HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES Family Advisory Board 2020-01-09Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado, January 9, 2020
Minutes of a regular meeting of the Family Advisory Board of the Town of Estes Park,
Larimer County, Colorado. Meeting held in the Room 202 of the Estes Park Town Hall,
on the 9th day of January, 2020.
Present: Rachel Balduzzi
Laurie Dale Marshall
Michael Moon
Karen Randinitis
Jodi Roman
Sue Strom
Nancy Almond
Also Present: Travis Machalek, Town Administrator
Suzanna Simpson, Recording Secretary
Absent: Christy DeLorme
John Bryant
Chair Dale Marshall called the meeting to order at 3:34 p.m.
PUBLIC COMMENTS:
Town Administrator Machalek provided an update on the previous discussion about
marijuana clubs. The current ordinance would prohibit this type of establishment so there
is no action needed from the Family Advisory Board.
TRUSTEE LIAISON REPORT
No report.
APPROVAL OF DECEMBER MINUTES:
It was moved and seconded (Randinitis/Strom) to approve the December meeting
minutes with corrections and the motion passed unanimously.
FAMILY CONNECTION OPPORTUNITIES
Member Roman shared that the support group for parents of children with special needs
has resumed and the next meeting will be in February. She thanked EVICS and the school
district for their support of the program.
Family Advisory Board – January 9, 2020 – Page 2
Member Randinitis shared that the Library will begin the Powerful Tools for Caregivers
program in March. The program focuses on self-care, tools and support for caregivers.
Begins March 12 for 6 weeks. Also, working with Communities that Care on hosting the
QPR (question, persuade, respond) Suicide Prevention program April 29. Both of these
programs are free to the public.
Member Almond shared an update from EVICS that the childcare scholarship program
had a 60% increase from 2018 to 2019. This is attributed to CCAP remaining frozen. The
numbers of families and children served did not increase significantly, but they are being
served for a longer period of time. Of note, 28 of the 38 served were single parents. The
largest percentage work in resort/housekeeping and then food service.
Chair Dale Marshall shared that at the last Childcare Collaborative meeting they
discussed using common data to help identify gaps and assess what programs are most
commonly accessed.
2020 FOCUS AREA AND ADVOCACY AT TOWN BOARD MEETINGS
Chair Dale Marshall proposed that the board discuss keeping the 2019 focus area, as
she feels that not enough progress was made to move on to something different. The
board discussed the benefits and challenges of the focus area and what next steps could
be taken. Town Administrator Machalek added that Awareness is a barrier that has been
identified based on the discussion. There is concern that the board as a whole has not
agreed on the identified barriers and work needs to be done to develop the list, along with
their impacts. Town Administrator Machalek recommended that the board finalize their
list of barriers and present a report on those barriers to the Town Board at a future
meeting. If the FAB wanted to, they could bring families at that time to help present and
testify to the list of barriers. Each board member will compile their list of up to 10 barriers
and their impacts and send them to Town Administrator Machalek and Executive
Assistant Simpson by end of day January 27. Executive Assistant Simpson will include
the already established list in the February packet.
Discussion continued on how to address the problem of compiling data. Town
Administrator Machalek recommended that if the FAB is interested in more data, they
could consider making a recommendation to the Town Board expressing the need for a
demographic profile of the community to aid in awareness of the challenge families face
living in Estes Park.
It was moved and seconded (Almond/Balduzzi) to continue the focus area of ” identifying
barriers to family success in Estes Park” for 2020 and the motion passes unanimously.
Family Advisory Board – January 9, 2020 – Page 3
OTHER BUSINESS:
Seeing no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:42 p.m.
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Family Advisory Board will take place Thursday, February 13 at
3:30 p.m. in room 203 at Town Hall.
Suzanna Simpson, Recording Secretary