Okay, we are recording, as always. And so let's jump in and get started. Give me one second here. Okay. welcome again to our taskforce meeting. Wanted to again as always, thank our sponsors care first health plan, valley, the sun United Way, satellite broadcasting and communications Association, Triad wireless and Karen Ziegler consulting services. And we do need sponsors, ASAP, if not yesterday. So, but that we have, do we have any yet? Do we have any new participants today? Other than Alan, you're going to be introduced a little bit later. We have anybody else who's new today? That to be a no? Okay, well, we have a lot of things on the agenda if our folks show up to participate. So just a reminder that after our meeting, that we tried to do kibbutzim with colleagues. And that's just an informal gathering. We turn off the recording, and just allow people to Kibbutz to talk, share information, ask questions, et cetera. So you're all encouraged to participate? I don't think I saw Janet major on the call yet. Maybe she will be here. But I did want to congratulate her that she's been named a fellow of the American Telemedicine Association. So I'm assuming I'm assuming that's a great honor. And congratulations, Janet. And maybe you will still join us yet today. So, moving on, I'm going to wait a little bit on a couple of things. And hopefully, Sandeep is going to join us in a little bit. So wait, why wait, why don't wait while we're waiting for them? Why don't you share what you wanted to share regarding your lessons learned regarding the ACP pilot wellness program? And do you want to share?
Elena? I can I can I just I just have one slide. I didn't. I didn't I wasn't going to do the whole presentation. Okay. Does that one slide?
Stop sharing what you and let you share? Okay.
Can you see that? Yes. Can we make it bigger for you? Okay, so most of you on the call already know that common sense. Did a 12 week pilot program in mostly in Phoenix, some of Maricopa County, it was included because of the fact that we did marketing and advertising that could not be targeted as easily as some of the other types of advertising billboards, what have you light rail, things like that? So I didn't realize I didn't know, Steve, if there was going to be new people on the call, or I mean, I feel like I've talked about this before about the pilot itself. So I wasn't going to go into a Go ahead. Well, even
just most of the people have been, have been on the call before. But we do have a couple of people in particular, who are presenting Actually, today that may or may not know about, about your outreach. And so it's certainly relevant to our overall discussion today. So maybe want to provide a little more detail.
Yeah, so the pilot that we did, was it started off as being an awareness pilot program. We we learned very quickly, and this was back in August. So we learned very quickly that it also needed to be an enrollment campaign as well. And so we partnered with the digital equity Institute who through them, we were able to go to ASU, they have what's called the Experience Center, which is really their tech hotline that was initially for students and faculty. And obviously, it would be like a, you know, an IT helpline because of COVID. And because of everybody at ASU, including faculty, myself included, were teaching online they had to sort of turn their experience centers outward into the community. And by doing so, we started talking, you know, after they did that we started talking to them about, hey, could you create a navigator hotline for people that were trying to get signed up for ACP, but clearly need one on one assistance. We did an event with Chicanos Por La casa, which was great. But again, also learned that not every family can take time off in the middle of the day or even early evening to go to an event to do sign up. Because they have jobs and they have kids. And it's just really hard. And by having this 24/7 Bilingual helpline hotline, we were able to allow people to kind of call at their pace and at their leisure to get to get signed up for ACP. The other nice thing about having the call center versus in person was that people could call them. So if they had questions about okay, now I, you know, I'm eligible, we've signed up, I've got my, I've got my code, my my verifier code from the FCC, but I have no idea what kind of internet I need, or what speed or any of that sort of thing. And so these folks could call the navigators back who they now have a relationship with. And they could help them determine what the best speed might be for their family or for their situation. So there was a lot of reasons why we felt like using a navigator hotline was really helpful. So that kind of goes into the first few bullet points. So some of the things that we learned is that obviously, we, you know, our goal was to reach the people who needed who needed ACP the most, we also realized that you had to have trusted intermediaries, which is why common sense ASU, the digital equity Institute, these were all organizations that we felt like people could trust. The idea of the navigators. You know, as I mentioned, a lot of these households are completely disconnected. And so they don't even have really the skills needed to try to enroll in a government program themselves. So having that one on one assistance is really crucial. As I mentioned, the phone based support allows those who are who are trying to enroll, to use the devices that they have at their disposal, it may not be a laptop, it may be a phone, or it may not be a phone, it may be a Chromebook from their from their students school or, you know, whatever that might be plus, as I mentioned, it's more private, and they can work with the navigators on their own schedule. We also learned through the use of navigators and in the metrics that we collected was that Medicaid and snap were by far the most common enrollment pathways and that there is a lot of problems trying to use the free and reduced lunch letter that schools are supposed to make available to families who could then use that as an eligibility document. Two out of this Oh, so So the reasons we were one of the reasons we were able to collect some of these metrics were because our advertising we had several phone numbers that people can call in on. So if they heard about the ACP enrollment help through say Spanish language radio, that was one 800 Number, if they learned about it through our through a billboard and jotted down the number that was a different number. Same thing with whether it was Spanish or English. So we had like eight different phone numbers, so we could tell where the calls were coming from. If they heard it on the on TV, if it was a PSA that CoCs had run, if they ran our PSA, we, you know, there was a different phone number. So two out of the five callers requested Spanish language support, three out of five told our navigators that they had some discomfort using technology or online forums, like the ones that you had to fill out for the FCC benefit. Four out of the five callers were not previously signed up for lifeline or the ACP. And that was another thing that was very helpful with the navigators is they were also able to inform the callers about the lifeline benefit that was available as well. And then the other thing that we found everybody was asking us, including the White House was asking us for anecdotal stories and things that we could use to help market and promote the ACP and that was really getting stories from individuals who had signed up and we're now reaping the benefits of having, you know, more reliable, in most cases, faster, faster internet. So that was kind of the negative net navigator piece of it. And then in terms of the advertising piece of it, which not everybody could afford to do a marketing program like we did, and we just decided that we needed to really boost the awareness of, of the ACP program. So we, even as a nonprofit just said, we're just going to, you know, pay for it and see what happens. And then if we want to expand it, expand it, maybe we can get some funding. And so actually, right now, we're working with the City of Phoenix to do just that, to possibly see what we could do to help expand this to all of all of the city of Phoenix, the campaign. So we learned that the ads have to be simple, they have to be authoritative, and they must be mobile friendly. Okay, so anyways, anything that we're putting out there, people have to be able to see it and understand it very quickly on their mobile phones, digital ads, so social media type ads, and TV ads performed the best. Although, there's still a lot of good to be said for a holistic approach or for the idea that marketing executives will tell you that you need to have more than a couple of touches, before people actually wrap their heads around what it is you're trying what call to action you're trying to get them to make. So that was the reason for the layered advertising, for the billboards for the light rail signs for the radio ads for the TV ads for the PSAs. Because you might hear about it or see it driving to work, but you may not remember to do anything about it until you maybe see the PSA while you're sitting at home in front of the TV. 50% of the callers only had their smartphones to connect to the internet. So that's problematic. We also learned that radio ads are underperforming, were underperforming for us. We didn't we actually shifted some of the dollars to television result. Did somebody have a question? No. Okay. Um, we also created a website for this campaign that was extremely simple, easy to use, easy to find, get my internet.org. And people could get information as well as resources, digital literacy resources. And then also could go right to the FCC site where the go right to the form that they had to fill out. We also learned that ads with trust and branding and an authoritative language perform better. So what do I mean by trusted branding? In some cases, because we were partnering with the city of Phoenix, you know, we were able to use their logo on some of the advertising, they had put blurbs about the ACP for us in their water bills, which was really helpful. The mayor did a PSA.
So that was great. And then also learned QR codes generated literally no engagement. So you know, they're cool for restaurant menus not so cool if you're trying to get people to sign up for ACP. And then we also wished we had started earlier with working with the government agencies and transit agencies, and with utilities and schools. Because it can take a long time for anything to do, we should have known that epic, we did know this, but the ideas started popping up. And it was too late to get a bus wrapped. You know, that had a seat, ACP message on it and some other things, and we were lucky, we got the phone bills. So just make sure that if you're going to do anything like this, you're gonna get people on board early in the process. And then for us, personally, it was a little bit tough. We think we could have had better numbers, just simply because it was during the elections. And so excuse me, we had some competing advertising campaigns going on. Right. So you had a lot of candidates campaigns, and there was a lot of noise and a lot of stuff happening. And so some of our ads, I think got lost in the in the fray. So that's, in a nutshell, what we learned, I have an entire presentation on, on what we did more of a step by step kind of thing and broke out some of the metrics and some of the the questions that you might have, like, you know, people were asking us like facts, I guess, FAQs. So if anybody wants it, let me know. I'm happy to send it to you. And Steve, if anybody has any questions, they can either ask me now or I can put my email in the chat. And they can reach out to me.
Sure. So Elena, just quickly, why don't you send me your presentation, your full presentation, and then I will share it when I send out my meeting update. Sure. That's probably the easiest way for people to get it. Good questions for for Elena. Well, this, as you heard that this is pretty relevant to the just the further discussion we're gonna have today with Alan and with Don. And D. Yes. But before we move on, I saw Lupe weren't actually there somewhere. Yeah. There you are. So if I can put you on the spot, Lupe, give us an update. Just a quickie that you guys got that $750,000 Grant, is that correct?
Yes. 715 for the 1000 would have been great and more lives.
So can you just quickly refresh people about the grant that you've got? And I don't know if you have any additional information about what you're going to be able to do with that money? I know there was still you were still waiting to hear about exactly what it is you could use the money for?
Yeah, so we're still waiting. I know when I'm sorry. Just a second. Can you just tell people Chicanos Por La Causa, you know, just so you guys are we do have some new people. And it's particularly relevant to the discussion we're gonna have today. So please go ahead.
Alrighty, so hi, everybody. I'm Lupe Valenzuela. I work at Chicanos Por La Casa also known as CPLC. We've been around in the community for 50 plus years. What started with you know, for ACU advocate students to try to get kind of in the school system to make sure there was a quality for us is now we do services, anything you can think of from from babies, so infants enrolled, early childhood development to senior so we own our own senior complexes. We do integrated health and human services, social services and education, we do real estate. We also do economic development, we have the first microlending office here in the state of Arizona. And during the pandemic, we were ranked number three for the PPP loans after Wells Fargo and Bank of America, we also have a program that helps with people who are kind of either first house time buyers, so anything you can think of we have at CPLC. But recently, during the pandemic, we started getting involved in digital inclusion, because we realized that the community we're serving in the areas that we are, most of the families are low income and in poverty. So we wanted to support our community. And what started with a small, you know, kind of distributing computers to a couple of programs, has then evolved to what we are now the ACP outreach program that we're going to be applied for was to be in four or five states. We're currently in Arizona and New Mexico, California, Nevada, and Texas. But for the ACP outreach, we did do all of the states except Texas, just because there wasn't going to be enough funding in Texas is really, really big. And we have a lot of offices in the big rural areas and the distance of where they were, was a little too far. So for this, our goal is to be helping with in person on hand support in our community, what we are looking at is we are going to be working in the areas where we have offices. So CPLC has over 100 100 and 150 plus offices close to 200 across our states. And so we're going to be targeting those areas. When we were were applying for the grant, we did look at the zip codes with a low ACP, like participation. And then we looked at the zip code we were in. And so we try to align it to those zip codes to say, hey, we know there's no participation. And we have programs that have been there for multiple years. So we have that trust in the community. So we can go ahead and reach out to the community work with our programs, because we have key program leaders that have been in that community that know that community very well. So we can work hand in hand and help our C PLC community in the extended familia. CPLC when you think it's kind of for the council, we don't serve, we serve as everybody it's not just Latinos, I think there is always some misconception But anybody that needs a hand up, we provide we do a hand up not a handout, because we want to make sure that we're fully empowering them. And the services that they come to get CPLC is always a full wraparound services. So our goal is if they need, let's say this device to go through workforce development, we have a workforce development program that can help them get a job, maybe they're ready to buy a house, they can go to our home times buyer, maybe they're in domestic violence situation, we have a decolonial center that helps with that. So our goal is that full circle to really empower the community. So we're really excited because we know that we can really support people. Our goal is to do it in you know, both languages English and Spanish. To help kind of a big community. I think in the Latino community, there are low ACP enrollments. Just because, you know, growing up in a Latino household, when you say something's free, or you know, they feel that, you know, you're gonna give your personal information or asking for my license or if they don't have a license or asking for them but people are going to live. People can be really weary about it because it's like, okay, like, am I going to get my personal information? Is someone going to be knocking at my door? And so with that trust, we have been able to successfully enroll families in a CPE and they trust us, they'll bring us their whole documents, like tax all the thing you can think of, they have a folder ready to go. And we're like, hey, we just need the following. But we have been able to work with our local, because in our programs or ISPs, we try to get a lot of eligibility documents beforehand, we're working with the schools. So that way we can get those required documents or for working with our community programs. And those programs, because we have some housing programs that we have. And so we try to get those eligibility documents beforehand. So when we're at the event, enrolling them, they can bypass a situation. This has been kind of trial and error. But I think right now, our model for that has been now very, very successful. And so we're excited to hear more about kind of what things that have been accepted in the grant proposal that we did, and we sent in and so the FCC announced that a couple a couple of days ago, coming weeks, and a lot of that was actually on that, let us know. So that was wonderful, like, and so we'll see what has been approved. And from there, kind of adjust our business plan. And we'll be in those four states empowering lives with ACP, when they have time, we always say we're saving computers one day at a time because we work in it. But here's going to be a satellite. Right?
Awesome. Thanks. So you guys, just blow me away every day about the amazing stuff that you guys do. And your reach in five states, in five states.
And so we're in five states, our goal is to keep expanding, you want to be in seven states by very soon. And so we are also having an office in Mexico City and have kind of work projects in Puerto Rico. Awesome.
So. So Well, first of all these questions for Lupe. So just FYI, I did talk to Robert a little bit, maybe he told you that part of our discussion is relates to the conversation we're going to be having today with the Yes, and Children's Action Alliance and so forth, who also has great outreach throughout the state? And how do we marry what you're trying to do, particularly since you guys didn't get your full million dollars, and you serve all these different states? In addition, how can we provide synergy with the folks who are trying to get folks signed up, or renewed for access. And so there seems to be, at least in my opinion, potential real synergy here. And I know Allen, and I think they're going to talk later about some of your health navigators, and where they are and what kinds of things they're doing. And so I think there's potential for some real synergy here. And the opportunity maybe for you guys, to save some monies in some ways, and be able to use it if you can piggyback with some of what they're doing. So anyway, I'm very excited, I think there's some real opportunity for us to work together and to collaborate.
Definitely. Thank you so much. And you know, I think we always say partnerships are really big and helping fulfill the mission and really empowering lives. And, you know, whether, you know, through ACP or you know, medical, all of those items, partnership, but really what's going to help us empower those lives.
Right. So Gretchen, I see that you've joined us. Good to know. So last minute, you want to just quickly introduce yourself?
You bet. Thank so much, Gretchen wolfe, for the City of Phoenix. I'm in the community and economic development department. And we are delighted that we're going to join CPLC as one of the recipients of the ACP outreach grant, we were awarded $700,000. I've got a meeting invite out to not only CPLC, but also to Promise Arizona. And I also invited Navajo County as the tribal option recipient to talk about where can we work together? Where can we avoid duplicating efforts so that we just don't make the media buys the biggest winners of all this money. So super excited about that. We're taking a two pronged approach with our outreach. One is to use the trusted resources. So lots of people don't trust government, but they do trust their librarian. They do trust their housing counselor. So we're working with our forward facing positions to have them advocate for this position for this program. And then we'll have a series of events. So you know, every week there'll be opportunities for people to come to an info session and learn about ACP and the documentation needed to qualify. And then the application labs where people know just every Wednesday they can go on the afternoon to one of our job centers, and have someone help them with their application. And the second prong is using community organizations and this is a lesson we learned with our Small Business grants during the pandemic, for the first small business grant program we used, it was just get the money out as quickly as possible. We joke that we were building the fire truck while we were trying to put out the fire. 34% of our dollars went to businesses in qualified census tracts. When we got more funding through ARPA, we wanted to focus on economic equity. And we started with tiered award. So if you were at UCT, about 50%, more, but we also used small dollar contracts with organizations like Razia development, or 90 North Alliance, because not everybody cares if Gretchen has something to say, but they care what the people they know, say. So when we reach one of their trusted resources, and they can spread the word that helps us. So those are our two pronged answer to. This is my approach and then our secret council approval to contract with Ilana and her team to help us with all of the good work that they did last year as the foundation for moving us forward.
So Gretchen, you kind of beat me to it because I was going to try to identify who all the different recipients were. convene a meeting with them. And so excited to kind of beat me to it. But I think it's also relevant to the discussion we're going to have today, because now we have this outreach also to a lot of the community, other community organizations also. So I'm glad you glad we made the connection and that you were able to join us today.
Yes, thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here. And I'll be sure to share this with the others so that they can benefit from your expertise as well.
That'd be great. And if you have the contact information I was lucky for for the contact information for the others. That would be really helpful.
Yep. Happy. Yes. Happy to send that on. Sounds great.
Okay, so let's, let's move on. Any other questions for Gretchen? Before we move on? So Nicole, I see you've joined us. So you have any updates?
Sorry for being late. I don't really have any new updates today. I think I was just talking to Sandip, he's going to try to join and give this group some updates. So not sure if he's on the calls yet or not?
I don't think he is. But he was planning to be here today. So hopefully, he'll he'll be here soon. Out. Okay.
Oh, Steve mark here. Not NTIA. But USDA did just announce the the next round of Community Connect grants. And so those are smaller community broadband grants. The cap has been raised from three to 5 million. I think there's 79 million total. I'll put a link in the chat. The applications are due in June.
Okay. Thank you. And I'll make sure that we get that information out, Mark. So so let's move on to our other presentations at the moment. Nicole, do you want to say anything more about the input that NTIA is looking for?
Sure. So that's the request for comment, or feedback on the digital equity grants from NTIA. So not the planning grants that the state already has. But these are the competitive grants and the implementation funding. So that is a a formal process. But it doesn't have to be scary or off putting one. I can all share the links in there. But they're looking for input from organizations from potential applicants from communities that are impacted in how how that NOFO is being written in, it'll be rolled out as well. So those comments are due on May 1.
Right. And I did include that in the meeting announcement for today. And I will again this week after this meeting. Great. Okay, well, let's move on to
Cindy. This is Cindy. Yes, Andy. So I I'm in the ACA office, um, Sandeep is not going to be able to make the meeting. He was called into another meeting but he asked me to make a couple of announcements Okay. Um, so, the digital equity Institute has been selected as the contractor for the digital equity planning phase and so that that decision is official as of as of today. And I was also hired to be the digital equity project manager for the for the beat and the digital equity efforts. So I just wanted to make make that announcement. Thank you.
Congratulations, Cindy.
Thank Thank you very much. I look forward to working with everybody. This is my first day. It's really exciting to me, I should probably close the store. Yeah, it feels like he's putting together a really strong team. And it sounds really exciting the direction this is going looking forward to working with Nicole with NTIA, and just really circling the state trying to get input for the planning process. And I look forward to working with all of you, I'm gonna go ahead and put my new email and phone number into the chat. And so look forward to anybody can reach out to me and let's let's make this work for Arizona.
So Cindy, I don't know if you know exactly yet what what that job entails and a little bit about your what that process is going to look like.
So brand new. So Brian, and I, like I said, I was authorized to make two announcements, but I I'd rather get some get some time under my belt so that I know what's appropriate to share. And, and, but but it will be an open and transparent operation and really glad to be proud of it.
Hey, thank you again, congratulations. Okay, so let's move on to our main presentation today. And before I do that, so Jocelyn, I see that you are online. And actually I had been meaning to reach out to you, because you've been attending our meetings, but I don't think people know that you're with the DES of if I'm not mistaken. And you do outreach to the tribes? If I'm correct.
Yeah. Hi, everybody. I'm Jocelyn Beard. I am the department's tribal liaison. But I also oversee the Office of Tribal Relations at the director's office where we do the government to government relationship building and upholding our Tribal Consultation Policy for the department. And so we work through our office has a hand in each of our seven divisions, and also with a zip, which is a Arizona early intervention program. So definitely we are communicating and advising in terms of our services that are being offered to tribal communities about how to best connect and get more information from our departments, such as so huge, and what we can do and how we can have stronger partnerships with our 22 sovereign governments in the state. So that's kind of our big, our big job, it's definitely something that we're hoping to, to get the word out there that we are available and to be used as a support and resource for, for anybody wanting to work with the tribes. And also working in conjunction with some of the similar programming that the ES has and what you all do out in the in throughout the state to work with the tribes. So thank you.
Great. Thanks, Jocelyn. And, and this may, this is certainly relevant also to the conversation we're going to be having with your other colleagues here with the Yes. And so with that, I'm going to actually make the transition. And actually and welcome April and Dawn. And then you're going to be here hearing from Alan and just a little bit. But April, do you want to do a quick intro and introduce Dawn? And then we'll just turn it over to her to do her thing?
Yes, thank you, Steve. So April Jones, department of economic security. Jocelyn and I are in the same office of community engagement. I'm the center region community engagement liaison, but since we don't have a northern or southern right now I kind of day wide. Yeah. So happy to have been with you over the years and keeping up with what's going on. Joining me today is one of our community, one of our community engagement liaison for the Division of benefits and Medicare eligibility, and they do the Medicare snap the cash benefits. And so it's great that Jana mentioned the Medicare and Snap are by far the most common enrollment pathways and so perfect segue thank you for Dawn to talk about what's happening in our agency and give you a little more information about how that works. In the division of benefits and Melaka eligibility which rave refer too as to be me. So, Dawn, I'll let you take it away.
Thank you, April.
Do you want to share it? Do you have anything to share? Do you want me to let you share?
No, we Oh, no. Okay, I had had slides, but we're not going to use them. Okay. so, as April said, I work for the Division of benefits and Medicare eligibility for DHS. And we I know all of you want to know how we are assisting clients prior to February 1 this year. Without an application programming interface, an applicant would have to wait a number of days to see if they qualify for ACP benefits, or if they need to provide specific documentation to prove their eligibility. That process takes a lot of time and may have deterred clients from getting benefits altogether. So starting April 1, our systems are utilizing the application programming interface with our federal partner systems. This is gonna allow clients to receive confirmation confirmation within seconds if they're eligible for those discounts. So it's really exciting, the clients are not going to have to wait anymore. With this new process, that client submits an application via phone connect Arizona, or the federal lifeline verification website. Within seconds of submission, the interface system will determine if the client has an open snap access or TANF case. Once verified, once verification is obtained, clients can go directly to their provider and ask about potential discounts through the ACP. So I don't have a long presentation, but I'm open for questions.
Dawn, you have developed, I believe a flyer, or I don't know if you're using your flyer or somebody else's flyer, but I believe you've been working on a flyer to our presentation.
Oh, yes, thank you. So our crest press officer is working on a flyer with graphics and design and our policy team. Once this flyer is completed, we're going to be sending those out to the 1700 community partment partners that the office of community engagement has, so that partners can notify the clients of this benefit and how we're working together for ACP.
Cool. So maybe you guys are gonna cover this a little bit later. But so tell me about the out those offices. So people come to those offices, your people then be knowledgeable enough to be able to get them signed up for how
Yes, they will be. They have to the clients have to apply online or by phone for ACP. But the interface is going to connect them completely with our systems and automatically determine if they're eligible for SNAP Medicaid or TANF benefits, so it will automatically approve them through our interface. Now just to let clients know, I'm sending out information to all of the staff within the division of benefits and MediCal eligibility to let them know about this program. We've already sent out one email blast to everybody. But once I get the flyer, we're going to send out another one. That way our our employees are educated on the benefit and can let clients know you can apply for this benefit. Now that you're eligible for SNAP TANF for access benefits, you'll automatically be eligible for this benefit as well.
Maybe questions for Dawn. Going once, going twice.
Well, as you can all see that. Gretchen has a question, Steve, I'm sorry. Who's that?
Oh, okay. Was that your Gretchen had a question? Oh,
she was she had her clap. Mic array sandwich. She was saying Yay.
I started with a Raytheon but then John answered my question without me even having to ask, is that good?
Okay, well, if there's no more questions for Dawn, let's move on to Allen, who can probably take the next two weeks to talk about what he's doing, and all his connections. But Allen, do you want to introduce yourself? And do you need to share? I think you had some slides you wanted to share? Yes. So please go ahead.
I just put them up. My question is, are you seeing the presentation side? Where are you seeing the full screen side?
Not seeing any slide yet? Okay,
you know what, I need to go back and try something here. You know, when we were talking about not being able to use 1%, the available power of my cell phone or Excel or anything? There you go. I met now, are you seeing full screen or just partial screen or partial? Yeah, what I need to do then is to you want to show the slide? Yeah, I just want to hit this. So Yep. There you go.
That shows your notes, we're still kind of
fun. I need to switch from one screen to another.
So Alan, I would suggest you start your slideshow first, and then share your screen.
Okay, let's do that. I've got it. Now. That's how I had it. So I just I've got multiple screens. So my problem is, I never know what screen is going to pop up. Because, again, I'm an old retired guy, and I sometimes forget. Now what do you see? Same thing.
So if you click on Display settings up in the top, you should be able to swap which is on which screen and then we should be able to see the presentation. Yeah, so swap Presenter View, and then we'll be good, perfect. You got
so much, Erin. That's why your general navigator it's
no worries. Happy to help
very quickly, because I'm going to go through some slides very fast. And then we're going to take some time and have a discussion. I am contracted with the Children's Action Alliance for the project of the unwinding of continuous enrollment. Very simply 600,000 People are at risk of losing access. And I'm talking about Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. Other kinds of access, and there are people on the call today that know more than I do. It's just simply that I'm helping to coordinate getting the word out to many community organizations. before I retired a year ago, I worked for eight years or 12 years in the area of helping low income people get access or the Affordable Care Act or snap. So the issue I'm sure most of you have seen this in many different ways. But during the pandemic, all Medicaid agencies in the country were not allowed to disenroll members. So the membership here in Arizona, in access grew by about 1/3 to about 2.2 5 million. I remember when it was well below 1 million and continuous enrollment ends in just a week. And access must renew all of its members. Access estimates about 650,000 people are at risk of losing coverage. Because over the past three years, we don't know I shouldn't say we access doesn't know who was moved who was still in the state who's gotten other benefits. According to access, that roughly 650,000 can be divided into two buckets. About half haven't simply not responded to any attempts that access is made by mail, email, text, and they've even done some phone calls. We don't know how those people left the state. Do they have employer coverage? Excellent.
Just to clarify 650,000 in Arizona, if I'm not mistaken,
that is correct. So roughly 325,000 are in this category if they've not responded to the attempt. And I have to be fair here because when I say access, access eligibility is managed by the people that are on the phone from the EAS. Most people don't know that because access is a medical program but the IES does the eligibility work for most of the programs. Also about half of the people 325,000 are most likely factually in eligible and what that means is they may be over income or for some other reason they are no longer eligible. So we have these two groups, but we have two challenges. The first is what can community groups do to help accessing Kids Care members retain coverage, because if access can't find you, you will be dropped. So this first hurdle is simply to get people to update their information, contact information, then the second challenge will be if somebody is not eligible for access, then they can move into the Affordable Care Act and get subsidized coverage that is very affordable, but it's not the same as access. So there's a lot of consumer education needed. So it's important well, I like to talk about children, because I'm working with Children's Action Alliance, children with health insurance do better in school, multiple studies, healthy kids do better in school, and kids that have health insurance are healthier, about 49% of our 1.7 4 million children in Arizona that are under the age of 19. Get their health insurance through access. That is a huge percentage. Also, about 36% of the 650,000. People that are at risk are children. Something to think about access with DTS. This is the kind of messaging they're using. And I'm going to ask Steve to send out the slides. So you can then click on any link that you needed to click on and see what's going on. But again, the first step is update your information so we can find you. That's the most important thing. Then, I just wanted to point out that people that are on access may not know that the EAS does eligibility so the envelope that will arrive in their mail, say if they're continuing to be eligible if they need to provide more information, or if they're no longer eligible, it comes from DDS. So we are trying to inform all of the community partners that are using the system to help people enroll, that you should be telling your clients to look for a DDS envelope, not an access envelope. Our messaging is that help is available. And if you want to connect with a sister, and I'm going to define these terms in a minute, you can call cover Arizona, it's a broad coalition. And we have people all over the states that are trained to can help with both the Affordable Care Act as well as SNAP TANF and access. They are bilingual at no cost. And you can see the information, just to make the point that people that are just a little bit over the access income level can actually qualify for a no monthly charge. Plan from the Affordable Care Act. Or most people that actually shopping it can get a plan for $10 or less a month. That's not all people. But it's most when we think about where are the hotspots. This analysis was done by vitalist Health Foundation. And on the left, you see the obvious where are the greatest number of people? What's a little bit different, because if you look over on the right, you will see communities with the highest percentage of people on access and that risk in the state now Oatman, its population is under 158% of the people that call it home, receive their health care through the access program. A lot of these on the right are rural, which ties into your ACP programs. Many of them are tribal. So I'm glad that tribal liaison for DDS is with us today. We also again, there's a link here when you get the slides if you want to figure out where some of these locations are. And these are resources. Access has a whole toolkit for getting the message out, whether it be at your library or at your school, or any other kind of organization. Children's Action Alliance also has a toolkit with memes in multiple languages. Again, the cover Arizona information, what consumer can call to one one to get connected to cover Arizona but if you dial the 800 number, you have one fewer person to speak to. You get connected to the trained person quickly and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Does have lots of information. And about three weeks ago, the Arizona Republic did a really good article with facts about what this is all about. So these are resources. So my question really is, is where can you find potential partners for digital access with the kind of assistance that I'm more familiar with. So definition of terms. Healthy Arizona plus, or some people call it here is the online portable portal, excuse me, that access has and you can sign up for Kids Care, snap, and TANF. On that system. We use the term Health Care application of sister but it is shortened to simply say, a sister or not haha, but just Hga. The idea that these people are trained to help with health applications for government benefits and programs. If you go to wildfire, which is wildfire, Arizona, they have snap grantees, these are grantees d s gets the funds, they distribute on to wildfire and they have many partners all over the state. And these grantees have people that help people focused on SNAP, but also a sense it's the same portal for access and kids care. And the largest number of these will be found at community action agencies and community health centers. Now some assisters are trained to use healthcare.gov call it Obamacare marketplace, whatever you call it. That most of those that are trained both for access and healthcare.gov are found in community health centers. Now there's the official term of health insurance navigator. The only people that can say they are a health insurance navigator must be affiliated with a CMS navigator grantee. And the Arizona alliance for community health centers. My former employer, I ran that program until I retired. ACA HC is the only navigator entity in Arizona. So they have many sub grantees. And these people are also trained to use healthy Arizona plus, as well as healthcare.gov. The bottom line, whether you're just saying navigator, or a sister or whatever, they all work with low income families across Arizona. Here you can use that link when you get the slides that will take you to the Arizona alliance for community health centers and you can find where federally qualified health centers sites are there are 23 organizations, but they have over 150 sites across Arizona, the Arizona Center for Rural Health, which is housed at U of A they have a link. And you can find where the critical access hospitals with these are basically very small hospitals and rural areas and where the Indian Health Service locations are. Some but not all of these critical access hospitals and IHS locations can also help people with renewing for access and snap so on and so forth. Wildfire has this map that tells you where their SNAP enrollment and outreach sites are. Arizona food banks have also a means of finding food pantries, we only have about five or six major food banks in Arizona. But we have like 1200 distribution sites. And it's these distribution sites, the pantries that have a lot of face to face contact with low income people in rural areas. And also you have a center for rural health created a map that shows where the IES maintains offices in the state. So these are resources when you are thinking about who else are some of the community partners that might be able to help you advance your goals. Now, let's just stop here and see how I can help you where what questions you have. We can talk about how you might interface with this other community of navigators and assisters that used digital means. Or we can talk more specifically about this on winding. So thank you, Steve. And there's a few people out On the call that I've already connected with, thank you. I'm here to help you.
Great. That was really awesome. And it's exactly what I think we needed to hear today. So, really appreciate it. So questions, comments for Alan?
Oh, come on. I know you have questions.
Okay, I see a question in the chat. And that is that, are these two, do these two groups overlap? And I think that one of our people from CES might better be able to answer that, then, then I can answer it. It was described to me when I spoke to access is that they are intended to be exclusive groups and not overlap. But I don't know, factually, if there is a segment that overlaps. Can anybody from DTS help us?
I don't think I think Dawn may have dropped off. Okay. Um, because she was having some computer problems. And April had to go.
Okay. But I think the answer for you, Steve, and give it to you, Steve, and you can put it out. Okay.
Okay. So Allen, do you want to stop sharing for a minute, please?
Here, I'm happy to stop sharing. Everybody tells me I talked too much anyway. So
no, you did not. You did?
I think they're not sure do it.
We're still seeing your screen.
Okay. And I hit stop sharing. erin, I
have a next step serving question for you. This is Erin from the State Library. We've been emailing back and forth a lot about that PSA that we'd like to put out to help get this word out. I was just wondering if the final version of the flyer got finalized. Today.
They are working on the final version of children's actual lines today of the consumer brochure. Okay, the wording that I have sent, you probably won't change, they're working the communication scheme is making it look pretty. Okay. Okay, the facts that I have provided our right out of accesses materials. Step one, update your information. And step two, is expanded a little bit beyond what access has, but they do use cover Arizona as the referral. So you can start working.
I'm just waiting for the PDF so that the libraries have a principal, but I appreciate that update. Thank you,
hopefully tomorrow.
Okay, no problem. Thank you. No,
yeah, this is Cindy Hogan. Yeah, I know, it's important to get the word out. And as was said in the in the chat, it's that's a lot of information. That's a lot of information for us, nevermind the people that are going to be getting this and trying to negotiate all these changes and paperwork and processes. And my concern with ACP is that we we're putting out the word that it's available, but we still need a lot of work on how we're going to get people signed up. It's really for for it's really a I've done the sign up. It's a it's a hand holding process versus just run along and do it yourself kind of thing. So we really need to a strategic plan about that beyond announcing announcing that this is something that's available if they're interested.
Cindy, thank you for saying that. Because at the front end of the Affordable Care Act, it was announced, but the process of how so it has taken years to kind of institutionalize that by whatever name you call. So my point is, is that what the Alana was saying earlier, trusted spokespersons, you know, that is so important. And is is it Ilana or Ilana? I can't quite see the screen. Because Elena, Elena, okay, Elena, but thank you. From my own 12 years of experience, I will validate your findings. I never had the data, but I can validate trusted people. People use handhelds and if you are trying to use systems that are not handheld friendly. It's just so difficult, but I would, I would to Cindy and what she is working on Gretchen as well as the CPLC lady There are certain groups in the state that have the health application assisters everywhere that might be very well positioned now. CPLC is now has an ownership relationship with the to Health Foundation, Keo health, and I used to be the CEO there, and they have a whole cohort of sisters. And they would be the first place to be to start talking to see, because they already have regular office hours. And in summertime, probably as well as San Luis and some other locations. I'm in the rural areas. But there are other organizations similar to that. So what I would suggest is Steve, I would be more than happy if there's a small subgroup that wants to discuss further putting together a meeting with some of these key players in different parts of the state to have a discussion, because some of them may not even know what ACP is. I thought it was a test I had to take to get in to college, but I think that was a CT. But
the other thing that's needed as it will be training for it, because the assisters. And it's interesting, I remember when ACA broke, and I that was the first time I ever heard the word navigator. So when I joined this, this movement, and her navigator, it made perfect sense to me. And but we need, like I say we have lots of people producing fliers, we don't have much, we don't have the training on that same level and the training for at least a couple people in each organization. I've been saying that since this thing broke that we really need that. It's not just trust, it's the skill of walking through. It's a complicated process, and you have to get things right.
If whoever needs to take the lead on that aspect. If Steve knows you, and I'm just getting acquainted with you, Steve, shoot me a list of three or four people that need to be connected on
that's, that's already in the works. Okay,
so I can, I will personally set up opportunities for them to connect with some of the individuals that will have influence over the largest number of assisters. Because you're looking for pilot projects, in some cases, as well as regular implementation.
So Allen, who, you know, Maurisio, who you also know, actually directed me to you are have kind of stepped up to take a lead in us moving ahead in bringing folks together and trying to figure out what's the next step in this process? And again, I think we had already begun to identify a handful of people to start with, obviously, you and Dawn and a few other folks that are certainly CPLC. And you know, other folks, particularly as Gretchen still here she got there you are Gretchen. So we're at Gretchen, if I can just move on for just a second. How does this fit with, you know, what your interests are? And how do you see that this might dovetail with the other groups in that discussion?
I think it definitely dovetails you know, I love the idea of making sure that if we're going to make contact with someone, that we're making the most of it and giving them all the information they need. So, you know, we'd be happy to figure out how to share that too.
If I'm not mistaken, at least I know, Lupe, what do you guys are planning to do? What happened doing? Is his getting navigators trained. And we, you know, we have been in touch with Ltle Ishida with the FCC, and he is very interested in coming to Arizona, he's very interested in providing navigator training, don't know what that looks like yet. It probably isn't just one time, it might be multiple times. It might be online and might be in person. We don't know that. And so he's going to be a part of the quarter that that core group to begin to map this out, I think to pick up on what Cindy has been talking about, is that we need to be able to if we're going to Alan, to connect with some of your, quote, navigators of how do we get them trained in this piece of the puzzle. And so I think that, because again, we don't want to just put the information out there, but who's going to actually help them walk through getting signed up. And I think that has always been a weakness of ACP in the past. And so again, we have a lot of key people, Elena's group, obviously, and a number of others. So that's kind of where we're planning to go Alan, and Mauricio and Aaron out Have you want to add anything more to that?
Not much has changed as far as the conversation since the end of last week. But the the flyer that I referenced with the plan was to put it in front of the library staff in the state so that if their patrons come to them with questions, they have something and they're not scrambling. So this wasn't to go out to, you know, a huge, wide group or anything like that. So I apologize, I didn't give that context. But from the FCC, Mahler person perspective, I am waiting to hear back yet as to whether or not the Experience Center at ASU/DEI is able to have their contact information on the flyers from the FCC, as well as the Connect, Arizona digital navigators, that is a project of the State Library. But to the point that everyone is making that still a finite number of people that would potentially have to field calls from those, you know, many, many, many people in the state who might be reaching out. So it's a very valid point. And to help with that, sorry, reading, while talking is never a good idea, too much going on in the chat. To that point, the the trainings that the FCC has offered us both in person and potentially virtual will go, hopefully go a ways to educate library staff and other people across the state as to how to navigate through the ACP signup process.
I just wanted to jump in there. And one thing is, I was not aware of the program interface that Dawn was speaking about. It sounds like, once that's tested, and we know that it's working, that could simplify the whole ACP sign up, because it sounds like it'll be one place, and you get the results from multiple things. And that may or may not become the primary gateway for you. So I am going to reach out to Dawn, so I can get a little bit more, I need to go a little bit behind the curtain. To understand a little bit more about what that is. The other thing is the individuals that do use healthy Arizona, are very good about figuring out how to use systems. Because if you can use healthy Arizona for multiple programs, or if you can use healthcare.gov you can adapt to other programs, because you're a digital navigator even though that's not your title.
If I remember correctly, that the FCC supposedly is trying to make this process easier, just to see if that will actually happen. But I don't know Ilana, or Cindy, if you guys know anything more about I thought that.
Well, it sounds to me, like what Dawn was talking about is and unfortunately, she's not on the call. But you know, the federal government does have a gigantic database of people who can get accepted very quickly through Medicaid and snap. It sounds to me like what Dawn was talking about is a very similar database that at least, or databases that can talk to each other, so that if you already have snap, you can very easily get become eligible or be made eligible for these other I think she mentioned access and TANF. But ACP sounds like it might be in there as well. So that to me, is what she was talking about, which would be great. If anybody on the call, no, it was something different. Let me know. But that's what it sounded like to me.
No, that's what it sounded like to me to Ilana. And I think that would be something great. Because as Alan mentioned, if you use healthy Arizona, it's crazy for like four different government programs. Why not add one more as a cmp? Exactly. And I think one of the biggest challenges that she also mentioned is getting verification from the schools for some reason, that's a big hurdle. I don't know if something can be done. I know that the schools participate in this call from time to time and I don't know what they can do to simplify that process. Because all of the title one schools should be able to qualify automatically.
So I can go into a whole half hour research the schools and what the situation is with the schools. So yeah, if you don't have to get your eligibility through the schools, it's better because it is it is 50 times harder to try to get a few schools because of the requirements. We've talked To the FCC about this, we've tried it, we've created templated letters that could be used by school districts, we have tried a number of different things. And nothing has worked at this point. So I would argue that if you don't have to get if you don't have to get your eligibility through your title, one status, your free and reduced lunch status, don't use the other passageways if possible.
So I mean, Mauricio, even the folks with the Department of Education, have difficulty getting information from local school districts. So it looks like
Paul has a bunch of questions. So
I have a couple of questions. Yes. And I think I'm gonna do the round robin, I've got at least three questions for at least three different people. So a lot of when you were talking about the the schools is a because it's been, it's not being put in the appropriate format for for them to use. Is that the crux of the problem?
Yeah, the crux of the problem is that every school, okay, and you've got X number of schools within a district, they have their own letterhead with their own information on the letterhead, simple stuff, the address, the phone number, the child's name, the grade, it's all very specific to the school, but then you got to fill in the blanks. And there's nobody at the administration level, at the schools go figure who can do this. So even when we tried sending a flyer home with the navigator phone number on it, so that parents could call the navigators, the schools were getting the phone calls, and threw up their hands and said, you know, we're not doing this anymore. And this was just in one district that we tried.
And what's you're talking about? There's nothing more than data matching and a very efficient mail merge with the right template. Right. Okay. So that's your question that I had. Aaron, you're talking about the the flyers that you're getting from the FCC, when I know they're coming in different languages, are there specific languages that you're seeing for different areas, because that information might be very helpful for, in general, just average, knowing that, hey, this area over here is looking for XYZ language. But over here, that language has not been asked for that sort of information. If you if you've got that by Library, that would probably help the the overall team here in terms of knowing that, hey, for this area over here, we need it in. I don't know pick whatever language you want. There's a myriad of them, except for Australia, and it doesn't appear. So you just pick you just pick a language, right. But I think that would help if we were able to know that.
So I wish I would know that too, unfortunately, when we send out our pre survey to and we have a list of county librarians and library directors, and these are very busy people who can't always, you know, respond to things, I only got about half a dozen responses for specific needs. And none of them wanted anything other than English and Spanish, except for one of the state agency departments, the Talking Book Library, they wanted large print and Braille, which makes perfect sense because their goal is to serve low vision. So unfortunately, I don't have any more information than that. And basically, the approach that I took knowing the demographics, generally, if Arizona was to send English and Spanish to everybody. Yeah, so unfortunately, I can't give you much more than that. It will be interesting, though, you know, once they have it, we might hear back, oh, it would be great. If we had x, you know, and then we can we can work on that. One really great thing is now, of course, not on a large scale with any library necessarily be able to do this, but there are printable PDFs, right on the FCCs toolkit, where you can download it and print it as necessary, if you need it, you know, and so if for a library, for example, if we ended up with a customer who identified a unique situation, we wouldn't be able to potentially solve the need. But you know, it's it's going to the website, printing it off having the funds and the capabilities to print, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm sorry, I can't give you more than that right now.
No, no, that's that's, that's good. All the same. And thank you. And then Alan, I put a few questions in the chat. But as you mentioned, with the number of people who are going to be getting dropped and you've highlighted the hotspots, the hotspots are will vary city based, are you able to get any more granular? That Like for instance, census tract will census block that still retains anonymity, but shows where are the areas of need? I'm just wondering Is that Is that possible?
Maybe maybe not. So let me back into your the anthropol. When we were doing maps to find high level of need for people to enroll and access or Affordable Care Act, but a low number of assisters. Again, vitalist was able to put together those maps. But where it kind of falls apart, this census blocks become pretty big geographic areas, out in the rural areas, we could really pinpoint in the cities that you know, west of this street, and, and south of this street is really an area of need. But it's hard to do that in the rural areas. And the thing is, is that there are so many layers to this access, the EES has, of course, setting communication to every single person. And they're doing it in batches over several months. Moreover, Mauricio can speak to this, but of all of the access health plans, their private insurance companies, they are reaching out to every one of their members. So access, and the health plans can go one on one to reach you know, the individuals. We're trying we're kind of more of everywhere, everything all at once trying to
borrow or watch a movie.
We're trying to, you know, connect with the community groups, because it goes back to trust. Who do people trust? Because in Arizona, huge percentage of people, I don't know exactly what it is, have mixed immigration status homes. So the fear factor comes in about who do you, you know, who do you work with? Not loop based organization has 50 years of history, and as a trusted partner, but that they're not the only trusted partners and communities? So the question is, where is the trusted partner in some of these communities that are so hard to reach? The other thing is, is that even though the numbers are not great, we have many subpopulations of Asians, I, we used to work with people from the Marshall Islands, because they had different rules than anybody else on earth, when it came to federal governments, because the treaties they have, but they also speak a different language. So community partners and trust, and I know I'm begging the question, but we won't be able to go in this timeframe, deeper data. And we also don't have the resources to target it. We're doing some digital ads. But that's, again, a broader targeting, based on demographics, but not a tightly targeted, I don't know,
I think you're sharing a common common challenge that we've seen with any of the programs that people are trying to roll out that people are trying to support or trying to activate people on. It does, it does roll back to trust them people, you know, otherwise, I mean, the people, the populations that we're talking about, unfortunately, have been the target of every unscrupulous, you know, scam and activity out there for so many years. That trust is the is the gateway through. So you're highlighting the same problems that I think everyone else has seen. So I'm
sorry to interrupt, but I have to take my son to the airport, I have to leave in about five minutes. So he will not be happy if he misses his plane. So So just quickly, we're gonna we are going to do a follow up meeting with some key folks. And it seems to me that one of the things we need to start to do is to just map out so where's the potential partners? Where's the potential navigators? What kind of information do people need that we can provide? And the other piece that comes up over and over again, there's navigator training. And we have people here in Arizona, and we have access to live and folks with the FCC. And so those to me, those were some of the key not not everything by stretch of the imagination, but some of the key things that for me seem to evolve. So any other questions or comments before we have for today? Well, Alan, you did just what I expected you to do. It's
nice to know what happens once in a while.
So I think there's great opportunity. And again, Gretchen I'm glad you really joined us and I obviously got you and the other organizations and of course Lupe and I I'll fit right into this whole key discussion here. So I think we're hopefully headed down the right track ought to do is figure out how to pull this all together.
I like to say I'm really jealous of Erin's co worker, their co worker,
new coworker, he just joined our family on Friday. This carries he's a mediator golden doodle. And he I moved my office to his pen today so that you know, we could get to know each other.
Erin, you are the service person for the dog.
Very true. Very true. I'll get him signed up for ACP. Don't worry.
Okay, everybody, sorry, but I got to go. Good meeting. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Cheers.
