fullTF
2009 2008 2007 2006
INFORMAL MEETING Board of Supervisors Asthma Task Force
Minutes of Meeting held on July 24, 2006
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA
Members In Attendance: Neil Gendel, Anjali Nath, Winna Davis and Gloria Thornton.
Absent Members: MariaElena Alioto, Karen Cohn, Julie McKown, Marie Hoemke, Mary Higgins, Natasha Madaris, Micah McLorin, Rose Toney, Peg Strub, Benjamin Heckman, Kimberley Knox., Trish Bascom, Louise Kimbell, and Louise Hill.
Guests and Staff: Tirtza Rosenberg, Lee Samson, Raymond Manion, Jessica Bowen Bazyl, Kate Lorenzen, Nadia Thind (Wu Yee) and Meyla Ruwin (SFUSD School Health Programs).
(* = pending appointment)
1. Introductions, Agenda Revisions, Approval of Minutes
June minutes were corrected to read, item 7: Marie Hoemke stated the school bus issue has been completed. Anjali Nath and Neil Gendel corrected the information to state that 55 large school buses now have seat belts and are using low emission fuel. The Task Force is still hoping the School District will replace the rest of the small buses.
The minutes were not approved due to lack of a quorum. The agenda was revised to include a report on Prop. 86.
2. Updates
a. Grants-CPMC- hospitalizations causal factors; transportation access to care in Bayview; CA Breathing mini-grant RFP; HUD grant
Anjali Nath reported the Task Force did not receive the grant from California Breathing. The listing of who was funded will be available in two weeks.
The Mayor’s Office of Housing has submitted a grant to HUD. It is related to healthy housing.
b. ATF Vacancies/Membership
Tirtza Rosenberg reported she has been in touch with the Rules Committee and the Board of Supervisor’s web site is to be corrected today.
Nadia Thind, from Wu Yee, will be applying for the childcare seat.
Vacancies still open are: Person or parent of a child with asthma and a health care professional. Jessica Bowen Bazyl reported she, Karen Cohn and Peg Strub spoke about the possibility of enlisting Alaina Poon, a pharmacist from Kaiser.
Anjali Nath pointed out that some of the members have missed their maximum of meetings. The membership requirement is that people cannot miss more than three meetings in a row and six meetings a year. She and Tirtza will follow up on this.
Winna Davis suggested contacting the principal at George Washing Carver to enlist a parent. Ms. Davis also indicated that DCYF would be appointing their Adolescent Health Coordinator, Marlo to the task force seat held for DCYF.
c. Asthma Task Force Webite
Anjali Nath reported that Tirtza has sent her all the past minutes, notices and agendas from the beginning of the Task Force on.
The site will be posted under SF Gov.
d. Communications Plan
The Asthma Task Force has been working with the Public Media Center. The first project will be a parent outreach flier. This should be finalized by Friday.
e. CAFA Policy and other updates – Annual Meeting
Kate Lorenzen reported there are about 23 bills in the legislature right now around indoor air quality in the homes, indoor air quality in the schools, outdoor air quality and clinical asthma. Of those, the CAFA network has been following six of them. AB3018 has officially died. CAFA may be picking up AB607.
CAFA is currently looking at:
AB3018 - the Hancock Bill
AB2875 - regarding Hazardous Emissions, 1,000 feet from school structures
AB32 - school global warm bill
AB1205 – the California Breathing Rights Act
Fines and fees to bring financial support to local air abuse to be distributed to community groups
AB2276 – the indoor air cleaning devices regarding ozone.
CAFA has written letters of support and has been in contact with the sponsor’s offices.
CAFA has been invited to a roundtable to try to effect the distribution for the funds for the Williams settlement and try to include the quality of the school environment into the emergency repair language. Neil corrected her to state that the correction is to include good repair once the emergency repair has been done.
Kate Lorenzen reported the Annual Meeting will be held in November in Los Angeles. CAFA will be deciding on legislation that CAFA wants to sponsor. Anjali Nath stated there is enough money in the budget for herself and one member to go to the meeting.
f. Proposition 86
Jessica Bowen Bazyl stated that Proposition 86 is the tobacco tax act which is on the ballot for November. It will raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by $2.60. This will mean another $38,000,000 for asthma programs around the state. At this point California ranks 23 in cigarette tax. If this passes, California will rank number 1. This will be in additional to the Prop. 10 tax. She distributed packets of information.
Anjali asked that everyone determine whether or not they would like to sign on to support Prop. 86, and if their organizations are willing to support the proposition to allow the Task Force to sign on.
3. San Francisco Asthma Network Meeting
The Clinical Committee will be hosting a meeting to support the 65 people who participated in the training to prepare for the national Asthma Educators Certification examination. There is a wide range of where people are in the process. The meeting will be October 16, covering various topics. Neil Gendel asked that a discussion on environmental issue be presented. Gloria Thornton stated that will be part of the second meeting.
4. Guest Speaker: Meyla Ruwin, SFUSD School Health Programs
Meyla Ruwin, Director of School Health Programs and the Chair of the District Asthma Team (DAT) gave an update about the District Asthma Team.
The SFUSD received a grant for Tools for Schools. This is a program to give tools to schools to improve the indoor air quality. The hope is that there will be more funding for staffing to be able to hire a part-time Industrial Hygienist to coordinate the project.
This past year the number of indoor air complaints has dropped. This might be due to the closure of some of the schools that needed to have work done.
The card student information system is going to an electronic form. The system is being upgraded. Professional development will be happening in August
Meyla Ruwin asked that she be notified when more trainings will be held to allow them to send their nurses and LSC.
The folders for medical providers were completed and distributed.
An agreement was reached that May would be recognized as “Armani Johnson Asthma Awareness Month”.
Meyla Ruwin distributed a list of the contents of the Armani Johnson Asthma Education Tool Kits. There are five tool kits available to be used by teachers. She also reviewed a notice that has been distributed of “Four Steps to Improve Asthma Management at School”. 20 nurses are given a power point presentation to use when speaking to staff at schools.
DAT is looking at more cross-training in the future. This will include Learning Support Consultants, who is a mental health consultant. Also being trained will be health advocate trainees, who are certificated teachers who work as a link between the schools and the health services office. Another group to be trained are the Administrative Assistants (School Secretaries).
This year there will be a Community Based Organization Conference on August 23, in the morning, to education people regarding who is working with the School District and how to work with the School District regarding confidentiality procedures.
The Task Force meets about every six weeks during the year.
Neil Gendel suggested looking through the Tool Kits to see what is missing. Meyla welcomed having someone from the Asthma Task Force examine a box and make suggestions for improvement.
There are three ways the school health office gets information out to parents: through the Educational Placement Center; the Office of Parent Relations and through the District Asthma Team.
5. Meeting with Gloria Thornton and Kimberly Knox
Gloria Thornton met with Kimberly Knox regarding the Tenant Seat and how to more effectively do outreach to parents. Information from the District Asthma Team stated the compliance, 93% from the Child Care Centers and 2/3 of the forms are coming back from known asthmatics. In the middle and high schools compliance is very poor. Gloria and Kimberly discussed reaching out to the parents of middle school children through the Parents for Public Schools and other resources.
Niel Gendel has done an outreach to the Asian Community for a parent to serve on the Task Force.
Meeting Adjourned (3:50p.m.)
The next meeting will be August 28, 2006 at 2:00.