Adolescent Diversion and Assistance Program (ADAP). Jewish Family and Children's Service of Sarasota-Manatee, Inc. has been providing one of two approved juvenile justice diversion programs (alternative for children referred for adjudication to avoid having a formal juvenile justice record) since July 2004. Adolescent Diversion and Assistance Program (ADAP) is geared toward children between the ages of 7-18 years and their family members, who are at risk of formally entering Florida’s juvenile justice system and are referred by a law enforcement officer or judge as a diversion to having a formal adjudication. Services are targeted to specifically address the action that may have resulted in adjudication, including but not limited to: domestic violence; shoplifting; violence; substance abuse and gang activities. Model prevention psycho-educational group programs of 6 to 10 sessions are provided for the targeted area(s) of concern.

JFCS is requesting a total of $300,000. The Department of Juvenile Justice funding for the ADAP program will expire in June 2008 thus reducing the diversion alternatives that will result in:

• More costly referrals to the formal juvenile justice system

• Reduction in community alternatives for children at-risk of entering the juvenile
  justice system in Sarasota County

• Elimination of a proven diversion program that will have assisted over 400 children and their families to effectively address the challenges that resulted in the child committing a referable juvenile justice criminal action.

At the current time, Senator Bennett, Representatives Grant and Regan have indicated they support JFCS's efforts to acquire funding for this initiative. It is anticipated the Sarasota Legislative Delegation will support funding for ADAP. The State's Attorney and Department of Juvenile Justice have supported the program and continue to actively refer children as an alternative to formally entering into the juvenile justice system.

ADAP is a proven diversion program that has helped hundreds of children and their families address the challenges that ultimately resulted in the child committing a referable offense. The program has an excellent record of service and has exceeded the following outcome measures:

• 80 percent of program completers will demonstrate increased knowledge of their specialized group.

• 75 percent of program completers will demonstrate a decline in self assessed negative behaviors.

• 70 percent of program completers will have their parents/guardian or teacher indicate the participant’s behavior had improved.

• 80 percent of all youth referred to ADAP will complete their assigned program.

• 90 percent of program completers live in or attend a school in a high risk zip code area.

Finally, by providing ADAP prevention services, Sarasota County will benefit from a reduction of more costly juvenile justice intervention programs and potential adult criminal activity that has significant social and economic impact on Sarasota County.

Aging in Place for Seniors - Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC). A total of $300,000 is being requested by JFCS to continue to provide services to seniors in Sarasota County through its Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) program. This program is in direct response to “GOLDEN CHOICES” Blueprint developed in its “Communities for a Lifetime.” The blueprint emphasizes:

• Aging in Place - The right of Floridians to age in the communities of their choice in the least restrictive environment.

• Aging with Security - The right to live without fear of abuse, neglect, or any other crimes.

• Aging with Dignity - The right to live with dignity and respect.

• Aging in an Elder Friendly Environment - The right to participate in a community that fosters elders' quality of life, safety and independence both at home and throughout the community.

The blueprint encourages collaboration with state, local, agencies and faith-based entities to help fill service gaps. The NORC program fulfills all of the requirements of the plan. JFCS has collaborated with USF, Senior Friendship Center, Catholic Charities and other area agencies to provide a study of area needs as well as services that are necessary to help seniors age in place. The NORC program has focused in North Sarasota where there are gaps in services as well as concentrated seniors who desire to age in place. The plan is to expand the services to the southern Sarasota County including North Port and Manatee County. The services provided are targeted to prevent isolation and to identify the needs of seniors.

As noted above, the specific problem is to assist elders to age in place in their community of choice. The Department of Elder Affairs' (DOEA) vision is to lead the nation in assisting elders to age in place, with dignity, purpose, security, and in an elder friendly community. According to DOEA a 1 percent increase in the number of well elders would decrease Medicaid expenses by 33 percent per year. The need to provide services and supports to at-risk elders living in their own home helps ensure individuals “age in place” in the home of their choice while reducing the cost of services and supports that are more expensive if provided in assisted living facilities, nursing homes and hospital settings. Providing prevention services including Elder Stakeholder Councils and community education programs, mental health counseling and case management will assist with the early detection and remediation of elder challenges that may result in self neglect or exploitation and a greater use of high cost supports, services and institutional care sites. The program enhances the well-being of elders and their loved ones in cost-effective fashion while reducing reliance on high cost services and supports.

The proposal is supported by Senator Bennett, Representative Grant, and Representative Regan.

Sarasota has one of the highest concentrations of seniors in Florida and has limited services provided to this target population. As a result of providing senior services to the community, we have encountered increasing serious and interrelated problems that include the following situations:

• Elders living in unfit environments that include lack of food, unsanitary conditions, and unmet physical and emotional needs.

• Unmet medical needs

• Social isolation leading to depression and chronic illness

• Lack of social supports

• Seniors existing from crisis to crisis due to limited resources

• Feelings of hopelessness and a lack of options

It should be a community priority to assist our seniors in this community who are experiencing the above unmet needs.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Initiative. The FY 05-06 Legislature appropriated $280,000 which established Florida’s first Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) Diagnostic/Intervention Center at The Florida Center for Child and Family Development in Sarasota. The FY 06-07 Legislature appropriated an additional $100,000 to increase total funding to $380,000 of recurring funds. The FY 07-08 Legislature appropriated $75,000 non-recurring funds to continue expansion of the diagnostic/intervention clinics statewide. The primary mission of this continued initiative is primary and secondary prevention of FASD through screening, diagnosis, intervention, training, education and research; and to reduce disabilities and increase functioning of persons with FASD to improve their quality of life.

Additional funding ($750,000) is requested in FY 08-09 to build upon the FASD initiative started in FY 05-06. Although Florida has made great strides in addressing the impact of FASD in a short period of time, much more needs to be done to accomplish the goals/objectives of Florida’s FASD State Strategic Plan. Additional funds will be used to support development of a FASD clinic in Jacksonville, develop one additional clinic site in West Palm Beach or Ft. Lauderdale, and expand intervention services for children in Sarasota County. The Diagnostic/Intervention Center in Sarasota will serve as a training site to train the other core teams at the new centers.

A portion of this funding ($225,000) would expand outreach services to pregnant women through First Step of Sarasota, support residential treatment for pregnant women who are abusing substances in the Mothers and Infants Program, and provide after-care services for women discharged from the Mothers and Infants or Transitional Living Programs. These are high risk infants and mothers that require immediate and continuous comprehensive, coordinated services.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the leading cause of mental retardation in the western world and is 100 percent preventable. Each year, more than 5,000 babies are born with FAS, with an additional 50,000 who are affected with some variation of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Annual cost estimates for FAS and related conditions in the United States range from $75 million to $9.7 billion. The comprehensive lifetime cost of just one baby with FAS could be as much as $4 million. The cost to American taxpayers for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is estimated to be $5 million a day. Florida spends an estimated $78,918,000 annually to provide special education and juvenile justice services to children 5-18 years affected by FASD. This amounts to an estimated $914,183 spent per day for these services in Florida. There are approximately 13,000 children under age five residing in Sarasota Co. (3.9 percent of total population). Sarasota County reports a high use of alcohol among women of child bearing age. Forty two percent of mothers involved in the Sarasota Florida Infant Mental Health Pilot Project during project years 2000-2003 reported use of alcohol during their pregnancy compared to only 22 percent in Miami and 26 percent in Pensacola. Sarasota County is second only to Pinellas County in the number of substance exposed newborns in the Suncoast Region. This places a high number of young children in Sarasota County at high risk for developmental and behavioral disorders.

This issue has been strongly supported by the Legislature and the Governor’s Office. This FASD project in Sarasota County has the support of the Department of Health, the Department of Children and Families Substance Abuse Mental Health Agency, The Governor’s Office of Drug Control, and The Ounce of Prevention Fund. Local agencies affected are The Florida Center for Child and Family Development, First Step of Sarasota, Inc., Safe Children Coalition under the Sarasota Family YMCA, Healthy Families, Children First, and Healthy Start.

There is strong support for this project at a local, state, and national level. There is no indication of any opposition for this project.

Through the efforts of the Sarasota County Government and The Florida Center for Child and Family Development, along with First Step and many other local agencies, Sarasota has stepped out in the nation as a leader in infant mental health, FASD, and substance abuse services to young children and their families. These efforts are going to establish best practice protocols that are likely to be duplicated throughout the country.

Underlying this national attention is the significant impact these services, infrastructure and expertise will have on the children and families of the Sarasota community. By supporting this effort, the Alliance will be assisting the most vulnerable children in our community and affecting the number of children that end up entering the foster care system, juvenile justice system, and experience failure within our school system. Early screening, diagnosis, and intervention services for young children affected with FASD and their families is cost effective and leads to more productive outcomes for affected individuals.

Florida Insurance Trust amendment. An amendment to Florida Statute 624.4625 to change the requirement for non-profits to be eligible for insurance pooling risks from agencies that "receive" 75 percent or more of their funding from government to agencies that "spend" 75 percent or more of their funding on providing health and human services.

In January 2007, Governor Crist signed the enabling legislation that granted statutory authority for non-profits to be eligible for insurance pooling risks. However, several of our largest non-profits, for example The United Way, the YMCA and Senior Friendship Center, among others, are not eligible because they receive more than 25 percent of their funding from non-governmental sources. If this amendment were adopted, these agencies would have considerably more funds that could be used to provide more funding to other agencies (the United Way) or direct services to clients (the YMCA and Senior Friendship Center, among others). We understand the language for the amendment has not yet been drafted, though Senator Dean and Representative Ross have agreed to sponsor this.

We expect all health and human service agencies in Sarasota County as well as Sarasota County Government would support this amendment since it would lead to an increase in funding for direct services.

We believe the Community Alliance should support this amendment since it would lead to an increase in funding for direct services.

Reauthorize the Sadowski Housing Trust Act and remove the spending cap.  There are several thousand homeless individuals and families in Sarasota County on any given night of the year and many more thousands are temporarily housed in places that they cannot afford and/or living on the brink of homelessness. Although there are numerous emergency beds and transitional housing units for homeless individuals, permanent housing units for the homeless as well as for teachers, police and medical personnel so vital to Sarasota’s quality of life continue to be in short supply. If reauthorized and fully distributed, the Sadowski Housing Trust Fund would fund an annual average of 38,000 housing units and create over 60,000 jobs statewide over each of the next ten years.

The Suncoast Partnership works on behalf of over 40 Sarasota County health and human service agencies and faith-based providers that provide services to the thousands of homeless individuals and families and as well as to a larger population that have unmet or underserved housing needs. Businesses and business associations, such as the Chamber of Commerce, have supported the Sadowski Housing Trust Act since its adoption in 1992 and the United Way of Sarasota County is a staunch supporter of reauthorization legislation.

Community Alliance member agencies provide social services to many very-low, low and moderate income residents of Sarasota County, and affordable housing has long been identified as an unmet need in our community. Continued funding from the Sadowski Housing Trust is key to making progress toward a community goal of "housing for all."