Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will now call to order the May 14, 2024 meeting of the Social Services and Public Safety Committee, and I appreciate everyone for being here today. First off is our approval of the April 9, 2024 committee summary. Are there any additions or corrections or comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes, thank you. And our first presentation today is an update on the substance abuse intervention program presented by Carmen Combs Marks, SUDI program coordinator in the Department of Social Services. But first I would like to turn it over to Councilmember Sheehan for any opening remarks. Thank you, Chair. I would just like to thank Ms. Combs-Marx for being here to give our presentation. I think the work that originates from her office is very important. And I know we have a lot of, there's different programs that have community interests, but I think this topic overall is one that we really, as Council members, should be aware of what the efforts are going towards substance use, but then also kind of how it's impacting our community as a whole. So thank you again for being here to present. You're welcome. Thank you. I also have our substance, well, he's our coordinator, our outreach coordinator with me to kind of give you some information on the program and what we're doing as I just started in October. So he has been doing great work in his role as well. So we want to make sure to thank him for that as well. All right. So you guys know we are the Substance Use Disorder Intervention Program. The City Substance Use Disorder Intervention Program is a resource for individuals searching for information about substance use, addiction, and treatment services. We receive a grant from SAMHSA, and we are utilizing a nontraditional approach to community naloxone distribution. We also provide recovery support living assistance. You'll hear it referenced as RSLA. and I also help to coordinate the Mayor's Substance Use Disorder Advisory Committee, as well as the Opioid Abatement Commission. The SAMHSA grant is a four-year grant. It is competitive in nature, and so therefore we have to reapply each year. The third year has already been, the application has already been submitted, and we will be beginning that in October. The grant year is a little different from the fiscal year. I won't read directly from the slide. I do believe everyone has that. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. The expanded first responders and community partners overdose prevention project is the project that was funded through the SAMHSA grant. The first goal is to provide the naloxone and naloxone administration training to community members through Lexington Fayette County Health Department, syringe service program, the community outreach and training events, and the Lexington Division of Fire, which is the paramedicine group. Goal 2 is to provide naloxone and naloxone administration training and overdose education to first responders. And goal 3 is to provide service navigation to substance use treatment, recovery services, and harm reduction for community members who are at risk for opioid overdose. We have great partnerships with the health department. Their harm reductions program is great. Our coordinator is able to go out there a couple of times a week to provide services with that team. So that's been very successful. And in fact, we were recognized in, I believe, January and were able to go present for the 20th Prevention Day in D.C. for SAMHSA. So we're proud of that. Our outreach is to address the barriers that we're seeing here in our community. Our overdose prevention coordinator was trained to conduct naloxone administration to distribute the naloxone kits through a partnership with the medical director, which is Seth. The coordinator also noticed the need to distribute naloxone in a more nontraditional approach. We wanted to be able to reach those hard-to-reach populations. We wanted to be inclusive of all our brown and black populations, those underserved folks in the community. So continued partnership and just taking a different nontraditional approach has allowed us to be able to do just that. So the challenge. I think you wanted to do that. Okay. The Lexington Fayette County ranks 12th among Kentucky's 120 counties burdened by the opioid crisis. For years, the county has had a rate of opioid overdose death many times the national average. Drug overdose remains the number one cause of death among people ages 18 to 44 in Fayette County. So that's why it's so important that we continue to come together with our partners and great programs that we have throughout the city to try to come together as one to reach more people and work smarter, not harder. From 2018 to 2019, the number of opioid deaths in Kentucky among African Americans increased dramatically by 46%. However, through this nontraditional approach, we have been to kind of change that. We are about where we need to be in terms of the population that we have here in Fayette County. So we're very excited that this nontraditional approach has enabled us to be able to reach the hard-to-reach population. And to build trust in those that before would not seek services. So the need for expanded initiatives to combat drug overdose in this population was clear. Despite the success of providing more than 10,000 naloxone kits through the syringe service program and community trainings, the number of kits that we distributed to people of color remained low at about 4%. They're around 17% now. So African Americans make up about 15% of the county population. Historically, medical mistrust and cultural context continue to be strong factors that prevent persons of color from seeing harm reduction as a useful strategy. It's kind of hard to see. My apologies. So basically, this is the, and for whatever reason, it's just showing non-fatal overdoses. The non-fatal and the fatal overdose numbers. In 2020, we had 1,228 fatal overdoses and 208 non-fatal overdoses. In 2021, we had 1,237 fatal overdoses and 196 nonfatal. In 2022, we had 1,810 fatal overdoses and 210 nonfatal. And in 2023, we had 1,837 fatal and 177 nonfatal. So the nonfatal, we continue to see that to decrease, which is a plus. We hope that that is because of our training and outreach with Naloxone. and putting it in the hands of everybody. We want to educate people of all races, socioeconomic levels, wherever you are. If you may know, I think drugs affects everyone at some point in time, in terms of directly or indirectly. I think it's very important to educate and provide resources so that we can have those resources to support everybody here in the community. I think that's attributed to our work that's being done here with the Naloxone program. program. We continue to do outreach in a non-traditional method and we're going to hear that from the outreach coordinator on what he's been doing and how he's been doing and how successful he's been. Hi, y'all. My name is Scott Lou Allen, the overdose prevention coordinator. First three years of the grant, it was more or less traditional outreach. What I did was partner with the health department and their team. And what we did is go out in the community and establish relationships with some of the main players like the Ridge, Schwartz Center, both the Men and Women's Hope Center, and then a lot of sober living programs that provide IOP, intensive outpatient services, and some of your more advanced programming. And so that's what it looked like early on. And then when I was able to become a trainer myself, that really opened up the doors. We were able to expand the nontraditional approach, which, as Carmen said, got recognized by SAMHSA last year for the innovative way we were able to do things, again, with our partners. And so, I guess go to the next one, what that looks like, and there's some more too, we, Men's and Women's Hope Center, Ridge, New Day Life Center, Lexington Rescue Mission, Lighthouse Ministries, we were trained the security staff at Hope Village along with the clientele there and left them some locks boxes. We look forward to renewing that relationship next year, Catholic Action Center, of course. This has enabled me to even go up to just homeless encampments around the city. And of course, we trained the staff at Fayette County Detention Center last year also. We also have very good relationships with the recovery clubs. These are very important. Allen O. Token, Gratz Park, Recovery Cafe, and the Latino Clubhouse downtown. Okay, so this is when it got really interesting and fun. Again, I would be driving around early in the grant years and say, gosh, I wish I could get to these places and because it was just we couldn't do it the way it was set up using the health department team so when I became a trainer I was able to literally do like little commando runs and hit these spots like the very first place I went to was the bus stop outside the Lyric Theater and literally went you know person to person and trained these folks and gave them a real quick 30 second training and handed them a kit and then I did my own barbershop which is down on limestone. So then I was just like, I just started going to these places, gas stations. I took Carmen around. We went to Cowboy Strip Club even to train their staff there. We did the Winchester Road Corridor, which of course you know is high risk population. Went out to the hotels and motels at the end near the interstate and made our way in. Included, you know, what's that? Yeah, Videomacs and places like that. Again, we were very well received doing these trainings and leaving them Narcan. And so I've just been going around to different vape shops and liquor stores. I've even did, Casey was like, you need to hit the Hardee's on North Broadway. So I went through the drive-thru and trained them through the drive-thru. We've done the Alexandria Versailles Road corridor, Georgetown Road, all along there, just you know, Superamericans, Thorntons, gas stations, laundromats, so on and so forth to get those staff, get the staff there some Narcan along with everything else we do. And that's kind of hard to follow, but there's the health department kits. So it's very important what they do there with that population, the syringe exchange program. But this again has enabled us to reach way more people with myself and Carmen can train to now to be able to reach again and just kind of receive place, pull over, and go in and train them. And that's what it looks like. And we're able to, again, reach these high-risk populations in these neighborhoods that were underserved previously. And that's what it looks like. And that's why we've been able to raise our outreach above percentage of population to minority populations, which is the fastest growing within new overdoses. But able to reach out to them. And that includes also, and we're going to talk about something with the sober living issue, but enrich the sober livings that are kind of off the grid and try to bring them into the tent, so to speak, and get their services and have them up their game. That's going to be really important. We'll talk about that. We've been able to also do a locks box program where we leave the locks boxes. It's like a little red emergency kit at various locations, hotels, motels, sober livings. All the Fayette County Public Schools have them. Audrey Grievous Center, Brianna Persley's folks have them. We were very happy to do that. So that's another new initiative that we're looking at in expanding. Let's see here. I think what's next. And we were able to partner with the health department to do so in paramedicine. And they have been granted, the health department, with more funds to be able to receive more Nalox boxes. So we're able to continue that partnership and put those in different organizations or hotels, wherever. So if you guys know of any place that would benefit from that, we're open to taking those recommendations and taking a trip to visit that organization or whatever to provide them with the information and the Naloxone. Okay. So RSLA, as I mentioned earlier, is recovery supportive living assistance program. Currently, we provide $400 in assistance for those clients that are staying in sober living homes that may be in between jobs or in a certain phase of the program that does not allow them to work. And so in 2023, we assisted 550 clients with about $400. In 2024, we assisted 500 clients with $400. In the next fiscal year, we have asked to increase, and we've been approved to do $500 monthly, which will cover the full month, because generally it's about $125 per week to stay in these sober living homes. So the $400 was not even helping them to complete their full month's rent. So we're grateful for that and being able to assist a little more with those individuals for the full month versus just a portion of the month. The Mayor's Substance Use Disorder Advisory Council, we meet quarterly. We just met. The main purpose of the group is to provide guidance on both of the Lexington Outreach Overdose Prevention and First Responder and Community Partners Overdose Prevention Project grants and to advise the mayor on issues related to treatment, recovery, and support on all issues related to substance use disorder. I believe from that, once we received the National Opioid Litigation Funds in 2017, the Opioid Abatement Commission actually was formed, and a lot of those individuals were selected by the mayor, and a lot were chosen from that committee. The Opioid Abatement Commission was created June 2023 to make recommendations to the administration and Urban County Council on how to best use funds received from the National Opioid Litigation Settlement. To date, we have a little over $6 million. That is something that will continue to grow throughout the years, years to come. So what we are doing now as a commission, we are doing things such as the Recovery Ready Community Certification Program. This allowed us to do basically an assessment to see what we have here in the city as well as what our strengths are, where we need to improve. And we are right on target. We have submitted the application and our site visit is coming up May 23rd. And so we're excited about having those community partners to come and present and for them to provide feedback to see if there are things that we need to build upon or things that we need to add, and then we can utilize that feedback to continue to see what it is that we need to do to make those recommendations to the mayor for the Opioid Abatement Commission. We've also held two community town halls. We definitely want to involve the people, everybody in the community, especially if it's having a direct effect. We want to hear what they have to say because we want to make sure we're inclusive and capture all of the information necessary so that we can best support the people of our community. We want to create effective and sustainable programs. Any questions? Thank you so much for the presentation and all of the work and outreach that you all do. We really appreciate it. We have a few people signed up. So Councilmember Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. I had a couple of questions. The first one, on the overdose chart that we have, we can see each year the number of total overdoses is increasing. My question is, do we feel like reporting is different, or do we feel like we're actually still seeing an increased number of overdoses? Like, are we just reporting them more frequently now, or? I think it just depends if you're referencing the fatal or non-fatal. Looking overall. And I think when I talked to Seth in paramedicine, there was a difference in reporting. He did speak on that. I believe he brought attention to that. I don't know when he spoke, but I'm not exactly sure if I'm not. I mean, I think that it's pretty much stable in terms of where we are with numbers. I think we saw a spike back during the pandemic, but I think it's kind of leveled out now. Yeah, I think it's really good. It shows really good progress that our number of non-fatal is increasing. I was just curious if we thought there was just some major reporting difference now versus before. Okay. And my next question is, as far as the Opioid Abatement Commission is concerned, I know you spoke a little bit about the certification and things like that, but can you tell me a little bit more about what the agenda items look like for your monthly meetings? Sure. So each month we meet monthly on this, I believe it's the second Friday of the month, and those are open to the public. We usually, we have on our website, we have a place where individuals or programs can submit a call to presentation, and we have folks come and present their programs and just different ideas that they have so that we are up to par and just kind of, you know, know what's going on in the community with their programs. And so that gives us an opportunity to hear from outside of this organization and other organizations in the community. We have open discussion and open comment at the end of the meetings, which allows anyone to come and they get five minutes to speak on whatever issue that they're having or whatever concerns that they want to bring to our attention. And then, of course, we also have an executive committee meeting that's almost like a work group meeting that kind of takes that back and works to prepare the agenda for the next meeting. Okay. And then as far as action items or items that you will refer to the mayor for, I guess, expenditure of the funds that we've received, are you waiting on that certification to come through before those recommendations are made, or are you all currently working on some action? I'd say it's kind of both. We're really waiting to see the report back from Recovery Ready, but we are working towards breaking into work groups so that when we receive that information, we'll be able to hit the ground running. Okay, great. Well, I look forward to those recommendations. Thanks all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair. And now we have Council Member Plumman. Thank you, Chair, and thank both of you for a great presentation, a lot of good information. one of the things you're talking about kind of non-traditional places and in the past few years since i've been in the office we've had i said sober living recovery houses that are located in in neighborhoods um blackford's got one i've got one out on cleveland road and of course the folks in the neighborhood kind of get alarmed and they tend to everything works out are those on your radar screen because i think there's like about 20 of them now my apologies i think we might of skipped over that. I did give you guys something. You should have a flyer. Coming up May 21st from 6 to 730, we are having an informational forum about becoming NAR certified. That's a national alliance for recovery residents. It's a certification to kind of have checks and balances system to kind of hold them accountable, especially for those that are billing for services. And so we've invited all of the owner and operators to come and attend that session. You are invited to. That way that you can see who has what sober living house in your district. But we're trying to educate them so that they're all on the same page. Do you know what that universe is? Do you know how many there are? I mean, I know of about 20. I wish I could give you an answer, but Scott and I learn more and more each day. So we're hoping to get a better idea and understanding and capture those as they come in and sign in so that we can kind of create our own local database. I know there's individual owners of multiple properties. And I hate that the neighborhood gets upset, but they do. I mean, the ordinance, I think it's up to six unrelated, I think. What was that? I didn't hear what you said. I was saying I think they are allowed. I mean, they're not doing anything that's illegal. They are allowed in neighborhoods. As long as I believe it's six unrelated. Eight. She's eight. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. And I didn't know if there's any community outreach with those neighborhoods that's done ahead, or that would be a key operator. I mean, of course, each community may have their own, like, homeowners association or something like that, but there's really nothing that you can do. So we're hoping to provide, like I said, this as a session to where we can bring forth not only that information, but just concerns, just, you know, ethical approach and just different things that we see that can make them better in the community. You're going to reach out anyway, you said, to the owners of these properties, and you can offer that service. Yes. They would know that that's available to them. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Chair. My first question is concerning the outreach. Is the outreach, the definition of the outreach work, is that just dropping off the Narcan and the 30-second training? Is that what is under the outreach? Because I've noticed that most of these places in implementing outreach are 12-step program places. And so they better not be using drugs inside the 12-step program. So that was my question. What does that outreach look like? No, ma'am. If we get reports back that there were certain incidences that happened in a certain area, we'll canvas that area. We'll partner with paramedicine. If we see an opportunity, we try to take full advantage of that opportunity no matter where it is. The training used to be a little bit longer, but people were frustrated with the paperwork and the amount of time, so we condensed it, but we still have to actually give them a brief training and show them what that looks like, how to utilize it, what to do after you administer, you know, call 911, that kind of thing, and give them a little information, and then we collect a form so that we can capture the information that we've done. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. When we were talking about your presentation that covered the $500, and you said, well, it may go to $500 because of the rent, most of the sober living houses that I come in contact with and work with the people inside those places, they're covered by Medicaid. So if Medicaid is covering the whole entire rent, can we use that money for something else like the personal hygiene of folks who are entering into these programs that is needed? Because I was wondering if you all are tracking delivering money to individuals. And when I know that most of the sober living is probably 99% of sober living homes are accepting Medicaid and Medicaid is paying for their rent. Medicaid should be paying for the services, not for the rent. Well, according to the way they have it written up, and maybe we'll learn more at this information form that we're going to go to, those services, the rents included in the services, like the programs, the classes that they attend. Like the IOP programs and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure that's what's supposed to be billable. the houses, the rent is for is usually like a self-pay and I believe it depends on what phase you're in in your program and so different houses have a different setup and different phases but the billable component of it should be for services received so that's one of the things that we hope to talk about and educate them about during this forum. Thank you because I was sitting there going are they getting double billed and are we losing financial money when the services, the rent, every sober living house that I know, and I know of 12, of owners that own multiple sober living houses. And that's what they've told me because when our folks were in the Warman Center and I was calling around to try to help them for a continuum of care, most of the owners said, do they have Medicaid? And I said, yes. Do they need money for their rent? And they said, no, it's all included with the services. The rent and the services is covered by Medicaid. So what we do, we get monthly applications. We go through those applications and call the operators and distinguish if they're in the phase one part where they're receiving Medicaid for their IOP. What we want to do is pay for that phase two when they're working and paying rent. And they have a challenge that they're behind in rent. They're waiting on a paycheck. So that's what we want to do. And we also put a premium on the pay-as-you-go houses that don't have the IOP. Okay. So we're very cognizant of that. I would love to. We don't want to duplicate the services and pay people that don't need the money. I'd love to have a conversation with you all so we can dig into this. Last question, I believe is because this is a national program, the forum that we're going to meet on with this informational forum, is there some way Fayette County can make it its own? Because most of the folks who are running and own the sober living houses that I know, they came through the sober living phase of it. I know we're running out of time, but they came through recovery. So there's a difference between people who own sober living houses and people who have lived experience that own and run sober living houses. Well, I know as far as what the state's doing, that's something that the gentleman Jonathan Philpott will be there to help provide that education. As far as doing something locally, that's something that we would have to come together in the future. We're hoping that perhaps this will not only give the individuals a better understanding, but us as well. way we can decide what the needs are and how we can best support it here locally. Thank you. I can't wait to work with you all. You're welcome. Thank you. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Carmen and Scott, for the presentation and the work that you are doing in regards to substance abuse. A lot of my questions are around the opioid abatement, and I actually had the privilege of attending one of the town halls that you hosted at the Senior Center a few months ago. I think it was myself, Council Member Sheehan, I think the mayor was there. And I think there was a lot of good information shared, and I think even some folks that were there to participate shared some services that they could provide to address the need. And I think this question was touched on earlier. Is there any timeline or what's the plan with starting to spend some of the opioid abatement money? just because I think there, I would imagine there are some low hanging fruit that we can start putting some resources towards to address the need. Yes, I think we're very close. There's no timeline. We have spoken with the mayor and she agrees that we're on track. We are trying to utilize our resources and assess what's needed so that we can make the best suggestions and recommendations possible so that we're not only choosing those programs that are in need. We want to be effective and make sure those programs are sustainable. So I think we're closer and closer each day. We actually just got to that $6 million mark actually last week. So that money continues to just kind of trinkle in. So I think it's best for us to have a good foundation and assess what's needed so that we can make those recommendations to apply it to different programs that are already in existence or those that we need based on that information that we receive back from Kentucky Ready. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. A recovery rate. Maybe there's some opportunity to go ahead and get some money out there. And have y'all talked, I haven't been able to attend any meetings, but is there any conversation around how to prioritize the spending? Because I think there would be some benefit in spreading some money out across some of our divisions in city government that deal with and address the challenges. And then come up with a percentage to maybe consider to give out to our nonprofit partners and other vendors that also provide services. We did a poll initially, but that was like first when we very first started. So I think we're in the process of going to redo that, especially since we've heard from a lot of different organizations since we started. We have heard from a few of our organizations. Just this past week, we actually heard from the detention center. So it was good to hear from them to see what they're doing and maybe, you know, where we can help offer services to best support whatever their needs are. So that's all in discussion, and I think we're kind of, like I said, on target to be able to provide those suggestions. Okay, yeah, and I appreciate that because I think some of, you know, when it first came about with the lawsuit and the settlement, is that I think it was so to us as local elected officials that this was a way to recapture some of the monies and resources that we have spent for years to address the opioid crisis. Yeah, that's more of the legal question. I'm just the programming kind of guidance kind of person. Brittany's in the back for that. All right, well, we're waiting to hear some of your guidance and anything that we can do to help, just let us know. I appreciate it. All of our meetings are open. If you're not able to attend them, they're recorded. So we welcome your feedback. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Shan. Thank you, Chair, for acknowledging me since I'm not on this committee. I have a question about how the sober living and the NAR guidelines relate to state legislation that was passed. So in the last year's session in 2023, there was House Bill 248 that required certification of recovery residences. So is that related to this program? I believe that's related. And it was a big push that it was going to go into effect in July. And now it's been extended to the end of the year. Okay. So that was my understanding, too, that that program, that people would have to be certified by July 1st. Yeah, it's the end of the year. So I think we're ahead of that too, considering that we're trying to have that, pull that informational together to provide those answers for all the questions that many of the local owners have here. Okay, and then I think, you know, concerns have been raised sometimes about, you know, making sure that the people who are operating centers, you know, are working in good faith and best practices and all of those kinds of things. And I think that was some of the intent behind this certification process. So when, like as a council member, if someone is inquiring through my office about whether a particular location, like in their neighborhood or something, is registered or completed the certification, would we go as council members to the state for that information or will you be provided with a list of who's registered within Fayette County? We actually, when I say we, myself and Scott have met with them, and there's still a lot of loose ends for the state as well. So we're hoping to gather more information to be able to apply that to our local folks. There's still some questions that we had for them that they unfortunately couldn't answer at the time. So hopefully we'll know more when we have this as well as to follow. And we're kind of glad that it's extended because I think that time is needed not only for those folks pushing it, I mean those folks that are needing to implement it, but everybody that's actually pushing it as well, especially if we're going to try to hold folks accountable on a local level. Right. And I really greatly appreciate you having the information forum for operators to make sure that they have everything that they need to come into compliance once that state law does take effect. So thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Fogle. Thank you, Chair. Just to follow up on the previous question, and Brandon may have to give us the definition, there is this distinction between recovery centers versus sober living homes. Recovery centers is Hope Center, Chrysalis House, Shepherd's House. Sober living homes are usually the underserved and people who are on the streets and people who are coming out of prisons also. But there's a distinction, so maybe we need to get a definition and to see exactly what the state says. They may have regulated recovery centers, and sober living homes are not a part of that. So once we get that education and a distinction by law, then maybe we can move forward. Because once again, what I usually see, it's just like the short-term rentals. whose neighborhood can they be in and whose neighborhood can they not. And so when sober living homes are popping up south side of Main Street, we do have a concern. Sober living homes have been on the north side for quite some time. And so I want to make sure that those distinctions are made and that folks who are still giving services to people who much need this but just happen to be in a different zip code that we stay along the right lines. And I just want to put that out there. Yes, we invite you guys to come so that you can become more familiar with those sober living homes in your district as well. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here to ask another question about these sober living homes. So in my district, there are a lot. and I keep learning about new ones. So the sober living classification, if someone calls it a halfway house, is that basically the same thing halfway between coming out of incarceration or trying to maybe coming out of, coming from a facility where they've been treated for addiction? What classifies it? So the NAR, the legislation that was drafted in the last couple years, so there's grades to this. You have your Hope Centers type or the Ridge even or an outpatient that's connected to Shepherd's House. They're going to be at your top of the tier. And so then it's a four-level system. So all those that your classic sober living or halfway house is going to fall between level two and level three. And again, that's going to be on them to get with. If they're receiving Medicaid monies or any kind of funding, that's going to be their responsibility to become certified under this legislation. And for them to figure out where they fit in this program. And that's the whole point of this whole thing. So all that will be fleshed out. And as Carmen said, even the state, they have two guys that were hired to do this for the whole state. So they're overwhelmed. They are hiring more people. They're learning what the enforcement's going to look like. All that's still being, that's why they extended it. So all that's still being fleshed out. But we will have these distinctions. And we're going to eventually, I would clearly have to come to some kind of, we're going to have a working relationship with the community, with the state, to implement this and get this all sorted out. I think this classification has been confusing overall, right? Because now you can see, like, we all get calls about this or, you know, why is this in my neighborhood? It's allowed to be in your neighborhood. I think I have multiple ones right close to where I live. And so I'm all for this type of setting as long as the people that are running it are being responsible and respectful of the neighborhood. And I don't know, maybe them having to register this way and getting, you know, a certification is going to help that. But I just wonder how many are out there that aren't kind of plugged in. Right. That was the whole point of this. So what we're doing is we have your established ones that are getting certified, that already are certified. That's fine. They're going to be there to hopefully tell we get these, I call them outliers or whatever, that just don't know or are in the process. Bring them in. We want them to succeed, of course, because, you know, then we might have all these people that don't have a place to live. So we want to avoid that, right? So that's the whole purpose of this, is to get them informed where they can get in the process and become responsible community partners. I think it's important that they know that you're backing them, too. If you want them to be more ethical, then I think showing them that you're wanting to see them succeed means a lot, too. So I think if you're present, they know who you are. So they're going to want to do better and go by these standards. So that's our hope. So are you all able to send out some resources for us that if we know of someone that has one of these houses or we get reported about one that we can send them what they need? Well, we're hoping to gather more information with this. As you said, you're learning of new ones each day. So are we. Newer ones are popping up. I can't even keep track of them. And he's out there like every day. And I hear of a new one almost every week. So we're hoping to put something together with the ones that are already established, the ones that are popping up, the outliers, and then we'll be able to try to provide you with more information. Okay. Thank you so much. And once again, thank you both for being here and all the work that you all do. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we're going on to the crime victim paid leave policy. and that is going to be presented by Stephanie Theakston, Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Coalition Coordinator in the Department of Social Services. And this item was referred to committee by Councilmember Sheehan and I am now going to turn it over for her for some background information. Thank you, Chair. So, colleagues, today we have an opportunity to extend needed paid leave to our employees when they have been the victims of domestic violence or other crimes. Our community is committed to preventing and reducing domestic violence through the city's It's Time campaign, and this is an important step to show that LFUCG leads by example. We are encouraging our friends in the private sector to look at implementing similar workplace policies to help ensure that being a victim of a crime does not threaten someone's employment status or financial security, taking care of our employees as they navigate doctor's appointments and legal hearings, mental health appointments, and so on, is simply the right thing to do. I would sincerely like to thank Stephanie Thiexton from Social Services, who will be giving our presentation today, Director Glenda George, who's in the back there, and Nicole Rodriguez from Human Resources, and Michael Cravens, who's also here from our Law Department, for their hard work over the last several months to work on the ordinance that you have in your packet today. I know that we are all happy to provide answers to any questions that you may have about the specific proposal before us. And I would also like to acknowledge former council member Jennifer Massadi, who worked on a similar policy while she was on council that resulted in updates to our CAO policy 34 regarding workplace violence. Her leadership in this area provided a great foundation for the work that has been done to create this paid leave policy that we're looking at today. So with your support, we can take meaningful steps to better care for our LFUCG employees and hopefully inspire private employers to offer similar coverage to more of our neighbors in Lexington. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Thinkston for her presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Sheehan. And I'm so grateful to be here. As Council Member Sheehan said, this has been a project that has been in progress for a long time. And I'm just thrilled that we're getting to talk about it again. So I'm just going to take the first couple of slides to show you the support for this idea. There's a lot of research to show how it can support both individuals and businesses, just so you don't think that we pulled this idea out of the air. So this is a socio-ecological model. It's used a lot by social workers, public health workers, and other people doing prevention. So in general, the model helps illustrate the complexity between individual, interpersonal, community, and societal factors that affect any issue. And it's particularly helpful in issues like intimate partner violence that have traditionally been considered private matters. You can see that it really does affect the entire community. So not only do the effects stretch across all four of these areas, so do the solutions. So it's going to require change at all levels to really put a dent in ending intimate partner violence. And there's LFUCG. So we're in the community and societal one. In the community one, you'll see this one has been filled out specifically for violence prevention. And community mentions workplaces. And I really think that if we can get LFUCG to take the lead on this, then we can start to affect the societal factors where it becomes more of the norm that this is what people do to support survivors in their workplace. This is a model from the CDC. It's from their technical assistance packet on how to prevent intimate partner violence. And as you can see, one of the six elements that they are suggesting is to strengthen economic supports for families. And they specifically also mention workplace support. So as I'm sure you've heard me say before, just so you understand the scope of what we're talking about, One in three women, one in ten men, and one in two transgender non-binary people experience domestic violence with impact in their lifetimes. And that means that they have experienced some sort of effect like prolonged post-traumatic stress symptoms, injury. They've had to take days off work because of violence they've experienced by their intimate partner. And because employment can empower survivors by making them less financially dependent on abusive partners, and places of employment can counter tactics of isolation because it allows survivors interaction with their coworkers, workplaces often become the target of people that choose to be abusive because they want to remove that level of support from survivors. survivors. And also because work allows for predictability of location and hours of survivors, it makes them very easy to find by people who choose to be abusive. So employment is a key pathway to safety. Research shows that economic abuse occurs and 99% of domestic violence relationships. And really, the security of employment enables those affected by domestic violence to obtain some self-determination and economic stability that allows them to leave or remain away from that relationship with an abusive partner. And protections in the workplace not only benefit the survivors themselves, but other employees and the businesses. So you can choose to be proactive and prevent domestic violence from even entering the workplace in the first place. It will increase greater productivity, fewer safety risks, better morale among your employees to know that they're taken care of, and also reduces the stress of coworkers worrying about each other. And it improves community reputation. I mean, if this is something that you're willing to do to support your employees, then other people in the community that care about this issue will respect that. As Council Member Sheehan said, this is such an important issue that we did make it a big focus of the It's Time effort. And this is what we are asking of other mostly private organizations to do for their employees. Paid time off to address the effects of abuse. To create policies regarding confidentiality, protection from retaliation, which thankfully LFUCG has had thanks to Council Member Massadi. employee, some plans for workplace safety planning, training for other employees and particularly managers in the workplace, and then also accountability for employees that are using workplace resources to perpetrate abuse even if that survivor is not the employee. Our proposed ordinance is based on an ordinance that Louisville currently has in place. As Councilmember Sheehan said, law and HR have already had some direct input on this to tweak it to suit LFUCG. The main proposal is that classified civil service employees shall be eligible to use up to 56 hours of paid leave per calendar year if the employee is a victim of domestic violence or other crime. Just so you understand really maybe the financial impact of this, Louisville has had this in place since January 2023, and even though they have more employees than LFUCG, they've actually had 15 people use paid time off in the year and a half that they've had this in place. And on average, those employees have used fewer than 40 hours of the time allotted to them. Any paid leave authorized by the ordinance doesn't accumulate or carry forward. If the employee exhausts this paid time off, then they're eligible to use other paid time off. Eligible employees shall give reasonable notice to LFUCG, either before if they are able, if it's something planned like a counseling session for them or their children or relocation. But if it's something due to an injury, then they'll have two days once they return to provide some sort of documentation or notice to LFUCG. And then the general fraudulent requests, there will be consequences for that. LFUCG reiterates that confidentiality will be maintained, that we will not discriminate or retaliate against any employee that has used this time, and it will run concurrently with FMLA time being used. And so just so you do have a full understanding of reasons why survivors might need this time, it is to maybe seek medical attention or recover from a physical or psychological injury as a result of domestic violence. They may use this time to obtain services from victim service organizations or to obtain counseling or other treatment for themselves or their children, to temporarily or permanently relocate so that perhaps the person causing harm doesn't know where they are so they can relocate for their safety. They might need it to take time to attend court if they're participating in protective orders or any criminal proceedings and then any other action needed to meet their needs as a result of being a crime survivor. And that's it. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for this presentation. I think that this is a great ordinance, so I really appreciate it. Now I'll entertain questions and comments from my colleagues. Council Member Plumman. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you. I know this has been in the works over the years. Do you have any idea, and this is probably a hard read, of the number of companies in Fayette County that might have this? And is there a resource where somebody could find that out? So I don't know how to track those that do. I will say as a coalition, we're still trying to get people to update their sexual harassment policies. So I don't think that this has been widely adopted in Fayette County yet. I hope to goodness that I'm wrong, but that is my understanding. So I'm really hoping that if LFUCG takes this step, then it will encourage other employers to take this step. We have spoken extensively with Mr. Perez, who runs DV8, and he has talked about how implementing such policies has really affected his bottom line in his business because he hasn't had to lay people off and retrain employees, spend the money recruiting new employees. So I know that there are a couple, but it's not widely adopted. And maybe there'd be a way to use this as a template and do kind of an outreach into the community to show them what we're going to be doing. Does the state have it? Is the what? The state. Not that I'm aware of, no. But on that one page where it mentioned that it's time, we did create a handbook for employers if they do want to implement this policy. We do have model policy that they can really just change their name in and implement. We did work on it with also Weta Michael, who promised to implement such policy in all of her restaurant locations. So, I mean, that model policy is out there. And also, there's guidelines on what confidentiality and workplace training might look like. So we do have some guidance out there. Okay, it's great to know that that exists then. Yes. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council Member Sheehan, for bringing this important policy forward. And thank you, Stephanie, for your presentation. My question has to do with the employees that are eligible for the policy. I just want to make sure that that is extended to our sworn. Yes, and I think that Mr. Cravens can respond to that, but it has been considered. Yes, that's a good question. Generally, the way this is drafted to kind of fit our system, so it basically primarily is drafted with reference to classified civil service employees, but there is language in both Chapter 22 for unclassified and Chapter 23 for sworn that hooks back to this. Okay. Generally sworn employees would bargain for this because they're covered by collective bargaining agreements, but I think it's been the practice in the past to go ahead and extend this to them without that taking place. I just wanted to make sure. Thank you so much. And then my other question has to do with the documentation that would be required. Is that as simple as a doctor's note or is there something more specific? Yes, so we have spoken with Ms. George about that and HR. really going to be up to their discretion, but in no way is it going to require a police report or a protective order or anything like that. It can be, you know, maybe a medical report if you did seek medical attention. You can provide a protective order if that's what you have, but you won't be required to get one. But it will really be to the discretion of HR is my understanding on what will be accepted. All right. Great. That's all I have. Thank you again for your work on this. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Monares. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council Member Sheehan, for bringing this forward. Thank you, Stephanie, for your presentation. My first question is with regards to the maximum allowable hours, 240. What happens after that? Should more time be needed for any reason? Well, I think if Ms. George wants to come down and speak, that would be great. But I think it would be the same as with FMLA, where you might be able to extend that time off, but it wouldn't be... It would be unpaid. Yeah. We'll wait for the HR expert to answer that. Hello, everyone. That answer is correct. So the $240 is what you could get unpaid after you've exhausted all of your other leave. But if you would need additional time above and beyond the 240? We would have to work with the employee, but it would still be unpaid. Okay. And should an employee obtain an EPO, are there accommodations made to protect that employee from, I know that we have security here at the government center, but we have employees that work either in the field or in other areas, what is our obligation for protection while they're at work during the time that they serve us? I'm going to have to defer to the law department on that. Michael? I mean, I think the answer would be, I mean, we would follow our generally applicable security policies if we have noticed that there's a need for additional security. But I can't speak more specifically to that because I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah. And then just to expand on what Councilmember Baxter was asking about documentation and should something in great detail be provided for the need for additional time, for example, to justify that? What assurances does an employee have for discretion and privacy? All records maintained by HR are confidential in the benefits section. And so that we wouldn't treat these records any different than any other records that we normally receive from employees. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Okay, thank you. If I could. Yes. So while I can't speak to the legal responsibility, there are suggestions in that handbook that I mentioned about some low-cost, no-cost ways that managers can help keep employees safe should they be experiencing domestic violence. stuff like maybe relocating their workstation, screening calls, giving a picture to whoever's near the front door. There are lots of ways that employers can do that without spending any costs. Okay. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And I have some comments myself, questions, I guess. So, along the lines of what needs to be provided, I know we're calling this a crime victim's paid leave, but we mentioned domestic violence and not all domestic violence ends up being persecuted as a crime. So, what if someone is not experiencing physical abuse, but they're experiencing emotional abuse or other types of abuse? Is that something that could qualify? So, law was very excellent with that. They have defined what domestic violence, stalking, sexual violence are in the ordinance, and it does include provisions for emotional abuse, financial abuse, that sort of thing. Okay, and it'll just be up to discretion of HR on every case that were to come forward? We included some examples in the ordinance of the type of documentation that could be provided to substantiate a request. we didn't want to be we didn't want to tie our own hands we wanted to make it a little flexible because as you know circumstances vary so the ordinance says that for example documentation may include a copy of a criminal complaint a copy of an EPO or a domestic violence protective order, documentation from a victim service organization indicating the employees utilize their services documentation that the employees receive medical or psychological care or other documentation reasonably demonstrating the occurrence of domestic violence or a crime. So we tried to keep it, we tried to give enough information that employees would know how to avail themselves of this leave without hampering ourselves by being too inflexible in how we view the documentation required. Thank you for reiterating that. And I know we have no idea really because this is new, but is there something that you can reiterate on budget impact, what this might mean moving forward? So I think maybe Council Member Sheehan does have that information. We do know from Louisville, again, since they have had it implemented since January 2023, they have had 15 employees use the leave, and the average of time taken has been fewer than 40 hours. So whatever the average pay is for LFCCG times that. I think there was a calculation made, but I don't have that in front of me. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. And I really appreciate this, and I'm fully supportive. Council Member James Brown. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council Member Sheehan, for your work on this and the folks in HR and Stephanie on your work as well. So this policy, as it's written, only covers classified employees, so unclassified did not benefit from this leave? I think they do. I think Michael was referring to Section 22 about that. There is already language in Chapter 22 and 23 of the Code of Ordinances which relate to unclassified and sworn that links back to where we're codifying this. In other words, there's language to the effect of that unclassified employees shall be entitled all benefits in between this range. And we're putting this ordinance in that range. So we didn't need to add specific language about that because there's already language that links back to the range that this is codified in. Okay, okay. All right, well, I appreciate that. And then in regards to the budgetary impact, is there anything that we're going to have to do in this current budget that we're going through and considering to make sure that we have funds to cover the leave or is there a contingency in the HR to cover this type of leave and other leaves? Oh, okay, we will need to talk to finance about that. Okay, okay. All right, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. I do have the information that you asked about, the financial impact. So I have a calculation from Ms. Luker, our Director in Budgeting, and she calculated the average non-sworn base salary, and if that was an annual, the average is $61,372, and that results in an hourly rate of $29.51. 56 hours for that is $1,652, so if they use the entire time. But then their total compensation is a little bit higher because it includes, like, the benefit cost, and that goes up for 56 hours. The total cost is $2,285. And that's for non-sworn. I can give you the sworn amounts as well. And at max use, right? That's the max, yeah. And you had said it was 40 total for 15 hours, 40 hours total for 15 in Louisville is what happened? They allow for 56, but the average is out to the employees have taken an average of 40 hours. And there have been 15 of them since January 2023. Okay. Thank you. And thank you very much. I have one more piece. So I passed around a sheet that has pink highlighting on it. Mr. Cravens, our Director George, if you could come up and talk a little bit about the question we received. So since we put the ordinance as written in the packet, we did receive a question about work-related incidents, and Mr. Cravens then proposed some language to make it clear about what counts and what does not count when it's a work-related incident. So do you want to speak a little bit about that? Yeah, after the packet went out, we got the question about to what degree would this extend to like, for example, just as a hypothetical, if a police officer is making an arrest and gets assaulted, do they avail themselves of the, or are they entitled to this leave? And I think it's better to be clear that when this was drafted, we're, that's not the problem that this is trying to solve. This is trying to solve like private violence. There are already remedies for like work-related injuries and work-related incidents and leave for that. So this is really about tackling and solving a problem that is not already solved rather than tackling the work-related context. So we just proposed the addition of a provision that says, notwithstanding the foregoing, leave granted on this section is not available for one work-related incidents or two work-related injuries, just to delineate that clarification. And we think it's better to go ahead and include it than not. And then can you just clarify if someone were in a situation where they had a work-related incident or injury, how would they approach that? Well, there's obviously a lot. I have to go into my lawyer mode and say a lot depends on the circumstances, but generally there's workers' compensation. There are other leave policies that may apply, As with any other work-related injury, if I fall down the stairs and I'm injured, there's a remedy for me for that. And so what we're trying to make clear is this is trying to tackle private violence, not work-related injuries that may be sustained as you're discharging your duties for the urban county government. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So, Council Members, I am not on this committee, so I cannot make motions myself, but should you decide to make a motion, I would ask that we consider the language brought to us by law to amend what is in our packet to include this last statement on the last page. And then I hope to have your support to move this forward to full committee. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Plumman. I was going to go ahead and make a motion to approve. We need an amendment. Amendment with this. Okay. I move to amend to include the language that has been distributed to the ordinance. So moved. Second. There was a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? all those in favor of moving this to the full council say aye aye any opposed that motion passes chair do i need to also make a motion on the ordinance now as amended yeah okay i think that was yeah that was just the you just amended it and i think we moved it forward thank you chair i'll go ahead and make that motion uh it's good we just oh it is good oh Thank you. That was good. Thank you. She made the complete motion amended. Yes. So we're good. It moved forward. Okay. Thank you. And thank you again for that item, Council Member Sheehan. And our last issue today is expanding the mental health courts with an aftercare program. And this is from Bill Buckman, who will speak about expanding the mental health court with the aftercare program. And this item is sponsored by Councilmember Fogle. So I'll go ahead and turn it to you for opening remarks. Thank you, Chair. and committee, I would like to just reflect back to the substance abuse intervention program as well as the crime victim paid leave. And at the center of that is mental health. So thanks for helping me to make this case that we're getting ready to make right now. Because as crime victims go to court, they're going to end up in court. And so as we were talking about the expansion of mental health court funding, it is so important. And I would like to thank Council Member Gray because she was at the forefront. And so as we sit here together, we realize how serious mental health is here in Fayette County and how overloaded your court is becoming. and the aftercare program, the continuum of care that is much needed, after they come through court, then what? If they're homeless, then what? If they can't feed themselves, then what? And so we are happy to be here to sponsor and for you all to listen to this presentation. And just remember, mental health is real. And so, Mr. Buckman and Honorable Judge John Tackett, welcome to the committee. Thank you. Thank you, counsel, for having us this afternoon. You know, my name is Bill Buckman. I'm the coordinator with the Fayette Mental Health Court. I have a social work degree from the University of Kentucky with a focus in clinical work and substance use disorder. and I've been with the court for about four years now. I wasn't able to see you all in November when we last saw you. I was on a much-needed vacation at the time. I know that my colleagues did a great job in giving you our numbers then, so what we want to talk about today is mostly our aftercare program that we've got going on, but I really want to update you on just a few of our numbers over the last four months because I think they're really important. So let's real quickly move into that. You know, you guys, the community has come to expect great things from us, and we're still beating the odds, so let's talk about that. Right now, talking about stable housing, so almost 50% from our latest data is the average of who enter our program unhoused. And we're looking at 97% of those maintaining stable housing after a year with our program. The rate of poverty on entry is more than six times greater than that of Fayette County residents as a whole. So I do want to say that actually in the last two quarters, we're at 64% of our folks have come to us unhoused. We are squarely at the intersection of severe mental illness and substance use disorder. And we know that 90% of our folks on average come to us dually diagnosed, co-occurring disorders. And by self-report, 32% of those abuse more than one substance, but I can tell you that it's higher than that. That's self-report. So maintaining sobriety, right now we're averaging about 60% of our participants maintaining complete sobriety, looking at one year in the program, and that's compared to a national average of about 20%. And let's look at recidivism reduction. That slide didn't come through, right? So Kentucky's overall recidivism rate is close to 50%. That is going down some, whether it's in response to programs like ours, I'm not sure. But if you look at our average recidivism rate, looking at a year after graduation from the program, those folks are recidivizing at a rate of 17.7%. Now, the first mention of our alumni group aftercare program, if you look at the folks who are actively participating in that program, have a recidivism rate of 7%. So let's talk a little bit about the alumni group after care program, see what makes it so important. So remember, this is a voluntary program. When our treatment court participants are in phases three and four of our court program, we now encourage them to begin attending the alumni group meetings. Since the inception of our program, the alumni group has served 25 participants, including 15 past graduates. So meetings are held twice a week. We provide dinner for the folks, sometimes it's pizza, sometimes, you know, sandwiches from Jimmy John's or Subway. Sometimes we have some peers who like to prepare meals for the group. So it's incentivized in that way. We've really found that integrating our core participants when they're actually still in the core program in phase three and four, by integrating them into the alumni group early on helps them to form positive mentor relationships with folks and just get kind of used to doing something that's positive for their recovery. So in looking at the need for continuing care, we look at a need for support in early recovery. You know, a lot of our folks are in the highest danger of relapse, particularly in their first year or two in recovery. and recovery. So the need for connection with other people, need for that relapse prevention, just a need for discussing daily life struggles with other people who can relate to those struggles. And then we have a need for fun, sober activities, especially those that are free of charge. So in looking at some of the solutions that we come up with our alumni group, which is actually called the PALS alumni group, and it was named by the participants themselves, and it stands for Participation, Alliance, Legacy, and Service. So some of these solutions provide a connection to community navigation after they graduate, continuation of engagement with peers, socialization and meetings, incentivized engagement. And we feel like this is pretty important. It follows an evidence-based treatment modality, which has been proven to be highly successful, or if not the most successful modality for folks in such a high level of risk for relapse. and trauma-informed care, so a safe, supportive environment. And, you know, that trauma-informed care is something that goes through our court in all that we do. And we have to remember that, you know, so many of our folks come to us with trauma within their household, their families, their neighborhoods. And so we provide, you know, a safe place for them to continue to come and not be triggered. So some of our impacts, recidivism rates are lowered. We have over 80% retention of participants, and that's huge in this field, you all, the fact that we're keeping that many people who have been in a long-term court-ordered program who are willing to come back when it's voluntary. So we have support from peers and staff and a validation of struggles and challenges of their recovery journey through no-pressure mentoring. So some of the real positives we're seeing also include that mentorship we talked about and the mutual support is folks helping each other with life situations, including employment. employment. So right now two of our graduates who have become kind of core members of this alumni group program manage restaurants in Lexington and have provided job opportunities for some of their peers. We have bonding and socialization opportunities. Our participants have started arranging their own get-togethers and they have a chat group where they check on each other regularly and sometimes those with vehicles might help those who don't have vehicles with rides. And we really, really think it's important to notice and to recognize this impact because there are times, say, we cancel, we're all at a training. We go out of town. We cancel aftercare group. We come back. We found out they got on their chat group. We all went out to dinner without you. So, you know, they're becoming a community, and we think that's important. And giving back. So a lot of our grads participating in this program have been taking peer support training and going on to learn how to best help others through their own experience. We've got folks who have gone through this program and this training who now work with us and work with other peers. So it's real important in that respect. And, you know, before moving on to the next slide, I guess let's just talk about the ripple effect, we call it. So, you know, as these individuals heal and maintain their wellness, you know, so do families and neighborhoods and communities also heal and become more functional. So just real quick, let's touch on kind of that bottom line on some of these updated numbers. So, you know, we've, where am I? So 34 months. Let's look at this period of 34 months. And I can't quite see it from the slide. I think it was July 1st, 2021 through April 30th. 2024. Okay, 2021 through 2024. We're looking at 25 graduates. Good Lord, this slide is all boogered up. I'm sorry about that. It didn't start out like that. But so looking at FCDC savings alone, we know that incarcerated individuals with SMI require an average of 60% more resources than other individuals. So we came up with 31,929 days of incarceration diverted. And the way we get that is we look at our graduates and we look at the average of the sentence they might have been given for these charges if they didn't get into this diversion program. And so then we multiply that by $115 a day. And in that period of time, in that short period of time, we came up with $3,671,835. Then we look at the law enforcement savings. We take postgraduate quarters. We get this number of $5,716 is a national average expenditure on policing, which includes arrests, bookings, court appearances by law enforcement. We came up with $497,292. And when we add all that together, we come up with $4,169,127, which means that in this period of time, we had a return on investment on the city's investment of $688,350 of $4,169,127, which is a 606% return on investment. pretty good. That's in 34 months. So we're really happy with that and we feel like it's kind of a conservative number because we know there's a lot of costs to the community that aren't counted here. You know, for instance, just a big one we don't we don't count because it's very difficult to track what emergency services cost right there. We also want to talk, just say thank you again for the extra funding We received with the CDBG money through July 2021, January 2023 of $180,000. And we really used it well. And so we started to use some of that to really expand this aftercare program by throwing more person power into the referral process. And that led to being able to handle more referrals in a faster time frame. So funding that alumni group continuing care program more fully added person power and incentive funding. So looking real quick, our caseload. So when we presented to you in October of 2022, we had 16 participants. April of 2024, now we had 32 participants. So, you know, that's a 100% increase in 17 months. And that increase in referrals points not only, I think, to our hard work in bringing increased awareness of the program to our referring entities within the system, but also the very real increasing need for the program in the community. So with that increase in referrals to our program, mostly from an impoverished population, often reentering the community from jail, two of our immediate challenges from a funding standpoint are increased needs for transitional housing, which we talked about earlier, and transportation. So now let's really start talking about our alumni program a little bit more. Am I taking too much time here? There's your time. I'm good. All right. So with the alumni group continuing care program, we are thriving. We've served 25 participants. We average seven participants in twice weekly groups. Let's go back there just a second. In looking at expanding our aftercare program, we're really looking at just trying to keep up with the great things we've been doing while faced with the welcome problem of increased numbers of participants. By expanding funding to the incentive component and increasing the hours the staff can devote to the program, as you saw in the previous slide, our caseload has doubled in 17 months, so our staff has not. Being stretched thin can make it difficult to continue having staff at twice weekly meetings. That might seem like a lot, but the reason we have twice weekly meetings is to allow more participants to be able to juggle their schedules so that they can all make it to at least one meeting a week. We need to expand staffing to keep up with those numbers. We need to really increase our incentivization of this program because we know that's what keeps people coming to the program. Again, it was a court ordered program. that you're asking people to come out and come to more meetings, right? The first thing people want to do when they, you know, circle that graduation date on the calendar is say, I'm going to put that Fayette Mental Health Court in my rearview mirror, not think about those folks. So in order to get them to keep coming out, we'll say, hey, you know, if you come out to a meeting, you might get a $10 gas card or a Kroger gift certificate or, you know, some bus passes. And And then if you do a couple more meetings, and that's my time. But I'm going to pass it on to Judge. Do you need more time? Judge, how much time do you need? I think so. I think some of my... Five minutes? Here, let me just touch on these real quick. I need to just, I just need to be able to give you more time. And I think, is four minutes okay? Sure. All right. Four minutes. Thank you. So thank you all for letting me be here. And Bill hid everything, and I'm not going to keep you very long. So I was just trying to think of what I did want to talk to you all about. And it's funny because I've got two colleagues, and they're members of the sorority. They're Judge Murphy and Judge Gunther, and they do this little triangle thing. And, you know, I always tease them because they're always doing stuff with their sorority. They're involved deeply. And they say, you know, John, it's for life. Middle illness is for life. Substance abuse addiction is for life. So, you know, we appreciate you sending them to us. At the end of our program, we don't cure them. We've just provided them with sobriety for a year, at least. And we've got them on the track to do wellness. So why are we asking for this money for our aftercare program? Let me quickly tell you a story about Mark. A young African-American man came to us canatotic out of high school. He had his first psychiatric break in high school. His mother said, we don't know what to do with him. He was almost unintelligible. And throughout medications, he started to kind of, you know, become a personality. Started to live that recovery journey. He wasn't doing substances. And we saw that since the humor come out. And we put a lot of effort into him, and he graduated. And his mother was in tears because of the work that he had done through this amazing team. So, what happens? Driving down Short Street from my garage, right in front of the old GE building next to Central Christian Church, I see him. He's out in the street, doesn't know where he is. Most likely addicted to drugs, on substances. We lost him. That was before we had the aftercare program. That's when we sat down and said, we have got to build something here. We need your help to build something here. You all are investing in these people to do recovery, to become this recovery ecosystem. I want the best recovery society in Lexington, Kentucky. I want to break ground. I want to be a leader. So that's what this is about. This is about that sorority. that brotherhood, that relationship that we can foster and bring folks in. Because don't we all need a mentor? Don't we all need to bring people along? I'll say it always to you all. If we start treating these mental illness issues, we start treating these substance use disorder issues like public health issues that they are, we get better results. And that's what we're figuring out in the criminal justice system. So help us. Help us build something with an aftercare program. So these folks, just to tailor this off, these folks need it because they're in the infancy. They're in the very beginning of their recovery journey. One year is not very far. You're just walking and barely walking and talking. I'm one year old, right? That's where they are in their recovery journey. So we need to foster that relationship, build that aftercare program. Thank you. Thank you, Judge, and thank you, Bill, and thank you to the whole team for all that you all do. We really appreciate you. I'm going to open it up to comments or questions from my colleagues. Councilwoman Gray. Thank you, Chair. I just want to say to you, you all who work with this population every single day, that it's a need, I know, from being in your court and from my work in the community, the desperate need for this aftercare for our residents who need it the most. So I just want to applaud you all for the great work that you do every single day. That is all. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. I also applaud this program, and it makes me think of, in a way, like a parallel program or the same philosophy as our community paramedicine program. The idea that so much in our systems, whether it's justice system, public safety, it very often is Band-Aids, and it's after the fact. It's after something bad has already happened. and then to kind of create these programs where we have that follow through to prevent people from hopefully coming back into the system and recycling through all the issues and problems that they're having I think is smart. I think you all have proven that. You can support a program like this because you care about people. You can support a program like this because it saves us money. There are so many different angles and different ways to approach supporting this program. So I really appreciate the work you all do, and we'll support you in whatever ways we can. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I think that programs like this are essential in how we treat people with addiction or struggling with addiction and also mental health issues. I am so thankful that you all are dedicating your time and energy to these people. My question is, when they're in the aftercare program, you mentioned trauma-informed care. What exactly during that time are you doing? Is it group counseling? Is it or what exactly? That's a great question. So, you know, when we talk about trauma-informed care just kind of is a thread that runs through everything that we do. So in our aftercare program, we have these two twice-weekly, we call them group meetings, sessions. But what they are is typically kind of what you would call a traditional process group, where, you know, like the old, you know, group therapy on Bob Newhart's show, people just get around and come together as a group and talk about their problems, their joys, their daily life, difficulties, and then get feedback from their peers and from a facilitator from staff who's there. And so with trauma-informed care, what we mean is we want that to be a safe place. These are folks that have been traumatized, been triggered, so we make that clear to everybody. And it comes through with being a really supportive community for people. Okay. And that lasts for how long? Is it an hour? It's about an hour and a half. Each group we come in, we start at around 630 and we have a little something to eat. We sit down and sometimes we'll get out by eight and sometimes when people are really talking, I won't kick them out of the building until 830, 845. So it's a couple hours each evening on Monday evenings and Thursday evenings. And the same people in both groups? Well, what we make it, yeah, so it's available for everyone in that alumni care group program to come to. And we do two nights specifically because these folks, a lot of folks, you know, just tough work schedules and school schedules and kids and everything. So we hope that everybody can make at least one meeting a week that way. So we've been averaging seven. Sometimes we'll have 10, 11, 12 out at one meeting. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Councilman Marissa Vigni. Thank you, Chair. And I just wanted to thank you all for the work you're doing. I think it's great. I think your ROI is probably low. I do think there's a lot of other inherent benefits that I can think of just right away. So I really want to thank you for being great stewards of the gifts that you get. both your talent and the time and the treasures that you guys get. I think you're using them very effectively, and I do appreciate it. And success breeds success, and I think you're a great example of it, and I truly thank you. Thank you. I was going to say, I was appreciative of the opioid discussion, because I got all kinds of ideas for the opioid money, so I'm looking forward to that town hall. First off is, I think we need a, I'll just throw that out here. We need a divine karama for mental health. I think that would be really good. And they've got one in Miami. Nicole is a CIT coordinator. She's amazing. She puts out fires all the time, keeps people out of jail, gets them into places where they need. So just throwing that out there. Thank you. All right. Council Member Fogle. Thank you, Chair. And thank you all for your presentation. What I would like to tell this committee is, you know, my mom and my family, they loved me. They loved me as much as they could, but they couldn't understand me, the drug-addicted person that lived inside me, because they weren't drug-addicted. And so I attended Aftercare. Aftercare was a cherry on top of 12-step programs. And if you haven't walked in a person's shoes that has had to go through court, had to go through a program like NAMI, like they offer, it is something special about somebody that knows who you are and they can relate to the stories that you're telling them. And how do I stop this screaming kid and go to an AA meeting and have you done that? And I don't have enough money for the rent. What are we going to do? We get to talk about that without embarrassment or judgment because we're all sitting there going through the same crisis and trying to maintain our sobriety. Because once we feel like a failure, then all bets is off and we return to the familiar which is using to cover up the pain. And thus we end up in front of Judge Tackett and Gunther once again. And so aftercare is so important. And I know that I'm just probably just beating a dead horse, but it saved my life. And I'm sitting on this horseshoe with you fine people. And if it wasn't for aftercare and I, I 100%, 110, 150 LeBron James supports you with the aftercare and I hope our council does too with the funding that you needed. And so I just wanted to share that with you all as a personal colleague. As a personal colleague, because God is so faithful and he's good. And it's going to happen. So I just wanted to just finish up with gratitude. And please keep up the good work. Thank you, Council Member. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you for your recovery story. and I hope that you all can make it tomorrow. We're having our annual mental health court graduation at the Kentucky Theater, and you'll hear from actual participants and actually hear some recovery stories performed by talented actors in our community. So I hope you all can make it to that. Thank you once again. We appreciate each of you. Colleagues, there's some items referred to committee. I'm not going to go through it one by one. does anybody have anything that they need to update or remove at this time? Okay. I think that's all for today, and I appreciate everybody's participation and all of our guests. We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.