Travis County Commssioners Court
November 5, 2002
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 11
11. Discuss fy'03 crime victims fund, rfs# s020153-jw, funding recommendations, and take appropriate action.
>> good morning, commissioners, judge. I'm carol coleburn with Travis County counseling and education services. We are here today to present the recommendations to commissioners court of local agencies to receive Travis County crime victims funds contracts for the calendar year of 2003. And counseling and education services department has been coordinating this effort for the past 15 years, giving out funding to local agencies that work with crime victims. And this funding comes from the education classes done by ces. This career we have $105,000 to give out. Which we are pleased with that. We have been slowly working our way back up. We -- our revenue was down for the past several years, but this year it did go up. And so we are feeling real good about that. Wements had an application review committee that spent a lot of time and effort looking at all of the applications from the agency and we have a scoring process and then a percentage of the funding is given according to the ranking of the scores. And I would just like to take this time to thank that team for giving their time and the people that were on that committee, besides myself for davila, a counselingnd and education services manager, the chair of the committee. Deborah hale of criminal courts administration, kenya bernado johnson, huston tillotson college, lawrence lyman and last by not least jason walker of the purchasing office. Jason was very instrumental with the rfs and the scoring process. We want to give him a big thanks. Today we also have some recipients of the funding and they are on the recommendation list this year that would like to have a chance to speak with the court. Would you like to start?
>> yes, thank you. We have been recipients of this fund and big kudos to the people who --
>> your name and organization, please.
>> I'm sorry, Karen cox --
>> you are known down here.
>> with casa at Travis County. But I do want to let you know that this year the funding that we got will serve seven children. Casa is going to serve 1,200 children, we need to find the funds to serve the other 1,193 of those chip. In 2001 we were given 19,000, that served 13 children. The next year it was cut by a quarter. But we reduced costs so we could still serve 11 children with this fun being. We are holding it at that same amount, but it will only serve seven this year because it's been cut again. I just want to thank you for one of the casa children who received a casa volunteer. I'm going to read his story. My name is jerome gill, I told my casa I wanted to tell other people about the work of casa. I've had my worker, court appointed special advocate since 1996. I'm 18 years old, graduated from high school in may. I have a college and plan to buy a car. I will go to junior college to get the basics out of the way, then I want to major in filming and audio equipment. 10 years from now, I hope to be making movies. I think having a casa was good because it helped me out a lot in my life, it is always good to have a person pushing for you. A casa is someone you can depend on, especially my casa because I had a good one. They are great when you have case workers. I've had three at least that were too busy. My casa and I only had one was never too busy. I think it takes a lot of courage and dignity to take time out of your life to help someone else's life. Especially when you take time out for volunteer work. Personally I don't know if I could work for free, but my casa worker does. When I was being mislead and couldn't trust other people, I could always trust my casa. I could talk to her whenever I couldn't talk to my foster parents. When I got kicked out of one home, I had a casa who made sure that I got in another good home. I didn't move around as much as most kids do. Without a casa I think that I would probably be in a worst place. She always helped me make better decisions. Most kids would have given up and joined a gang or something. Thank heavens I didn't. A few weeks ago I surprised her by coming to the closed case celebration at the cast well house. She had tears in her eyes when she hugged me at the top of the stairs. Usually someone from of staff is there to honor the volunteer, I was lucky enough to be there in person. I thanked her for everything that she did for me and my family. I told her that she had never heard me tell my case workers that I loved them because I don't. But I told her I loved her because I do. They are good for sponsorship when you need reinforcement and support when you lack strength. My overall judgment is that every case should have one. Every kid needs one. A casa is like an american express card. Don't leave home without it. I tell you this because at 12 I stood before a judge and I told the judge that I would rather go to jail than go home. The judge didn't listen to me. He looked right through me and ordered me to go home. Last year we served 870,000, but there were 1,589 children that need us, the judges want us to serve every child. I hope that we will increase the number of children that we can fund through our county so that some day national casa will give us a grant because they see our community as making a big enough -- a big enough donation that they will see that they can match it. So thank you for covering the seven children that you will cover over the next year with this grant.
>> thanks, Karen.
>> good morning. My name is [inaudible] rosenbloom, I'm here to represent safe place's school program called [inaudible] I want to thank you for your continued support of this program. Which is in its 13th year. The program helps children who have been hurt bisexual or domestic violence by providing them school based counseling and support groups. And educational programs for all youth in schools and adults. Our team of school based counselors are over 30 schools a week. Working with children who have disclosed abuse to a school counselor and we know in these times of increased testing and demands on schools, one school counselor for nearly 500 or more children is not enough to serve the needs of all of the children that come forward and say I'm scared, i've been hurt, I need someone to talk to. And so our three and a half school based counselors are out there working with these kids on a daily basis. But then also we are trying to increase overall school safety by working hand in hand with school administrators and counselors to stop and prevent bullying and harassment. So altogether these school based services are -- are making an impact in Austin schools and in the lives of individual children who have been hurt. We thank you for your continued support of this -- of this program which has achieved national recognition as a promising program by the national center for domestic violence. I would also like to say, however, this is -- there is a growing waiting list. 17 children who are recent victims or survivors, on a waiting list for help. Thank you for continuing to support this and recognizing the need.
>> good morning, my name is susan cox, we have an organization called for the love of christie. A grief support organization which my husband and I founded in October of 1987, two years after the death of our 20 year old daughter who was killed by a hit and run drunken driver in downtown Austin. At that time we found very little affordable help. We have just celebrated our 15th anniversary of dedication and work to many of the victims that we have helped over these past 15 years. And thanks to your love and support, as a matter of fact when we first started the organization, our funding, our very first funding came from you. For that we are ever so grateful and we thank you for the continued support as we help the victims learn about the criminal justice system, we walk them through the legal system. We give them court accompaniment. We have 14 meetings a month. We offer love and support to them. We -- they come back to us usually after the trial is over, they want to give back. So they become facilitators. We train them to become facilitators and to work with other victims and people who walk through those doors at the lowest point in their lives and it's wonderful to see how they can smile and laugh and get back into society again. We have a children's program, that is tipping to grow in the teen program. With the funding that we receive from you, we are able to provide many different things for these people of -- of dedication of a tree ceremony, an annual remembrance service held at st. Edward's every year, we usually have about 300 people who attend that. So I just -- I can't thank you all enough for what you have done for our organization. And we feel very police appeared we want -- very blessed and we want to give back to the community the way the community has given back to us.
>> thank you.
>> I'm regina roghoff branch manager of Texas legal aid, formerly legal aid of central Texas. I also would like to thank you. Your support is critical to our continued operation in this changing time. You know that we are now part of the larger entity and I'm very proud to say that we are the leaders on domestic violence issues within this entire new region that consists of 68 counties. What's being done in Travis County and what was being done at [inaudible] central Texas and will continue in Texas rural legal aid is really a model. We are the only entity within this new organization that has a social worker providing assistance to victims of domestic violence. Your support makes that possible. And we are going to make sure that that model gets replicated throughout this new region and without taking more time, it's a -- it's a real privilege to be included with this group, I think that carol has done an outstanding job and we appreciate you and thank you each for your support.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> my name is suzanne latting the executive director of volunteer legal service goes, which is a pro bono legal services recruitment organization here in Travis County. Our biggest partners are Texas rural legal aid. It's been several years since volunteer legal service what's applied for funds from Travis County and we appreciate very much the support. We are out in the community twice a week with our evening legal advice clinics, also staffed by Texas rural legal aid, meeting people where they live, where they need services with volunteer attorneys, staff attorneys from legal aid giving people immediate advice about their options. We serve several hundred victims of domestic violence every year by providing them with free legal services, so that they can separate from their abusers and get divorced and start a new life. And provide their children with a safe home. So thank you very much for helping us with that. We leverage a lot of assistance from the Travis County legal community on a very small budget. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> good morning. My name is michael herowitz, a project coordinator for the pebble project, a child abuse prevention project of communities in schools. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. For nearly 20 years, the pebble project has worked in Travis County to prevent child abuse and to assist young victims in the process of healing. We currently bring our prevention programs to over 7,000 public school students each year, in the process we hear from children who have been victims of abuse, neglect or other violence. Although we assist many of these children in getting effective intervention, the child protective system is to overburdened that many never receive the counseling and support they need. We are pleased to be -- to receive funding from the Travis County crime victims fund. Whichs will help to us reach out to some of these young people preventing the negative consequences that come from unresolved trauma. We look forward to our collaboration with the county and our many partner organizations here.
>> thank you. [one moment please for change in captioners]
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM