October 3, 2017 at 11:00 AM - Special Population Committee Meeting

Meeting called to order at 11:02 a.m.

Nathan Busch shared information about NeSOC (Nebraska Systems of Care), for behavioral health and what the organization does to help children/families with behavioral health issues. Grants have been received to role out the strategies and support the six behavioral health regions in the State. Mr. Busch shared how the funds are flowing through the State. Mr. Busch will provide contacts for the 10 service sites in Nebraska that can provide assistance with behavioral health issues. Mr. Busch briefly discussed the help/crisis line and indicated that to day about 85 families have been help, and of those, about 75% of the children that received care have been able to remain in their homes. Mr. Busch will provide a brochure with help line details.

Committee member recommended adding Behavioral Health to the agenda and having Mr. Busch attend future meetings.

Steve Miliken shared a variety of updates that are going on within the department. He briefly discussed the four priority areas including MTSS, RTI data (it was noted that Nebraska has one of the highest identification rates in the country), Data Conversation/Communications, and System Alignment. Mr. Miliken breifly discussed the department's changing infrastructure to improve services available to schools and students with IEPs.

Mr.Miliken also noted that Nebraska will the hosting the national NASDSE conference in 2018.

Steve Miliken gave the board contact information for HHS.  Executive Director will work with the Special Populations committee and ESPD affiliate to organize a meeting with HHS.

There was a meeting between a group of people to discuss a partnership with UNK to discuss tele-therapy.  

SRS Strategic Plan talking points are attached for review.  

APP Committee has started to collect feedback from our AAP users on ways to improve the site.  AAP Team met to plan how to address these need.  SRS Staff created a list of all data fields on SRS.  Knowing what data we are collecting is an important first step in the ADVISER interoperability process

There were 165 new project para participants signed up on the site last mont.  Instructor survey was sent out to Project Para Instructors.  They are trying to understand the different ways Project Para is being used in districts.  They continue to look for ways to improve service.  Nebraska Paraeducator Conference will be held October 10^th at Younes Conference Center in Kearney.  Wade Fruhling will assist with set up, take photos of the event, and assist the conference planners as needed.

SRS Staff have been conducting trainings across the state.  There will be a training for NDE Special Populations Staff in November to teach them to use SRS for file reviews and request formal SRS forms review to make sure they are in compliance.  SRS Advisory Board met on September 21, 2017.  Staff provided demonstration of new SRS pages.  They also reviewed Strategic Planning concepts from previous meeting.  They discussed the conversion IEP form to Zend 3 and developed top priorities.  SRS development is moving forward with ADVISER interoperability.  They continue to address bugs in the SRS system.