CMT Core Group Meeting - January 13, 2011

CMT Meeting Minutes - Core Group CMT Meeting
Thursday, January 13

Child Care Resources Tour

Lifelong Learning Center – Monique
The spring schedule/catalog is now in development. The LLC is partnering with the LERN program to begin offering some online classes. This way they can provide their classes online to local or national customers. Lisa Rae Roper is working with the medical courses including CNA and Medical Coding to offer a component of those courses online. The LLC is exploring the ability to offer a certified medical coding program via the College of Technology, with remote sites connected to Montana hospitals. The UM COT currently offers an inpatient medical coding certificate via a two year program. This provides the credentials to work as a coder in a hospital setting. Most coding is outpatient, and the next step would be to offer the outpatient medical coding component. Right now the UM COT will award an AA in Health Information upon completion of their program, but their program is not certified by the CPC (Certified Professional Coder) organization. After achieving the AA, students must study separately to take the CPC Certification Exam.

Home Resource has started their orientations, and have partnered with LLC to enroll people in their classes. They have a nice shop area and showcase area. They currently need more low income participants in their programs to meet grant guidelines.

SB 44 would increase the compulsory attendance age for high school from 16 to 18. If a student chose to transition to another program such as Job Corps, they could still be considered “enrolled.”

There is another GED options initiative on the radar, this initiative would make the GED an equivalent to High School graduation, and allow students who are credit deficient to take the GED to get their HS diploma. Monique reported that statistics show that 60% of high school students would not pass the GED test.

Adult Basic Education classes are very full. The managed enrollment system is working well to keep class size steady with 250-300 people actively enrolled in ABE. Last year over 2,000 people were served through ABE, which was a 25% increase in the number of people service. They attribute this to the layoffs in the community, and the availability of the classes.
The LLC is now fully staffed and they have more than 30 new instructors. On the 25th of January the instructors will begin using Moodle.

Job Service – Wolf
The Job Service has had some staffing changes with a few retirements and 4 new employees coming on board this month. Commissioner of Labor Keith Kelley will be in the office tomorrow to meet with previous Smurfit-Stone employees. Auditors recently completed an audit of over 300 WIA files. Wolf will be meeting with Alan Fugelberg from the COT to discuss training for the faculty at the COT who are working with adult learners. They are hoping to find a professional development resource to teach the faculty more about the services available to displaced workers. There will be no career fair this spring, and the Job Service is looking at the possibility of an Occupational Expo in the fall, highlighting specific occupational clusters that are prominent in our area and the education and training pathways within those clusters. Wolf continues to work with the Chamber of Commerce Business Affairs Committee, which is focusing right now on the health care occupational cluster in our community. In Great Falls the medical community helps fund some of the classes at the college of technology, this way they are able to get the workers they need for their businesses, with the right training. Jodie pointed out that this is exactly how they got their Dental Assisting Program started at the LLC.

Child Care Resources – Michelle
Child Care Resources is now operating out of their new space on Front Street. At their recent fundraiser, the Connoisseur Classic, they doubled their fundraising record from last year, the event was very successful. They are currently in the process of having their programs audited. On January 31st they will lose their referral software, that software is transitioning to Great Falls. They only ended up having to lay off one clerical support worker and are hoping to prevent any other layoffs. The Food Program reauthorization has been approved, but there are many changes that will affect child care providers. Some food items will change, and providers will not be able to serve some of the staples they have been serving for a long time. The food reimbursement rates have also been frozen. The new Food Program focuses on raw foods and food prepared from scratch. Jodie brainstormed the possibility of providing a hands-on low cost class to offer to child care providers, focusing on low cost easy recipes for kids.

Human Resource Council – Maggie
The same changes in the food program that are affecting Child Care Resources are affecting the Mineral County Lunch Program. In Mineral County 98% of high school students eat hot lunch at the school, which attests to the quality of the lunch program there. Human Resource Council is also in the process of having their programs reviewed by state auditors. Some of their files have been checked by three different auditors this week. The Youth Program at HRC is very busy; there are a lot of eligible youth in the community. One issue is that the money they make through the youth program is increasingly considered part of the family income. Maggie also shared feedback regarding changes in high school that have affected many of their participants. The LIEAP program has expenses that are 35% higher than last year.

Planning
We will pull the full group together in March for Compassion Fatigue training. We will set quarterly meetings for the full group, and send out the schedule by early February. A possible location for the summer meetings is Home Resource.

The next Core Group meeting is Thursday, February 10th at 9:00 at Job Service.