BEBA Board Meeting Agenda May 1, 2003

Present: board members Raymond Castellino, Marla van Stein, Isaac Dornbush, Dorothy Adler plus SandraCastellino, BEBA's Administrative Director and Myrna Martin, consultant to BEBA

(Christie Barrack & Michael Brightwood were not able to come)

1. Minutes of the January meeting approved (Ray 1^st, Isaac 2^nd, all 4 approved)
2. Report from Sandra and Ray
• Attached written report
• Handout of latest trifold
• Ray talked about the work with families and the importance of working with the parents on their own material.
• Ray spoke with Cherie Ray and told her about our using the material she had worked on for the trifold and brochure.
3. Marla spoke about the fabulous talk Ray had done at Lou Grant preschool, the information, the simplicity and depth of the message, Ray's helping people connect with each other. Dorothy Adler suggested that next time Ray does a presentation that we put feedback forms on the chairs. (She had suggested we do this at Lou Grant but it didn't happen).
4. Discussion about executive director and Myrna's role:
• Myrna's availability. Her timing is that if she doesn't know soon that she'd be coming in September, then next July, 2004 is the earliest time she can come since she has a son who is a senior in high school.
• Meanwhile she will be here in September, 2003, January, 2004 and April, 2004 for board meetings.
• It was suggested that we look out for a family who could provide accommodations to Myrna and her family when they first come to town. The Castellinos cannot do this in September, 2003 because of construction remodeling they will be doing to create more space for BEBA in their home.
• Myrna's current / continuing role as support for Sandra was acknowledged. There was a general consensus that Myrna is the executive director the board wants and if we can't raise the money for September, 2003, which is unlikely, then we'd focus on raising the money to bring her here in the summer of 2004.
• Discussion about the infrastucture being more ready next year and Nancy and Tara more available to take on more families once they graduate from SBGI in July, 2004. Also the BEBA portion of the Castellino's home remodeling project will be finished.
5. Discussion of BEBA's focus and government granting agencies / other sources of funding.
• CA Endowment reviewer requested:

                                                     i.     Statistics documenting the need for this work.

                                                      ii.     Statistics documenting the local people and agencies who are or would refer to BEBA showing the number of people who need support that BEBA is not able to serve due to financial limitations.

                                                        iii.     If we are reaching out to other cultures, how are we accommodating to their culture.

• CA Endowment reviewer didn't say they wouldn't fund an executive director position. They would consider it partly because we asked for 60% FTE (full time equivalent), assuming we were asking for 40% from other sources.
• Ray voiced his focus is on violence done to children in all income ranges has the consequences of violence in adulthood. His focus has mostly been with people from middle class background. Tara is not ready to go into the Latino community as a solo facilitator. This could happen in a year or more. Myrna said to reach the Latino community, you need to go to their neighborhood.
• Dorothy said the SB Neighborhood Clinics have just started a prenatal program. Terra, their development director, told her that 50% of their population is children, a majority Latino. They received grants from the CA Wellness Foundation. However, the Wellness Foundation doesn't focus on early intervention.
• Board members present agreed with Dorothy that developing a relationship with the SB Neighborhood Clinics personnel was useful. Dorothy wants Tara to come to their open house with her next week and for BEBA to be aware of what they are doing and vice versa.
• Isaac mentioned the possibility of applying for grants with a way of sealing off the program for low income families for grant writing purposes. There was general acknowledgement that this could happen in the future, once we have an executive director.
• Myrna talked about the Canadian government's focus on early intervention in contrast to the US granting agencies' focus. The BC Ministry of Child and Family Development hired Frazier Mustard, a well-known economist, who came to Myrna's town where he spoke to an audience of 600 government and health care personnel about the economic benefit of early intervention, 0-3. Canada has a program called The Roots of Empathy (www.rootsofempathy.org) for K-3, 4-6, junior high students started by Mary Gordon in a low income neighborhood in Toronto, currently used throughout Canada and now in Japan and elsewhere including parts of the US. A family with a newborn and a facilitator come to a classroom once a month for a year. The school is provided with a curriculum for the whole year with a 4-day teacher training of instructors and materials for the visit and the month in between. The results are more empathy developed among children, decreased proactive aggression and more cooperation in the neighborhoods. Ray commented that he had brought his son to school when he was a junior high teacher and all the students were focused that day.
5. The board approved resubmitting a grant application for $50,000 for an executive director position to CA Endowment Fund for their September 15^th deadline. (Dorothy 1^st, Marla 2^nd, all 4 approved).
• Myrna suggested we do not include a component of reaching the Latino population since this is not required. We can focus more on documenting the need and outreach to low income families. We are not ready to offer a neighborhood clinic.
• Marla volunteered to research local statistics that needed to write the grant such as apgar score, low birth weight, interventions. Dorothy mentioned SB scorecard found on: www.education.ucsb.edu\schpsych. Dorothy to get this information to Marla.
6. New Board members –The board voted to invite BEBA parents Heidi deBra and Vicki DiIoya, who we know what to serve and Jim or Patricia Selbert (Marla 1^st, Isaac 2^nd, all 4 in favor).
7. Discussion of the need for a letter or letters asking for financial and in-kind support
• Letter to go to former donors and BEBA families / 10 year anniversary of BEBA
• Letter (maybe different) for board members to give to interested other people.
• Myrna to help Ray to compose a letter to be done before the next board meeting.
• Discussion to be continued at the next board meeting.
8. Board approved Sandra writing a grant application for Carol Landsberg's family foundation for $10,000 to be used for backing up the BEBA tapes on DVD. Ray with input from staff to decide which tapes to back up and what portion of the grant would be for DVDs and what for labor. (Marla 1^st, Isaac 2^nd, all 4 in favor).
9. Board discussed having a summer potluck in a park. Discussion of using this to engage BEBA families in the future fundraising efforts. More discussion to take place later.
10. Next BEBA board meetings: Thursday, June 26^th, 7 pm., Thursday, Sept 25^th ( Myrna here).
11. Appreciation: Ray closed the meeting saying for 10 years he's been building his skills to be able to do outreach. He feels ready to do this and grateful for the support of the board and others for their contributions.