Family Violence Council Minutes

3:00-5:00 pm May 18, 2016

400 McAllister, Room 617

San Francisco, CA 94102

 

Present:

Mayor or designee: Diana Oliva-Aroche

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

District Attorney, or designee: Elizabeth Aguilar-Tarchi, Gena Castro-Rodriguez

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

Director of Domestic Violence Consortium: Beverly Upton

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

Director of Child Abuse Prevention Center, Katie Albright

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

Director of Department of Child Support Services, or designee: Thomas Wolf
Presiding Judge of the Superior Court, or designee: Hon. Tracie Brown

Chief of Adult Probation or designee: Sunny Schwartz

Sheriff, or designee: Delia Ginorio

Director of Department of Public Health: Dr. Leigh Kimberg

Superintendent of San Francisco Unified School District: Erik Martinez

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

Director of Human Services Agency, or designee: Barrett Johnson

 

Absent:

Chair of the Consortium of Batterers Intervention Programs, or designee

Chief of Juvenile Probation

Chief of the Fire Department

Director of Department of Animal Care and Control, or designee

Executive Director of Department of Emergency Management, or designee

Human Resources Director, or designee

Public Defender, or designee

 

Other attendees:

Robin Brasso, NCJW; Sai-Ling Chan-Sew, Northeast Medical Services; Glen Fishman, Institute on Aging; Tamari Hedani, Institute on Aging; Minouche Kandel, DOSW; Elizabeth Yang, DOSW; Jerel McCrary, Bay Area Legal Aid; Caroline van Brewster, Junior League of San Francisco; Marissa Snoddy, Riley Center.

 

I.Introductions

 

II.Minutes from 2/17/16 were approved. Agenda was approved. [Dr. Emily Murase/Beverly Upton]

 

III.Sentencing Commission Update – Jerel McCrary

Jerel McCrary from Bay Area Legal Aid gave an update from the Sentencing Commission, which last met on the 30^th of March. Staff hired a fellow, Alyssa, who will work with the Commission until the end of the year. The Commission will specially focus on behavioral health studies in June and conduct risk assessment models in September. The recidivism task force is deciding on a uniform definition of recidivism by comparing definitions and approaches used in various city departments and jurisdictions. There were suggestions to include probation violations as new criminal activity. Jerel will take these questions back to the work group. The Commission will next meet on the 15^th of June.

 

4. FY 2015 FVC Report/5 Year Plan – Minouche Kandel

Minouche Kandel presented initial data from the FY 2015 Family Violence Council Report, compiled by Nicolette Severson, recent fellow at the Department on the Status of Women.  DOSW will be making edits for the next two months. All departments were requested to review the narrative section especially and return feedback. Hope to have the final draft ready and approved at the Family Violence Council meeting in August.

 

Proposed recommendations for 2016:

• Add “Focus on language access issues across the board” and “Review the SVU annually, to assess best practices for investigation of child abuse, elder abuse and domestic violence” from 2014 report to 2016 recommendations since these were not met.
• Recommendations 1,2, 3, 4, 5, - OK
• Add 7: Require reports on training each department is doing (academy, field training, DV court) to evaluate what training is occurring and what needs to improve.
  • Also need more transparency & data collection
  • Did the proper procedure occur?
  • Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs required some kind of report – to be checked to see if it is a required statistic.
• 6) Create a Batterers Intervention Program for monolingual Chinese speakers
  • Currently no system for monolingual speakers; goes back to the importance of training and incorrect determination.
  • OCC, SFPD community-based meetings are going on.
  • Question brought up about the status of Batterers Intervention Program (BIP) for mental health. Sunny Schwartz shared that BIP was a contract with the Department of Public Health resulting in services that did not match the original intention of the BIP, program was later decertified.
  • Facilitator for program is available – Beverly and Sunny volunteered to follow up with this.

 

5 Year Family Violence Plan:

• Keep as part of recommendations – will be attached as appendix.
• Gun relinquishment program is included because it seems achievable (also recommended by the Board of Supervisors).
• Need model or acknowledgement of community effort outside the FVC council.

 

Data:

• There is a huge need for data collection and analysis to be done before implementation of new programs and trainings. There are reporting sources but no expert to interpret and advise on these numbers. There is a lack of deeper understanding of these numbers as well as what is not being reported to understand exactly where the community is still left vulnerable or overlooked.
• It is a burden for SFPD to constantly track, present, and analyze data. A goal is to provide them with raw data downloads and allocate an expert to do the analysis. Another option is to recommend a data analyst position to be made within the SFPD.
• FVC will ask Captain Bailey to report on current SFPD data collection at the next meeting. FVC would like to know what data collecting mechanisms are being used and SFPD’s agenda and vision for collecting data. 
• It is important to understand there is a limited number analyses you can do amongst multiple systems. FVC can choose to focus on a particular aspect or side of the data. The analysis part of data is always part of the weakest.

 

V.Honoring Sunny Schwartz – All

Diana Oliva-Aroche, Violence Prevention Director from the Mayor’s Office, presented the Mayor’s proclamation of “Sunny Schwartz Day” to Sunny Schwartz.

 

VI.Update on Domestic Violence Liaison Program – Minouche Kandel

Minouche Kandel updated the Council on the Domestic Violence Liaison Program. There are now 42 individuals who are part of the volunteer domestic violence program amongst various departments. There has been great collaboration with the Department of Human Resources. Outreach needs to be improved but the infrastructure is in place. Minouche reiterated that the program is not a new hotline, but a new conduit to get people where they need to go.

 

VII.Updates on Key Issues in Family Violence

 

a.Child Abuse Update – Katie Albright

Child Abuse Prevention Month was well celebrated: Had an event day, City Hall turned blue, 200 in attendance. Wide support and attendance from the Board of Supervisors, Mayor’s Office, and community. Update on Children’s Advocacy Center: new protocols; signed data sharing agreement (smaller subset than level of FVC but could be a model for how to share with multiple systems).

 

b.Elder Abuse Update – Shawna Reeves

The Elder Justice Abuse Group has been meeting monthly. There is a checklist for domestic violence but not yet for elder abuse. Tamari Hedani has been diligently working on finalizing the checklist for elder abuse (working closely with SFPD and APS, soliciting feedback from different professionals, counties, and disciplines).

 

World Elder Abuse Day will be on the 8^th of June, 4-6:30pm in the Green Room of the Veteran’s Building. Keynote will be Dave Jones, California’s Insurance Commissioner.

 

c.Domestic Violence Update – Beverly Upton

Mother’s Day Event in City Hall was successful. There has been a budget ask to see direct services sustained and provision for staff commutes.  The DVC is involved with

ten court watches (as of today, 4 homicides).  

 

VIII.Other Announcements

Robin Brasso will be honored by the National Jewish Council in May.

The Commission on the Status of Women will be honoring Shawna Reeves for her work on elder abuse.

 

The Bay Area Women’s Summit is upcoming, on the 21^st of June.

 

IX.Public Comment

Prevention has proposed a new nurse system where nurses can go home with new moms. Starting early is incredibly important for prevention efforts e.g. lowers school-to-prison pipeline.

 

Caroline van Brewster from the Junior League of San Francisco is glad to be here and looks forward to working more with the Family Violence Council members.

 

X.Motion to adjourn [Delia Ginorio/Gena Castro Rodriguez]

Meeting was adjourned. Next meeting will be held on the 31^st o