BOH Final Minutes of January 27, 2021

Browse Search

MINUTES - Draft ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH January 27, 2021 • OC Health Department data: o LEP = 35% Medical Encounters and 40% Dental Encounters o Refugee arrivals — FY 19-20 = 18 and FY 20-21 = 13 so far • 1-693 Process o USCIS provides a blanket designation for local health departments to function as civil surgeons for refugees to assist them with the adjustment of their immigration status. This blanket designation applies only to the vaccination status of refugees. It does not apply to applicants for adjustment of status who are asylees or other types of immigrants. They must go to a physician who has civil surgeon status and undergo complete medical evaluation. o Total served with this process in FY 19-20 = 57 • The OCHD has many language resources including language services policies & coordination, 2.5 Staff Spanish medical interpreters/translators, 15 contractors, ASL, and telephonic & video interpreters. • The IRH program is an IRH community liaison, a part of the OC Interagency Coalitions and participates on the Racial Equity Committee and the CLAS AA. • OCHD was the lead department that coordinated the community IRH Coalition, and Latinx Equity subcommittee, both coordinated by Susan Clifford. When Susan's position moved to the OC Human Rights and Relations department, so did these two community groups, but OCHD maintains a very close relationship with the groups in order to inform our work and connection to the immigrant and refugee community. • During 2020, the IRH Coalition met weekly to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The group has really helped OCHD in the following ways during the pandemic: o Provided support and information to members regarding face masks, food options, employee rights, and COVID updates on latest guidance and multilingual information, and updates related to housing and school issues. o Assisted the COVID communications group with messaging to the immigrant and refugee communities. This included suggesting food distribution locations and mass testing sites to reach our vulnerable populations. o Other activities of the IRH Coalition included: ■ Organized Food Box Assistance which on a weekly average helped 68 families with food boxes, 22 families with diapers, and 5 families with formula. ■ Organized speakers at meetings to disperse more information to community partners including presentations on the eviction diversion program, OC Housing programs, mental health topics, school systems, OC Recovery and Transformation, refugee services for Burmese and Karen families, etc. o The coalition reaches about 200-400 people via their Iistserv. The coalition is expanding in 2021 to include more marginalized groups and community voices. • What's new for 2021? o The newly named OC Changemakers group has transformed to be more inclusive of other People of Color communities. It gives opportunities for leaders in People of Color (POC) communities to emerge, giving space for POC to tell their stories, and hopefully making systemic change for the betterment of everyone in Orange County. The BOH members had questions that were addressed by Ms. Lyons. B. 2nd Quarter Financial Reports & Billing Dashboard S:\Managers Working Files\BOH\Agenda &Abstracts\2021 Agenda &Abstracts/ January Page 2