Our June 1 lunch meeting was at Seascape
We had 27 attendees in person and two on zoom
To celebrate the month Kelly and Doug wore shorts. The rest of us are still cold. The shorts were a great contrast to Eric’s suit. Our club embraces a variety.
Sam, Al and ( his Honor) Rich , “Under the Influence,” did fabulous versions of the Welcome Song and 4 Way test song.
Other great bands with three word names are known by catchy initials: CCR, BTO, ELO…Maybe not this band, “ And now, Capitola, Aptos Rotary proudly gives you: UTI!!!”
Dave brought his granddaughter Leighanna,
Anissa sent her friend Jess Kile as a prospective member. Jess is a pediatric oncology nurse at Stanford and lives in Aptos
Let’s do what we can to convince her to be a member
Dr. Art’s thought for the day: don’t speak to the press, they are likely to report what you said.
Ken's joke of the day is too long for the brevity required for the Hub.
Since June has five Thursdays, the last Thursday will be a service day. We will not have a club meeting that day, but all members are encouraged to volunteer at Loaves and fishes in Watsonville, starting at 11 AM. Probably going to 1-130
Craig was the Detective and announced many happy events occurring in June
Sandra and Julie had birthdays
Graham and Joni’s; Doug and Diane and Win and Eileen had anniversaries
Polishing silver
Nelson has been in Rotary 36 years; Win 8; Graham 12
Sam’s granddaughter graduated from UCLA
Paul's - foster daughter and former foster daughter graduated to HS
Al's son graduated from SF State as a music master
Rich’s granddaughter graduated from Loyola Marymount but is staying for water polo
Craig’s current event questions included the problem keeping the fire/mitigating goat herds at work because of a dispute over paying the goat herders overtime. Really? versus the cost of a fire?
Our guest speaker was Jeffrey Arlt who spoke about efforts to improve mental health counselling in Santa Cruz County which he has led since his son Sean was shot and killed by SCPD during a mental health crisis in 2016.The focus of his organization is the Roadmap to an Ideal Crisis System, which was the subject of his power point presentation.These are some of the key points:
1 in 5 adults experience a behavioral health crisis.
Crisis is defined by what happens with an individual, not by government.
Crisis is an event that compromises safety or stability
Behavioral health crisis system is an array of interlinked parts and services
The ideal system ensures everyone receives services at the right place and time for as long as needed
Our county doesn’t have an accountable agency for failures in behavioral health events.
988 is a year old; it is a suicide and behavioral health hotline
He’s spoken to 3 police chiefs about the problem with having law enforcement be the first line responders: the chiefs all say that their officers are not trained for mental health crises and feel that many times they are not helping the situation. Law enforcement wants a dedicated mental health crisis team to handle those situations.
Last year our county had 250,00 911 calls, 30,000 were for mental health crisis
Our county’s mental health crisis facility has only 12 beds
One lesser- known problem is that a mental health crisis can result in job loss which ends insurance and thus ends much-needed treatment .Also- private insurance does not cover the services of a mental health crisis-response team
The current system is the least effective but economically the most expensive and requires the greatest expenditure of human resources. Legislative funding efforts for mental health crises are inadequate
65 million Americans have mental illness
The goal of his organization is to minimize mental health crises events, to make them rare and non recurring.
Jeff had some suggestions for how Rotary can help:
contact politicians (we know some) and push for more funding and programs support; fund scholarships for kids who are going into mental health
Nelson reported that in 2018 the Board of Supervisors’ response to the Grand Jury report/recommendations for mental health programs was that it was too expensive and impractical
There are no adequate programs in California. Austin TX i has a good program and surprisingly, so do the state of Georgia and Ohio
This week’s meeting is at 5 at the Fairfield InnBRING WINE