Communications Ad Hoc Committee Meeting
MINUTES
April 21, 2016
NCCDD Conference Room and by phone

Members Present: Anna Cunningham, Crystal Foreman, Lisa Byrd, Eric Chavis

Members Absent: Michael Groves, Vicki Smith, Nessie Siler

Guests Present:  Christina Carter

Staff Present:  Steve Strom

The open meeting was held via tele-conference and members were welcomed by Crystal Foreman, chair.  The agenda items to be discussed were reviewed by Steve Strom at the start of the meeting.  

1. As a follow up to the February 4th ad-hoc meeting, Christina Carter was invited to hear the suggestions of the members on how to communicate changes in the Medicaid system and how that was being executed at the MCO levels.  Christina and the members discussed different reports and data that existed and what was the goal of the request.  The group decided that the Gap Analysis provided to the Division of MH/DD/SA might be a good document to use.  Christina will start investigating if the document is available and how that data can be used to communicate the status of I/DD services across the State.  
   
   
2. Steve reported back from the Executive Committee on the additional recognition awards presented to the EC by the Communications Ad-hoc committee at the March EC Meeting.  The EC thanked the Communications Ad-hoc committee for their work and asked that the Council will stay with the Hefner and Riddle awards but that all of the suggestions for new awards could instead be utilized to recognized individuals through the Council’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter site.  Steve will work with Devika at O’Neill Communications to have both the staff and Council members bring outstanding citizen stories to O’Neill Communications for publication.  
   
   
3. Steve reported back to the group that due to the efforts of the Communications Ad-hoc committee, that the Governance Ad-hoc committee had updated the Council’s effective communications policy which stated “that communications with individuals with disabilities [be] as effective as communications with individuals without disabilities.”

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 AM.  Meeting adjourned.  The next meeting of the Communications Ad-hoc will be scheduled after the May 2016 Council meeting