Meetings for the Behavioral Health Coordinating Council [BHCC] — a newly independent body that convenes area health and social service experts with government officials to discuss community behavioral health efforts in McLean County — are going private for the first time in the group’s history. Members say transparency is still a top priority, despite the shift.
When the BHCC started in 2016 as an ad hoc committee to the county board, it was required to follow the Open Meetings Act [OMA]. At that time, the group also advised the county on spending for a portion of the Mental Health and Public Safety Fund, which combines shared sales tax dollars from the City of Bloomington and Town of Normal.
Recent restructuring changed all that. Not only is the BHCC now independent of the government — meaning it’s no longer subject to OMA — but it no longer advises the county on the shared sales tax fund. Instead, the newly formed Mental Health and Public Safety Fund Advisory Council [FAC] deals with finances.
The way BHCC member Stephanie Barisch puts it, privacy allows members to overcome the “fear of conflict” that persisted when the public and media were around to perceive — and potentially misconstrue — conversations amongst providers.
“It gives you the ability to air out different ideas or challenge misconceptions or even look at, you know, compromises or ways that things could be done differently, and I think under OMA a lot of that just wasn't possible,” said Barisch, the director of therapeutic services for the Center for Youth and Family Solutions and the BHCC representative on FAC.
She added that conflict aversion caused meetings to become “unfruitful and routine," characteristics she thinks new meetings will be void of.
Normal Town Council member Kevin McCarthy serves on the BHCC and the FAC. He said he’s already noticed a difference in group interactions based on the few private meetings BHCC has held.
Since the providers are not public officials or elected into their roles, McCarthy said it makes sense for them to have some freedom from public scrutiny, particularly with the intensity of OMA.
“They're not elected officials and and we need them to do their professional thing and give us professional advice,” he said. “All the money decisions are all still subject to public and those of us elected officials that are involved in that process are subject to media and all the things that people really want to know about.”
Results of private conversations are also going to be made public. Director of Behavioral Health Coordination Marita Landreth attends both the BHCC and the FAC meetings. She said there are plans to make a BHCC website to share meeting minutes and other public updates.
Landreth said she imagines there will be future meetings will be dedicated to getting community feedback, as well.
“There will organically be opportunities to involve the public more and to communicate more about what is going on,” she said. “It just looks a little bit different than it has looked like.”
Barisch said providers are already having conversations about inviting people with lived experience with either mental health or substance use to join the conversations members are having.
McLean County Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Foley — who acts as the clerk for BHCC now that it’s independent — acknowledged that BHCC needs to be held accountable. She pointed out that the BHCC is in charge of revising the community’s Mental Health Action Plan and determining annual community behavioral health priorities, which are meant to help the FAC make its funding recommendations.
“We're trying to harmonize those two — the transparency that's required because we are dealing with public taxpayer dollars, but also trying to make sure we do it right and keep that free-flowing conversation going to maximize this wonderful resource that we have,” she said.
The BHCC and FAC are still trying to “get our I's dotted and our T's crossed,” Landreth added, which doesn’t always need to happen on a public stage. She said members are striving to make it so “the group is… conducted in a way that is sustainable and and gets results."
