Family Violence Council Minutes

3-5 pm, Wednesday, May 20, 2015

400 McAllister, Room 617

San Francisco, CA 94102

Present:

Chief of Fire Department or designee: Mindy Talmadge

Chief of Juvenile Probation or designee: Allen Nance

Chief of Police or designee: Lt. Edward Santos Jr.; Sgt. Tony Flores

Chief of Adult Probation or designee: Ramona Massey; Karen Shain; Sunny Schwartz

Department of Animal Care and Control or designee:

District Attorney or designee: Gena Castro Rodriguez; David Merin; Julius DeGuia

Director of Department of Aging and Adult Services or designee: Jill Nielson

Director of Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families or designee: Aumjio Gomes

Director of Department of Human Resources or designee: Susan Gard

Director of Department of Public Health or designee: Dr. Leigh Kimberg

Director of Domestic Violence Consortium or designee: Beverly Upton

Director of San Francisco Child Abuse Council or designee: Katie Albright

Director of San Francisco Elder Abuse Forensic Center or designee: Shawna Reeves

President of Board of Supervisors or designee: Iris Wong

President of Commission on the Status of Women or designee: Dr. Emily Murase

Presiding Judge of Superior Court or designee: Judge Anne Massullo

Sheriff or designee: Delia Ginorio

Absent:

Chair of Batterers Intervention Programs Subcommittee or designee

Chief of Department of Emergency Management or designee

Director of Child Support Services or designee

Director of Human Services Agency or designee

Mayor or designee

Public Defender or designee

Superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District or designee

Other attendees:

Robin Brasso, NCJW; Lynn Dolce, SFDPH; Allison Ipsen, DOSW; Minouche Kandel, DOSW; Anna Marjavi, Futures Without Violence; Sonia Melara, Rally Family Visitation Center; Marissa Snoddy, Riley Center;  Kate Vander Tuig, Futures Without Violence; Arati Vasan, APILO

Beverly Upton commenced the meeting at 3:10 pm. Minutes from 2/18/15 were approved. [Shwartz/Flores]. Agenda was approved.

New official members of the Council were recognized: Mindy Talmadge representing Fire Department; Susan Gard representing Department of Human Resources; and Allen Nance, Chief of Juvenile Probation.

DPH Mini-Presentation on Trauma Informed Care

Lynn Dolce, family therapist at Foster Care Mental Health, gave an overview of DPH’s Trauma Informed Care training initiative. Ongoing chronic trauma contributes to high adverse health risks later in life.

San Francisco is the only county to implement an internally developed/facilitated trauma informed care training initiative. Maine and Philadelphia are examples of a trauma informed state and city. The initiative is built on the foundation that everyone has some understanding of trauma, and has personal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Trauma informed care addresses this trauma systemically. Dolce shared that when systems do not address trauma, they become fragmented, employees become numb and tired, and creativity and collaboration suffer.

The training was piloted with UCSF Healthy Environments and Responses to Trauma (HEARTS) throughout SFUSD. It was focused on mindfulness and self-regulation for teachers and school staff. It has since been adapted for health systems.

Core Principles of trauma informed care include:

• Stability in leaders;
• Cultural humility and responsiveness;
• Compassion and dependability;
• Collaboration and empowerment; and
• Resiliency and recovery

Dolce shared a learning from developing and facilitating this training: conversations of race always have to be on the table in discussions of trauma informed care – oppression creates cumulative trauma over a lifetime.

Logisitics: The full training is 3.5 hours. DPH is training 80-100 people per session, starting with the highest levels of leadership. A goal is to develop a collective language around trauma throughout the entire department. At the end of the training, there is time for trainees to make commitments to change; trainers check-in with trainees on the status of their commitments at various times after the training.

Dolce has seen changes in her daily work since developing the initiative and training others on trauma informed care. She has added a wellness check-in to her staff meetings and initiated a relationship with the safety officer in her building, which led to a building wide emergency safety plan. She has shifted from addressing problems with the mindset of “what is wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?”

JPD and DCYF are already collaborating with DPH to adapt the trauma informed care model to their systems. A full training opportunity for Family Violence Council members will be arranged.  

2014 Family Violence Council Report Presentation

DOSW Public Policy Fellow Allison Ipsen presented statistics and initial ideas for recommendations from the fiscal year 2014 Report. The group discussed turnover in leadership at various departments and how that affects data collection, as well as expressed interest in reviewing data trends over the past few years in the context of the restructuring of SVU in 2011. Council members identified a need to review and improve data collection methods/standardization; a subcommittee formed to further address data collection.

Council members received a draft of the 2014 Report prior to the meeting. There will be dedicated time for recommendation development at the September Family Violence Council meeting.

Police Video on Children of Arrested Parents

Special Victims Unit Officer in Charge Edward Santos introduced the training video. It addresses how officers should handle arrests when children are present, including assessing the need for childcare arrangements when a parent may have children who are not present at the scene. This model will be shared through a webinar by the Chief with other counties and could serve as a model for other jurisdictions across the country.

Key Issues in Family Violence

1.Domestic Violence Update

The Mother’s Day press conference in May was a successful event highlighting the work of domestic violence community advocates across languages and cultures. The Domestic Violence Consortium is leading an increased budget ask to the Mayor.

2.Elder Abuse Update

Shawna Reeves will share a video with the Council from the Institute on Aging’s Elder Financial Abuse conference that was held at UCSF in January 2015. A screening of the documentary Alive in Side will be held at library on June 12, 1-4pm, in the spirit of World Elder Abuse Prevention Day.

3.Child Abuse Update

Child Abuse Prevention Month in April was successful. Chief Allen Nance was emceed the press conference at City Hall. City Hall now has LED lights, which will make it easy to use different colors for future domestic violence, child abuse, and elder abuse awareness events. San Francisco’s new Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Hunter, is interested in studying overlay deaths (infant suffocation), which could be a potential topic to include in future reports.

Meeting adjourned; next meeting is September 2, 2015.