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Calendar of Events
January 22, 2010
NCARF Winter Training
Greensboro, NC
NCARF Directors Meeting
Greensboro, NC
April 22-23, 2010
NCARF Annual Leadership Forum
Wrightsville Beach, NC |
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NCARF Headquarters
Suite 102
Raleigh, NC 27607
Phone
919-863-9486
Email
Nicole Shore
Association Executive
Michelle Eggleston
Membership Coordinator
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HVO Announces the Sale of 2009 Holiday Season Card |
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This card was designed by Amy Thrower, who lives a full and productive life while experiencing developmental challenges. Amy has participated in HVO vocational services since 2007. She especially enjoys expressing her creative talents through various arts and crafts.
Each year HVO, Inc. invites clients with developmental disabilities enrolled in our Learning and Enrichment Program to design Holiday cards. Clients submit their designs, which are voted on by the entire workforce at HVO and a single selection is made for the current year. A new design is selected every year. This design is printed and used on cards sold by HVO.
Proceeds from the sale of the Holiday cards are returned to the Learning and Enrichment Program to support client activities.
Cards are $1.25 each or $1.00 each for 12 or more.
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NCARF Directors Meeting 1/22 |
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ATTENTION NCARF Members!
On Friday, January 22 there will be an important NCARF Director's Meeting in Greensboro at the FirstPoint offices. We highly urge Directors/Presidents to attend or at the very least send one senior staff member to the meeting if preservation of funding and services is an important issue to you (which we assume it is to all of you).
This meeting will be a time to orient us all to the fiscal and political realities of the "short" legislative season that begins the second week of May. Funding is not expected to get any better and current state revenue collections are already $100 million behind projections!
This will also be a time for us to develop our legislative goals for 2010 together as an organization. The meeting will begin at 10:30 and we expect to be finished around 2:30.
I'd like to personally challenge each CRP to have their state representatives visit the organization before the legislative session begins in May. The Director's Meeting will give you the talking points for that visit. The legislators must understand the seriousness of the funding and services situation. We must put a face on the services we are providing and make sure that our legislators throughout the state KNOW WHO WE ARE.
We do really good work, and help people improve their lives every day....but outside of the CRP community we don't get a lot of respect or recognition. And we have no protection from further budget cuts unless we make sure we are more broadly known.
Please plan to attend this meeting!
Alicia Camacho
NCARF President 2009/2010
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NCARF Human Resources Training Event |
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NCARF will be hosting a Winter Training Event on Human Resource Issues in Non-Profits January 22, 2010 in Greensboro. Mike Womble, SPHR, from Carolina Human Resources, Inc. will be instructing the course.
Topics will include: Personnel Manuals with samples to share, Developing Pay Scales, Responding to Unemployment Claims, Legal Updates, Performance Evaluations with samples, and Confidentiality. Please come with questions prepared for a Question and Answer session.
Preliminary Agenda
9:30 am - 10:30 am.......Registration
10:30 am - 12:00 pm.....Education Session
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm.......Lunch
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm........Education Session
3:00 pm - 3:15 pm........Break
3:15 pm - 4:30 pm........Education Session
4:30 pm.....................Adjourn
Hotel Accommodations
If you will be needing overnight accommodations use the Marriott Greensboro Downtown. Please ask for FirstPoint's room rate of $135 per night. The daily parking rate is $11. The hotel is within walking distance to the training facility.
Marriott Greensboro Downtown
304 N. Greene Street
Greensboro, NC 27401
336-379-8000
Receive an additional $10 discount if you register by December 31, 2009! Download a registration form and register today!
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Employment Law Guide Update |
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United States Department of Labor - Employment Law Guide Update
The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the availability of an updated version of its popular Employment Law Guide, an online publication that describes the major employment laws administered by the department. The Guide helps the public - workers and employers - understand many of the laws affecting the workplace. It helps small businesses develop wage, benefit, safety and health, and nondiscrimination policies and benefits employees and employee representatives who need information about worker rights and responsibilities under federal employment laws.
The Employment Law Guide is a companion to the department's FirstStep overview advisor, an online system that allows employers to quickly and easily determine which federal employment laws apply to them by answering a few simple questions about relevant variables. Together, the updated Employment Law Guide and the FirstStep overview advisor offer employers the information they need to ensure safe and fair workplace policies and practices. Both are available at http://www.dol.gov/elaws or http://www.dol.gov/compliance.
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Medicaid Buy-In Results |
The Medicaid Buy-In program makes it easier for people with disabilities to work without losing health benefits. The program allows states to expand Medicaid coverage to workers with disabilities whose income and assets would ordinarily make them ineligible for Medicaid. This issue brief looks at the prevalence and characteristics of Medicaid Buy-In participants who leave the program, as well as their participation in other public programs and their employment outcomes after disenrollment.
This specific information can be accessed at http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/disability/WWDDisenrollees.pdf There is tons of disability research also available at: http://www.disability.gov/employment/research_%26_statistics |
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Vocational Rehabiliation (VR) Success Stories |
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Success stories describing how people with disabilities in several states have been able to return to school and work by working with their state VR department.
This information has recently been updated, and can be read by visiting this link: Click to View |
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Your Story is Needed |
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The Governor, members of the General Assembly, Department of Health Human Services staff and LME Directors need to know how the cuts in funding for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services impact the lives of people with disabilities, and their ability to live in the community.
Your story is important! Help us collect a thousand stories through this survey to share with policy makers.
Please take a few minutes and complete the survey
There are three different surveys, one:
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For Individuals and family members of people with disabilities who have lost some or all of their services within the MHDDSA system (includes residential and vocational). For people without Internet access or who may need assistance, advocates/staff can interview them over the phone while they complete the survey on-line for them. If the individual fears losing services but hasn't yet, fill out the survey now and then again if/when the person does lose some or all of their services.
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For Providers of the MHDDSA system who have cut services, employee rates, benefits, hours, etc.
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For Employees (current or former employees of MHDDSA providers) who have lost or experienced reductions in hours, salary, benefits etc...
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Request for Information from CPDMI and SA Federation |
The Division of MH/DD/SAS is required to provide a report on service gaps and needs to the North Carolina Legislature by March 30, 2010. The report will use information already available to the Division from the LMEs' Needs Assessments, Consumer and Family Advisory Committees' Annual Needs Assessments and service claims data (need for care and service delivery patterns). In addition to those listed, the Division would like Mental Health, Developmental Disability and Substance Abuse disability specific groups in the state to have an opportunity to identify and prioritize specific gaps and needs as it relates to the groups they represent.
Section 5 of the Gap analysis report will encompass the priorities and recommendations as identified by the different disability-specific groups. The gaps and priorities will be consolidated and presented in the Report as shown below.
Section 5. Statewide Needs and Priorities
d. Priorities Identified by Advisory Groups
- NC DMH/DD/SAS External Advisory Committee
e. Priorities Identified by Disability-Specific Groups
- Coalition of Persons Disabled by Mental Illness (CPDMI) / Mental Health
Planning Council (MHPC) - Developmental Disability Consortium / Developmental Disability Council - Substance Abuse Federation - State System of Care Collaborative If your organization would like to identify key gaps/needs and provide recommendations, please list the top five gaps and needs that your organization would like to have included in the gap analysis report. Please disseminate this request to all agencies and organizations that are part of the consortium, so every agency listed in your membership gets an opportunity to contribute to the list. The information will be collated and organized to form disability-specific gaps and needs in the report. The complete draft document will be made available for further review and comment in February, 2010. Your organization's recommendations should be emailed to ContactDMHQuality@dhhs.nc.gov by December 30, 2009. If you have questions regarding this request, you may contact me or Shealy Thompson at 919.733.0696. Thank you, Nidu Menon Nidu Menon, PhD Epidemiologist Quality Management Team Community Policy Management Section Div of MH/DD/SAS 325 N. Salisbury Raleigh, NC 27699 Phone 919-733-0696 ext 279 Nidu.Menon@dhhs.nc.gov |
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From North Carolina Quality Care Provider Association regarding CABHAs |
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Dear Concerned Citizen,
By now I am sure you have had time to assess the impact that the North Carolina DHHS proposed changes requiring providers to become a Critical Access Behavioral Health Agency (CABHA) will have on mental health services in North Carolina.
As you know this requirement will have far reaching and devastating consequences for consumers and small providers, particularly in low wealth, small population counties of our state.
They have devised a plan, in concert with large providers, to eliminate a vast majority of small providers with the result that only about 30 of the large, and politically connected, providers will be able to comply with the new rules. I am sure not one small provider or consumer had input in the decision process, unlike the large providers who routinely met with the NC DHHS about the forthcoming changes!
As a result a large majority of providers will be forced to close their doors and probably 90% of those closures will be minority owned businesses! This will cause thousands to lose their jobs in the worst economy in seven decades. Local Management Entities (LME) will also be affected with closings and mergers, resulting in more loss of jobs.
The small providers, who know and have a much more thorough knowledge of their respective communities than anyone, have the desire, the ability and the skills to provide services in areas where most large providers do not serve or want to serve.
This proposed implementation will only cause lack of consumer access to services and increased costs in the future as consumers that could be assisted will only end up in more expensive systems, i.e. out-of-home placement, hospitalization, juvenile justice and or the criminal justice system.
The state uses the argument that these new rules are a result of abuse and fraud in the Community Support Services of 2-3 years ago by a small number of providers. The truth is the state caused that problem by a complete and utter failure to do its job and police the system. Their failure to perform the necessary audits and inspections bordered on gross negligence!
It was not by accident that they only gave providers about 6 weeks notice to react to these changes. This was so there could be very little time for discussion and organized opposition to these changes!
What can you do? Get involved now!
1. Write, call, email or talk to your County Commissioners, city council members, your legislators from your district, the directors of your LME Board and write letters to the editors of your local newspapers or contact you local radio and television stations.
2. Do write or call the DHHS Secretary Lanier Cansler at lanier.cansler@dhhs.nc.gov and to Leza Wainwright the director of NCDM/DD/SA at leza.wainwright@dhhs.nc.gov or call at (919) 733 - 7011.
3. Call or email Governor Perdue at bev.perdue@nc.gov or call at (919) 733 - 4240.
4. Call or write the Legislative Oversight Committee. These are the legislators directly responsible for monitoring DHHS. They are the people that NC DHHS most fear because they have the power to control how much money DHHS receives.
5. Get your friends, families, social network groups, community organizations, churches and other providers involved and have them take action.
The North Carolina Quality Care Provider Association is an organization that is taking action against these changes. Contact them for further information. Their website is http://ncqcpa.org/ If you take immediate action, we can stop DHHS from implementing these drastic changes!! |
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Implementation Update #65 |
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Unemployment Claims for NonProfits |
This allows not for profit agencies to file a Surety bond versus 1% of payroll into a fund for future unemployment claims each year. Without the legislation existing balances would have been lost. Contact your insurance carrier for more information.
URGENT ALERT: Some NC Nonprofits Can Eliminate 2009 Unemployment Reimbursement Payment!!
A quirk related to a 2010 North Carolina law change creates an opportunity to drastically reduce or eliminate the reimbursement payment for unemployment to the North Carolina Employment Security Commission for 2009, provided NC nonprofit agencies take immediate action!!
Through a coincidence that was created by the passage of SB #741 and new NC ESC Regulation 7B, NC nonprofit agencies that reimburse the NC ESC for unemployment may elect to post a surety bond as collateral against future unemployment benefits as a replacement for the cash advance payments previously required.
Which means the balance of previous reimbursement payments by nonprofits held by the NC ESC will be used to pay for 2009 benefit charges and future charges until that account balance amount reaches zero, provided a surety bond in the amount of 1% of taxable payroll is secured and posted with the NC ESC by no later than 12/31/09!
Please be aware that because of Holiday schedules and the late release of the NC ESC surety bond form you must act before 12/15/09 |
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Governance Policies
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NCARF is gathering Board of Directors and Organizational Governance Policies for member reference. We'd love to have your contributions. Please send the policies to Michelle Eggleston, meggleston@firstpointresources.com. We'll post them at www.ncarf.com in the members only area. Please send exactly how you would like them posted. If you have questions, please let us know. |
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News to Share?
Please send any news you wish to include in the weekly updates to
NCARF Staff
***The information in the NCARF Weekly Update is presented for informational purposes. Unless expressly stated, opinions may not be the opinion of NCARF as an organization. Inclusion of information in the Weekly Update is not meant to imply endorsement by NCARF or its member organizations. NCARF cannot guarantee the accuracy of all information that is passed along from various outside sources. |
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