Monthly Archive for November, 2006

Minutes from PC Meeting on 11/29/06

AGENDA
• Announcements
• Clinics
• Election
• PC vote next week

Announcements:
• Elections are on Dec. 7 at 7, room TBA, try and shadow people if interested in taking a position
• Kara- universal health care flyer passed around, next wed is screening of a movie on university health care and a proposed single care system for California, a doctor will be speaking about it, there will be info about a lobby day happening, supporting a bill- come check it out
• Come next week to PC since Dr. Amin is coming, and we need people to have info for progress son the mental health project
• Berkeley food and housing project- made card as easy reference to where to get a shelter/hot meal, system on card- call trinity church at 10 and put name on list, then call back at a certain time to find out if bed is open for them, openings every night, quarter meal at trinity church, cards will be given to each clinic to pass out for referrals
• From Elizabeth- a newsletter was made by the class Newsletter group, give out to volunteer parents- put name and address of person being sent to on list

CLINIC UPDATES
• Womens- really laid back, nothing significant to report
• Youth- ran pretty well, had a conversation about where youth is going to head in the future, dinners working well; clinic won’t be open on Monday because Youth Connect is happening from 1-5 that day at YEAH clinic on University
• General- went well, good Italian dinner, both haircutters are no longer going to be working there, so haircutting will be done purely by students for a while
• Schedule for winter break- not sure about General yet, Women’s Clinic won’t be open, don’t know about Youth

ELECTIONS- if trying for a position, talk to the current holder and try to shadow them

Open: 1 admin, 2 class coord, 7-11 ugsis, 2 gen clinic coord, 1 gen clinic ass coord, 2 gen clinic cocas, 1 pr, 1 historian, 1 medical liaison-will receive a work-study stipend to go to med student meetings, undergrad presence at UCSF jmp programs,1 youth coca, 2 youth coord, 2 share, 2 speak fac, 1 haircutting, 1 footwashing

UGSI applications- can be found on the website, send them in, then you will receive a follow-up email with more questions, answer a few more spec questions, interviews will be the 9th and 10th, have to have taken class, specify when u would like to interview, if you’ve had a year of exp try to run for class coord, email apps to Courtney

PC has been changed pretty drastically, we took vote to make this change temporary, so what to do now? It used to be right before gen clinic on tues

Need to: have proper rep of every clinic here

Going to vote on new PC next week

Youth issue: some people have been coming for a while that no longer fit into the 19-25 age range, so we don’t know if we should turn these people away or not; youth clinic will decide this on their own and then present

Karandeep- collected 32 needs assessments- results were generally very positive but these will be scored by gen clinic at some point

checkout

Youth Clinic Update for 11/20/06

Everything went well. We had a safety awareness pre-briefing and volunteer sign in sheet. Youth Connect is coming up on Dec 4 and we don’t have clinic that day, so everyone should go to Youth connect from 1:00 0 5:00 PM at YEAH, on University at Grant. We got a bunch of supplied; mostly clothing and some blankets. It is great that Iris went to the Co-ops for us. At debriefing we brought up the issue of a strict versus flexible age cap. It will be brought up at PC to get the opinion of some of the older volunteers.

Berkely Project Collaboration

Our participation in the Berkeley Project was a tremendous success. Kara, Karandeep, and the SPEAC/SHARE small group all deserve a big hand. Volunteers painted the bathrooms and showers at the Willard site, conducted needs assesments, and painted at the Berkeley Multi-Agency Service Center (MASC) site. Karandeep did a phenomenal job as Site Leader at the MASC site, and we were able to achieve a tremendous amount of work there as a result of his dedication. The teriffic success there and at the Willard Pool under Kara should serve as sufficient evidence to everyone that the SPEAC/SHARE small group is an incredibly productive and viable addition to the Thursday class, one that will certainly endure during subsequent semesters as a result of their achievement.

The amount of planning and preparation these that two UGSIs put into their group project was very inspiring, and will serve as a model for all future iterations of this small group. Congratulations to both of you, and to all of the HMS 98/198 students in your small group! Overall the event ran smoothly, and it was awesome to see the change accomplished by some very motivated volunteers. We also passed out educational information on some of the misconceptions of homelessness and provided the volunteers with links to websites where they could educate themselves. Thank you to everyone who came and helped out.

Minutes from PC Meeting on 11/19/06

Agenda
Check-in
Announcements
Clinics
Liability
Mental Health
Positions

1. Check-In
2. Rules of PC
Agenda- email in by Tuesday
Time Contracts
Open Time at end of meetings
Clinic Updates
Updates
Respectful Listening
Games/Training

3. Announcements
Berkeley Project- success

SSI/SSDI application due Dec. 14th at 9:00
Clinic Foodstamps

Andrew- website update (use forum)
Post files with password update
Pictures uploaded
Big blue book uploaded

Amit- updates
Willard school follow-up fixup after Thanksgiving
Carrie Donovan (Cal corps)- mental health talk from Haas (co-sponsored event); works in the Bay Area for organization, puts Suitcase on the co-sponsor list
SPEAC: Urban Umbrella Project (tabling); umbrella drive- funds received purchase umbrellas, pass out educational info/button maker, t-shirt fundraising, selling/donation ($3) for umbrella, poncho

Clinics
Youth- slowing down substantially

Women- legal, all services there, Thanksgiving dinner next week

General- Flu shots given out by med, issues with the haircutter, get rid of 2 haircutters, legal ramifications Come in to Class- Rohan will come to class to talk- demonstration Jan. 16

5. Liability Discussion
Recap- 5 min. safety beforehand to make sure people get trained (volunteer sign-in), medical forms for volunteers, read the policy book, documentation is key
Policy Book Discussion at Retreat

6. Mental Health Training
Update- Dr. Azam- willing to talk at PC, maybe Dec. 6th
Dr. Azam contacted the Wright Institute (Gilbert Newman)- use psychologist to train/institute work

7. Needs Assessment from Karandeep

8. Elections- around the 7th from 7-8
2 Youth Coordinators
Youth COCA
Women’s COCA
Women’s Health Ed.
Women’s Coordinator
2 Transition Women’s Coordinators
1 Legal Coordinator (all clinics)
2 General Coordinators
1 Foot Washing
1 Administrator
2 SPEAC coordinators
2 SHARE
2 Transitional Class Coordinators
7-11 UGSIs
1 Historian

Minutes from PC Meeting on 11/8/06

Agenda 11/8/06
Check in
Announcements (4 min)
Policy Book
Clinic Updates (10 min)
Liability—Megan Voorhees (22 min)
Check-out

Policy Book
· Make an electronic copy on the website

· One policy book will be at each clinic

· Policy is that officers are expected to read policy book

· There has been a problem in the past of people not reading the policy book

· Go through the policy book in detail at retreat or in PC for all new officers

· Documentation that people have read it

· Vote

o Email/Electronic–9

o Electronic + 2 pg hard copy–8

o “Rented” Hard copy–1

o 20-30pg tailored hard copy–0

Announcements
Website
forum done, suitcaseclinic.org in the next few days
Need info on open positions for elections—coordinators let Andrew know
Volunteer of the Month at Women’s and Youth—vote all in favor, coordinators will decide
SPEAC umbrella project
SPEAC mtg next Monday 10-11 FSM
Peoples park Monday board mtg—research to better use the park, trinity church @7PM on Monday
CALPRIG Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week—Check out table on Sproul November 13-17

Clinic Updates
General
· Dinner, little incident with Police, No chiro

· Womens

· Dinner low turnout, Sarah only coordinator, flu shots in a few weeks

· Youth

· Clients and volunteers left early

· Would like volunteers to come earlier and stay to clean up

Megan V—Risk Management Training
Cal Corps—Public service agency on campus, provide support for programs, give mini grants, provide support for service groups
Risk Management
How to run safe programs
In order to create justice need to create safety
Be thinking about how to run safe programs
What are the safety hazards and how do I prevent them?
Accidents do happen, if you have done what you need to and document then you have protection if someone tries to sue
Handout
Things to keep in mind…..
Choose people who are capable of doing their jobs
Train all volunteers, document
If working with under 18—train to look out for child abuse
Diversity training
Take a first aid and CPR
If driving people be aware that you are liable
Documents
Keep documentation of what goes on at clinic every week
At the beginning have a 5 min safety talk—point out safety hazards, make documentation (perhaps a checklist)
Medical forms
Documentation of CPR and first aid training
Finger printing? Make sure more then one person is around
Sign in and sign out log—have an idea of how many people are in the space
Written description of rules, make documentation that people have read it
Need waivers for volunteers and clients
For clients one option would be to sign waivers and put them in a locked box only opened if sued
A person can sue for up to 3 years after the incident
Megan Voorhees
Office:102 sproul
Email: Voorhees@berkeley.edu
Possible training on abuse

Check out
Discussion about training next week

Mental Health Training

Dr. Amin Azzam, resident psychiatrist at SF General Hospital and UCSF professor, will be coming to the Planning Committee on December 6th to lead a training on mental health. The topic on mental health referrals will be reserved for Dr. Gilbert Newman, director of the Wright Institute, for next semester, as he is much more familiar with the East Bay’s mental health services.

Youth Clinic Update for 11/7/06

This week went well. There were few clients compared to the last while, and many left early. Many volunteers left early as well.

Please remember, class credit is not recieved if one does not stay for debriefing. And clean up is hard if you are understaffed.

From now on, volunteers are asked to come at 5:30 sharp to help set up and for a 10 minute pre-briefing.
From now on there will be a volunteer sign in, to have a count of how many volunteers are in the building in case of emergency such as earthquake.
Per the liability and safety training recommendations, youth volunteers will be asked to be alert of safety hazards. In the 10 minute pre-briefing, we will go over the question “What is dangerous here?”. In the future, we will collect medical information from volunteers, in case of emergency.
When PC members participate in the Identifying Abuse training, all youth clinic volunteers will be required to attend if available.

All volunteers must read the Youth Clinic specific section of the Policy Book and sign a form listing all individuals who have read it. When the email list (youthsuitcaseclinic hosted at googlegroups) is complete we will send out copies of each.
(NOTE to avoid spam one should never write out full email addresses with the AT sign or with dot or com)

Youth Clinic will be hosting a Volunteer of the Month award from now on.




© 1989-2010 The Suitcase Clinic All rights in and to the foregoing are reserved throughout the world.