Board of Health

Agenda Village of Arlington Heights Board of Health Buechner Room 33 S. Arlington Heights Rd., 60005 February 6, 2023 6:30 PM I. CALL TO ORDER II. ROLL CALL III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Minutes from November 7, 2022 IV. REPORTS A. Health and Human Services Director Update B. Nursing Services Update C. Social Services Update V. OLD BUSINESS VI. NEW BUSINESS VII. OTHER BUSINESS VIII.ADJOURNMENT Persons with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services, such as an American Sign Language interpreter or written materials in accessible formats, should contact Erin Mercado, at 33 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, Illinois 60005, emercado@vah.com or (847)368-5793.  Board of Health 2/6/2023 Item: Minutes Department: HHS ATTACHMENTS: Description Type November 7, 2023 Minutes Minutes  Minutes Village of Arlington Heights Board of Health Commissions Room 33 S. Arlington Heights Rd., AH 60005 November 7, 2022 6:30 PM I. CALL TO ORDER Chairperson VanLandeghem called the meeting to order at 6:31 p.m. All stood for the Pledge of Allegiance. II. ROLL CALL Present Also Present Karen VanLandeghem, MPH, James McCalister, Commission Liaison Chairperson Lindsay Dohse, Community Health Nurse Sean Barnett, M.D. Nicole Espinoza, Social Services Coordinator Kristen Brown, M.D. Jerome Meservey, M.D. William Moran, M.D. Shalu Gugnani, M.D. Ashley Bae, LCSW III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Minutes from August 15, 2022 A MOTION WAS MADE BY DR. MESERVEY TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF THE AUGUST 15, 2022 MEETING, SECONDED BY DR. GUGNALI AND APPROVED BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT. IV. REPORTS A. Social Services Update Ms. Espinoza, Social Services Coordinator, introduced herself as the Social Services Coordinator for the Village of Arlington Heights. Ms. Espinoza oversees the Social Services 1  Department which consists of herself, a caseworker Rosangela Maldonado and a new social worker Erin Mercado. Out of the three people in the department, two speak Spanish. Ms. Espinoza has been working in social services for 22 years. She has worked both abroad and domestic. Ms. Espinoza has lived in Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua and worked with children living on the streets and substance using adolescents. She moved into municipal social work and has been working in municipalities for about ten years. Ms. Espinoza announced that Erin Mercado is the newest member of the Social Services team. Ms. Mercado comes from a social work background and has her Master’s Degree from Aurora University. She has predominantly worked within community mental health. Ms. Mercado comes from Catholic Charities and is already embedded in the community and knows a lot of the resources. She has done work abroad in England, home modification screening work and has both disability and geriatric background. Her role will expand services to the senior population and she will work with Tracey Colagrossi, Manager of the Senior Center. Additionally, Ms. Mercado will be doing home visits and referrals for the senior population. She will also be working with our Fire Department on risk reduction with Division Chief Roberts predominantly on the matters of balance program which includes fall risk prevention and education. Ms. Espinosa said that they have done a lot of recent outreaches to get the message out to the community. She said they have been doing library resource hours, six Fire Department outreach events this quarter, Summer Suppers with the Police Department in serving meals to homeless people and/or people experiencing food insecurities, National Night Out and Ready for Schools. Ms. Espinosa said that this time of the year they are inundated with the Holiday Assistance program and through that they do a holistic evaluation so people come in for gifts but they say they are not able to make their rent or they need a connectivity to counseling services. She said they get around 280 individuals which is about fifty to seventy families. B. Director Health and Human Services Update Mr. McCalister began by discussing the Youth Commission. The Youth Commission has met twice since the last meeting. He said at the last Board of Health meeting, the Board of Health was asking to partner with the Youth Commission on topics of mental health. Specifically on mental health and substance use. Mr. McCalister said that Commissioner Moore said teens may not feel that there is a safe place to open up and talk to someone who will not be judgmental on the school campus. He said that Commissioner Moore said it was important to allow teens to have someone to listen to them and validate their feelings. He said that Commissioner Peterson said students might be afraid of getting in trouble or getting their friends in trouble. Mr. McCalister said Commissioner Smith says students are assigned to a counselor that they may not trust because counselors have broken trust in the past and gone to principals, parents or police. It is unclear what the counselor's legal responsibility is in these circumstances. He said Commissioner Georg said telling students that drugs are bad and not to vape will not work, it hasn’t in the past. Students may not be aware that there is 2 an option to speak with a counselor, social worker or psychologist. Mr. McCalister then said that Commissioner Moore said the Commission could focus on helping schools communicate to the students the availability of resources. The Commission agreed that privacy is an issue for students. Chairperson Son said the library is an available location for programming and is focused on privacy and open to the public. That was the end of the topics discussed in the first meeting. Mr. McCalister said that in the second meeting the students agreed that it would be nice to have some place to go to off campus like the library to talk about their mental health issues. He said that Commissioner Niell suggested having mental health awareness drop in night at the library. Mr. McCalister said that the students agreed that if they were aware of a drop-in program off campus that they might be more open to going to it. He further said that students agreed that they would go back to their school and talk to the psychologists and social workers to determine how to promote the programming within the school. There was discussion on the various roles of psychologist, social worker and counselor in the school and the necessity to refer certain cases to outside resources. There was also an explanation provided about why confidentiality cannot be maintained when students provide certain information to the school professionals which require notification to parents in crisis situations. Further discussion was had about use of the counseling subsidy program to help families of adolescents pay for private practitioners while they are waitlisted to get into community mental health facilities. Ms. Espinoza shared that she does a library resource hour every three months for adults during the day. She suggested that she could talk to the library about doing library resource hour at the hub after school where the students can talk to the Village Social Worker. Mr. McCalister agreed and said that perhaps the Youth Commission could bring it back to their schools and see if there is any interest. Mr. McCalister then indicated that the next topic to address is the pharmaceutical distribution plan. He and others met with Mick Fleming the Joint Emergency System Coordinator for our Village and six other communities. Mr. McCalister said that David Robb oversaw our Medical Reserve Corp and he retired. He said that Covid gave a good preview of how MRC’s are being used in our area, and they were not being used that much. Arlington Heights is supposed to have MRC programming on a regular basis vs having a Corp of volunteers that are only used in an emergency. Mr. McCalister said that County health departments use MRC’s for a variety of things because they cover such a large area whereas a municipality has an MRC for crisis. He said that the Villages of Palatine and Mount Prospect are getting rid of their MRC’s. Mr. McCalister explained that the MRC was not really used during Covid and the County contracted out various responsibilities relating to vaccinations. He is going to meet with the Police and Fire Chiefs and discuss with Mr. Fleming the value of the MRC vs having a shared volunteer Corp, liability coverage if they have doctors and nurses giving shots or distributing pills, and the use and value of pods as a point of distribution going forward. Mr. McCalister then said there is a budget meeting next week and he provided a preview of what the Department will be doing in 2023 from the Health side and the Senior side. He said 3 that the Department hired a geriatric social worker that will be starting next week and they will be reviewing programming and how to help the residents. Mr. McCalister discussed using the new digital inspection software to track critical code violations in food establishments. He said they’ve had the software for a few years and getting really good at using it and the next step is how to use it to capture data and to find out what are the top five critical violations that they are seeing throughout these establishments to try to reduce the violations through programming and education. He said that the idea is to track year after year to see if the program is working. Mr. McCalister said options were being evaluated for a second special solid waste collection. He stated that Groot provides thirty thousand dollars a year to do a special collection event. There were two special events this past fall and the residents really liked it; a latex paint collection and a document destruction event and both were very successful. A full-scale hazardous waste event is very costly so Mr. McCalister said if we are considering doing another latex paint collection event next year. Ms. Espinoza stated that the police are exploring having a Narcan distribution machine next to the prescription drop off location. There were comments on the floor about considering an alternate site for the Narcan distribution that may not be as intimidating as the police station. There was also discussion about the number of narcans appropriate and necessary to help an overdose victim. Mr. McCalister said the Senior Center would like to expand their outreach and marketing to raise awareness for their programs and services provided. He said that there are new programs and changes to programs and they are trying to get the word out on what services we provide and would like to attract a younger population of senior citizens. Mr. McCalister said that they are trying to get grant funds for research and development to track the residents of 55 and older as well as Senior Inc. funds to hire a company to rebrand the Senior Center. He said that the Senior Citizens’ Commission would like to create a user-friendly information source for residents to find resources to live and age well. There was some discussion about cognitive exercise to help prevent dementia and whether there is any peer reviewed evidence of its efficacy. Mr. McCalister said that is an interesting question and would look into it. Mr. McCalister discussed the topic of families seeking asylum. He said there has been busloads of asylum seekers received in the neighboring municipalities. Mr. McCalister described the process that asylum seekers go through from crossing the border to arriving at their destinations and the various not for profits that are involved along the way and the various state agencies that are involved as well. Mr. McCalister stated that since the last meeting, the Village became certified as an AARP Age Friendly Community and it was a five-year process. He said they continue to do Town Hall topics once a month at the Senior Center to keep the seniors engaged in different topics of importance. Mr. McCalister said that new flooring is going into the Senior Center. He said that from January 2021 through September 2022, there was an 83% increase in attendance at the Senior Center. The seniors are getting more comfortable coming back indoors through the Covid phase. He said that the Senior Center is implementing an Age Mastery Program 4  which addresses the social determinants of health and is an eight-week class that is limited to twenty-five participants and there is a waiting list for the next class. Mr. McCalister said that the Cook County Department of Public Health started a new Health Atlas that provides health data for Cook County on their site. He said that they are also doing a health survey and it will be interesting to see the results. The last item is gun control which Mr. McCalister said was asked about at the last meeting. Mr. McCalister said that Randy Recklaus, Village Manager polled the Village Board and asked whether they would like the Board of Health to further explore and discuss local gun control efforts from a Village public health perspective including the issuing of recommendations to the Village Board. Mr. McCalister said the results were split. Four members were against taking this on formally saying that this is an important issue but is not a municipal issue. One member was neutral and three members were in favor of allowing the Board of Health to discuss this. One member was okay with the Board of Health taking this on, but only if the discussion were on the Village taking a position on advocacy, not on any local legislation. Mr. McCalister said that Mayor Hayes indicated that he is already in conversations on this topic at the Northwest Municipal Conference level regarding a joint resolution on gun control at their meeting later this month and he suggested to wait and see how that discussion unfolds before directing the Board of Health on this matter. Mr. Recklaus agrees with Mayor Hayes on this matter given the lack of majority opinion within the Board. Mr. McCalister said that at the next meeting he will let the Board of Health know what transpired from the Northwest Municipal Conference meeting. C. Nursing Update Ms. Dohse said it’s been busy the past several months with Covid and flu vaccine shots. She said that there was a huge Brat and Shot flu vaccine event for employees. She said one hundred sixty Village employees were vaccinated for the flu. Ms. Dohse said that they went to Northwest Central dispatch and vaccinated eleven employees for flue and Covid. Flu vaccines were also given to family members and thirty-eight homebound residents. She said that they went to Oak Forest twice for larger doses of Covid vaccines and for smaller doses they go to Cook County. There were two large vaccine clinics for employees and so far, ninety individuals were vaccinated and it is ongoing, plus thirty-six homebound individuals and now they are doing families. Ms. Dohse stated that they have also done an employee cholesterol screening. She said they are also trying to expand outreach and their numbers for home visits increased significantly from last year. Ms. Dohse said that Cedar Village is the first location they are doing monthly blood pressure and blood sugar screenings. They are also working on finding individuals who need services that are unaware of services available. Ms. Dohse said that they have been on many crises visits and Fire referrals with Ms. Espinoza. She said that Michelle, their part time nurse is now certified for vision and hearing screening. She said they go to parochial and private schools in town and screen the elementary students for hearing and vision. She said that public schools have their own nurses. The topic of the changes that have recently occurred at Northwest Community Hospital was brought to the Board. The hospital currently does not have a pediatric floor for inpatient pediatric patients. Further, previously there was a separate pediatric ER that has now been 5  merged with the adult ER. Any child that necessitates a prolonged inpatient stay must be transferred to an outside hospital. Concerns were voiced that this is a big loss for the community of Arlington Heights and limited pediatric inpatient care for children. Mr. McCalister said that the Mayor and Mr. Recklaus meet with the hospital annually and that he will discuss with Mr. Recklaus the concern of Northwest Community Hospital removing their pediatric inpatient unit and their pediatric emergency room. The Board publicly thanks Melissa Jacobsen for all of her service and everything she has done for the Board of Health. V. OLD BUSINESS VI. NEW BUSINESS VII. OTHER BUSINESS A. Other Topics for Consideration VIII. ADJOURNMENT DR. MESERVEY, SECONDED BY DR. BROWN, MOVED TO ADJOURN AT 7:59 P.M. ALL CONCURRED AND THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. The next scheduled meeting is February 6, 2023. 6