Family Violence Council - September 2, 2015 - Minutes

Meeting Date: 
September 2, 2015 - 3:00pm
Location: 
400 McAllister Street
Room 617
San Francisco, CA 94102

Family Violence Council Minutes

3-5 pm, Wednesday, September 2, 2015

400 McAllister, Room 617

San Francisco, CA 94102

Present:

Presiding Judge of the Superior Court, or designee: Hon. Anne Massullo; Hon. Tracie Brown; Hon. Linda Colfax

Mayor, or designee: Paul Henderson

President of the Board of Supervisors, or designee: Iris Wong

District Attorney, or designee: Liz Tarchi; Gena Castro Rodriquez

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

Sheriff, or designee: Delia Ginorio

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

Chief of Adult Probation, or designee: Tina Gilbert; Sunny Schwartz; Shannon Bulleri; Lee Hudson

Executive Director of Department of Emergency Management, or designee: Lorrie Serna

Director of Human Services Agency, or designee: Barrett Johnson

Director of Domestic Violence Consortium: Beverly Upton

Director of Elder Abuse Forensic Center, or designee: Shawna Reeves

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

Director of the Department of Public Health, or designee: Curtis Chen

Director of Department of Aging and Adult Services, or designee: Jill Nielsen

Director of Department of Child Support Services, or designee: Karen Roye

Chief of Juvenile Probation: Paula Hernandez

Public Defender, or designee: Carmen Aguirre

Director of Department of Animal Care and Control, or designee: Vicky Guldbech

Human Resources Director, or designee: Susan Gard

 

Absent:

Director of Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, or designee

Chair of the Consortium of Batterers Intervention Programs, or designee

Superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District, or designee

Chief of the Fire Department

 

Other attendees:

Robin Brasso, NCJW;  Minouche Kandel, DOSW; Jerel McCrary, Bay Area Legal Aid; Shelli Rawlings Fein, First-5; Molly Reasbeck, La Casa de las Madres; Alana Rotti, DOSW;  Connie Swain, La Casa de las Madres; Katie Veatch, DOSW.

 

Shawna Reeves commenced the meeting at 3:07 pm. Minutes from 5/20/15 were approved. [Dr. Emily Murase/Sgt. Tony Flores]. Agenda was approved.

 

Approval of 2014 Family Violence Council Report

The group reviewed the recommendations and the Report was approved by the Council.  The Council agreed to check in on the progress of the recommendations at quarterly meetings. The Department on the Status of Women is creating a guideline for data collection which will be finished within the next few weeks and distributed to the group. The Council is willing to help departments who need help with fitting the new recommendations into their budgets. The report will be presented to the Commission on the Status of Women at their meeting tonight for final approval.

 

Presentation on “Are We There Yet? Deconstructing Domestic Violence Cases for Policy Implications”

Beverly Upton presented the report that she wrote for Blue Shield which highlights trends in domestic violence cases that the Domestic Violence Consortium has encountered. She found that the percentage of male victims was higher than expected and that there were a large amount of immigrants and LEP issues. There was also a finding of a large amount of adolescent dating violence. She is not sure yet if there will be an opportunity to implement the recommendations made in the report.

 

Update on Sentencing Commission

Jerel McCrary updated the council on the Sentencing Commission. The Commission has met two times, February 25th and June 11th, and will meet again on September 15th. There has been emerging evidence that 18-25 year olds are more similar to adolescents in terms of emotional intelligence than they are to what we consider adults. They are also an overrepresented group in the criminal justice system- 75% rearrested within a year of being released. Research suggests that having separate facilities for young adults could help this issue.

 

San Francisco was awarded a grant to establish youth court, which began August 7th. Court is held on Tuesday afternoons, but may expand in the future. Domestic violence cases with stay with Judge Brown even if they are youthful cases. The Commission voted to send a recommendation on the lead program as a pilot to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor; police department chose to not to be a signatory.

 

Creation of Elder Justice Committee
The Justice and Courage Committee has realized that issues of elder abuse may be better addressed in a separate committee. The Elder Justice Committee’s focus will be on creating elder abuse protocol and best practices. The Council voted to approve the creation of the Elder Justice Committee.

 

Presentation on Truancy and Domestic Violence

Judge Massullo presented to the Council on truancy and domestic violence. There is currently a pilot program where judges go to elementary schools with the highest truancy rates in an effort to remediate the issues or the barriers to truancy. The program has found that in over half of the truancy cases, domestic violence has affected the attendance rate of the children in school. The judges would like to find ways to better track this data. Liz Tarchi will connect Judge Massullo with the policy person at the DA’s office to see if there is data about children who reporting incidents of domestic violence. Dr. Emily Murase will look into whether the school district is tracking this type of data. The Council should consider including this type of data in the annual FVC report.

 

Update from Justice and Courage Committee

Liz Tarchi updated the Council on the work of the Justice and Courage Committee. SFPD is continuing to improve their protocols and the committee is encouraging BART police and CHP to adopt the checklist that SFPD uses in domestic violence instances. The Elder Abuse Committee will soon parallel the work being done by the Justice and Courage Committee. Victim Services is reaching out to hospitals about medical reporting forms. The next committee meeting is on September 11th.

 

 

 

Update from Domestic Violence Death Review Committee

Minouche Kandel updated the Council on the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee. The Committee had its first meeting on August 25th. A protocol is being created for use by the Committee in analyzing death review cases. The Committee is waiting to identify a new case to review because the previous case was put on hold because the victim’s family is suing the city.

 

Key Issues in Family Violence

 

1.Domestic Violence Update

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Beverly Upton distributed copies of a calendar of the events taking place in October. If anyone from the Council wants to add an event to the calendar he/she should contact Beverly. Minouche Kandel reported that the campaign for engaging bystanders to domestic violence will kick-off in October as well.

 

2.Elder Abuse Update

Shawna Reeves attended the Elder Justice Forum at the White House. The forum focused on ways to further elder justice in the country. Very few counties have dedicated elder abuse DA’s. There is a need for elder justice champions at the county level. SF is ahead of other counties in this area. Also, the Institute on Aging is hiring an Associate Director to take care of the SF programming and will be interviewing candidates in the next few weeks.

 

3.Child Abuse Update

DPH is hosting a trauma-informed training on September 30th. Each department should be sending members to the training. Human Services Agency is currently working on a protocol relating to commercially trafficked kids. Katie Albright reported that the Children’s Advocacy Center is one and a half years in and wants to see more cases coming to the center. They are looking to improve referrals.

 

Meeting adjourned; next meeting is November 18, 2015.