amendment. Thanks to the centers for all your hard work!Kelly, Polly and Libby will be working with the “Marsy’s Law crew” to draft enabling legislation.4.Training Institute conducted 40-hour training October 20-October 24 and 20-hour Adult Counselor Training, November 18-20. They also held 2 webinars. Carrie and Kelly trained at the Confidentiality Counts training yesterday in Joliet and will be conducting the same training in Springfield on December 10.5.Carrie, Mary and Lisa have been reviewing one-time applications for funds and providing technical assistance to the centers. 6.Susan wrote a letter on behalf of the women who were assaulted by Bill Cosby, and it was published in the State Journal Register. Sean posted the letter on the ICASA listserve. (Lesson learned regarding use of the word alleged: tell the paper that it is not an acceptable edit.)7.ICASA staff will be continuing its work with the Central Illinois Colleges and Universities Sexual Assault Summit led by Julie Boland and the Center for Prevention of Abuse.8.Susan, Suzanne G., Carol, Kelly and Polly will meet with Patrick Keene and representatives from the Department of Corrections to further implementation of PREA.9.Carrie and Mary have begun site visits.10.Sean prepared and sent out monthly Communiqués.11.Mary, Carol and Yvonne prepared and sent all quarterly funding reports.12.Staff have been attending regional meetings of advocates, counselors and educators around the state.II.EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE – Megan Jones-WilliamsA.VAWA RPE RECONCILIATIONAt its May 6, 2014 meeting, Executive Committee approved Contracts Review Committee’s FY15 distribution plan for VAWA Prevention funds. This distribution plan was based on 7/15 of a known contract amount ($1,240,259) & 5/12 of an estimated contract ($1,061,902). At its September 17, 2014 meeting, Executive Committee reviewed a reconciliation of the FY14 VAWA Prevention allocations and actual costs. ICASA staff determined that $130.81 was overspent during the fiscal year, due to the changes in amount and terms of the RPE contract. Additionally, Executive Committee approved $13,144 VAWA Prevention one-time funds to be allocated to centers; $13,132 was actually allocated due to rounding differences. The actual amount available was $13,441. An additional $309 is available for FY16. In October 2014, ICASA received confirmation of the VAWA RPE actual contract amount ($1,119,086) for the period February 2015 to January 2016. The FY15 portion of this increase calculates to $24,136 above the amount allocated to centers. Executive Committee recommends: the $24,136 and $309 minus the $131 (a total of $24,314) in VAWA funds be held and allocated in FY16 as one-time funds. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.B.RESEARCHTwo researchers, Bridget Welch and Megan Greeson, have approached ICASA regarding conducting surveys with rape crisis centers. One study is about how centers collaborate with others and the other is about rural/urban differences in centers/services.Catherine asked if these researchers are students or professors. Both are assistant professors at their respective universities. One is currently working with Northwest CASA in Arlington Heights.Executive Committee recommends that ICASA collaborate with the researchers and provide them with a list of ICASA centers’ contact information. Centers may choose individually whether to participate in the projects. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.Diane Mayfield briefly described her centers’ collaboration with Bridget Welch at WIU and Jim briefly described his center’s collaboration with Megan Greeson at DePaul.III.CONTRACTS REVIEW COMMITTEE – Mary HarringtonA.VOCA, VAWA PREVENTION, VAWA SATELLITE & NFL HOTLINE Recommend Approval (no revisions needed)Contracts Review Committee recommends approval of the following centers’ applications for one-time funds with no further revisions required:Arlington Heights VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLAurora VOCA, VAWA PrevBelleville VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA SatBloomington VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLCarbondale VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLCharleston VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLChicago SVSS VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLChicago- MLEAVOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLChicago RVA VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLDanville VAWA Prev, NFL HLDecatur VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLDeKalb NFL HLElgin VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLGalena VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLGurnee VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLHickory Hills VAWA Prev, NFL HLJoliet VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLKankakee VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLMacomb VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLPeoria VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLPrinceton VAWA Prev, NFL HLQuad Cities VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLQuincy VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLRockford VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLSpringfield VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLSterling VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLStreator VAWA Prev, NFL HLUrbana VOCA, VAWA Prev, NFL HLVandalia VOCA, VAWA Prev, VAWA Sat, NFL HLEach center’s delegate left the room during the decision-making regarding their respective allocations. The Governing Body approved each recommendation by consensus.2.Recommend Approval Pending RevisionsContracts Review Committee recommends approval of the following centers’ applications for one-time funds pending receipt of requested revisions:Chicago SVSS VOCADanville VOCAPrinceton VOCAEach center’s delegate left the room during the decision-making regarding their allocation. The Governing Body approved the recommendation for each center by consensus.3.Finalize ApplicationsContracts Review Committee requests authority to make affirmative funding decisions regarding pending applications. If granted, Contracts Review Committee authorizes ICASA staff to approve application revisions that meet the Committee’s request. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.IV.FINANCE COMMITTEE – Megan DuesterhausA.AUDITMegan reviewed the audit information; noting that ICASA has a very clean, unqualified audit. Jim asked about management and general, noting: there is a substantial difference between 2013 and 2014 and he asked what this is attributed to. Megan said the difference was due to the National Sexual Assault Conference. Finance Committee recommends the Governing Body approve the audit. Carol Fitzgerald said she has never seen a better audit, and ICASA should be very proud. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.B.FINANCIAL STATEMENTFinance Committee recommends that the October 14 Financial Statement be filed for audit. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.V.PROGRAM COMMITTEE –Jim HueninkA.PREVENTION PLANNING COMMITTEEJim noted that the Prevention Planning Committee has been discussing primary prevention education objectives and content. The prevention educators have reviewed sample checklists for prevention program content.Sharmili said this is absolutely on the right track. She asked that sources be listed for each content item. Carol Corgan said we can include that information in the future. Maureen said this is a good direction to take.Bruce said this is an excellent direction to move.Mary said centers’ service areas are diverse. She likes this, because it permits local adaptation.Jim said we will continue to discuss whether to adopt requirements or guidelines. He noted that we talk about research, but there is not much to draw on to answer the question: Is prevention effective?Kevin said it would be very useful to identify data regarding effectiveness.Bruce said we do need to set some standards to be credible and more marketable. All programs do not have to be the same, but we need some threshold standards.Megan Jones-Williams said one benefit of being part of ICASA is that people can get similar services from one area to another, based on ICASA Standards. Education is not similar in the same ways, because our standards are less directive.Diane said she has one educator for five counties. Some schools let them in for a semester, and others only permit a one session program with a school assembly.Jim said Dr. Schewe found that educators statewide are doing similar things.Erin said having statewide standards and more uniform methods lends credibility when approaching schools.Catherine said she sees this project as very useful. It is important for every center to keep some of their own signature programs, but we do need to be evidence-based. We can create the standards or be required to follow whoever sets the standards for us.Carol said the evaluation project we did with Paul Schewe in 2000-2007 is a good model for what we want to do now. In that project we developed a list of outcomes we were seeking with prevention education for high school-aged youth. Then we developed pre- and post-surveys to assess effectiveness of each center’s prevention program in grades 9-12. Next, we documented the top six performing programs and published the “Inside the Classroom” curriculum kit. Each center has an evidence-based kit they can use with high school audiences. The key question is whether centers should be required to use this (or other evidence-based) material.Jim said he will take these comments as indication we are going in the right direction.B.CERTIFICATIONJim said some of his board members have said domestic violence workers undergo certification and have asked if the Governing Body is interested in considering a certification process for sexual assault workers.Carol Fitzgerald said she has not seen any benefit to certification. Domestic violence staff have to be certified, which costs money and adds stress.Sarah said the benefit may not be worth the investment.Carolyn said anyone can say they are a sexual assault worker, but with domestic violence a person has to be certified. The Governing Body had considerable discussion about the issue summarized as follows.Institutional advocacy with local agencies and organizations can clarify who is covered by absolute privilege.It is unclear whether certification protects the worker or the client or both.We aren’t sure if certification applies to staff only or includes volunteers.Certification is intended to validate the expertise of sexual assault workers.Some domestic violence programs do not make certification mandatory for their domestic violence staff.Being certified can help, at times, with other professionals.People not affiliated with a domestic violence program can have the certification.It can be expensive; centers have to pay extra to have external training validated as part of certification.Our grassroots philosophy may not be consistent with professional certification.The domestic violence certification process has not prevented people from putting up a shingle and working with victims in ways inconsistent with the philosophy of the movement.Certification has no enforcement mechanism.It is important to consider intentions and consequences, especially negative consequences.For domestic violence, certification is required for every supervisor, which is expensive.Affiliation with ICASA as a member and grantee – meeting all ICASA standards – is sufficient.We need to consider whether a deeper level of understanding of sexual assault is achieved through certification. Certification does not establish actual expertise or credibility. People who are certified can do harm.The domestic violence model would not need to guide ICASA’s process. ICASA could create a certification process building on what we already have (e.g. standards, credentials and training requirements).If we are going to consider certification, we may want to start with a cost/benefit analysis.Domestic violence certification was partially created to add value to a worker as they work in the domestic violence program and after they move on.The domestic violence certification test is very academic.Risk management could be a concern, if liability insurance company asks for a certification process.Certification is different than a worker having a training certificate.Bruce recommends that Training Committee with the Training Institute review the issue of certification as an ICASA-administered function. Erin suggested it is premature to send the issue to the Training Committee. She recommends Program Committee consider the issue, the exchange today and whether to make a recommendation regarding whether to proceed with any certification process.Bruce withdrew his recommendation.Jim said he has no investment in an outcome. He said the conversation today was useful.Susan Faupel asked if Program Committee has discussed the issue. Jim and Carrie said it would be helpful to know if the Governing Body had any interest before spending any Program Committee time on the issue. Megan Jones-Williams reviewed Erin’s recommendation. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.VI.PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE – Cheryl ChamberlainA.CRIME VICTIMS’ BILL OF RIGHTS ENABLING LEGISLATIONThe Public Affairs Committee recommends that ICASA support amendments to the Rights of Crime Victims and Witness Act, which is the enabling legislation for the Crime Victims’ Bill of Rights. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus. Polly said the rules are actually amendments to existing amendments.B.STORAGE AND ANALYSIS OF RAPE KITSCheryl reviewed the breadth of issues faced by victims related to medical care, forensic process and SASETA.The Public Affairs Committee recommends ICASA staff work to create a multi-disciplinary task force to address:SASETA billing;storage, retention, and analysis of sexual assault kits; andalternative ways of reporting sexual assault to law enforcement.The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.Jim asked who the task force will report to. Polly said any proposed legislative changes would go to Public Affairs Committee.C.RECOMMENDATION REGARDING PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE CO-CHAIRS’ ACTION DURING LEGISLATIVE SESSIONThe Public Affairs Committee recommends that ICASA staff, in consultation with the Public Affairs Committee or its Co-Chairs, be empowered to take positions on sexual assault-related legislation between Governing Body meetings.The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.VII.TRAINING COMMITTEE – Susan FaupelErin Sturm is ill and unable to attend the meeting. Susan Faupel gave the Committee report in her absence.Susan said the Committee is busy planning, reviewing and evaluating training. She encouraged center staff to suggest ideas for training topics.The Committee discussed proposed changes to the honorarium policy (Attachment #1). The Governing Body approved the policy by consensus.VIII.PERSONNEL COMMITTEE – Julie BolandJulie Boland reviewed the Personnel Committee meeting minutes.A.REVISIONS TO SALARY RANGESPersonnel Committee discussed the hiring salary ranges for the Executive Director, Assistant Director and General Counsel and the Committee recommends the attached (Attachment #2) revised salary range chart. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.B.CHANGES TO HIRING PROCESSPersonnel Committee recommends changes to the hiring process about internal postings as contained in the Management Handbook:2.Internal Posting – A want ad for all new and vacant staff positions will be distributed to current employees by memo and/or e-mail at least three (3) working days prior to advertising to member centers and public. All employees who believe they are qualified to perform the duties outlined in the job description may apply and must give a letter of intent to the Executive Director. If a current, qualified employee(s) applies for a position, interviews and hiring decisions regarding with that candidate(s) will occur before the position is posted to member centers and the public. A hiring decision may occur before the position is posted to member centers and the public.If a staff person chooses not to apply for the new or vacant position in the 3-day internal posting period, the staff person may apply when the new or vacant position is advertised to member centers and the public.The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.XI.OTHERA.PREVENTION TRAININGStaff is working on a preliminary plan to host a prevention education meeting/training on January 27-28, 2015 supported by one-time RPE funds that have to be spent by January 31. The CDC has not yet approved the proposal to use the funds for this purpose.B.SISTER OF CHARITY GRANT FUNDPolly told the Governing Body about the Sisters of Charity Grant Fund. $10,000 grants are available. The funding period is 9/1-8/31. Applications are due February 12.Polly raised the issue of choice – no stipulations on funding as related to choice and organization is aware of ICASA’s position.Catherine recommended that ICASA apply for $10,000 from Sisters of Charity to support ICASA’s evaluation efforts assuming missions are aligned. The Governing Body approved the recommendation by consensus.C.STRIP CLUBDiane announced the strip club outside of Macomb has closed.D.INTERSECTION OF BLACKNESS IN GENDER VIOLENCESharmili invited centers to attend the upcoming event on Intersection of Blackness in Gender Violence on December 10 in Chicago.Polly noted case example shared by Kaethe Morris Hoffer in her interview with the Chicago media. Polly was asked as follow-up for her opinion on whether similar data is true downstate. This is in preparation for an upcoming television interview. Is it correct to say sex offenders are reduced to lesser charge (e.g. non sex offense or battery) especially if it is a first offense. Group agreed sex offenses are frequently charged as lesser offenses (e.g. misdemeanor or battery).Sharmili, Sarah, Cheryl, Erin and Mary Harrington offered feedback and additional language for Polly to say. Sharmili clarified first “known or reported” offense rather than first offense.Recorded by:Carol Corgan and Carrie Ward ................
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