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Health Director’s Report <br />November, 2016 <br />• With the help of an MPA student, Sabrina Willard, we have conducted the first phase of our <br />mental health gap analysis for children and youth ages 0-25. The next phase is to share the <br />results with community stakeholders and work with them to identify priority issues and identify <br />potential solutions. That work will be completed in February and we’ll have a presentation to <br />the BOH then. <br /> <br />• The Manager did approve the HR recommended changes to salaries for nursing and advanced <br />practice staff. It is a small step in a long journey, but we are so pleased with the support we <br />received from both HR and the Manager. <br /> <br />• Reminder: The Healthy Carolinians of Orange Task Force Annual meeting will be Friday <br />December 9th from 9a – 11a with breakfast and networking beginning at 8:30a. The meeting <br />will be held at Whitted in room 230. The theme/topic for the meeting will be racial equity and <br />the role of law enforcement in community health. <br /> <br />• Last week I attended the two-day Racial Equity Institute, Phase I training. We are working on <br />getting the majority of HD staff trained in at least Phase I. <br /> <br />• Friday we spent the day reviewing the documentation for our accreditation <br />activities/benchmarks. At the end of the meeting, we declared all substantive work related to <br />accreditation documentation complete. Rebecca and LaToya will work on putting the <br />documents into the required form/format and will submit December 9th. <br /> <br />• For the first time ever, we had to submit a competitive proposal to the state for our Family <br />Planning funding. I’m happy to report that we were approved with an exceptionally high score <br />of 93. This will result is a slight increase in our family planning funding. <br /> <br />• December marks the end of my year as President of the NC Association of Local Health <br />Directors. This year was both challenging and productive. We successfully negotiated positive <br />resolutions around most of the cost settlement issues, we saw the legalization of syringe <br />exchange, a statewide standing order for naloxone and a nearly $15 million allocation to local <br />public health for cost report losses. We also avoided some dangerous legislation. I’ve enjoyed <br />this experience and learned a lot about how things get done in Raleigh. I am happy, however, to <br />pass the gavel on to Jim Bruckner in Macon County at our meeting in January!