Chair Stevens Questions Transition Details and Council Member Engagement

Um, could you talk to me a little bit about what the transition processes look like?

I know um that's one of my biggest things.

Like, like how are we working with organizations on this transition process and what is that gonna look like?

Um, you know, especially where you know there's cases where they might not have gotten that site, but they have another site, and so yes, we would love for those folks who work in the program to stay, but if some people are gonna go to the new sites, then I just think like this reshuffling is going to cause a little bit of a chaos.

And so just trying to understand like how are we preparing um not only the providers but schools and families around this transition and what it's gonna look like.

Do we have like documents?

Are we like working on like toolkits?

Um, and then also how will we be involving the council members who I know a lot of them are already getting a lot of calls and pushback and want to make sure that the local council members are part of those conversations with these transition processes.

So uh that's a great uh segue because part of this process is a real coordinated effort between all those stakeholders for again uh the best transition as possible because the timeline is difficult and there's a lot of concerns about incoming change, right?

So the first part is there's core components of the plan that focus on transition meetings between all the different stakeholders, um, knowledge transfer of the transition meetings already start to take place, yeah, starting to take place, right?

We're you know, also keeping in mind that we are in a process and appeal period, right?

So trying to make sure that we're coordinating all those uh engagements as well, being thoughtful about them in that process uh and in a respectful way, thinking about you know what staff retention may look like, connecting with the school leaders, um, family and school communication and coordinating with New York City Public Schools centrally and doing district level engagement and principal level engagement because some instances it's a good change that they're really anticipating for and they've been working for a long time towards, and then what our role is really kind of that central point to lift and escalate if there are some challenging conversations along the way and what we'll be tracking along that path.

So one thing that we already started is engaging with those new CBOs and welcoming them in and really thinking about like readiness check.

Where are they as an organization?

Where are they in terms of the staffing supports, coordination, what types of activities are looking towards doing, connecting them with the school leader?

So every single principal as part of the announcement was provided as who the CBO was and the contact information and coordinating with public schools where there are some instances where there's some disconnect.

So that's what we want to ensure throughout the and I know it is a is a fast turnaround time, but again, um I just want to make sure that we are tapping in um the local council members to be a part of those conversations so that when we so we could all be on the same page because it starts to get disconjoined when you have parents reaching out and the schools and all these things.

So I want to make sure that local council members are part of the conversations and being brought in to be as supportive as possible with these transitions because I think you know a lot of folks are not happy.

Um, and you know, we are in a place where some of these decisions are final, and so thinking about how do we work together to get not only the communities acclimated but also the council members with some of these new organizations that will be coming into their communities.