ALC-Hospital, Medicaid, & Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee
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- October 6, 2026
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
0:30
Good. I think we're waiting on the committee room to open up here at 11.
Speaker 6
0:51
Are you ready? Ready, ready. How are little ones
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
0:53
doing? They're busy. My baby started walking in earnest, so she is just taking off around the house.
Speaker 11
1:00
oh that's wonderful it's all hands on deck that's for sure yeah
Speaker 16
2:00
good morning the meeting has not started yet but we will get started in just a moment we can hear everyone on teams just so you're aware
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
3:00
If everyone will get their seats, we're going to start this committee meeting shortly. We're just giving you a one-minute warning.
Speaker 24
3:30
- Good, good, good. - Hey. - Hey. - How are you, hey buddy. - Hello, hello. - Hey, how are you? -
Speaker 28
3:45
let you in here? - Well I snuck you in the back. I heard you had a yarn out here trying to keep me out. But I was, hey, I know you will.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
4:00
good morning everyone welcome to uh monday morning and another exciting meeting of our our subcommittee
i am truly excited about this committee and i believe this is the first time that um an alc committee meeting has met since our buddy uh gary stubblefield finishes race and went on home to be with the lord and i just want to say what an honor it was to work with senator stubblefield how much he will be missed i had the honor of serving with him for 10 years over in
yale county and i can tell you his constituents loved him as much as we did so i want y'all to continue to pray for his his beautiful wife kathy and his daughter amber and their grandchildren he is a man that we greatly missed and i know that senator stubblefield was a man of common sense he loved what this committee was doing so we're going to continue to work hard in his memory and make sure we get some good things accomplished today so we have a full agenda um colleagues i know that When we got together last time, there was a multitude of questions about what in the world is going on with Restore Hope and 100 families. And we just had so many people excited, all of us want it in our districts, so we can see the great things happening in our own communities.
So we have this whole committee to discuss what's going on on that level. So we're going to call first Paul Chapman, the executive director of Restore Hope, and Janet Camp to come and tell us what's going on with Restore
Hope. What are they? And some of the good things that are happening. good morning good morning if you
guys would just state your name for the record and who you are
Speaker 35
5:39
then we'll let you get started sure i'm paul chapman i'm the director of
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
5:46
restore hope pull your microphone down just a little bit closer paul
Speaker 37
5:49
sorry is that better thank you paul chapman and I'm the director
Speaker 38
5:54
for Restore Hope. Good morning, Janet Camp. I'm the director of judicial services with
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
5:59
Restore Hope. Thank you all so much for being here,
Speaker 42
6:03
and we're ready whenever you are. All right. Restore Hope was an idea a number of years ago when Arkansas had a very fast-growing prison population.
Speaker 45
6:11
There were a number of us that were in the
Speaker 37
6:16
direct service field, and we knew that the prison population was growing so fast, And as a
Speaker 45
6:22
result of that, or in parallel with that, we had a very fast-growing foster care population that just
Speaker 37
6:30
increasing the size of the community organizations was not going to really change the situation, that we had to find some scalable way to equip communities to work together in better ways
and maybe address more people and get better
Speaker 42
6:45
outcomes. So Restore Hope started with that idea of if we could align
Speaker 37
6:51
all the help that is in a community to be able to work together, not only would the individual agencies be more efficient because we spend so much of our time just trying to find the help that's there and understanding the different gateways that services have, whether it be an application or eligibility.
And oftentimes people that even work in this field for many, many years aren't aware of services that are just a few blocks away from them. And so efficiency for organizations was one, and the other was better outcomes for the people that were served. And so that was the idea. We started in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Fort Smith had, in 2016 and 17, had the highest percent of children in foster care in Arkansas by a wide margin.
One in 34 children in Sebastian County were in foster care. That was 28 per 1,000. The national average is 5 per 1,000. Fort Smith was a story of globalization, heavy manufacturing. A lot of those jobs had moved over a period of time. And kind of the Whirlpool plant moving was the real notice of where you may be able to make it working a job or a job and a half for a family. Now, that no longer was possible.
And so you saw this, given your perspective, you saw it in schools with free, reduced lunch, behaviors, attendance. You saw it in the jail. You saw it in the circuit courts, and you definitely saw it in foster care where 800 children were in care for a county of 130,000 people. So we went there first and put together what we call an alliance that starts to align all these different agencies and organizations to be able to work together on a singular goal.
How do we help someone move from crisis to career? And since then, when we built the first model in 2018 in Fort Smith using some software and some human interactions that I'm going to just highlight real quick for you, there are 19 counties now running this model and have served over 10,000 Arkansans. There are over 1,800 Alliance members in those 19 counties. And on average, there are nine different professionals on one Arkansan's case trying to provide the services that they provide to help them move from crisis to career.
The outcomes, which are tracked and updated daily, and if you're interested, I can give you links to the dashboard that you can check on your community and roll all the way up statewide, is financial stability for people that are served have over 100 percent increase in in their income housing which is very difficult in many of our communities for many of the participants that we're serving in fact I would I wanted to
Speaker 42
9:56
let you know there's there's just over 50 percent
of the 3600 Arkansans that have been served in this way in the last 12 months just over 50 percent were
Speaker 37
10:06
either homeless when we met them or, um, or they were a, on the scale of one to five, they were at two. And so at great risk of becoming homeless, they were couch surfing, they were in a shelter, um, occasionally, um, like the, the, uh, lady that just walked the mom that walked into my office, not a few weeks ago, uh, was an Uber driver, got a ticket and she
didn't pay. And so she lost her license and lost her job. She had slept in her car with a 14 year old and she was pregnant and walked in asking for help and so occasionally our clients will sleep in their cars and we have to start from how do we get you sheltered and safe and stable so that we can build back up into hopefully what becomes a stable career so they don't need that assistance any longer and so the impacts are tracked on a regular basis outcomes for community
Fort Smith, at the five-year mark of running this model in collaboration, they have reduced the number of children in foster care by over 50%. They had a 30% reduction in locals being incarcerated in their jail and crime was down about 20%. And I would
Speaker 42
11:22
say even more, the culture of that town is wildly different because when we first started to build this collaborative model,
Speaker 37
11:33
But your law enforcement and your courts and your service providers that were all on kind of the leading edge of providing stabilization for folks in crisis, everyone was stressed out. Turnover was very, very high for all agencies. And really there was almost a distrust of the other agencies. and there was no hope within the partners that if they that there was any solution to the trouble
that they were in fast forward a number of years and when they saw post-pandemic that juvenile crime was on the rise the first thing they did was call a big community meeting of all these different professional actors and it was called by the police department knowing that if they got together then they were going to be able to come up with a set of interventions community interventions collaborative interventions that and they had hope that that would actually start to address this very complex problem and so the culture in sebastian county is much different
outcome for families also is different if we take a child into foster care and reunification is the goal oftentimes the guardian that the that the child had to be taken from is in such a complex state of multiple crises that trying to help them address all of that just becomes very burdensome and they don't possess the the capacity to be able to get all the help that they need and so oftentimes that reunification doesn't help even though that's the the goal so below 50
percent of the time does reunification actually help but if they'll work if the guardian will choose if mom chooses to work with the community in this way the last 12 months that reunification rates just over 70 percent 72 percent when i took this screenshot you can track that daily it's updated daily and so outcomes are wildly better putting families back together but the largest percent of families that are served over 75 percent do not have a child welfare case at all and so what ends up happening is individuals are coming from the community they know the words on
the street you can go in here and get the help that you need and so they're choosing to do so before the child welfare case has to be open and they're making their way in through various sources through non-profits through agencies through courts and then voluntarily words just out And so they'll know someone that got help, and then they go and seek that help for themselves. So the model has three main parts that are missing from communities that this model adds.
One is you gather the appropriate agencies and organizations into an alliance. And that alliance is held together by a pledge to each other that you're going to work together to help families move from crisis to career. and we celebrated every hundred is it the the initiative is actually called the 100 families initiative which came from that fort smith uafs boardroom meeting back in uh 2018 when everyone was stressed out we said could we just try this until we helped 100 move and then we can you know
if you can pledge to stick together that long we'll see what happens and they've helped many many hundreds uh sebastian county may be over a thousand now uh families that they've helped but you've got to put that alliance together um and that requires a a role and a backbone organization in that community and in sebastian county it is currently the university of arkansas fort smith that employs a coordinator that pulls that agency together and keeps them together and and brings the appropriate data back to that that alliance uh it requires a software that i'm going to show
Speaker 42
15:23
you just briefly uh some glimpses glimpses of it's called hope hub it's a collaborative case management system it's a fully privacy compliant HIPAA FERPA COPA which means that
Speaker 37
15:35
the participant can give consent to be able to share their information and build a team around them of professionals and then you need a what we call a primary provider you could call them a case manager or a community navigator they will be placed throughout the community meeting a client doing a full-blown assessment of that client and then building that support team around them
um and i want to go ahead now and open up madam chairman maybe i could take if there are any questions there before i move into the software i could take them real quick before i start demoing i'm gonna start with the first question then
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
16:16
we'll see some other colleagues so where did the funding come for us to for this to get started
Speaker 42
16:24
and in sebastian county uh sebastian County primarily TANF has been used and so we will
Speaker 37
16:29
pass we have a contract with DHS for TANF funds
temporary assistance for needy families and we'll pass that through to local organizations to be able to hire those staff those primary providers and the coordinators but also there's been private funds and then other public funds from time to time like in Sebastian County there's a federal grant that is currently going on as a result of the uh police department the fort smith pd calling for help we were able to write for a federal grant and then then put some of those funds uh in to try to help troubled youth uh before they they get into court and so it's a
mix it's a blended mix of funds but the primary source in arkansas has been
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
17:10
tenef though second question is um how many caseworkers do we have
Speaker 37
17:15
in sebastian county that are on this um that's a great question uh five to seven um there's a mix of funds being used i'm going to pull a dashboard up which you all could have access to i can send links after this great if you'll send it to staff then they'll get it out
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
17:33
to the whole committee that'd be great and
Speaker 37
17:36
so the this is a picture of
as of um midnight um the active caseloads in each county in arkansas and then you can hover over and actually see the primary provider and how many cases that they're currently serving in that particular county and so the low case loads would either be a case manager from another county and and they're just helping someone that happens to be in sebastian or their clients move to sebastian or it's
Speaker 53
18:05
a community member who's acting as a case manager which this model allows
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
18:10
okay does anybody else have any questions at this point representative crawford
Speaker 57
18:23
thank you good morning morning it's good
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
18:25
to see you it's good to see you too i was in that first meeting yes ma'am you were university of arkansas when all this was going on 2018 i was in a non-profit fighting to stay alive and so what happened in Sebastian County where all the jobs
just went away whirlpool closed ring closed and when you came in Paul you brought light and no one I we didn't know what to do and when you brought us together and begin to give us a vision, we were able to work with you to bring that forth. There were hard days before that TANF, before TANF came. It was many years, it seemed like, maybe just a year.
But I just want to encourage everyone here, if you're not a part of this, if your community, your district is not a part of this, I would encourage you to get with Paul or with some of the staff and uh and bring it in because it it does revive and thank you thank you representative
Speaker 37
19:39
crawford i remember you in those early committee meetings as we were trying to put this model
together it truly is a model that was built for the community to be executed by the community it's a set of tools and and some infrastructure that allows the community to to know it have data that you don't currently have access to and to see in real time what your actions, you know,
Speaker 50
20:01
we always call it the so what. We did some things, you know, so what. Great.
Senator Jane English
Unverified
20:11
Senator English? Thank you. Good morning. The very first thing you have with the collective impact,
the stable, thriving, the very first thing is financial stability. And you said that people were more than half the time what they were making. How are you helping them then to find, once we've gotten them
stable, how have you helped them to be able to move
Speaker 37
20:37
towards employment? Yes, ma'am, that's a great question. There's, you know, if someone can actually have a job, if they have no job, which is 50% of everyone that we meet at onboarding,
And if they can just have a job, it starts to help quickly. But the reason why we say we want to put that alliance together to help them all the way through career is because we believe that if someone can make enough money to pay their own rent and to not need the assistance, then that solves all manner of problems and gives them a level of agency that they don't have when we currently meet them. And so everyone, to answer your question directly, it is part of that alliance to bring in your community colleges and your trade schools and the workforce department.
And everyone that's working on employment, and especially with individuals that may be harder to employ, if the programs exist in that community, then they're brought into the alliance and then they're worked out. that coordinator works out a pathway for all the available possibilities for that individual to get their first job and then to get a full-time job. That employment number that we showed was really a movement from no job or just a part-time job to full-time employment.
And so that's what we're really measuring is we want people to have full-time employment and especially full-time employment that can provide them with the money to be able to take care of their own family. off of assistance so it depends but largely the state agencies that we work with are workforce and workforce boards at a local level and then any community colleges and trade schools that already exist in that community to try to create that pathway to the employment within that
Speaker 45
22:26
community thank you yes ma'am senator sullivan thank you madam chair
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
22:36
so when i look at your data
here you have collective impact stable and thriving how do you get over a hundred and sixteen percent stable and thriving how do you move to there let me let me throw a couple questions out on the data and then how do you become a stable and stability stability if you your employment rate is at 50% and then I look over at the Restore Hope model, engaging the community, I lost the page, but you have
like a 50%, 30%, 20% reduction in incarceration. So if you have a 20% reduction in incarceration year over year, eventually you end up with zero incarceration. So how do you
get those reduction numbers year over year? Yes, sir. That's a
Speaker 69
23:32
great question. Well, that's why I'm asking. It doesn't
Speaker 45
23:37
seem possible. Yeah, and so there's some detailed charts that are summarized in that summary there.
And that summary is really a movement from an assessment.
Speaker 37
23:48
I'm going to pull up the assessment so you can see how the data is generated. Let me find this. And so this would be an account for Miss Susie, who came seeking help. And then this assessment is completed by that navigator, and then there are 13 areas in which they are marked along a scale.
And so that summary is just calculating the movement from a 1, 2, or 3 to a 4, or a 5. And then you can drill down into the detail of that on these more detailed reports that show at intake where were the group of people in the last 12 months. That's what this currently is defaulted at. You can manipulate all the filters on here.
And then as of the last assessment, if an individual has two assessments, then what is that currently? So in the current 36, I'm sorry, Senator, let me look real quick here on the number of participants. Okay, so in the last 12 months, we're looking at 3,861 individuals who have been onboarded into the system and having been served collaboratively.
And so of those 3,861 individuals, there were 431 of them that were actively using and had a severe problem with substance abuse. And then that goes on up to five as they don't have
Speaker 75
25:34
any problem or they're in active recovery for over a year.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
25:40
Yeah, I'm still having trouble. So how do you go in incarcerations? You have a Susie or whomever has the total population.
How do you calculate you're having a 20% reduction year over year? Eventually, you end up with almost
Speaker 37
25:58
zero. Yes, on the incarceration from this slide,
Speaker 45
26:01
that was a five-year number that was calculated in Sebastian County from 2017 to that date five years later. Okay, and it only included the people
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
26:12
that you onboarded. That was a
Speaker 45
26:14
population number for Sebastian County at the end of that. So
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
26:19
over a five-year period, you saw 20% or whatever that percentage is, reduction in incarceration.
How do you account that
Speaker 48
26:27
for your program? For our program, right here in these dashboards. Well, just tell me. So
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
26:34
you have a 20% over five years, you have a 20% or 30% reduction in incarceration. How do you attribute that
Speaker 69
26:43
reduction to your program? Yes, I would say
Speaker 45
26:48
that we didn't account for 100 percent of that, that it was the collaboration of the leaders in Sebastian County addressing those problems.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
26:57
Okay, so when you say, and I don't know what page it is, I'm sorry I lost it, but so what percent are you accounting to the reduction in incarceration?
Speaker 37
27:10
Yeah, I would like to ask the leader, I'd ask the Fort Smith Police Department, the sheriff, if they could attribute. Okay,
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
27:20
so from what you know, and again, I'm just trying to make sure you've got a presentation you're presenting to us as valid data,
and you're attributing a 30% reduction over five years in incarceration, and that's what your chart says. And so
I'm wondering how you attribute that
30% reduction to your program. And your response would be? My
Speaker 45
27:47
response would be that there is some percentage of that reduction in incarceration that was attributed to this program, but largely it was the collaboration of that community, law enforcement and social services and other agencies,
where they had additional options available to them where they weren't now incarcerating folks in the jail.
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
28:13
Okay, so again, just for me to summarize it, so you have a 20%, 50% reduction in hardest-hit communities, 30% reduction in incarceration, and a 20% reduction in overall crime rates. And that's on your agency, your group's outcomes here.
That's with the numbers at the Fort Smith Police Department. Yeah, but you can't attribute that specifically, all of those reductions, to your program. That's an overall county-wide effort and probably includes
a lot of different groups. For
Speaker 45
28:50
sure. Okay, thank you. And I would never claim to have – what we do is we provide a set of tools that allow the community then to exercise their engagement in whatever way that they can or want
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
29:04
to. Well, I would respectfully say that when it's on your program, on your sheet for your program,
that it causes me to think you're attributing those reductions to your program. But that's just my
takeaway. Thank you. Yeah, I wouldn't claim that. Well, you did on your sheet. I would claim that Fort
Speaker 45
29:20
Smith is wildly different and that the leaders in Fort Smith and Sebastian County would say it was their partnership. Yeah, I would agree with that. That had come to that. But that's not what the report shows. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Speaker 95
29:32
Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Over here to your left.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
29:41
Hi. How are you guys doing? Thank you for being here. You know, to kind of piggyback off of what Senator Sullivan was just saying, wouldn't you agree that your program has really been a catalyst in thriving and developing families to do better, which allows them to make better decisions and not end up incarcerated, even if they were or go back? So your program has been able to facilitate those behaviors. Would you agree? Yes, sir. Thank you. My second question is this. Do you have a breakdown of, I know I saw it by county, but within the county, specifically with Fort Smith being the one,
do you have a breakdown of the amount of families that were impacted, whether it's North Fort Smith, East Fort Smith, Greenwood? Do you
Speaker 99
30:25
have it broken down by that? I can break down on this dashboard.
Speaker 42
30:30
I can break down by county, and I can even break down all the way down to who served within that county, who was their case manager. And then you can
Speaker 37
30:39
see that over the history of the six or seven years that this software has been used. Madam Chair, if you can get that
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
30:48
to staff, maybe you can get that out.
And one last thing, I just want to say thank you guys for the work that you do. We've seen the improvement. Let me echo what my colleague in East Fort Smith says. You guys have been phenomenal to our community, and thank you for helping facilitate families get back on
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
31:08
the right track. So thank you. Thank you.
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
31:14
Thank you, Representative Richardson. Representative Crawford. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to help answer Senator Sullivan's questions, in Sebastian County, we could not work together.
And so the numbers that you see here are from different organizations because every entity was working as a silo. So when Restore Hope came in to Sebastian County, they took a while with the police, brought us together, and actually showed us how we can work together without being afraid our funding would be cut in other areas. So I don't know if that helps at all, but I believe that Restore Hope deserves all the numbers that they're putting here.
It's not just, even though it's collaborative, it's because of Restore Hope that those numbers are there. Thank you.
Thank you. Representative Brown? Thank you, Madam
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
32:15
Chair. Mr. Chapman, I believe I heard you speak recently. came and
spoke to a group I belong to and I'm glad I get to hear about this again and maybe more of it will stay with me. From what I'm hearing you say,
the program assists people with developing resiliency, would that be a correct statement? How to move forward into their lives, like solve the immediate problem, but then learn skills to avoid getting into difficulty
Speaker 37
32:54
again? It will do that. There is real training for this navigator that helps, including motivational interviewing, which would help someone continue to move through their very difficult circumstances.
But really what it's doing is it's finding all the resources that exist in a community. And so if there were a program or a class like that or a therapist,
Speaker 35
33:19
then they would be connected to that existing resource that could provide that for the individual. Well, I would
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
33:25
like to say that I think that this would be a valuable tool even for us as legislators when we get constituent calls about difficulties they're having. You know, I pick up the phone and I get in touch with DHS, but, you know, I never know which department to go to.
so I generally dump on my dear friend Lori. But I think that it's difficult for people in the community to know where to turn or to know that there is some place to turn to. And I think a program like yours would benefit all of us. Yes,
Speaker 111
34:05
ma'am, that's what it was really designed for. After a number of years of collaborating with the
Speaker 37
34:12
Department of Corrections and with DCFS and with many, I was in a position to make grants to organizations.
So when you give money away, everyone finds a way to come and ask you for it. So you get to know a lot of people. Even then, after doing that for a number of years, it was just still so difficult to be able to find the help that someone needed. So we could address education and housing and substance abuse, but then people would come to us with a suspended driver's license, and we didn't know and didn't possess the expertise nor know anyone who could help them get their driver's license back and to get right with the court.
and so that that's true of agency personnel and non-profit um um service providers in the community is you just you just don't know you can only be expert at a one or a handful of things and many of the individuals that come to us need
Speaker 111
35:08
they're they're in at least three areas of significant
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
35:12
crisis um just one more follow-up so your organization functions in sebastian county only is that correct no ma'am we're in 19 county 19 counties and then so you work another follow-up
you work not only with the state agencies or county agencies you work with non-profits you work with the whole gamut yes that's correct all right
Representative Les Warren
Unverified
35:39
thank you no more questions thank you representative warren thank you madam chair i just want to say first of all thank you paul chapman for what you've done in garland county we're another county that this program has impacted and i can tell you that you have had a an ability to bring together a lot of groups that were
singularly trying to accomplish something and i guess that's my point is that and i would i would give this question to you Paul is what was happening before you came into these communities I know what was happening in Garland County we would have a drug court and we would have just a couple of things where we were trying to help with the recidivism rate so I would give you credit
for all the numbers that you've got on your report because you have brought groups together and it's a collective effort to reduce recidivism rather than just everybody doing their own thing but my question for you is what was happening in those communities before restore hope came in there um yeah i think
Speaker 37
37:03
that's why we we tried um to build the the first model
was you've got all these really good people that work for our agencies non-profit and governmental i mean they're good people and they're dedicating their lives to trying to help people in um in really awful circumstances and they don't they have such a hard time trying to find how do you get someone into workforce and do we have the wheel of money to get them into trucking school or welding school and maybe they're a therapist that has to on their job they they've got to see so many clients to be able to keep the light bill on and that and and functionally that's
what we want them doing that's their expertise is how do we maximize their time being a trauma informed therapist and not having to address housing issues and so um to the direct answer to your question is we all operate in our silos and we're doing the best the best we can but we are so unconnected from each other that what it looks like to the participant that's coming to you is they may really connect with the the program that they're getting as a result of catching a
child welfare case or being incarcerated or because they were desperate and sought to help themselves but they have all these other issues that the person that they're really connecting with uh is largely ignorant of and and is not paid and does not have the time or expertise to help them gain and so what ends up happening for that individual now is they become they lose hope that their effort is going to produce the result and i would say that's not only the participant that's the professional the first people that gained hope back are actually the professionals
that that just say this is i wish we had had this you know it makes my job easier and i got in this to actually help people or keep the public safe and now i've got options to be able to do that so i'm more efficient so i'd say we're they're good people doing good things and they're helping people, but we are
Speaker 42
39:10
so disconnected. It would be the, the, uh, analogy that I think is best is try to build a house without a builder. You could have the blueprint and you can buy the lot and you
Speaker 37
39:21
can have the, uh, you can secure your construction loan and then, but you don't know about pulling
permits and maybe, you know, a plumber, but you're not so much on the electrician. And now you're trying to sort through all of that. That's, that's probably the best analogy I can think of is someone that's trying to navigate a set of really awful circumstances and trying to get all the way to, and we need them in the workforce. We need plumbers and electricians and truck drivers. And so how do we help someone build a bridge to get there? Thank you. Senator Love.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
39:57
Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, so, Paul, thank you for this presentation. You know I'm familiar with your work, So I'm, I am going to ask some of the questions that maybe others may not know of, but the first thing I want to ask you is about hub, hope hub, is that, is that kind of a new system that you all have created or is it based off of the previous system you had? Cause I'm going to start asking about HMIS and some of these things I will explain to
Speaker 42
40:27
others that they don't know, but it's a system that a restore hope owns. We were gifted
Speaker 37
40:35
it six or seven years ago from another nonprofit and have put development dollars. We now have engineers and analysts that work on it full-time to be able to develop it in response to the alliance members' request. So we're still
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
40:48
enhancing that system. Okay. So now is it that Hope Hub is pulling all your, I
guess, member agencies together? Is that?
Speaker 42
40:57
Yeah, it's mostly what the individuals that use HopeHub, the professionals, use it as a communications platform, and then we
Speaker 37
41:05
use it to track outcomes. So if I wanted to talk to you about getting housing for someone, then we could do that in a fully compliant way, and all that would
Speaker 45
41:16
still exist there where you could always go back and maybe see documents or plans for someone.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
41:24
Okay, gotcha. So then this feeds into – does HMIS – this is a homeless management information system.
Does HMIS feed into this, or do you feed into HMIS? How does that work?
Speaker 42
41:38
We have some of the HMIS fields are embedded. There are multiple kind of programs within HMIS. We have one
Speaker 37
41:46
of those programs for some funding that we received. Gotcha. And then we will send that file to WellSky, our HMIS provider here in Arkansas, to
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
41:58
now with some of the federal changes in the housing funding and different things like that,
how is that impacting you all over the kind of the broad horizon? How is this impacting the housing portion of what you're doing? We've just secured,
Speaker 111
42:15
one is I'm not familiar with the federal change, what federal
Speaker 37
42:20
changes will impact what we're doing right now. Okay. As far as housing, we've just gotten a private grant to be able to build out all the other HMIS data reporting fields so that ultimately we would like to offer any HMIS required reporter in the state of Arkansas could use this system.
And then we would take care of their reporting for them up to WellSky. We're not seeking to replace the HMI system, but instead to allow the individual agency to use Hope Hub to not only care for and build support teams around an individual they're serving, but also satisfy. They don't want a double key. Yeah,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
43:00
and that's, I mean, that was going to be one of my points.
But the thing about it is actually bringing the continuums of care and, like, into the loop, because I'm more concerned with housing than anything.
And if you see any lack of housing, if you see different things like that, because if you're not housed, then you can't stabilize anybody. It doesn't matter, you know, whether they've been previously incarcerated or homeless or whatever. You can't stabilize people. So I'm more concerned with kind of the outlook because I think it's kind of genius, really, to actually have everybody on one system looking. Because if you can see, like, maybe the vouchers that somebody has or whatever,
then you can actually better, I guess, manipulate the situation for someone seeking housing and the rest of the continuum. So that's kind of what I'm kind of getting at, is that I see changes in funding, or I see that changes are going to be in funding. So I'm trying to see over a broad range what that looks like on your system and if you can see that and what impact it's going to have on Arkansans.
Speaker 42
44:18
That's what I'm trying to. We are actively working towards trying to make this system available to all continuum
Speaker 37
44:26
of care members so that they could choose to use the system if they wanted to and will satisfy their reporting so that you can get that bigger picture of, you know, if I were your client for housing, I also may need some other services, maybe substance abuse and maybe job training in the future. And if all of that was available to be shared within the agencies, then it's going to make us all more efficient.
And it's going to leave me chiefly responsible. The problem will not be logistics. It will be my capacity to take advantage of the opportunities you're providing me and my willingness to do so. Those are the two things that would still be left. But, yes, sir, that's what we're really trying to do is bring all these different groups that are trying to help people and allow them to be able to share information and
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
45:19
communicate. I think it's good work. I think if you could really bring everybody together on one continuum,
that's going to be good work. So hats off to you, hats off to 100 families, and I'll keep supporting it. Thank you. Thank
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
45:42
you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator. Representative Garner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a quick question on the communities that don't have representation already. When I looked on the website, several have community agencies that are, I assume, the umbrella organization that are working with you guys, or the convener, whatever, alliance chair,
And then several lists folks that are actually Restore Hope employees, I assume, or team members. How do you determine in a community who needs to be in that function? That's a great
Speaker 37
46:20
question. And so the first four communities that we started were all led by Restore Hope. It was one, you know, we started in White County and Sebastian County trying to build models in two different communities.
It took first in Sebastian County where there was a wide scale adoption of the software. And and just out of desperation for the situation that that was going on there. And and so then we needed to prove, you know, was it just it was it only Fort Smith given their situation or were there some pieces of the model that could be contextualized? And so then we hired, we worked with United Way of Fort Smith to be able to expand the program into three additional counties.
That was Pulaski, White, and Crawford. We proved out we were starting to get the same outcomes there. And so then the expansion after that started to become, how do we help find the right community backbone organizations? And then if we can find money, public or private, then we will give that money to those organizations to be able to hire coordinators and case managers. The way that we go about trying to find the right organization is we work with our partner state agencies who's working currently with DCFS.
We always try to find and address the child welfare problems first. And so who are the organizations that are in that space, in that community? And then we'll hold community meetings. And largely what we're trying to do is get this conversation. This was Garland County. There were a number of community meetings. And that group that was meeting just said we wanted to be Ouachita Behavioral Health. And so there was kind of this agreement that that would be the right agency.
And so there are two community colleges, two universities, a school district, two churches. So it's not so much the type of organization that could be the backbone, but it's the reputation and the situation of that organization in that community where the other community members don't feel any kind of competition from them. They've acted in a collaborative way. And frankly, the only thing in it for the organization really is more work.
And so it's got to be part of what they're trying to do in their community. And so it's somewhat of an inexact science. We have some kind of hard, you've got to be financially stable and thought of, you know, in the community. And we kind of work through those. You've got to be able to take a federal dollar, and that has all kinds
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
49:06
office. those counties that don't have representation then would come to you and say who are you working with
or or you could kind of give some guidance as to who to bring together to make that
Speaker 33
49:21
determination maybe we have largely been operating on um you
Speaker 37
49:24
know half of all arkansans live in in uh 10 counties and 75 percent of arkansans live in 25 counties we've been really trying to go because this model and i'm going to tell you what i what i thought and then what i know now this model is really about organizing existing resource so the smaller the county the less resource that
until a private individual uh who's who's partnered it was actually dr collier from our care give him his honors now but he's from woodruff county that's his hometown and he couldn't stand that woodruff county you know wasn't on the list to get it so he's paid for case managers to go to woodruff county um and and woodruff county is there so my estimate is from the arkansas game and fish there they're uh just over 11 000 deer in woodruff county there are
3 000 humans in woodruff county and they're doing great they're doing so good uh so i'd say one of one of my um premises was is we we've got to go into a community that has the resources and time altogether but um but have been proved somewhat wrong spectacularly with with woodruff county because the the people in woodruff county know that they're all in the same boat yep and um and so they're they're coming up with with um they've got services for sure but um but they
have many services just through relationships you know this church over here we know is doing this particular thing and but they're caring for a lot more people than i would have ever expected one more follow-up yes
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
51:06
briefly thank you just i couldn't tell on your map there was a gray and it looks like that was washington county maybe and then there was a purple and i can't tell what the key says could you just just let us know what that says oh thank you
Speaker 37
51:21
let me see so woodruff is the purple it is the one person okay uh so purple means that
they have uh they've they've started the program they've built an alliance and they're getting ready to to officially launch and that launch will take place in the next month in woodruff county gray is we we don't have an alliance in washington county but a partner is arkansas baptist children and family ministries, and they serve a lot of mothers, trying to stabilize them. And they're using the system without an alliance in Washington County. And so we want to.
There's a lot of Arkansans that live in Benton and Washington, and so it's a real target of ours to be able to
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
52:03
put resources there. Yeah, we'll talk. Thank you. Okay, we'll take one more question because we've got a long
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
52:15
agenda today. Representative Grutter. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much for the work that you're all doing. I was reading it. All of you have done it, and I'm intrigued by the housing and the support and the education that you offer.
I am a bit disappointed because I don't see my county on this list. And with all the good work that you're doing, I'm asking how do we get Crittenden
Speaker 37
52:40
County involved in this? Crittenden County is on our target list. They are in the top 25 most populated, and we're always applying for grants and talking to foundations about how do we get to Crittenden. Just north of you in Mississippi, the community college is the backbone organization there.
And so we're close, and they're doing a good work,
Speaker 53
53:04
but Crittenden is on our list. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Gerd. okay we
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
53:11
do need to move on to family alliance but before you
guys go i want to hear from janet real quick on smart justice i know there's been some a little confusion that somehow maybe you guys are doing a specialty court a new one which you're not so kind of share a little bit what we're doing and maybe remind the legislators of the bill that we passed last session to help district judges do what they're doing to help the
Speaker 154
53:31
folks and restore hope thank you representative bentley yes we are
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
53:33
working just real quick pull your mic a little
Speaker 157
53:39
bit closer to you thank you that better we are working in the district courts we are utilizing funding that's been provided to us from attorney general griffin and the opioid settlement to establish a pilot program of this exact model in the district court there's been some confusion or misconception that we are operating as a specialty court program as you've seen from the information shared today this is not a specialty court program i think representative warren stated it best there are drug courts that
operate in garland county but that is addressing a very specific and limited need of substance use and often with our specialty courts we see that limited to substance use and mental health they also have extensive supervision and treatment requirements that go into those programs as well as eligibility criteria those are not the same contents that you would find or elements that you would find in our district court initiative of this same model so essentially the dredge is able to refer any individual whether through a preventative track or through an alternative
sentencing track to allow a defendant to work with a court coordinator or case manager in this case to navigate through the system and identify the needs in each of those 13 care areas that Paul described earlier. The act that was passed in this legislative session, Senator Bryant is no longer in here but he was one of the sponsors on act i believe it was 275 and that that clarified to the district judges that they have the authority to postpone judgment in those cases for up to a
year to allow a defendant to complete a set of conditions or requirements that are imposed on them by the district court we have been in operation just to give quick statistics we've been in operation since June of last year. We've served approximately 252 participants as of last night. It was 250 on Saturday. I guess we've got information coming in. So 252 participants, 74 of those have moved from crisis to career in just a year, and we have a 93 percent retention
rate. We're seeing on average engagement around six to six and a half months in the initiative, So that falls well within the jurisdiction that the district courts have to allow some supervision in this component. Great. So, colleagues, I think we've heard some great things. I know all of us
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
55:59
have a lot more questions on how we can get this across the whole state, and that's definitely our goal. So we'll
be continuing this conversation so we can find some funding to make that happen. I'm going to give you just a couple minutes if you want to close, Paul, before we move on to the next.
Speaker 37
56:17
I really do think that the communities that are using this model are showing that we can be more efficient in the services that we're providing and provide better outcomes. But I think we're just on the front end now of what's possible if we actually start sharing the information. because the individuals that we're trying to move, let's say we're trying to move them into the workforce
and then, of course, help them deal with some of the issues that they have. Many of us are touching them and don't even know that they're across the street with a different agency or organization. And so, you know, using technology to be able to share information and then remove the burdens of being able to access available services, whether they be provided publicly or privately, I think, is going to create a pathway for many individuals right now
to be able to take the jobs that we
Speaker 45
57:22
need them to fill here in Arkansas. Great. Thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
57:26
you so much for coming today, and we will hear from you again soon. Thank you very much. Okay. Next on our agenda, we have a presentation from Arkansas Family Alliance with Matt Woodson and Heather Sanders, who's going to come to the table and present to us. I'm sure all of you have seen colleagues in your binder there we have a some
documentation from each group that's presenting today if you guys will give
Give us your name for the record, and we'll proceed when you're ready. Your microphone needed to press the
button right, and the verse, there you go, perfect. Good to go. I'll try to learn here.
Speaker 166
58:15
Thank you. Thanks for letting us be here, by the way. That's very kind. My name's Matt Whitson, and I am the co-founder and executive director of Arkansas Family Alliance. And thank you for having us. I'm Heather Sanders.
Speaker 168
58:27
I'm the director of development and operations for Arkansas Family Alliance. Welcome. We're
Speaker 166
58:36
ready for your presentation. thank you and uh so Arkansas Family Alliance was birthed out of felt needs from the personal angle from the personal level of my family I'm a adoptive father as well as a foster family or foster father and um we have two children that were adopted foster care as well as felt needs in our community
where Paul has already talked about we are from I am from Fort Smith I was born and raised there and spent most of my life there, and understanding the felt needs in our community, as most of you have heard, as Paul talked about. From that felt need, I was a pastor in town, had been in ministry for, or I was in ministry for about 20 years before I resigned, realizing that the families that I felt like needed to be impacted more were not going to walk through my church doors, okay?
So we my wife and I decided that we would resign the church, but still to influence the church, to help take the church upstream to the point of the crisis and allow the church to wrap around those people in a greater way. Our mission at Arkansas Family Alliance is uniting the community to support children and families in crisis and the way that we choose to do that, not just in Sebastian County, but across the state. hopefully sooner than later with a majority of the counties, is through, we are the implementing
partner of Care Portal, which is a care-sharing, technology-driven system that takes the most vulnerable children in our counties that work already with Division of Children and Family Services. They're working with 100 Families Alliance. They have this system that they can use to, uh, put it in front of the church. Uh, we believe the church wants to help. It doesn't know how a lot of times. And so through this system, it takes the church upstream to the point of crisis where the vetted tangible needs can be resourced so that the ripple effect does
not continue so that, uh, hopefully, and we've seen this, that children don't end up in foster care and, or, uh, more crisis enters into their life. So we have about a two minute video that kind of explains it on a greater level and then I'll come back and talk just a little bit
Speaker 173
1:01:07
more care portal is a care sharing technology that drives action for kids and families in crisis
it offers the connection that we need to put our individual networks and resources together and make the most vulnerable. Care Portal is a care-sharing technology that drives action for kids and families in crisis. It offers the connection that we need to put our individual networks and resources neighbor by neighbor, neighbor to neighbor. We prevent the preventable. It's the power of care-sharing at work.
Connection changes everything. and it's closer than ever
Speaker 166
1:02:02
before. So the great opportunity that Care Portal has and Arkansas Family Alliance has as the implementing partner in Arkansas is that it engages the faith-based community on a high level.
And we believe, and I believe, and I believe that most of you in here would say that if we can get the faith-based community involved with the crisis, they have the people and the power and the resources and the time to do something about that crisis. And it does not matter what your denomination is. We stand, we are creating an opportunity for these churches, these faith-based organizations to stand shoulder to shoulder in our communities, in our, in our counties, to be able to wait on
these, uh, uh, these needs to come in, uh, from the division of children, family services that are working hard and are, are, are, uh, using their tireless efforts to, to work with these families. But what it, what it is doing is it is giving the church the opportunity to, uh, meet a real-time tangible need that is vetted through a caseworker that's already working with these families. So we're connecting the church with the state. We are also engaging the DCFS community
division children family service community where it takes effort and time and energy to be able to figure out how to resource some of these families that are in crisis. So we're also taking that away from a DCFS by allowing them to use this system that is called Care Portal. It's working. They entered into a system. The system then sends it to the churches. The churches then get to respond directly to these families. These families are inviting, that's a key word, inviting these
churches that are in their community to come support them in their crisis with them. And so we're not trying to do something of a handout. We're trying to do something as a hand up. It is another opportunity for wraparound service with these families, typically from poverty that are in crisis, that we can serve them, again, in real time through our faith-based community. Just a few numbers here. We started in Sebastian County. You heard the crisis that Sebastian County was in. I believe that the church needed to be involved with that, and if it wasn't going
to be involved with that. We could still do it, but it was going to go a little bit faster because of the faith-based community getting involved. We've seen just since we started in 2018 and you throw out those two years of COVID just because not just the church shut down and DCFS was, you know, doing their thing. And so we struggled to impact that. So just the last few years, or excuse me, since we started, we've been able to serve over 3,000 children. And what you
see is you see economic impact happening because the resources are not coming from the state and out of taxpayer's dollar or taxpayer money. They are being resourced by the local church and the community. So you see an economic impact of a million six and over a million six. So that's a whole lot of impact. Just this year, we've served 766 kids. That's most of the requests, or at least 88%, almost 89% of those requests have been met with an economic impact this year of $331,422.
That's just in a few counties. Let me give those counties to you. Sebastian, Washington, Benton, White, and Pulaski. Sebastian County would be the leader of that. That's where we originated, 517 of those requests, our kids have been served just in Sebastian County. So you see, you can ask the question, why have these other ones not? Because they are new. We are building the community. We're building the faith-based community. We're building trust between the state and the faith-based community so that they can begin to meet needs.
We're seeing it begin to get some traction and some momentum. And so we're excited to see what that's going to do as well as we are currently recruiting and preparing to launch the following counties. This is Crawford County, Woodruff County, Lowen Oak County, Pope County and Yale counties. We think and we're working towards trying to launch those counties to add care portal in those counties before the end of the year.
and also in that we are stabilizing and gaining some more traction in Pulaski County by putting some more resources there. What you have that we have given you is a map we put together about two years ago, and my team sat down at a table and I said, if funding was not an issue, how can we get this thing across the state in the next five years? You'll see that map. The map has changed because we have been able to move into some of these other counties to begin to impact these children that are in crisis because of the relationship that we've gained with the faith-based community.
So that's just adapted through, excuse me, you have a map, you see that, that's our goal without funding being an issue. we can't out kick our our funding so we're doing our best our majority of our funding until recently uh this year by procuring 160 000 from dhs to be able to go across five new counties we have to fundraise ourselves and so that's that's the reason that it's it goes slower than faster um and then um let's see also you see on there you have a handout that is a vision casting
for the state of Arkansas. Care Portal is a national organization. It's presently in 38 states. It is also in Washington, D.C. and Manitoba. And so let me just give you some round numbers that helps you understand the great opportunity that Care Portal has, not just across our nation, but has in our state if we begin to take this into more counties. There have been, so in these 38 states, there has been 156,408 requests met.
There have been 413,368 children served. That's an economic impact of just over $157 million. So in our state right now, we have 52 active churches in our active counties. what we are looking for and you can read through that so you'll under it'll help us understand that the investment that people make in us we are able to um have an impact that is greater than that
investment sometimes three four five times depending on the county let me give you one more example then i'll let you ask questions um our neighbors in oklahoma they um are a couple years ahead of us as far as being the implementing uh their implementing partner and so their state got behind them and they are in every single county and now uh oklahoma leads all states in the number of children served each year so um just gives the faith-based community the the real-time
tangible way to get involved with these families and these children that are in crisis um and what it does is it puts another level of support around them so that it allows those crisis to be able to be stopped in the moment so the ripple effect doesn't continue so that they end up not going into foster care, which we know the numbers of what it costs the state taxpayers each month and an average of six months of children staying in foster care if they're removed at
just over $500. And then also, uh, keeping the stress away from a mom or a dad that could end up, um, making a decision that is not very healthy, therefore ending up, um, incarcerated as well. And so that's kind of the short version, but I would take any questions. Thank you so much. Real quick before
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:10:30
I pass off to other colleagues. So are you guys connected with Hope Hub? Are you part of the website that they're, they're
Speaker 166
1:10:39
working on? It's a great question. Thank you. We did a pilot recently in Sebastian County, adding, adding care portal, a care portal button
to Hope Hub. Okay. So yes, in the, we're in, we're in Hope Hub in White County, Sebastian County, and just finished training the caseworkers of, of 100 families in Pulaski County. So in Benton, what'd I say? In Benton. So sorry, mom, the woman that's in charge, really. She's, uh so those four counties we are a part of or the caseworkers from 100 families have the ability to get the faith-based community involved with their clients as well by using the button that's
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:11:18
on hope hub so yes another quick question now that spurred me
on to another quick question so in those counties where you're not connected with hope hub how does an individual family get helped by
Speaker 179
1:11:32
you and how are you aware of the families that are
Speaker 166
1:11:35
in crisis in order to be a part of hope hub we first have to be launched in one of those communities care portal has to be in that in that um in that county we launch county by county um the way we get there is we typically depending on the size of the county we have the ability to control the number
of needs that can be entered into the system we typically like between three to five churches depending on the size of the response teams that are part of that church and if if if let's say we have five uh churches in the next county that we're going to whatever uh an example would be let's say faulkner county which we're beginning to work there um in faulkner county if we get five churches and um and 100 families and hope hub is there as well as soon as we get five churches we train them we train the vision to children family services and the team at that are working the
caseworkers that are family advocates rather that are working with 100 families as soon as we train them on board those churches and train them we can push the button so that both of those organizations can begin to use the faith-based community to wrap around those children and families in a crisis so they come from division of children family services as well as as 100 families our hope would be down the road as we build the faith-based organization to a greater level so the response team there needs to be more needs being put in eventually our hope would be
and this is down the road again and it takes some funding from the school systems in each county so a title one school could be able to uh and a social worker or a counselor a principal there would be able to also use the system in order to engage the faith-based community to go to resource their families as well great
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:13:19
thank you representative richardson thank you madam chair good morning thank you guys for being here for those who aren't familiar with how you guys operate could you walk through the process of what
how families are actually helped I mean we talked about care portal and being a part of hub and all of this but give me something today so tell me how
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:13:44
how does the process work right now you can just leave that button on
Speaker 172
1:13:48
when you turn hit it one more time yeah yeah i'm trying to learn here so uh representative
Speaker 166
1:13:55
richardson thank you for your question it is um i'll give you example okay so division of children family services is working with a single mom three children
this is this is actually one that that has come from our from the portal she goes out she's a PS protective service case she goes out she's going to go take her kids to the daycare where she gets a voucher from the state then when she's finished she's going to go work her shift at Walmart stocking shelves or the local convenience store whatever that may be she ends up walking outside not being able to start her car and so in poverty the number one thing that we see is the lack of support she
doesn't have somewhere where she can go or someone she can call or she doesn't have another car that she can get in at that point she can call DHS she can call 100 families that she's already involved with right because these are where our our needs come from and instead of her not having care portal So if she didn't have Care Portal, for instance, you can't get your children to daycare, can't make it to work, don't get to work, can't get paid, and you see how the ripple effect can go.
Before you know it, her water's turned off, her electricity's turned off, and it's a greater scale situation that happens with this mom, which eventually could get her children removed because of this law, because of policy. What happens with Care Portal is now we're able to put it in the system, and in the system we can have a church be able to go check her car or pay for a place to look at her car. An example that I would use in this spot would be there was a church that engaged with this single mom, and the only thing that was wrong with her car was a $5 spark plug.
And in that $5 spark plug, they were able to get her from missing just a part of her day of work or missing a whole long time of work. She was only able to miss. She just missed one day and she continued. So you see how the ripple effect could really change the trajectory of those children's lives and that single mom's life. So the church engaging in that because of the portal, because of the relationship, that's very important. going from this is a connection piece that takes people upstream to that to that point of crisis uh the church wants to help it does not know how is what we would say uh this gives the the
opportunity um and and as paul was talking about collaboration this is us being able to collaborate not just in our communities but but what we believe in our in the state of arkansas that the faith-based community has an unbelievable amount of impact in our communities if we can just engage them in the right direction. Thank you.
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
1:16:43
One follow-up, and maybe it's not necessarily a question. So the way I understand it, a family, a mother who's already involved with DCFS has an
issue. Churches have now signed up to be a part of Care Portal. They reach out to DCFS. They put out a signal to the people within Care Portal, churches that are involved, to come and help who can help this particular family. They help the family, keep the family together, and continue to help other families within their community. That's correct. Thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:17:17
you, sir. Thank you, Representative Richardson. Senator
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
1:17:20
Sullivan. Thank you, Madam Chair. So by your presentation today, your expectation would be for us as a
Speaker 184
1:17:27
legislature to do what? Well, we would hope for you guys to get behind that and help us figure What does that mean behind
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
1:17:37
it? How to figure out how to help us fund this, to get it across the state. Okay, so it's funding. Yes, sir. Your expectation, present today, and that your project would be funded, the legislature would vote for funding through DCFS. That's correct. Okay. You know, so we're really struggling with, it appears to me, with a bureaucratic nightmare for families to get services.
And now we're adding to one more source. So how are we reducing and making it easier for people when we are increasing the bureaucratic process? Well, what we
Speaker 166
1:18:14
believe is the impact with the faith-based community, and correct me if I'm not answering your question right or misunderstood, But because of the impact of the local church and the ability that we have through the portal to take them to that situation, the economic impact will be greater than…
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
1:18:35
Okay, so what I drew from that is the church is going to do a better job than other institutions in meeting those needs.
Speaker 184
1:18:44
No, maybe not a better job. It's just a greater number of people that have not been
Speaker 166
1:18:50
engaged yet. Um, that aren't affiliated with, you know, I would say that from the foster care at adoption angle, less than 5% of faith-based, the faith-based community would, would take part of that. So there's another 95 or so percentage of
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
1:19:04
people that can support that. I just, again, I'm just from a logistical perspective, everybody that presents says
it's a logistical nightmare for families to connect with services. And we want to add one more piece to that to make that more complex. Well, I understand what you're saying. I
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:19:25
apologize. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you. Do you want to say something? Representative Carford. Thank you, Madam Chair. Heather, I want to address to you, since you have been for years at the Community Rescue Mission with homeless people.
Yes, ma'am. and you're now with Arkansas Family Alliance. Lead us through what happens with people that come to the Community Rescue Mission, and then I have another that I want to ask after that. Yes, ma'am. So at Community
Speaker 191
1:20:00
Rescue Mission, we are a family shelter, so our focus is on serving individuals that have children. They come to us from all walks of life. I will even share that we had a nurse practitioner
that ended up there due to domestic abuse. So any one of us could end up in this situation, but it's because they don't have support or they don't know where to turn to. So through collaborations, through 100 families, through Care Portal, through Community Rescue Mission, through our strong alliance in Sebastian County, we are able to help these families and move them from crisis to career. How? With wraparound services. Yes, absolutely. There are so many steps along the way that create issues, but if you don't have a community that can be there to support you
and know all of the resources, it makes it very difficult. So I got in partnership with Matt, obviously, while I was the director of the rescue mission, because we would bring families in. They would live with us for about six months, but where do they go after that? They still don't have support. They still don't know how to do these things. We teach them, but that's not long-term care. So then that's how we then partner with Matt, with family alliance or myself now um is through that partnership because we know that the church is the connection that allows them support um i'll share an example from last week um from 100
families a request was put into care portal for a mattress because that's the number one need in our community is that we need to get children off the floor so they put in a request for a bed we were able to meet that through one of our local churches. They then built a connection with this mom. She was a single mom that had lost her child for a while due to domestic violence situations. She had gotten her child back. She didn't have anything in her apartment, but all she wanted was a bed to be able to keep her child. Through that church, they then realized she needed so much more.
They brought her a couch. They brought her a high chair, so many different things. And guess what? That church became that mom's family, and as of last week, because her car broke down and she couldn't get to work anymore, we were able to bless her with a gifted car. This mom is now 100% on the trajectory of success, and she has a church
Speaker 192
1:22:16
family there with her. That's what this collaboration between
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:22:19
all of us matters, and this is how we do it. Does that kind of answer? It does. And outside of funding, I know that when you first started, Matt, what I guess just really touched me is where Restore Hope was restoring families, trying to get all the pieces back together.
you were working to where the family was never separated where DHS said okay if you don't do this this or this you will lose your child so they were able to find you or you found them and you were able to take care of the problem so that the family was never taken apart is that
Speaker 166
1:23:08
correct That is correct. There's about 11 different ways, Representative Crawford, that Care Portal can engage the child welfare situation in all counties.
But specifically what we would hope for into your comment is that we get as far upstream to that crisis so that the continued crisis doesn't happen. And the way that we do that is through the trust that we have built and that we will continue to build in these communities with Division of Children and Family Services. and 100 Family Alliance because they are working with the most vulnerable children in our communities, the most vulnerable families in our community, right?
And in that spot, I don't need to go find them. I need to figure out a way to help walk alongside them and bring the church to them, right? And so knowing my background and knowing who I am, you do, from the church angle, it's a greater, you know, the church big C is what we would call it. has the opportunity to serve on a greater level. And if we are building the relationship between the church and those people who are walking every single day with the most vulnerable children in our communities, and we can make a connection through the portal, right?
The portal is just a system that helps resource. It's a connection piece that connects relationships and support people to people, right? And so that's what our hope would be. And I hope that answers your question, to engage those families at the point of contact through investigative
Speaker 165
1:24:38
work or protective service work or whatever that might look like, so that those children never enter into care,
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:24:45
correct? So the way people get a hold of
you is through, let's say the mom was not already connected to you guys when her car broke down.
How would she know to get a hold of you or
Speaker 166
1:25:01
someone to help her? Yeah, that's a great question. she really wouldn't our all of our families come from um those that are working specifically with those families that are crisis already our relationship again through with division of children family services and or hope hub uh there is resources available for um others like in sebastian county it would be different because that's where we are the portal is different because
it wouldn't, it wouldn't, um, we wouldn't have all the resources that in these other counties that Arkansas family does in Sebastian County. However, let me throw this one at you. We did realize that the number one need in all of these communities that we saw coming into the portal, not just, not just in the state of Arkansas, but across the nation was a bed. And we, we researched that and realized that between two and 3% of children nationally sleep on the ground. And so we created an initiative to support care portal and support this move that a movement called dream
team and so that dream team's vision is to get every kid in the state of arkansas off the floor so through local manufacturers that have donated us mattresses monthly right so that we can move these to different locations in our state we realize that we don't want um a financial situation to cause a church not to be able to deliver a bed into one of these homes so that eventually support can take place and a relationship can be built. It's not always there, and it's not always perfect.
Sometimes it's just a drop and go just to keep a kid in care or reunify care because a bed is an issue. But what we've seen is because of that number one need, the community does have the ability to get a hold of us in all these different places, school systems. But as far as the other resources, uh, representative Crawford, unless they're working with those organizations, they wouldn't, they, they, they wouldn't use the portal. Okay. All
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:26:55
right. Well, I had another question, forgot it, so I'll get back. Okay.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:27:00
Thank you. We need to move on to the next one. Thank you.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:27:11
Representative Duke. Thank you. Thank you, Madam chair. Um, thank you all for your work and doing your best to help families and kids.
Um, um. it's it's some of the most important work that we could do i have a couple of questions um so is this similar in scope as like bright
futures are you familiar with bright futures yeah so
Speaker 191
1:27:29
yes i think it's going to be a little similar i don't know too much about bright futures but um
instead of it just being limited to online or facebook or something like that i think they do a lot of their work through facebook when a need comes into this system it automatically sends it out to everyone that is signed up. And so there's a lot more traction with this and the ability to get it out to all of the churches. The other part to this, it is church centered. So the only individuals that can deliver the items would be the church. Now community members can sign up to be community champions. So you can donate or you can say, hey, I have a crib at my home that I no
longer need, but the church would have to be the entity that comes to pick it up and deliver
Speaker 167
1:28:13
it to the family that dcfs or 100 families entered the
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:28:16
need for so right now you all don't receive any funding from the
Speaker 166
1:28:19
state is that correct we were able to procure 160,000 to move to five new counties and i guess it was two months ago that was that was the first one yes ma'am
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:28:29
okay and how does this work with the school system yeah so
Speaker 166
1:28:33
the way the school system would have to be involved is to um there's a fee based on the number of kids that are in the school system or
the school systems that need to be involved that would go directly to Care Portal Corporate, which is an entity of Global Orphan Project. They're out of Kansas City. So in order to have a school in your community that would engage the portal or be a requesting agency, they would just need that. We would research that, give you a number as far as how much that would cost them, and then when they pay that fee for the year, then they could begin to use the portal to engage their families with the local church.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:29:15
And so when you do that, is there any kind of indication of what churches are a part of your group and who's going to be coming alongside, and do you have the ability at
this point? I mean, if you're not taking government money, you've got lots of different abilities. If you are taking government money, you have less, right? And typically those strings grow, right? So I caution you on that. I'm not a big fan of mixing those, but are there
any, as far as families, how do you make sure that a church is coming alongside that is aligned with that kid's faith, particularly if they're in foster care or something that is, I mean, I don't
know what the rules are with that, but I would assume that when they're in foster care, you're not necessarily bringing them into another religious faith.
What are what are the guardrails on those
Speaker 166
1:30:01
pieces? Yeah, that's a great question. So when we train the churches to be responders and how they what what to expect when they get to the to the house, this is not this is the faith based in community basically being another wraparound service. they're not there to, um, to engage in what they believe or who they are or, or, or make sure they go to the church that they, you know, that they're with. That's not their, um, primary, um, reason
for being there. Their primary reason for being there is to engage in the tangible need that has been put in the portal. That's their first. And, and, but a lot of times what we see is an organic relationship begin to happen based on questions that the family, uh, at would ask or how it would, how it would go. So sometimes it, to Heather's point or her story while ago, sometimes or most of the time, the individual that is being served will be able to lead that conversation into something greater as a wraparound service. And sometimes it's just, we're just there to
drop off the need to help protect or serve those families so that they can,
Speaker 169
1:31:07
the crisis doesn't continue. So let me
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:31:10
make sure I understand. So number one, there, any church, any denomination, any affiliation can be a part of the
Speaker 184
1:31:18
care portal. So it is, uh, what we would say is a Christian congregation. I don't know if that
Speaker 166
1:31:25
helps you. Um, there's a, there's a statement of faith that care portal has that we have to operate underneath in order to, um, onboard churches. Now all churches
can be some sort of community responder but the faith uh the organization puts out this statement of faith and those are the ones that have to be the ones that deliver the needs to our to those families okay so
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:31:45
do you have any concern that if you you're already taking some
money um if you get additional money that there might become a little bit more um restrictions in the sense of no you can't do that or a school district that may have concerns one way or the other on how you look um how you look at that. And I, I do still have a little bit of question on, and so I think,
I think you should have the freedom to do what you want. That's why I would be hesitant if I were in your shoes to take any money. Cause if you want to use your churches to come in and wrap around and you talked earlier about coming alongside them and which I agree that's, you know, um, I was not called to foster, but I believe I was called to help some of the families around me that were called to, um, at least God hasn't called me yet. He may still. Um, but so, so it it sounded like you want them to build a relationship to help sustain them and so the logic dictates there that if that happens obviously they're going to be building a relationship within
that so then that comes my other question of how what does that look like with your foster children again i'm all on your team i'm just trying to make sure because i'm kind of like what's what could go wrong and what
does this look like where you could potentially lose your freedoms or open doors to things that you don't necessarily
Speaker 175
1:32:59
want to open the door to sure as you are
Speaker 166
1:33:03
independent Sure. Yeah, there's so care portal realizes that. And so our agreement is with the state through DCFS is that our churches become a volunteer of the state through a form that they would fill out so that it's they're entering the situation as a as a volunteer rather than a church member.
Now, they have to release their information through the DCFS worker and or 100 families, family advocate. They have to say, is it okay if I get a church involved? And so because of the release of information and the importance of keeping those stories private and that information private, the release happens and then the church gets it in Care Portal or gets the need coming to them in Care Portal. And before they respond or directly go to that family, they're volunteers of the state.
Speaker 165
1:33:50
I don't know if that helps you any. I probably didn't answer your question, so I apologize. Representative Duke, if you
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:33:55
don't mind, you might get offline with them to finish up any more questions. We've got a full agenda. We haven't got two yet, and we've got to be out of this room at a certain time. So if you don't mind reaching to them offline, they're going to be here for a little bit to happen to answer some more of
your questions. But I need to get one more person and get some other things onto the agenda.
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
1:34:12
So I would like to have an answer from DCFS as far as the foster kids. Yes I'm happy to get offline with them on on and if I have
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:34:19
any more detail on that one DCFS will be up here shortly on other parts of the agenda
You're happy to answer that's that question when they get up here representative Barnes Thank
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
1:34:39
You chair, thank you all for your commitment and what you're doing. I was wondering Representative Duke, I believe, was kind of right where I was wanting to know, how is it sustainable if your end goal is not to get them to connect with a church?
How do you sustain those people who may need help over and over again? And are you having trouble with churches that want to make this part of the Great Commission work that they've already been commissioned to do? How do they stop from trying to integrate those people
Speaker 184
1:35:14
into their churches? Great question. Our end goal is that ultimately there is a relationship built. Okay.
Speaker 166
1:35:20
Yes, sir. So what happens is the tangible need that is there in front of them that the church is meeting, it just breaks down a barrier, right?
Correct. And from that point, it becomes, I guess you would say, organic, right? Because the churches don't want to be involved with this unless they have the opportunity to do more, right? That's their ultimate heart, to see the least of these or however you wanted to present these marginalized families. So we would never tell. And this is why it's set up this way, that, again, we believe that the local church has the opportunity to impact this crisis or this poverty, foster care, whatever it might be, on a high, high, high level, right?
And so meet the need first, right? But see how the traction happens post the need. So we would never tell the church and don't tell the church, right, not to continue to engage. But what we would tell the church is you're not there specifically just to push your faith on this family, right? But you are there, and you can read the situation. We'll train them to do so, right, whether it be a prayer or another need or whatever it might be. You can see how that goes. Sometimes it goes very well and these families continue to wrap around them.
So you see that there's other services that are happening naturally with this family. And sometimes it's just there, but we're just there to meet the need, right? We just meet the need and then we're out the door. Well, with
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
1:36:49
the reforms that are being taking place right now, I would like to say, man, we need this. Probably going to need this across the state because churches are looking for ways to get involved. but how to do it they don't quite understand how to do it and that separation that they're trying to keep as well as be involved i think you give them a platform in order to be able to get involved
and really be able to use their resources in a way that can be beneficial thank you so much yes sir thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:37:17
you for your comment thank you representative barn so again colleagues we um had this meeting today because we had lots of questions from colleagues so this
is not by any means the end of the conversation this is just the beginning because i want us to be a little bit more aware what's going on and how we can all work together to make
it successful so thank you for your questions thank you guys for being here today without objections colleagues we're going to move on to item f we have some folks that are out of state that are here on zoom to answer some questions for us so we're going to move down to item f real quick which is the approval of proposed
georgia center for opportunity contract and jill is going to come down from blr to explain that doesn't take some questions so this shouldn't take just a few minutes but i want us to get this done then we'll go back to DCFS who's here and thank you for your for your patience with us and as Jill's coming forward I remind you guys that this is a very full subcommittee not only we talk about everything DCFS we're also talking DHS we're also talking about workforce and what can we do in Arkansas to get the million people that we have that are currently not working as adults in Arkansas how can we
get them a meaningful job and get them to work so
that's the other part of this committee's work and Jill
Speaker 217
1:38:22
will give it to you on that thank you madam thank you madam chair Jill Thayer Bureau of Legislative Research under item F you should all have in your packets a draft consultant services agreement this agreement is pursuant to the motion that was adopted by the subcommittee at your last meeting and it is for a contract between the Bureau and the Georgia Center for Opportunity and I believe
there should be representatives of that entity joining us by teams give us just a minute we want to get the folks
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:38:56
here from Georgia to thank you all so much for your patience
we just want to kind of anyway we've all been gone for a couple weeks trying to get updated with colleagues what we're doing so Jill's gonna bring forth the contract that we have with you guys in specifically what are we trying to do for our subcommittee in regards to workforce and so that
we can move forward in the limited time that we have to get this project completed and get legislation ready for next session so if you guys will say what data what you've done in the past and what can we expect out of the fulfillment of this contract wonderful can you all hear us we can thank you all right wonderful thank
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:39:44
you for having us and we were inspired to hear
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:39:46
about Hang on. Just briefly, just briefly, just tell us who you are. We're in a committee meeting, so I just need to tell us who you are real quick for the record before you get speaking. Thank you.
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:39:55
Wonderful. Yes. I'm Rachel Barkley, and these are our colleagues, Les Ford and Ray Packer. We are with the Georgia Center for Opportunity, and then our subproject called the Alliance for Opportunity, all the same entity, but a multi-state coalition working on reforming
Speaker 224
1:40:12
social services and workforce services to help people rise from poverty into work. Okay, Jill. Thank you, Representative Bentley.
Speaker 217
1:40:26
So just briefly, I'll go over a few of the provisions of the contract, and then the Georgia Center for Opportunity representatives can talk to you more about the scope of work if you have questions about those. And this contract is related to Act 145 that was passed during the last General Assembly, which assigned to this subcommittee a study of issues related to the reform of the state's workforce and social services. There is a requirement under that act that this subcommittee complete a report that includes recommendations
in any related draft legislation by October 1st of 2026, and that would be submitted to the Legislative Council. This entity will be, it's my understanding, assisting you with gathering the data and analyzing data from the various agencies to get you started on that study. So the contract is for a six-month term. It would begin if it is approved by the Legislative Council this Friday and would end January 31, 2026.
There is a provision for an extension there for an additional six months if you decide that you need the continued assistance of this entity. The total contract, maximum contract amount is $55,000. And as we always do with our contracts, we have a max contract amount, and then the entity bills us for actual hours worked. There are fees or hourly rates included on the last page of attachment A. So they would bill us at those rates.
as well as for their actual expenses incurred related to travel or other issues. Everything else that's in here is pretty much our standard language. I will say that if this committee decides to recommend moving forward with this contract, it would then need to go in front of the executive subcommittee and then the legislative council in order to approve the bureau entering this contract. And I'd be happy to take any questions.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:42:32
representative Beatty thank you madam chair I guess my questions are maybe more for the Georgia Center for opportunity if there's an appropriate perfectly fine they're here to answer questions so well I would just like maybe to hear from them how they became involved in this in this project and to present the information we're looking
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:43:03
at today sure certainly yes thank you for having us so we have been
examining different states around the country seeing what they have done to help people leave poverty and get
into work and and in this work we worked closely with the state of louisiana on a similar task force kind of like your study subcommittee has formed via legislation We worked closely with Louisiana in their process to both pull the lid off of what their programs are accomplishing in their state and then how the individual goes through different programs.
We worked for a year with the state of Louisiana based off of audits that their legislative auditor produced. So when your chairpersons met with Louisiana to hear how they accomplished what they accomplished, so at the end of Louisiana's task force, they established some new functions and structures that allowed the welfare and workforce systems to work better together to serve the people of their state. The folks in Louisiana let them know that an audit of what was currently happening in their programs was crucial to to reforming their programs.
So your chairpersons met with Louisiana and realized that this kind of audit would really help your efforts there in Arkansas. And the legislative auditor in Arkansas, it's our understanding, doesn't have the broad authorities that the legislative auditor has by a constitution in Louisiana. And so an outside third party entity, which is common in states, can come in and do this kind of program outcome assessment and integration or non-integration type of assessment and reached out to us after our work in multiple states on this.
And the folks on our team have a broad amount of experience at the state level and the federal level understanding these programs and how they should function at their highest and how they should be communicating with each other. And Representative Baitley, if it's okay, I'm
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:45:21
going to step in and say that we want something transformative to happen out of the
subcommittee. Arkansas has over a million people right now that are adults that are not working. so we have a very one of the lowest work petition work participation rates in the nation in arkansas
we're spending millions of dollars but we have actually no idea what is our return our investment wire people still not working and so as we looked um we had hoped senator english and i had hoped that audit here could do it and that blr could do the work that they did in louisiana but unfortunately we don't have that capacity here with our blr or our audit to do the work they did in louisiana because we need a third party output to see what are the actually outcomes what's the return our investment what are we actually getting for actual jobs at the end of the day when we give we owe millions of dollars what are the jobs that are actually being created we've got really good
opportunity right now with our work requirements for for snap and for medicaid so we want those waivers to be effective we want actually people to get out of poverty and i know all of you can go in your districts and see that there are families that have been in poverty not for a year but for generations so how can we get these families to break the cycle and to actually get a good job in their community and so that's why we reached out because we have a limited time um we have a year right to get this going so we can get some good legislation moving forward to actually get the return on investment what is actually outcomes of each one of these agencies
across the state we really thought this was on the way that we could do it in the time manner that we had and that's why we reached out to this group
that's shown to do it before and do a good job i hope that helps i should have said that before i had them
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:46:58
ask the questions but if you another question for them represent baity help yourself well that i just wanted for for maybe members that had not been involved in these discussions to understand where they came from and
and why we're hearing this information today so thank you madam
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:47:12
chair thank you representative meeks thank you madam chair um you answered my my first question was just your background
expertise to be able to do this it sounds like you're well qualified uh the only other question that i have is y'all are located in the state of georgia um are you going to in order to kind of learn where we're at does that mean you're going to be coming to our state spending time in our state getting to know our people and our systems so that you can really dig into this deep is this something you're going to be doing mostly from georgia so kind of walk us through how you're going to get to know Arkansas to make an Arkansas-centric report for us?
Speaker 6
1:47:51
That's a very good question. We're actually located
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:47:54
throughout the country. So Ray Packer here is in Pennsylvania. Les Ford and I are in Virginia. Les has served on the Board of Social Services here in Virginia. Ray worked in the administration in Pennsylvania. So we've seen different systems up close as well, I should mention. But we will be conducting first virtual interviews with folks from the different agencies to ask them and let them lead. You are exactly right that local knowledge is incredibly important. So we'll be asking and interviewing virtually to
save on cost initially, and then we will go spend, we're planning, you know, three days to a week where we're just dividing and conquering. We have a bigger team than this that will go and sit down with every part of your administration, so from social services, caseworkers, all the way up to the administrative side, sitting down with folks in person as well. And it's our hope that we can get access to some individuals to see how they are experiencing going through your system.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:48:59
All right. Thank you. Senator Gilmore. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think you answered. My first question was, how did we come to know about this group? And it sounds like through the conversations in Louisiana, and y'all reached out to them. So that answered that. I guess then my question is to the organization, your work in various
Speaker 6
1:49:29
states, what states have you worked in specifically? Yes. So Ray and Eric Randolph, who's not on this
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:49:35
call, actually worked in Arkansas in 2013 and helped produce a report in Arkansas.
They worked in the state of Pennsylvania. Les Ford works closely with Virginia. We've worked with Texas, Utah, designing kind of a TANF pilot along these lines. Let's see, Les and Ray, what states am I leaving out? We're working currently in Mississippi, West Virginia. Do y'all have some other states that I'm missing, or did I get them all? All right, North Carolina as well.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:50:12
And all similar work, I presume, to what you foresee here in Arkansas. And so what has that work? I mean, just I understand it's a loaded question, so you may not be able to give as much detail in the time we have, But what has that work brought forth? What fruit have we seen or
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:50:33
have you seen from that? I think Louisiana is the greatest example. Now, I will preface that
Louisiana had many years of audits and, you know, a year per program on their audits and went very in-depth on program outcomes.
But I think that we can accomplish something similar even with a shorter timeline here. So they audited their programs and they met as a task force committee, similar to what you all have. And then at the end of that year, they produced a report that showed, you know, how many offices does each program have? What do administrative costs versus service costs look like? What kind of outcomes are we getting? How many people are getting jobs after they go through WIOA training, et cetera?
so that there was a clear picture of what needs to be fixed, including on data integration and the case workflow. And at the end of that, that report put forward that, for example, SNAP and Medicaid eligibility needs to happen in the same place. And this is really relevant to the one big, beautiful bill work requirements, that data being in the same place being important. In Louisiana, they are in the report and out of the audit said that all of the casework needs to be co-located so that when someone comes in, they're able to access the workforce services when they're coming in for the social services.
So all of that was put forward in the report. And then the legislature passed enacting legislation this year. So this summer they passed in the legislature and that's all coming to fruition in October 1st, I believe, the system officially integrates. And so, you know, obviously we don't have outcomes
Speaker 245
1:52:24
yet, but the goal is that all of this will be
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:52:29
measured to have outcomes, which are helping people to get into work and lives of self-sufficiency when able.
Speaker 247
1:52:38
Okay, thank you. Les, do you want to add anything? Yeah, I will mention that a part of our team is an individual named Mason Bishop. He's not able to... muted myself, excuse me. But he is part of our team, and he began this auditing and task force work in Utah over 30 years ago. And so when we're looking at the long-term ramifications of a careful audit and a movement towards a workforce system, we've been able to see those long-term results in Utah. And of course, everyone mentions Utah is a different state than other
states. But we've seen their SNAP population dip well below the national average, their labor force participation rate above the national average. And we've, throughout the COVID, when everyone was home, Utah was the state that recovered first in returning to work and never slipping below their projections. And so over the long term, with a careful audit and looking at how to best integrate our workforce and safety net systems when you're looking decades out we're able to
prove this and so mason bishop who's part of this team led that work in the 90s as
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
1:53:57
well okay you done senator gilmore oh sorry sorry and i turned the mic off too soon thank you madam chair for the follow-up so i presume you've looked at arkansas already to an extent i mean maybe not into the weeds but you you know enough about what we do currently to i presume predict some outcomes that need to happen and predict some changes that that need
to lead to those outcomes right so can you give us an example of some of those things i
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:54:24
don't believe senator gillman they've received a bit of data from us yet so it'd be hard for them to we've asked we've
asked agencies what their timeline would be to gather the data to get to but they've not received a bit of data from okay so yeah okay sorry then i'll withdraw that question you
Speaker 252
1:54:36
have another follow-up before i move on i'm good thank you okay thank
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:54:46
you uh representative lademan uh thank you madam chair uh thank you all for being here and presenting this to us
very interesting thanks jill for your work on this contract um you know i believe the best thing that we can do as a body is to give someone a a living wage job and to me we need to do anything that we can to move that ball forward and to get this million people in arkansas employed so for that reason madam chair i i would move that we recommend to move this contract on to the executive subcommittee for a vote senator bryant
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:55:22
do you want your question answered before we take this vote
i'm going to hold your recommendation for just a minute i'm gonna let senator bryant ask his question and welcome right back to you
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:55:36
Representative Redman thank you madam chair I guess my question goes back to you said that like in Louisiana studies done you have the reports you got the information then you you're working on enacting legislation to achieve the results during your timeline or during the process that you're going to work in Arkansas who is assisting I'm sure be a large to a point but are you unpacking the rules and statutes that are
preventing these changes from occurring is that something that happens hand in hand with report that we have a product at the end are we just gonna have a bunch of reports then we got to figure it out because for me when we when we spend money on a bunch of reports that's great but if it takes two years with a turnover of this body and the turnover of staff we're really just throwing money away to feel like we're doing something when we're not so I just curious as far as the enacting legislation or rule changes that we're going to ensure our agencies are following is that a product of the end of this fee or is it something that we still
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
1:56:33
have to work on yes we will certainly put concrete recommendations that then
your subcommittee when you're meeting per the legislation that was passed over the coming year can kind of address with recommendations, but we will also ensure looking at statute, including federal statute, and that is something that our team brings to the table is understanding what the federal restrictions are on many of these funds as these are largely federal programs that come down to
the state level. So we will provide that statutory analysis and what outcomes we think your task or should be driving towards um ray or less anything to add to that i think that covers it
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:57:30
rachel so i guess i'll ask miss thayer as far as they're producing recommendations they're producing supposed outcomes why can't we work hand in hand to
say as soon as we extract that data we start drafting proposed legislation or proposed rule changes that we we turn into the agency to the executive branch start their process versus here's a packet this body is disbanded because we're going to start the next general assembly new members no clue and then we're back to square one senator bryant so absolutely
Speaker 217
1:58:02
defer to the decision of this subcommittee on how you want to proceed with your study i think that my understanding of
what will happen with this this entity is similar to some other consultants we've hired is they're going to analyze the data for you from all of the different agencies um kate steel has already been reaching out to those entities and we the bureau are holding that data until a contract is in place and then we would release it to them and then you're going to get a report back from them and recommendations in january and you will have the you know the remainder of next year to bring all the entities in and conduct your study and come up with your legislative recommendations and the
bureau will be here each step of the way with you to work on a draft legislation proposed rule changes and and anything else that y'all want to do okay i'll accept that answer and uh madam
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
1:58:53
chair i just caution the body that we got to have an output we got to have a product on this not just a study with report thank you i appreciate that i just think that it's impossible
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
1:59:07
for us as a body to get the data we need without having a return on investment and what the data is showing um for us to really do something transformative we're gonna need an in-depth study and i think that's
exactly what we get with this group so i will come back to representative
lademan in your sorry representative baity yep i'll let you
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:59:25
in there thank you madam chair i i guess i'll kind of follow up on what senator gilmore had asked earlier i know he was asking specifically related to arkansas what actionable items maybe uh would come from from your study and your report but i be specific you talked about some of that in your your discussion about your work in other states when you were answering my question earlier could you provide us with just some bullet point
successes that you've had that other states have had from implementation and review of the reports that you prepared as well as maybe some action items out of those reports that we could we could look at here in in arkansas that are probably going to be the same action items that we're going going to need to implement here in the state so could you could you identify a few of those in each of the states that you've performed work um
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:00:15
les do you want to kind of walk through again some
of those utah is the state that has done the most implementation that
we have outcomes um louisiana just finished the end of their process and are implementing it starting now so we don't know the outcomes yet. But some of those recommendations are how eligibility happens. So again, we haven't looked yet at that system or done those interviews about how eligibility happens there, but certainly that will be an outcome. And it's largely going to be helpful in your implementation of the One
Big Beautiful Bill and all that that bill requires of states. So that is something that federal legislation is going to demand of all states. And so hopefully our recommendations will help you streamline that process in that compliance that you'll have to do anyway with that bill. But Les, do you want to talk about some of the outcomes that Utah saw as a result and maybe we can expect to see
Speaker 247
2:01:21
here? Yeah, I'll point out a couple of the process pieces that Louisiana really
zeroed in on, which a huge one is their SNAP eligibility and how it's completely separate from their workforce systems. And so, especially in light of the One Big Beautiful Bills implementation January 1, 2027 with work requirements, et cetera, and many of the eligibility checks, I anticipate that that will be something we zero in on. I can't say for certain without actually examining the data and actually examining how eligibility functions and how it's integrated into workforce but as you're talking about a million individuals who aren't connected to work
ensuring that when they come for assistance that they have a seamless integrate integration into your state employment and training systems and i assume there are a variety of employment and training systems that that individual might be eligible for we will be closely looking at that interaction to ensure that it is seamless and more importantly effective in the louisiana audit When the Louisiana auditor did a close examination of their WIOA programs, one of the shocking conclusions was that the individuals who found work after going through those workforce programs actually were paid less than they were before they went through those programs.
So we will be looking at that kind of outcome data as well. Our primary purpose is to pull out to the surface what is the current reality and what isn't working. And then the recommendations will be, where do you move to in order to better integrate, to get better outcomes? And like I mentioned before, Utah's integration was 30 years ago, but the primary outcomes that have been shown over 30 years are labor force participation.
Theirs was lower than the U.S. average before, but it dropped even lower. They had a higher labor force participation than the U.S. average, and it has continued to increase above. And their enrollment in key safety net programs, particularly SNAP, is one of the lowest in the nation. And so enrollment and self-sufficiency are key outcomes for us as well. So those will be the things we'll be aiming
Speaker 266
2:03:36
towards in both the Louisiana and Arkansas project.
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
2:03:41
And just, I'll say at a high level, something that came out in Louisiana that showed to be successful in Utah is, we'll use the word co-locating, but basically that means that your different programs on the workforce side and the welfare side of the house are co-located in the same office. So when an individual comes for help, they're not then told, get back on the bus or back in your car and go to a different office if you want workforce training. Those services will all be there and you'll be handed to a caseworker or keep the same caseworker.
And then behind the scenes, someone's helping you find what workforce training program is best for you instead of sending you out to a totally different system where the caseworkers don't talk to each other, et cetera. which it sounds like on the private sector side, Restore Hope was doing that we heard from earlier. Something like that, but for all of the government programs, is something that's likely to come out. But again, we have to see, you know, what in your system is currently talking to each other and
Speaker 268
2:04:44
what is not. Thank you. I appreciate the answer.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:04:48
Thank you. Okay, so we'll go back to Representative Layman. I want to quickly say that Utah, again, has been the number one in rich states, poor states for over a decade, And I want us to definitely head that direction here in Arkansas. I think this will
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
2:05:04
help us. And Representative Layman, I will go back to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I appreciate Senator Bryant's comment and his question about outcomes because we do need outcomes that are executable, and many times we don't get that. So that's an important question that we need to answer.
And also you talk about Utah. I was just at a meeting last week in Montana, and I heard again how good Utah is, and they are number one, as Madam Chair said, in a lot of areas in labor. In a number of labor categories, Arkansas is number four, so we keep chasing them. So this is one area we're not close, and maybe we can catch them if we do this. But, Madam Chair, I would again repeat my motion to move this forward to the executive committee for a vote.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:05:56
I've got a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Thank you. We'll move this forward to executive committee. Thank you for your time, and thank you for those waiting to present further on our agenda. Thank you all very much. It's a really important part of what we're
getting accomplished. With that, we will move back up to item D, the discussion of Baby Me with Cassie Cochran and Christy Sellers from Department of Health.
If you guys will acknowledge yourselves for the record, and you
can proceed. Good morning, Casey Cochran, Arkansas. Pull it just a
Speaker 272
2:06:57
little bit closer. Is that better? Thanks. Good morning, Casey Cochran, Arkansas Department of Health, Deputy
Speaker 273
2:07:04
Director of Public Health Programs. Christy Sellers, Department of Health. I'm the Division Director
Speaker 274
2:07:09
for Health Advancement. So this morning, we just want to give an overview of the WIC Baby and Me program that we offer in some of our local health units through the WIC program in the state.
This program was launched in 2018 in collaboration with DHS, Arkansas Children's Trust Fund, and University of Arkansas Mid-South Center. And also, it's administered through the Division of Children and Family Services. So currently we use a parent support mentor type program. There are six modules in this program. We advertise and recruit participants through our WIC program.
Mom needs to be in the third trimester or have a baby one month old. And then the modules are one-on-one with the parent support mentor. they are interactive and so it gives the parent support mentor and the participant time to connect and provide the resources they need also allows that parent support mentor to refer if there's other resources identified as a need for that mom and new baby at the end of each session
and the participant is provided a supply of diapers and wipes at the end of the module that they learned about so some of the module titles are safe sleep self-care routines and positive guidance and development so mom is aware of how babies should be progressing and if there's questions or confusion or need for additional resources that's when the parent support mentor can step in and assist mom and new baby at that point and just a couple of other facts about this
program the parent support mentors are trained through the mid-south training academy and so they are educated on how to interact and how to share the information in the modules and also connect individuals to more resources if needed. Currently we have this available in 18 local health unit WIC clinics and in 2025 we've had 333 participants and since the program started
they've helped over 5,000 families. The locations of the program were selected due to child abuse rates and the foster care numbers so just a quick overview of the program we're happy to take any questions you may have so just real quick so um what would it take for us
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:09:56
to get this in all of our health departments where we have a WIC clinics so of course it
Speaker 274
2:10:04
goes back to funding and I'm going
to let Christy Sellers talk about that um
Speaker 273
2:10:11
so this is not considered a core um program or requirement for WIC funding so that funding's not allowed to be used for this so all of the funding is the funding that we get from DHS so we would have to rely on DHS to provide us additional funding in order to spread to other counties through the Arkansas Children's
Speaker 282
2:10:29
Trust Fund okay does anybody else have any
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:10:33
any questions here representative Meeks thank you uh just a quick question can you
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:10:41
tell us the kind of outcomes you're seeing from this program the benefits that the the new mothers are getting and the kind of the return on the investment if you will that we're that we're making in these new families sure christy would you
Speaker 273
2:10:58
actually are in the process of having a evaluation done there was one done in 23 it was a little bit hard to decipher because of covid some of those numbers so we're actually expected to have another one and it's been two years so hoping it will come out what we do know is that from our parents
remarks and anecdotally you know they do feel like they are better parents that their patience is there they really focus on structured play and parent interaction to build some of that bond and all of our moms you know for the most part really felt that it has been beneficial and preparing them to be a better parent and one of the main goals of this was to reduce child abuse before it ever happens so we feel like on that side from the from what we hear from our moms that it is successful and that's what we hope our evaluation
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:11:46
will find thank you representative Crawford thank you madam chair good morning ladies and I may be in the wrong lane on this so my concern is which I guess we're going to address at some point I I think we have an ISP with Representative Vaught. What do you run into with these moms who fall off the cliff of the money
where they lose their benefits because maybe they make a little bit too much money? Does this go into
Speaker 274
2:12:33
this at all? Do you see this? This program really does not address that type of need. They can connect the participant to additional resources in the community, but this is more focused on mom and baby and caring for baby and the correct development stages of the infant.
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:12:54
So you have someone there to make sure they have enough formula and enough food? So
Speaker 274
2:13:02
through the WIC program, those nutrition assessments and needs are assessed. And if there's a need for more resources, then those connections can be made through the WIC program. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Representative Ennett. Thank you,
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:13:21
Chairwoman. I have a question for you. Good afternoon.
With the program, how many programs are in the Delta
Speaker 281
2:13:31
area? Okay, so we currently have from Jefferson County
Speaker 274
2:13:40
over about 13 sites. Okay, and how many do you have here
Speaker 289
2:13:45
in Pulaski County? Pulaski County, we
Speaker 274
2:13:47
have one at our health unit in Pulaski Central. I have one more question.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:13:56
Certainly. So after this program is over, and I'm assuming you're doing a survey to see how the program was and how you can make the program better, is there an exit survey? So
Speaker 274
2:14:13
there's assessments before the modules and then after the modules to assess current knowledge and then knowledge gained after the educational module with the parent support mentor.
And so that's kind of the assessment that we're using individually with moms and babies. Okay, one more question.
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
2:14:33
Certainly. So with that, is there any type of support after they get off of that? Is it just after you're done with this, it's over with? Is it somebody that maybe reach out to them like after a couple of months or so and say, hey, just checking in, seeing how you're doing. Is there something like that in the program? or once they've finished the program, it's done.
Speaker 292
2:14:59
I'm going to let Christy address that. So a lot of
Speaker 273
2:15:03
our parent support mentors do establish some relationships. So though the program is over, they are there as a resource should they need to come back. A lot of our moms will finish this program before they are finished with eligibility for WIC for their infant. So WIC also is there as a resource should they need anything for the community or additional help or anything like
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:15:22
that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay ladies. Thank you so much for presenting. I appreciate that. Thank you Okay,
colleagues next on our agenda is an update from the reimbursement rates under living choices with
Janet man it and a we have a couple things we want address the DHS and representative Duke if you want to ask some questions With DHS about we talked about with care Porter. You're welcome to while they're up here at
the table, okay? okay secretary man sit please recognize yourself for the record and we'll present your report uh yes ma'am thank
Speaker 294
2:16:00
you good morning or actually good afternoon pull it just a little bit closer
Speaker 295
2:16:04
to you the mic i'm sorry yeah we've had a
Speaker 294
2:16:09
good afternoon um janet man dhs um thank you um for this so i'm here today to just update you quickly on the assisted living um letter the letter is in your packet it's exhibit e and i would just highlight that we have concluded the cost study report in in accordance with act 198 of 2023 so those results will be shared with
y'all shortly we they are under consideration by executive leadership and will be confirmed upon approval um the other item i would highlight highlight is there has been no change of ownership or closures from the previous month of august 31st 2025 at with that i'll take questions any questions from the committee would you have some questions if it's okay representative duke
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:16:59
had a couple questions about about care port if you want to bring anybody else up to the table with you to answer that that would be just fine thank you
Speaker 297
2:17:09
i would like to bring dcfs director
Tiffany right up to the table please sure and
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:17:25
direct right if you'll acknowledge yourself too for the record good morning
Speaker 299
2:17:28
Tiffany Wright director for the Division of Children and Family Services okay representative Duke you're welcome thank you
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
2:17:36
madam chair thank you both thank you for allowing me to ask my question now and but thank you for your work as well and what you did in this space too um do you need me to repeat it or do you okay so my question was in that carol portal
piece when you have these groups that are coming and wrapping around and again i'm totally supportive of that i think that's a great innovative way to help get the church involved but when you have children in the care of foster care um how does that work if say um you know there is one coming wrapping around that may be a different faith from what that family that they've been removed phone but hopefully to reunite with how
Speaker 299
2:18:15
does that work in that instance in particular yes so specifically as it relates to care portal this is a prevention tool so you won't find care portal
overarching involved with foster kids specifically we try to gear it more towards that upstream approach of prevention of foster care if there is again that's a conversation dcfs is having with the family if it's a foster family or relative and they're not wanting faith-based involvement or support then we would respect that wish of that
Speaker 301
2:18:51
family and not force involvement with care
portal or arkansas family alliance which might clear
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
2:18:57
i mean i think that they would do better if they had some support but obviously people have different faiths and different reasons for the choices that they have made um so is that is that limited with like arkansas does it look different in different states because i did notice when i got on there that oklahoma does have like some current needs for foster children so i guess it's just each state sets its own guardrails yes okay thank you thank
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:19:25
you ma'am thank you okay representative gardner had another question
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:19:27
represent Garner RSU. Thank you Madam Chair and I'll try to make this quick but I've had several requests from dentists that after after we passed the reimbursement bill and the rules are still in promulgation I guess it was supposed to go into effect September
Speaker 294
2:19:46
1st. Yes ma'am the statute that you that y'all passed did have an effective date of 9-1 so we have put the new rates out for public comment as one of the first steps of promulgation we did that to preserve that 9-1 date so that we
can retro back so after we finish um public comment i believe it's around 10 15 we will promulgate the whole rule and we will be sending it to cms shortly so that we can preserve that date i have been recently asked about the timeline of that we've been working through that timeline and trying to get it done as quickly as possible. I can't tell you how long CMS will take with that approval. They do have 90 days on a state plan amendment. They do have the ability to take it
off the clock. I don't know that that will happen. I don't know that that won't happen. So we are trying to work that through the process, but we are trying to also preserve the 9-1 retroactive date. Great,
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:20:46
thank you. I guess, do you have something that you could give to us so that we and make sure that our dentists have that information? We were asked for that this morning, so it is big. I have already sent a
Speaker 297
2:20:58
text while we've been here to get that a work in process. Right, we'll get that information out to them.
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:21:05
I think there are a lot of folks that are certainly trying to stay in business. Yes, ma'am. And so we want to make sure that we keep those
Speaker 303
2:21:15
dentists. Certainly, and we have had communications with the Dental Association. We've tried to
Speaker 294
2:21:20
keep them in online or, you know, try to keep them updated on what we are doing. And they've been involved with stakeholder feedback. And they asked some of the initial questions that you've asked also. Great. If
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
2:21:34
you'll just keep, let us keep our constituents posted, that would be great.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
2:21:39
Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you all so much. I appreciate you being here today. We have, we'll see you next month. I think we have, our county service is going to be
here next month. So colleagues, you'll see we sent an email out with Representative Beck, had a template put out with finances for shared services. That's
an email that was sent to you. So if you have any questions, you can reach out to DHS on that. But we're trying to make sure that we are in-depth study on how much money we're spending, where the money is going. I've asked BLR, Ms. Cartwright, to give us a list of all the money spent on DHS in each agency.
You guys can have that as well. I know there's a lot going on in this committee. I appreciate your time today. We've been here for over two hours.
Thank you so much for your involvement. We'll be here Thursday. Just a reminder, Kimmy, we'll be here Thursday for Workforce, and
Senator Jane English
Unverified
2:22:31
we'll be hearing some more. Senator English, why don't you remind us what we're going to be hearing on Thursday? Thank you. We've invited the folks from Utah to be on Zoom to make a presentation about how they got started with all this and looking at the effects it's having today,
all their different programs, and how they've got it organized. So I'm looking forward to that. It should be a lively discussion and give us a much better idea of what we're looking at for ourselves for the future. With that, we're adjourned. Thank you all very much.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Overview of Restore Hope Arkansas [Exhibit B] 1. Paul Chapman, Executive Director, Restore Hope Arkansas 2. Janet Camp, Restore Hope Arkansas
C. Presentation on Arkansas Family Alliance and CarePortal [Exhibits C1-C4] 1. Matt Whitson, Executive Director, Arkansas Family Alliance 2. Heather Sanders, Director of Development, Arkansas Family Alliance
D. Discussion of Baby and Me Program 1. Cassie Cochran, Deputy Director, Public Health Programs, Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) 2. Cristy Sellers, Director, Division of Health Advancement, ADH
E. Update of Reimbursement Rates Under the Living Choices Assisted Living Waiver Pursuant to Act 213 [Exhibit E]
F. Approval of Proposed Georgia Center for Opportunity Contract [Exhibits F1-F2]
G. Discussion of Recommendations by Committee
H. Other Business
I. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — ALC - HOSPITAL, MEDICAID, & DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES STUDY SUBCOMMITTEE, Sep 22, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit B- Restore Hope Arkansas | Exhibit | 10 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C1- CarePortal Brochure | Exhibit | 2 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C2- Arkansas Local Vision Casting | Exhibit | 4 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C3- Care Portal Dashboard | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit C4- ARFA 5 Year Expansion | Exhibit | 1 needs OCR | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit E- Assisted Living Report August 2025 | Exhibit | 1 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit F1- GCO Contract | Exhibit | 6 | Official source ↗ |
| Exhibit F2- GCO Scope of Services and Fees | Exhibit | 7 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Breanne Davis
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 11
Speaker 16
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 26
Speaker 28
Speaker 35
Speaker 37
Speaker 38
Speaker 42
Speaker 45
Speaker 53
Speaker 57
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
Speaker 50
Senator Jane English
Unverified
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
Speaker 69
Speaker 75
Speaker 48
Speaker 95
Representative R. Scott Richardson
Unverified
Speaker 99
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 111
Representative Les Warren
Unverified
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 119
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 94
Speaker 33
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 154
Speaker 157
Speaker 166
Speaker 168
Speaker 173
Speaker 179
Speaker 172
Speaker 184
Speaker 191
Speaker 192
Speaker 165
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Speaker 167
Speaker 169
Speaker 175
Representative Glenn Barnes
Unverified
Speaker 217
Speaker 224
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
Speaker 245
Speaker 247
Speaker 252
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Senator Joshua Bryant
Unverified
Speaker 266
Speaker 268
Speaker 272
Speaker 273
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Speaker 282
Speaker 281
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 289
Speaker 292
Speaker 294
Speaker 295
Speaker 297
Speaker 299
Speaker 301
Speaker 303