BC 2005 08 19 RECESSED - Laserfiche WebLink

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August 19, 2005 - Recessed Meeting/Retreat Page 310 . Staffing issues, including difficulty in recruiting and retaining the best staff to keep the student-teacher ratio low . Teacher pay and benefits . Strong family, community and business support . After school care (especially for middle grade children) . Effective and efficient operation . Facilities and growth issues piedmont Behavioral Healthcare Dan Coughlin, Executive Director of piedmont Behavioral Healthcare (PBH) , reported on the PBH services that fall within the disability categories of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse/Addiction. The agency provides services to 35,000 individuals in a five-county region, including 8,000 residents of Cabarrus County. He highlighted the following: . About 15 percent of the people that use PBH services consume 85 percent of the resources, with half being very disabled with chronic conditions (i.e., people with schizophrenia, autistic children, Downs Syndrome, etc.) and the other half with complex "behavioral disordersl/ (i. e., may involve such things as clinical depression, child abuse, marital discord, poor general health, etc.) . . High cost of non-community-based institutional care that are largely ineffective with these populations; . Good outcomes from non-institutional, community based, family focused interventions that involve working with and coordinating services such as clinical treatment/pharmacology, schools, substance abuse counseling, job training, etc. . Need to develop community-based MH/DD/SA services is made more challenging by the exploding population and increased diversity of the population. Cabarrus Health Alliance Dr. William F. Pilkington, Director, presented an overview highlighted the following: Cabarrus Health Alliance of Public Health issues CEO and and Health trends. He . General population growth compared with growth in uninsured and Medicaid populations . Uninsured and Under-Insured Population . Impact: Increase in no-pay patients; Increase in CHA dental patients; Flat Funding . Needs: Continuity of Care; Improve availability and accessibility; 10 new school nurses needed by 2010-2011; improve infant mortality rate . Methods: School Nurse Partnership; Streamline eligibility process; Open Access; Increase in number receiving early prenatal care . Births and Teen Pregnancy . Impact: Minority Teen Pregnancy rates are consistently higher that state rates; Hispanic births at almost 20 percent of total births in county . Needs: More aggressive teen pregnancy prevention; Availability of prenatal and post-partum care . Methods: TRAIL (Teaching Responsible Actions in Life) Middle School Pregnancy Program; Stepping Stones; CHA Family Planning Clinic; School Nurse Partnership; School Systems . communicable Diseases . Impact: Rates for gonorrhea are declining slowly; No significant food borne or communicable disease outbreaks; . Needs: Map historical date identifying high risk areas for syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV; Target areas where the disease is more prevalent; Maintain 100 percent of inspections of restaurants, etc.