Hi
One of the requirements of my contract is that I give periodic
reports on the progress of the organizing for the Educational
Retreat. This is the seventh one. Please note that this is an
interpretive report, not minutes for the meeting.
- Website.
Documents related to the Educational Retreat are online.
- Agenda. We met Fri.
August 10th at M.H. Administration.
Barry was unable to make it. Jose? Well it was 9AM, what can
I say? Present were myself, Alma-Alicia Castillo, Luann Hahn
(Administrative Services Manager) and Nancy Pena; Tom joined us
toward the end of the meeting. Stephen was still on vacation
in Toronto. The agenda was:
- Moral Standing
- Travel Arrangements & Loose Ends
- Work Program
- Interviews
- Mailing
- Bios
- Followup
- Next Meeting Time
- Anxiety. This event is
getting ‘too’ close. Since it’s a
moral statement by each of us facilitators and, in a different way,
by each participant, we’re all seeming to feel more challenged.
Luann shared some of her feelings about the client experience of
being treated in a ‘second-class’ way.
I found this to be quite
moving and so, I think, did Alma-Alicia. I noted one/two specific
concerns stemming from this immanent ‘equilibration’ experience. I
asked about maybe changing the agenda in very specific ways to meet
these last-moment anxieties/perceptions. In particular I asked that
the ‘trauma of treatment’
module be given another 10 minutes or so.
As I counted it, the current schedule has only 7 hrs. 40 min.
allotted.
- Travel. We went
through the facilitators one-by-one and made
sure we knew what travel arrangements are happening for each one.
Luann will take Tom and together they will pick up B.J. at Amtrak.
Lupe H., the Program Director for South County M.H., will be asked
to help by picking up Jose and Michele. And so forth.
- Interviews. By this
point I had interviewed more than half of
the participants. I went thru the status of each participant, none
was any more a mystery to me. After we counted, agreed to invite at
the last moment two more participants, viz. Chris Zubiate, Policy
and Planning Analyst for County M.H., and Tom Kinoshita, E.D.,
Community Solutions. We also talked about finding a psychiatrist.
Still looking.
:-(
The Dept. is in the final part of the process
of hiring a Medical Director, but this will not be soon enough for
us to bring this person to the Retreat.
 - Mailing.
I sent out a mailing to the facilitators detailing
pretty much the module texts, exit instructions to 2×2 groups, etc.
I’m expecting to move over for the last week from a participant
focus (interviews) to a facilitator focus (getting the presentations
in order and in sync). As to the biographical info for the M.C.’s,
that is still working. [Note added later] Two days later I sent a
preliminary version to Stephen and Alma-Alicia.
- Followup. Nancy and I
worked on a sketch
of a follow-up plan.
It is based on immediate followup
— workshops for various working
units such as the MHB, Adult Systems of Care work group, etc. And
then there’s the long-term followup: After all, the purpose of
this whole business is to re-organize the mental health system so
that it makes the kind of moral statement in its organizational form
that we’d like it to. Which is to say, a client-driven system that
deals as meaningfully as possible with the ‘trauma of treatment’
conundrum and so forth.
- Parenthetical. The
MHCSCC (county client network) has agreed to
apply for a workshop on the Educational Retreat at the November 9-11
California Network Forum (annual statewide organizing fracas). Tom
Jurgensen has prepared the application.
We planned to meet from 12N to 1PM on Thursday, August 16th. Right
after that meeting I get to go to San Jose International Airport and
pick up Debi and Lynne! There is also to be a pre-meeting 7-9PM on
that day for the facilitators, at the Lodge.
I can be reached for input at 408-793-6476.
Andrew Phelps
|
