Task Force on Autism
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- October 2, 2026
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
2:22
right and give us just about60 seconds or less and we're going to get started here, OK?
Good morning. Welcome to the Arkansas legislative autism task forcece we aren going to get started here so the first thing is consideration of a motion to approve the april 1st2026 meeting minutes does anybody open to making a motion Motion Defre and we've got a second over here. got a motion we've got a second all in favor sayy aye OK.
april 1st2026 meeting minutes are approved so the next thing on the agenda item is I've personally had some interest from the broader public of Arkansas about how to be on this task force uh, which I think is good, healthy and shows the importance of of autism and what we need to do as a state to to assist so the the first one is we've got an appointment with Arkansas psychology boardard, we've been in contact with them
this is a board certified behavioral analyst appointed by the Arkansas ss psychology boardard. we're gonna follow up and and see if we can find somebody if not we will put that in our report our legislative report and that's something that we might need to to look at updating the legislation on the second is a member to represent Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield. I've personally repro reached out to their government relations person to see if we could identify a person and hopefully we will
have that person identified before we meet again one member who is a clinical geneticist appointed by UAMs apparently UMS doesn't really have that role at the moment. They are looking again they're going to go back. I've reached out to their government relations team and they're gonna check again and again and if we don't identify that then that'll go in the report and we will look at that as a potential update to the task forcece going forward
before I move on, there's a note here we do have 14 field positions and6 vacant positions the next thing is and I've reached out to Senate staff about this we need4 members who are parents or guardians of children with autism appointed by the president pro tem of the senate we have three of those four which are vacant and so again we'll work to try to to fill that so in the interim if anyone knows of an Arkansan
who is a parent or guardian of a child with autism. please don't hesitate to to reach out to me or representative in it and we can work with you know the senate president pro tem to see if we can get somebody appointed OK? so there's there's that any questions comments concerns on on that issue OK so again if we are unable to fill those roles then what we will do is we will include it in
our legislative report and we will look at updating the statute in the next general assembly. next on the agenda item D presentation on developmental disabilities provider association DdPA so you're welcome to come to the table and the first step will be to introduce both of you to introduce yourself for the record so state your name and
who you represent and after both of you have done that then however you want
Speaker 10
6:52
to proceed feel feel free to proceed hi thank you so much for having
Speaker 11
6:57
us today my name is Yukikotaylor. I'm executive director of developmental disabilities provider association
Leah Henderson
Unverified
7:05
Good morning. My name is Leah Henderson. I'm the CEO ofivvitan
Services and we are a provider for developmental disabilities located
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
7:15
in Saline County. well thank you both for being here today. proceed the
Speaker 10
7:21
way y'all think you should thank you very much So today first they would like to I guess there's two topics today the first one is we
Speaker 16
7:32
would like to talk about and introduce who we are who is DdPpa and then second portion will be the available resources
for the individual with Idd but didn't yet senior citizens withinddPA so who is DdPA? so I guess there's no point
Speaker 10
7:53
maybe they explaining what the developmental disabilities are in this group but and then here is our DdP am mission and then that's our mission statement is we are is to promote the shared interest of member providers in their services oh sorry I cannot see
Speaker 16
8:16
a developmental disabilities by providing quality education, professional networking opportunities and effective advocacy. so we are right now it says78 service providers as our member provi providers but since I created this slide we welcome to moreiddd service providers so right now that we have 80 sorry providers like Aiya's organization and then
collectively among us we provide services to over 13,000 individual adults and children with Idd intellectual and developmental disabilities and then and we provide services all over the Arkansas all cover75 counties and collected collectively we have over 14,000 dedicated staff and then we were establishing at 2001 and this year's our 2fifth anniversary. and then as addPA we provide
you know of course we will just networking opportunities and in education trainings we provide or we
Speaker 10
9:21
host two annual conferences a year and also to workshops a year and then among our member providers. these are the programs that are available you
Speaker 16
9:33
know that they that these are the services that they provide the first one is early intervention day programme we call the EIdd there's other
services for children you know provides different therapies and then cares and the second one isdult day program adults with Idd intellect and developmental disabilities attend there to obtain in independent living skills and then of course you know socialization and then it be with your
Speaker 10
10:04
friends and it's a great time and then a third one is supported employment we provide to help them job
Speaker 16
10:16
opportunities in the communities and initially that you know we provide a job coach to go
Speaker 10
10:21
with them so the job coach will learn a skills and then task together and the goal is to a job coach to I guess fade out and then this is actually the my the clients that are used to work with and then she had a job opportunity at the flower shop and then that's a picture from them and then the fourth as a program or services the intermediate
Speaker 16
10:46
care facilities there's about 13 within the DdPA we have about 13 organizations who has ICF and then it can have a more you know closer the cares that they need to for them to keep their safeties and the next is the work activities and then again that is the goal during the daytime some clients may attend a day program but in the summer has a little work trainingunities within the
Speaker 10
11:18
facility so the goal is for them to kind of you know move up to the supporting employment you know then and this is actually the thrift store I'm using on the picture where I used to work but so they you know the different clients have different tasks and then
Speaker 16
11:33
job and they'll get paid but there s some could be to had a clients who run the cash register and who did better than anybody else and it could be bagging or could be hanging the clothes or going through it or pricing you know so even within just the
Speaker 10
11:49
thrift store there's different types of tasks that a chicken start kind of training and then
Speaker 16
11:56
goal is to move on to the supported employment if they can and then the last one is a CES a community and then what waiver in the residential services it be the after hours or the some clients might need the 24/7 service 101 or could be the group's shared staff can have a life in an opportunities and the learning independent living skills and is socialization.
Speaker 10
12:25
that was my first part and then that was kind of explaining whoddPA is and what we do and what we represent and then the next is the when Miss Kristen approached then there may be some information regarding
Speaker 18
12:37
what what what's available what are available services for the people with the intellectction the moment disability is about more seasoned
Speaker 10
12:49
age So I conducted a little survey within the DdPpa and then and we
have about um30 now about the39 providers are responded and then with that survey do we have about60% and then I was kind of asking them it's like anybody age about55ish, you know and then I was really curious because I never really conduct this kind of
Speaker 18
13:12
you know survey specifically focused on a more the older
Speaker 10
13:16
age or the season's age60% of clients boy or female and the40% and then I was curious what kind of services are they're receiving
Speaker 16
13:27
within thedgPpa and about38% attend adult day program and then among them and then33% will receive a transportation they don't have to worry about how to get there and then 22% of War activities and it waivers44% and residential 23% that is that way you know like a dividend and a
Speaker 10
13:44
apartment and then a housing no condo that could be the shared staff. Well you might have a roommate you may not have depends on probably
your knees and then your legs and then you might notice there's no supported employment that is the job opportunity in the community well I thought maybe well because we're focused on the more older age or the senior age I was like I guess they're retired you know so and then yeah they should you know, I want to get retired so that this is a real the data that are are conducted and collected within the DdPA. and then I'm pretty sure there are more than39 providers who
have a clients who are older than maybe55. and then it says available service for seniors and Arkansas here and then it's really the same exact same thing that earlier that I mentioned because all the services you know there's really the age limit. Well
Speaker 16
14:48
I guess not not children's service but so all that's are de services for available to everybody and then including any individual with Idd with more older age
and its sorry I was looking at the picture and then here are the some within the the data collected
Speaker 10
15:09
there are the you know in in case you wondering in the region why it's like oh I know somebody in the northwest Arkansas and looking for a services that are who someone and so can attend so kind of created the little organize the list
Speaker 16
15:21
and then I attach the list of the organization with the name and then and the contact information and email phone number and then and
Speaker 10
15:33
if you can if you just don't wanna even check the list just give me a call and here's my contact information and you know this is uhddP a second year to have the full time executive director so we really like to appreciate this opportunity to spread awareness that
Speaker 16
15:51
we are here and it will do represent you know 80 service providers in Aregans so that is uh49% of existing providers that had you
Speaker 18
16:03
know care for the individual with intellectual developmental disabilities so oh no I didn't finish my phone number there. but here's my email address
Speaker 34
16:16
and then here's the I'm so sorry but yes if
Speaker 32
16:20
you have any need and any information regarding developmental disabilities
Speaker 10
16:24
or any providers please feel free to give me a call and then Lea you want to say something
Leah Henderson
Unverified
16:35
no I don't really have anything to add I thinkyukiko always does an excellent job of kind of sharing the information about our association I mean the only thing I think I might add would be that obviously autism would fall under those categories of intellectuald intellectual and developmental disabilities and so that's just one of the many categories that we serve Any questions I don't think I have any
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
17:06
questions but you clearly do some important work and we appreciate that and we definitely appreciate you being here today to is anybody here on the task force have any questions? thank you very much for being here and and giving us an update on what you you do to help ourkansans. thank you Next we're gonna have a discussion to propose an amendment to Act656 of2021 to include licensed psychological
practitioners exhibit E1 to E3 Mr Daniel Wasaki, if you want to come to the table and then introduce yourself and tell us who you represent.
Speaker 45
18:09
my name is Daniel Waisoi. I'm a licensed
Speaker 46
18:13
psychological examiner independent. I'm from Northeast Arkansas and then I own and operate Waisaki Psychological Services in Jonesboro, Arkansas so really my presentation is about attempting to reduce the waitlists for autism waiver services so in 2025, the legislature passed there could now be master's level licensed
psychological practitioners and that was actually something that we had previously. we had licensed psychological examiners independent and that's actually my license So during the time between those two licenses there was a small gap that when we were going to have the LPEI actually be sunset so it was no longer gonna be a license but during that small piece of time many organizations
including the Americansychological association also saw that we were not providing enough services to those in need so we kind of nationally reversed course in master's levels psychologists or psychology practitioners will actually encouraged in Arkansas was actually one of the first states to sort of take that on and to reopen that license but like I said there was a small gap of time where
A656 in2020 1 was passed and this set up where there were qualified providers that were the only licensees that could provide access to certain care in Arkansas under the autism waiver and also under the CES waiver that they spoke thedTPpa people spoke about so these are very important programs for a lot of people in Arkansas so I'm kind of
discussing how a licensed psychological practitioner has many of the same qualifications as these other providers that are listed in the act of656 in2021. and and maybe advocating for the consideration that they also be included as qualified providers. and I I do have a couple of points on that. because Arkansas medicaid they will credential and pay what our soon to be LPps but are
considered LPEIs right now they will pay to do those evaluations but then they won't recognize those evaluations so there's sort of a little bit of a contradiction there that we're paying for duplicate assessments because we will pay for them and then if they go to apply for these waiver services they will be denied and then they will have to go back and apply for these services again with a different provider maybe be beyond the 1el to 18 month waitlist so that there's just a a little bit of a disconnect there with what we're
already spending money on and then not reaping the benefits from so kind of to continue that a lot of these waitlists they they are very time sensitive this isn't that you can get on at age 16 and then hopefully get services later on. There's certain ages if they hit their fifth birthday while still on an autism waiver waitlist they're ineligible for the program.
so you can imagine you know we start to get on these waitlists there's 1el to 18 months to get testing. the birthday passes and then we miss out on services so again what happens and I kind of have a little stat on here while there is sort of an upfront investment. there has been studies that show if we can get that early intervention, we can save approximately 1.6 million per individual by reducing the need for the long term support in special education. so again there's some money being left on the table by
not sort of at least revisiting the possibility of the licensed psychological practitioner being considered a qualified provider. and like I said it doesn't just affect children the CEs waiver also follows those same guidelines that indicate that there has to be a Md ordO as one of the people that approves the autism diagnosis and then it can either be a speech pathologist or a psychologist those are the three qualified providers that are currently recognized in the
state of Arkansas to apply for those programs and it has to be two of those three. and like I said in like was already spoken about those programs like the CES waiver like it had already been mentioned are the ones that provide the adaptive equipment, supportive living, respite care, community integration, all those things that we we want these people to have that unfortunately are just on almost white lists they're they they just can't ever get through
so I've talked a little bit here about the quality and scope evidence shows no difference between the doctoral level psychologists and master's level regarding ethical complaints or disciplinary actions and no decline in quality of care. this service falls within the scope of an LPp and aligns with the definition of a qualified professional. I I have listed here just how you can kind of see how the LPp compares to some of the other licensees the psychologist
usually is educational level obviously a doctorate and they would administer usually the gold standard is an ADS2 some sort of adaptive measure that says if they have deficits or not and then typically in IQ obviously every evaluation is gonna have some variation in what they offer you know along with an interview but all that can also be administered by a master's level or a specialist level licensed psychological practitioner they can administer
the same tools so that diagnosis from a psychologist is accepted by schools insurance and also the diagnostic manual DSM5TR speech language papathologist that's all accepted by schools insurance the only one that is not included in the act that is also accept ed by schools insurance and the DSM is alic in psychological practitioners. So again the same tools that are often used for these evaluations can be
competently and professionally administered by licensed psychological practitioner to meet those same standards and it would still be having to have two professionals agree on the diagnosis so they would just be added into that pool of qualified providers some more things just about what a qualified professional is defined as is an Acts656, a qualified professional must be educated and licensed in fields related to physical health,
mental health and child and adolescent physical and psychological development the LPp meets these standards through graduate training and state licensure focused on human development and psychological health. so the listing of what the actual criteria is to be a qualified professional aligns with the services that an LPp can provide. there's nothing within the language that does not overlap with having those same services being able to be
provided by an LPp and that just sort of goes into the waitlist part again that there's a there's a lot of pieces aside from just providing that initial diagnosis that parents have to go through. there's applications they have to be placed on other waitlists you' re hoping to look for a spot you hope to talk to a past organization you hope to get into an ABA program but I think for a lot of parents at least having what they're working towards being known and alleviating at least that little bit of a bottleneck could be
helpful overall so I know that there's still many other hurdles that parents may face but I think this would at least ease their mind a little bit. and then so this just I talk a little bit about the bo t tle ne ck itself the delay that causes many children to age out of that early intervention program because once they hit a certain age there there's no going back like the the program has closed for that family. there is another opportunity there.
and then it isn't just a pediatric issue adults also face the same restrictive criteria. so also by aligning with these statutes Arkansas could increase psychological testing by about I I said44% just because there's 267 active psychological professionals available that are currently licensed as LPEs so that would reduce the testing delay with no decline in quality of
care. so we wouldn't have to have new professionals educated we wouldn't have to have anything to begin the immediate ramp up that these providers in in what is Arkansas has been considered a psychologically poor state just because there's not a provider a lot of providers these professionals would be ready to help families get access to a lot of these programs that I think you know we're doing a great job like I said with theddPpa getting some of these resources available for
families but it seems like one of the big barriers is still getting that actual diagnosis and testing so that's the that presentation
Speaker 48
28:12
and I'll be happy to answer any questions if anyone has anything that they'd like to add
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
28:21
Jennifer or help me with how you say your last name. right
Mr Bri please proceed with your question got it
Speaker 54
28:36
thank you Mr Chair. I too have been really interested in this new licensure type but do you have an update oni have not heard of a university or school that has started or restarted a program to continue and to restart this educational process for these degrees do you have any
Speaker 46
28:57
update on that? have heard that Arkansas State University has a master's program in psychology and since I'm from northeast Arkansas, I I
don't know as much about the other side of the state but I've also heard that Conway may also have a program that's either in the works or has already started to to
Speaker 54
29:20
continue to get some of these licensees taken care of that would be great as someone who also looks to hire LPEs it's been very hard to find a new workforce and so just concerned that we haven't had a university commit to reofffering this program and getting people
additionally trained on the licensing board? do you have an update on that is the licensing board been moving forward with issuing
Speaker 47
29:47
these licenses yet as of last month they had put out some public language
Speaker 46
29:52
for review that started to sort of cement what was going to be the licensure you know what the supervision all those kinds of things look like and it does still cover a lot of those same areas is the LPEI
it's almost identical but it was going back for public comment as they were making some updates because I did attend the Arkansas psychology boardard meeting and there were just a lot of feedback about different areas that maybe need to be updated so you know obviously I I'm not privy to the timeline but I know that they are currently working on it and they're going to submit another revision I think for public comment to try to get
Speaker 54
30:35
things rolling yes thank you for that and Mr Chair just wanted to clarify
that some of the what you're reporting on was specifically related to the autism waiver and that individuals with active medicaid can still receive BCBA ABA therapy up until the age of 21 without being on the autism waiver. Thank
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
30:58
you. thank you miss Brus I've got a quick question and then we're going to go to Doctor Scott here just
out of curiosity, speech pathologists are on this list.
any insight as to so we're we're going from MddO certainly understand that and then we've got a psychologist full disclosure my sister's a speech pathologist. I'm just just curious how how they fit in and then the follow up question is gonna be and either of our task forcece members if if you have an answer to this too you're you're fine to pop in an audiologist if we're looking to expand is there a reason an audiologist would be inappropriate to add to the list as well if we're looking at it.
Speaker 48
31:43
now those are great questions. you know as far as speaking
Speaker 46
31:47
for audiologists and speech pathologists that's not an area I'm familiar with. I know that with autism communication is a huge part of the diagnosis so that's you know why I would imagine that that was the professionals that are well trained in those areas so I I wouldn't be able to speak you know what the thought process was at that time to select those specific practitioners but for any
possible updates I think that anyone that might fall under those qualified provider language that is already written into state law that if they overlap with those qualifications then I I would definitely support them being included. thank you miss
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
32:30
Bri or Doctor Scott either of y'all have any input so
Speaker 54
32:37
it was before my time when speech pathologist was added Mr
Speaker 61
32:43
chairir but I do know we have some greats I think we have a couple of speech pathologists on our committee that would probably be better able to explain that they do feel that it's within their scope of practice to ad administer some of those recognized standard autism assessments although I do think there's still some debate on whether they can do an official DSM diagnostic diagnosis they are qualified within their scope to do those assessments those autism assessment
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
33:16
Thank you and Doctor Scott, if you have any input that'd be awesome and then feel
Speaker 64
33:20
free to move forward with questions thank you so I am neither a speech pathologist nor a psychologist or an LPE so I'm I'm the third wheel here what I can say is that I've worked for close to 10 years on an autism team at theentist Developmental Center and there's three of us and I'm the wrong one to have here for this conversation but I I certainly have an indepth sort of day to day understanding of how those disciplines
interact with each other and what they're their roles are in the diagnosis speech pathologists so agree with the idea this has been in place for a long time there's been a recent change as I'm sure you know where at first you needed all three you needed the trifecta as we would say and the recent changes that you only need two of the three when those three disciplines were written down was before my time as well so I've always
understood that to be a function of the services the diagnostic services that kind of happen to be in place in Arkansas partly because the dentistvelopmentalenter had been there and does a fair bulk of the diagnostic evaluations and we were a multidisciplinary clinic and a large part of our workforce was worse speech pathologist I think it's important to think about within each of these disciplines there is a wide variety of what somebody can do in their day to day lives and what their actual expertise is even if they have the same letters and numbers after their
names right I mean legally an adult GI doctor can diagnose autism I of course have thoughts and feelings about that but on the books there's nothing to distinguish whether an Md actually has any experience or training or anything don't have to even be a pediatrician as far as I understand it so speech pathologists of course do a number of things. many of which are sort of in line with audiology and sort of sound
production communication oral motor skills that sort of stuff. The speech pathologists that work with us at the DdC do very different kinds of work than all what I think we normally think of speech paths as doing they're not doing therapeutic work although they're qualified to do that they have worked specifically with a population of children with autism sort of trained on the job by developmental pediatricians and psychologists where this is our specialty in the building this is what we do and they are also certified in the ADS too
which is much harder than anything I've had to do for my training. I'll be completely honest like that certification is a lot and I would rather have somebody who had a bachelor of arts and art history who was certified in the AS too and took it seriously and knew how to do it that an adultgI doctor it it's not really it's difficult I understand with policy so you have to write something down to capture the nuance but there's a fair amount of nuance I guess is my point to what kind of variety of folks
that that brings me to my question about the first of all thank you for that presentation and I am obviously very sympathetic to the weightless concerns I think going from the trifecta to the bifecta as we talk in our shorthand and clinic has helped tremendously we've been able to revamp a lot of our clinic processes because some kids really do need three people from different disciplinary perspectives thinking about that kid all day long and hashing it there are
some kids whose presentation is complicated enough that that they really need all of that but there are many many children particularly excuse my allergies there are many, many children who don't need that and so we've been able to triage you know based on their initial presentation and and I think that's helped I'm not I don't have the information off the top of my head to speak about our waitlist other than to say that it has gone down. it's still too long. it's always if there's a waitlist at all that's too long do you have any thoughts and again you're the one trained in
psychological testing and I am not about is there a feasible way to have the policy about who is qualified to diagnose autism. have something to do with who is properly trained to administer an autism specific measure like the ADS2 because there are we see this frequently in clinic a child has already been through an evaluation and they bring in
an aDS and I don't want to speak ill of anybody who's trying to help these children but it's very clear that not everybody knows how to do it and we have reports that come in it's just it's kind of nonsense we have people who have put their scoring on there which is I understand that you're not even supposed to do but then they added up wrong like pretty egregious errors and now that billing has been billed and according to the principles of the test you're not supposed to give the same test within a certain period it's really limiting for us as well we spend a fair amount of
time grumbling about it in clinic and that this child has already seen something in the in the family believe themselves to be going through an autism evaluation only to be told well yes you have autism but I can't do anything about it now you have to start all over which is a frustrating deal for everybody and I I don't think I'm not saying that that necessarily happens more often with LPEs that you know don't have the PhD sign off versus other people in the community that probably isn't tied to what discipline but is there a way to indicate
like ok fine you can be an LPE one but what I'm more interested in is are you properly certified to do whatever kind of testing you do and so I guess my question is within the world of standardized testing within your training how how
Speaker 46
39:30
best would you try to capture that well within the Arkansas psychology boardard there are some I guess special privileges granted to psychological practitioners
we're the only discipline that I know of that can actually use the language that we provide psychological evaluations. that's protected language so there may be something there that could be incorporated if you if the you know legislature is interested in that it be an actual psychological evaluation and not you know something outside of that discipline that would be the only language that I know of that is actually protected but as far as what the legislature would say the
the only thing that I could say on that is you know, I think the boards are really good at policing these types of things so you know and I I've had to do something similar myself if I feel that a fellow practitioner is not adequately providing the skills that they say they are then it's sort of my responsibility to bring that up. and and that's the only thing I would say is you know there is protection for psychological evaluations and then maybe the
the boards would be helpful to police each discipline because like you had said like I I don't really know much about what speech pathologists can provide and what they can't provide and that's not really my place to even ask you know like I'm not trying to oversit because they're very professional and an audiologist like you mentioned that that wouldn't be something that I would be able to personally understand. so I think each profession needs to really sort of take that responsibly on I think to be able to recognize OK, well that
might be something for the board like maybe there's something there that they need to complete an audit once in a while like let's look at a report that's been completed do we feel confident that this is within their scope of practice are they accurately practicing you know so you that you're exactly right the legislature it's very hard to ra language that there's not a loophole or something that's always going to be there. but I think the boards could maybe really play a role in that if maybe there was some communication with them about these concerns because they sort
of police the practitioners and and that may be the part that maybe could help you know kind of deal with that that hit it one more one more time Hello.
Speaker 64
42:13
OK, sorry and I apologize for taking over the conversation but one thing Senator Boyd that I also wanted to mention about speech language pathologists that came to mind the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on diagnosing autism which is a big hefty thing and much more robust than our state policy so if you are if you take that as your sort of professional guideline that actually gives you more in terms of what that should actually look like and it specifically says that there needs to be consideration
of at least three things one is their social communication skills which is the kind of thing that they aid us to evaluate but also specifically their cognitive abilities so their IQ so it's very important to either have an IQ test that is psychologist or psychological examiner is going to do or have some sense of that maybe they've seen one before you have it or you have their grades or you have something that's one of the things you're supposed to think about and the other is their language ability because that can play such an important role in the way we
interpret somebody's communication and social interaction. so although I do think it's a little bit of a historical accident that speech paths have taken on this role in Arkansas it actually is consistent with the way that national societies want us to think about diagnosing autism that the language specifically plays a part now of course we part of our job as the doctors to make sure they've had their hearing screened but it it doesn't necessarily say they all have to have audiology you know what I mean I think there is a scope of
which professionals should be a part of that in professional guidelines and then the other comment I have is the prior the criteria for accessing these services one is the two provider rule and who the providers are there there are additional in addition to two providers you have to have an autismc specific measure you have to have an adaptive measure some of those things are like linked to the provider some are not but I wonder if the the part of the
policy where it says you have to have an autism specific measure and then it lists in parentheses for instance in aDS2 if there's not some asterisk that could be put that basically says by somebody who knows what they're doing and we could figure out a word that later but it it may not necessarily be the provider element of that policy that we have to
Speaker 63
44:37
that is the best way to go about addressing that problem which I
Speaker 64
44:41
know is not what you're here to talk about and I'm sorry I've hijacked the the conversation but this is such an important and interesting topic. so anyway
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
44:55
Representative ye you got a question? yes sir I do it's kindly a statement senator you know this is a growing sickness and there's people that have died over the years that we didn't even know that this was going on I hope that we can come up with an answer here that will be good for everyone because this is a growing sickness and we need
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
45:19
more people that know more about this statewide yes sir thank you miss senator let me in. Thank you Representative Rye for your comments. all right any further questions OK, if none you're you're excused so next we have other business right ok so we've got other business and so our
two task forcece members who are here I want to say thank you sorry
about the we were going to be here on Tuesday and then we're going to be here on Thursday. That was my fault. what I would say is I suspect this is a small community and you all know one another and I would encourage you to encourage the other members to be here at our next meetings and we will do our best to get them on the calendar and and be firm about it and not so dynamic so what I would say
is we still need a discussion on fraud. we're going to invite someone back next week I mean next meeting OK so we'll have someone from the attorney general, the office that will will be here as well. Obviously Miss Bris you probably have some thoughts on that too. I hope I'm saying your name close enough anyhow then what my thought is and I want to hear from representative of in it and the
the two of you if you have thoughts is we're at the point now where we're roughly6 months until the next general assembly and so we better figure out what we want in our reports and what we want as far as potential legislation and that's why I would encourage the other members to be here because you know we're I don't think we're just gonna have presentations I think we're going to actually have to start talking about this is our, you know, our priority 1,2,3,4 and5. obviously we're going to look
at updatingpresentative Bennett was not here at the moment but we're going to look at updating our task force membership because they seemed to be some some changes that maybe people are unavailable so that said either either of y'all have anything to add or or discuss insight representative innnet you've got any comments
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
47:43
thank you cochair Boyd Senator Boyd I do apologize for being late. I had a meeting with the data center so very important but not as
important as this meeting I do agree with Senator Boyd we are winding down this year and if the task forcece had any suggestions of what we need to do to bring up in the 227 session we need to get working on that and I'm a willing participant and I would like to thank Senator Boyd for being here for holding it down for me while I was gone and forristen who keeps us she keeps us together so anyway,
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
48:25
I want to thank everybody for being here. thank you. so Do Scott Mr Bris either of you have anything to add before we on on other business right
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of a Motion to Approve April 1, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Discussion of Task Force Vacancy Procedures [Exhibit C1-C3]
D. Presentation on Developmental Disabilities Provider Association (DDPA) [Exhibit D1-D2]
E. Discussion to Propose an Amendment to Act 656 of 2021 to include Licensed Psychological Practitioners [Exhibit E1-E3]
F. Other Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
Speaker 10
Speaker 11
Leah Henderson
Unverified
Speaker 16
Speaker 18
Speaker 34
Speaker 32
Speaker 45
Speaker 46
Speaker 48
Speaker 54
Speaker 47
Speaker 61
Speaker 64
Speaker 63
Speaker 75
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified