PV Monthly Meeting Notes – March 11th, 2021

Below are the notes from the Project VISION meeting on March 11^th, 2021. In this meeting, we reviewed a series of community announcements and participated in a community feedback session for the hospital’s 2021 Community Health Needs Assessment. A total of 88 participants attended this month’s meeting.

If you’d like to download these notes, click here.

• Welcome by PV Chair-Mark Stockton.

  • Welcome of first-time guests

• Chief Kilcullen remarks.

  • In the past few months, there has been a few knife-point robberies at convenient stores in the surrounding area
    • Two arrests have been made recently regarding these events and the investigations are ongoing
    • The frequency of this type of robbery is increased compared to past years
  • Several openings in the department currently
    • Anyone with a potential interest in a career of law enforcement is encouraged to reach out
  • Implicit Bias Training with Nikki Fuller wrapped up last month and it was a successful experience overall, with occasional technological issues that were worked around
    • The department is now looking into how to best implement the awareness learned from the bias training into action and is in communication with Nikki Fuller for resources
  • In the coming months, the department will engage the Community Policing Subcommittee with an overview of its de-escalation training

• Announcements

  • Geraldine Burke – Dismas House
    • A big need for more volunteers, especially cooks and food preps, as the Women’s Home will soon be reopening in April after one year closed
    • If you are interested or a group you know of is interested in contributing to the work of Dismas House and meeting a whole host of people in the process, reach out to Geraldine Burke at geraldine@dismasofvt.org
  • Joan Gamble – Imagination Library
    • The Imagination Library, partnering with the Rutland Free Library, is now available in Rutland City, Rutland Town, Tinmouth, Mendon, and Ira
    • A care giver can sign up a child age birth to 5 to receive free books every month
    • There is an effort to share a brief 10-minute presentation digest with local organizations that work with children to help get the word out
    • Anyone with kids or grandkids under the age of 5 in one of the listed towns is invited to sign up
  • Renee Bousquet – Rutland Community Collaborative (RCC)
    • There is an ongoing effort to align the work, communicate properly, and share information among the Rutland Community Collaborative, the Executive Committee, and Project VISION
      • Each are networks generally involved in community and healthcare improvement work in the Rutland area
      • There is now a quarterly summit meeting among the leaders of each of these three networks
        • Anyone interested in participating in this summit meeting should reach out to Andrea Wicher at awicher@chcrr.org
    • There is an ongoing project to nest webpages about the RCC and the Executive Committee within the already present Project VISION webpage
    • 2021 focus areas for the RCC are alcohol and substance use, access to telehealth options, and social determinants of health
    • Anyone with questions about the RCC should reach out to Renee Bousquet at Bousquet@vermont.gov
  • Lisa Ryan
    • Leaving her current position as the Director of the Rutland County Community Justice Center at BROC for a new position with the Vermont Network Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
      • Lisa will be the director of the Director of the Domestic Violence Response System
    • Although not physically moving away from Rutland, Lisa’s work will no longer be focused solely in the Rutland community
  • Al Wakefield and Liz Weinmann
    • If we recall, Bob Harnish brough Pittsford’s Declaration of Inclusion to PV
    • The effort continues to bring this declaration to all towns and counties in VT as well as the governor’s office
      • Bob and Al met with a representative from the governor’s office yesterday and there will be an effort to implement the declaration into the organizational message of the governor’s office
      • A total of four towns have so far approved a declaration of inclusion: Pittsford; Brandon; Franklin; Waterbury
    • The group is building a working guide to help people present such declarations to their respective town
    • These declarations are closely aligned with efforts to economically revitalize Vermont’s towns and cities

• Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) Presentation – Jamie Bentley, Community Impact Coordinator at RRMC

  • CHNA is an evaluation of the community and its health needs as well as strategizing on how to address those needs, completed every 3 years
    • RRMC has completed a CHNA since 1997 and has been a federal requirement since 2010
  • CHNA is built upon data from all healthcare providers in the area and significant community input, including community leader surveys and focus groups
  • 2021 priority areas are: Supporting Aging Community; Mental Health and Substance Abuse; Childcare and Parenting; Housing
  • 2021 CHNA priorities maintained the same priority areas from the 2018 CHNA
    • This time around, the effort is heavily focused on identifying strategies to address these priority areas
  • At this time, the whole PV meeting broke into 4 breakout groups for 20 minutes, one for each CHNA priority area
    • Each breakout group discussed the identified barriers and strengths, present service gaps, and tangible strategies to employ to address the respective CHNA priority areas
  • Reach out to Jamie Bentley for anything regarding the CHNA at jabentley@rrmc.org

• CHNA Priority Area Breakout Groups

  • To view the notes of each breakout group, click here: ttp://projectvisionrutland.com/project-vision-chna-work/