FLORIDA COORDINATING COUNCIL
FOR THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING
Virtual Quarterly Meeting
Thursday, February 11, 2021
9:00 a.m. ‑ 5:00 p.m.  

Remote CART Captioning provided by
Lisa B. Johnston, RMR, CRR, CRC
www.providingcart.com 

** This is a rough‑draft text file that was produced by a live CART Captioner (Communication Access Realtime Translation) to ensure effective communication for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.  This file is not a certified, verbatim record, and it should not be quoted as such. ** 

* * * * *

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hi, my name is Debbe Hagner, welcome to the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing quarterly meeting.  Today is February 11th, it is 9:00 a.m. in the morning, and I would like to invite all of us to do a roll call. 

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has joined the phone call.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  For those of us who are present on the Zoom first and then we will do a roll call that are on the chat.
Okay.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Hi, good morning, my name is Glenna Ashton and I am representing the Florida Association of the Deaf.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I'm from Boca Raton.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Tiffany, go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Hi, my name is Tiffany, it's Tiffany, and I am the coordinator for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

[Background noise].  

>> I can't hear anyone.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Mary, I'm sending you a text, a chat, on how to sign in, but you need to sign in to the Open Voice for the sound.  I just sent you a chat response.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm the ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We got you, sorry.  
[Talking over one another]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  I'm the coordinator for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing here in Tallahassee, I work with the Department of Health.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cecil?  Cecil?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Good morning to afternoon, I hope you're all alive and breathing well during this time of COVID in this heavily‑medicaled environment.
I represent the Florida Department of Education and that's who I am.  And I am representing VR.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We have Chris Littlewood?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Good morning, my name is Chris Littlewood, I'm the ALDA representative for the Association of Late‑Deafened Adults, I live in Seminole, Florida, and work for St. Petersburg College.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  All right.  We have one guest, Eloise, do you want to introduce yourself?  Eloise?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise, look at the... anyways, Eloise is deaf and she is a representative of HLAA Florida in Sun City Center.  Welcome!
Okay.  So now I'm going to switch over to those who are on the phone that are not on the Zoom.
Mary, go ahead, Mary.  

[Pause].  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Mary is still connecting.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Mary, you have to use the ‑‑ you have to call the phone number that's on the paper.

[Echo].  

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference.  

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  Cecil and Glenna need to mute their Zoom, please.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna, turn off the sound.

[Echo].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna!  Turn off the sound to the Zoom.

[Echo].  

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  And Cecil as well.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cecil?  Cecil, turn off your sound on Zoom.

[Echo].  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I muted myself.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, hold on a second, I'm texting somebody.  

[Pause].  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  I keep getting disconnected from my phone and there's no sound on in the Zoom, so what do I do?
I don't know if all of this technology is working with my computer.  I don't know what the problem is.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  All the people on the Zoom is muted, no sound.  So the only way you can hear is through the phone, you have to call the conference number and use it through the phone and not use the sound through the Zoom so it will get picked up for Lisa, the CART Provider.  Okay?
All right.  Now we are back to those who are on the chat, on the phone.  We have Cindy, Cindy Simon, do you want to introduce yourself?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Good morning, everyone, this is Cindy Simon, I represent audiology and I am on here from South Florida.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Welcome.  

>> OPERATOR:  Mary has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Do we have anyone else on the phone?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Who joined?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary, do you want to introduce yourself?  

>> MARY HODGES:  Good morning, this is Mary Hodges with the Department of Elder Affairs.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Let's see who else is on... anybody else?
I know Eloise is on the phone now.  Eloise?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Anybody else on the phone that has not called ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Eloise Schwarz has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Eloise, do you want to introduce yourself?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yes, good morning, my name is Eloise Schwarz, I'm with the HLAA Sun City Center chapter here in Sun City.
I am here a year and a half in Florida and I represent ‑‑ I'm coming to the meeting representing the 14 chapters of the HLAA chapters here in Florida.  Thank you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Great.  Thank you.  Anybody else on the phone?  On the chat?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Before I start the business, I want to thank the interpreters.  We have Ryan, for our interpreters, Donna, and April.
We also have our wonderful CART Provider, Lisa.
And we have a tech support, the other Lisa ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Anyone else did I miss?
Karen Goldberg, do you want to introduce yourself?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen Goldberg?  Do you want to introduce yourself?
You have to call on the phone 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I can't hear anything.
Oh, okay, I need a minute.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hold on, Cindy, I will call you in a minute.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen Goldberg?  It's on the paper, it's on the paper, the conference call number.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay, I'm on it.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Cindy, do you have your hand up?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I do, I have a little request for Tiffany.  If it's possible, maybe you can send an e‑mail to go automatically the morning of.  I could not click from loading a Word document with the agenda to get in and I had a little problem typing in the address.
So if we could get ‑‑ and I didn't have an address on the e‑mail, so I went to the Zoom chat.
So, if we could get a little e‑mail morning of with the, um, CART address, the phone number, so it's right there for us?  That would be wonderful!  And I know I would greatly appreciate it, as well as instructions how to mute and unmute the lines so we don't have reverberation or extraneous noise disturbing anybody 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany, go ahead. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, I can do that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  And the Zoom information.
Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, I can do that for you.  I tried to make ‑‑ did you guys ‑‑ can I just check, did you guys get the packet of papers that I just sent which has all that on it so you guys wouldn't have to toggle between the computer screen and the information you needed, the resources?  Did y'all get the packet of resources?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, Karen Goldberg, can you introduce yourself, please?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen?  Karen Goldberg?  Introduce yourself.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen Goldberg?  Introduce yourself.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen!  We're talking to you!  Karen!  Just go ahead and sign, the interpreters will voice for you.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay... I'm going to do it this way....

[Debbe texting Karen].

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen... sign... your... name. 

>> OPERATOR:  Karen Goldberg has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Go ahead, Karen, introduce yourself, please.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Hi.  This is Karen Goldberg, I am a representative of HLAA.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Okay.  Now, we have some housekeeping.  I don't need to explain where the fire extinguisher is because you all are in your own homes.  You all know where the bathroom is, I don't need to explain it's down the hall within your own environment, so I don't need to go into that detail.
Um... so please wait until I call your name to speak so that we can have that record on the ‑‑ on the chat for the CART.
Now we will go into the minutes.  We need the approval for the minutes.
So has everybody had a chance to read the minutes?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Are there any connections that need to be made?

[No response].
 
>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Can I have someone make a motion to ‑‑ we will ask Tiffany how to mute and unmute the conference line, please?  Thank you.  Tiffany?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes.  How to unmute the conference line?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  It was supposed to be #9.  I also sent that, those directions in the packet, but I will ‑‑ it should be #9.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  May I please have someone accept the minutes, please?  Anybody want to make a motion?  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I make a motion to accept.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, Karen.  You make a motion.  Karen, you make a motion to accept the minutes.  Would anybody like to second?  Glenna, okay, Glenna seconds the motion.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yes, I would make a motion with no correction to accept the minutes.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, great.  Thank you.
All right.  Now we ‑‑ as we go to the next item, we will start with Tiffany giving her action items report, please.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Good morning, council members!  How are you this morning?
Okay.  I'd like to present the action items from the last conference on the 12th of November.
One of them was to send Gina Halliburton a list of interpreters that is shared to members who call FCCDHH.  And that action item was sent on November 12th during the meeting.
The second one was for the Council requested that the FAD, F‑A‑D, website which listed interpreter agencies was not accurate 

>> OPERATOR:  Interpreter Donna has left the conference.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  ‑‑ to remove it from the list of interpreter resources for the people who call FCCDHH.  And that was completed, number 12, as well, during the meeting.
The third one was to request a copy of the PowerPoint that was given during the presentation by Dr. Quiones so we can use it for the information for the biennial report, the technical information that would be very useful.
He has ‑‑ I reached out to him and due to COVID, everybody is sort of everywhere.  But he is supposed to provide that to me as soon as he can get ahold of all of that.  Because he has to get it from someone else, so it's a bit of work there.
Number four was to update the webmaster access on the FCCDHH home page and remove former council members' access.  I think that was left to Chris Littlewood, so I need to ‑‑ if that has been done, I'm not sure, but we can ask Chris Littlewood.  He had to keep coming in and out because, remember, there was a power outage all over during that meeting, so he might not have been able to get to that yet.
But we can check and see if that has been done.
Because I believe the other webmaster person was Darlene and we need to take her off of there now that she's no longer on the Council.
Number five was to send the biennial report suggestions from the Chair and Vice Chair to council members to get input for the biennial report draft agenda.  That was sent on January 25th to all the council members.
We have had submissions since then.  Gina Halliburton had sent one last night and there's been an update to one from Glenna Ashton as well.  Unfortunately, those could not be included, not all of them could be included in the packet that was sent, but because it just recently came in.
So that will be on your e‑mail that came in and that was sent on the 25th and then more this morning.
Number six, make a list of all hearing aid companies that ‑‑ this is to assist with finding providers who have programs to help with mask programs and enhanced communication with masks.  And I think that was going to be provided by Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  So ‑‑ 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  And we can see how that is going.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  So I can tell you that every company has a suggestion and I believe Siemens and the app has a place you can click, insignia I should say can go over. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  Anyone can go to a hearing aid manufacturer and everyone has this now so you can use this with every hearing aid.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay, wonderful, that's good news.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cindy ‑‑ remember, Cindy ‑‑ 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Number ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We didn't call your name, so please wait until I call you, please.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm sorry, I was just answering her. 

[Talking over one another].

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We need to... 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay. 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Number seven was to remind council members to arrive to the quarterly council meeting to address any connection difficulties prior to the start time of the meeting; begin trying to arrive at 8:30 for the 9:00 o'clock meeting and that reminder was sent out Friday, January 5th, as long as instructions for accessing the Zoom platform.
Okay.  Number eight was check with the Department of Health Information Technology Department to find out ‑‑ other allowable portals for the FCCDHH meeting.
And based on an e‑mail from DOH Information Technology, he said that neither Whereby nor Zoom is a DOH standard for video conferencing for webinars.
Therefore, since this is part of the interpreter service and not necessarily part of DOH hosting an online meeting, Zoom is allowable and so we have Zoom, so that's fine.
Even though it's not, you know, based ‑‑ it's not a DOH‑allowable one for us to run a meeting, it's okay if the interpreter does.
Contact Tyler James, DOH candidate for speaking, and Tyler will be here for the conference and will be presenting at this quarterly conference meeting, and I believe I saw him out there, I think, so he's already here.  
So that is the end of the action items at this time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, thank you, thank you, Tiffany.  All right.  Chris Littlewood, go ahead.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris speaking.  I just wanted to comment on the action item that was mentioned related to me removing previous council members from the website.
I don't have any access to the website.  I'm assuming you mean social media, the Facebook page.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes. 

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  And Debbe was kind enough to give me a friendly reminder or kick in the butt [chuckles] however you want to say it, and I took Darlene off of the administrative access.  And the only people that have administrative access now is Debbe and I.
But if you're talking about the web page access, that's something only DOH, I believe, you, Tiffany, are the only people that have access to that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, you're correct, Chris.  I was meaning the Facebook.  So I appreciate your taking care of that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Cecil, you have a question?  You have your hand up?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Could I get a little more information about DOH not accepting Zoom?  Um... you know, the Department of Education is also in the same boat, they do not allow the use of Zoom either.  We cannot use Zoom going forward.  But we can join another party's group that is using Zoom.
So what we have to do sometime is, you know, kind of unlock these internal roadblocks and, you know, sometimes we, you know, we can't start a Zoom meeting ourself, but we can join a third party's Zoom webinar or conference and that is allowable.
Just to let you know; FYI.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, thank you, Cecil.  All right.  Chris, you have your hand up?  Go ahead, Chris.  Go ahead, Chris.

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  [Signing; no interpreting].  
I'm just curious, why doesn't DOH allow the use of Zoom?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You're not on your phone, Chris.  Chris?  You need to be on your phone.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris.  Ryan voiced for me.  I've got several windows going for me and I've only got so much real estate to open everything, and it was just quicker to have the interpreter voice for me.
But I was just asking why DOH and the Department of Education is not allowed to use Zoom?  I would think, especially in the pandemic, that is really problematic for people that are trying to social distance.
Are they using WebEx or another web conferencing platform?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, Tiffany, go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I asked that question as well, because it seemed the one that most people were using was Zoom.
However, what it is is that Zoom is easily, um... uh... where someone can break in it.  And because we're responsible for HIPAA information and, um, the like and the kind of things we're discussing usually, it makes it very reliable that it can be crashed.  People can ‑‑ I don't know what the word is, where people can "crash the party," so to speak and be able to ‑‑ people were in some cases, not with us but with others, people were actually piping in information or things that were very inappropriate in the middle of meetings who were crashing the meetings.
And so it just, after careful, um, negotiation and discussions, it ended up to be safer that we use a platform that has a proven security safety rate.
And so we use Teams often.  And we have our own account.  And I believe there's something else that they use.  But what I was using was the Teams, because we have an account for that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  I know Mary has her hand up, but I want to go to the chat.  We have Cindy said that Zoom is not HIPAA, H‑I‑P‑P‑A, compliant.
There were also hacking issues.  And VSEE, V‑S‑E‑E, is HIPAA client.  And Karen said not accurate.
Okay, Mary, go ahead, Mary.  And then we'll go to Karen.  Mary, go ahead.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary, you have your hand up.

[Echo].
  
>> MARY HODGES:  Yes, this is Mary. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary, you should not use your voice on the Zoom.

[Echo].
  
>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary?  Mary?  Use the phone to call in the council call. 

>> MARY HODGES:  Thank you, yes.
I was just going to say that the Department of Elder Affairs as well does not allow staff to initiate Zoom.  We could participate, but we cannot initiate a Zoom either.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Thank you.
Okay.  Now, I notice John, you're on board.  Welcome.  John, would you like to quickly introduce yourself?  John?

[No response].
[Background noise].
  
>> DEBBE HAGNER:  John Jackson?

[Typing on keyboard].
[Background noise].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hello, John.
Cecil, you have your hand up.  Go ahead.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I also want to add that Zoom has a professional or business option, you do have to pay extra for that, it is an extra fee and it does have enhanced security features.
But I guess the State would just rather stick with Microsoft Teams and other options they're comfortable with.
I know that other private agencies use the advanced Zoom features and their security features.
But it's not the regular Zoom that we're using today that I'm talking about.  It's that regular Zoom account or package that I'm talking about that's not allowed.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary, could you lower your hand or do you have another question?  Mary?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Lisa Schaefermeyer ‑‑ 

>> MARY HODGES:  Yes, I do not have another question.  

>> OPERATOR:  Mary has left the conference. 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, Karen wants to say something quickly.  Go ahead, Karen.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  I just wanted to clarify.  Zoom, there is a Zoom package that is HIPAA compliant, it is very high up and I have one of those licenses.
There are other, um, platforms that are very useful.  I use Teams at work and my contract is with the State of Florida as well, so Teams is a very common one and does have a HIPAA‑compliant platform, which we also use for my work.
For my private practice, I use a HIPAA compliant Zoom and I use another medical one called Doxy.me, there are options on that.
But I think the State, because of the, um, the sensitivity of a lot of the information, they want to make sure that there is a, um, secure platform.
So Teams is very good, and I don't know if that's an option for us in the future.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Anybody else has any question?  Cecil?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Yeah, if you don't mind, I just wanted to follow‑up a little bit about Microsoft Teams.  There are some limitations to it.  It is not very friendly for use of interpreters.  And the reason for that is with the pictures and the squares that come up, the gallery, sometimes when new people join, the squares get shuffled, interpreters get bumped off.  So there are some limitations.
It's good, it's perfect for a very small‑member participants, but for a larger meeting, it's not very conducive.  There are some issues with that.
Sometimes Microsoft is not real friendly with consumers, too.  We've had some ‑‑ yeah, we've had some issues with that.  So we haven't had a lot of success.
We've kind of been struggling finding a platform that ticks all the boxes.
Zoom does, but they're not interested ‑‑ the Department or the State is not interested in paying for the extra package for Zoom for that security.
So I just want to let you know the pros and cons of these different platforms.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Lisa wants to remind you to please mute your phones, we keep hearing typing. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Anybody else has any questions?  Comments?
John, are you still on the phone?  John, can you hear us?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany, can you send John a text message, please?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  For the future meeting, I would like to see everybody's face, if you're on Zoom, just so that we know you're present.  Because it's real easy to just turn off your video and do something else.
So, thank you.
All right.  We still have time at 10:00 o'clock, we still have about a half hour to talk about committee updates.
Is there anything else?  Cindy, you have your hand up?  Go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I do.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Pound 9 does not work for muting or unmuting and neither does star 9 and I've been trying to mute my phones so no sounds will come through.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I will look it up.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Thank you. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Karen Goldberg?  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Hi, everyone.  I just wanted to make an announcement.  Is that okay to make the announcement now?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  [Nods head]. 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay.  I am going to be resigning my post on the Council after this meeting.  Really, I'm not technically on the Council anymore since my term ended in 2020, but I think that it's time for another person to step in as the HLAA rep.
And I just wanted to let everyone know how grateful I am for this experience.
I am so impressed to the Council and the commitment for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing individuals in the state of Florida.
I want you all to know that I will always be here supporting the Council in the background, but I think it's maybe time for me to step away.  And I just wanted to make that announcement.  Okay.  Thank you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna?  I see Glenna has her hand up.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Well, the problem is new appointments aren't made right away, so, you know, to have enough people on the Council, you know, Karen may need to stay on a little while until a new appointment is made.
You know, for example, I'm still staying on with FAD, representing FAD, because there hasn't been a new appointment made.
And so the applications have been sent in and the office says they have to, you know, sometimes do things over again.  So it can be quite lengthy and dragged out.
I don't know, Karen, if you don't mind staying on until ‑‑ in the interim until a new appointment is made?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Chris Littlewood, go ahead.  Chris Littlewood?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris.  First of all, Karen, thank you very much for your service, we appreciate you.  And also as a past chair, I know how difficult being the chairperson can be and you've also served in that regard, so I appreciate that as well, and I'm sure I speak for other council members.
I want to kind of, um, repeat, um, what Glenna was saying as far as they can see the position creates.
Last night when I was on the Council website, I noticed that every single member that is serving on the committee, their term has been expired since December of 2020 or before.
So we really don't have a valid Council, unless there are people that have been updated in appointments and it's just not been posted on our website yet.
But we do not have anybody that is in a current term.  And that's really problematic for our effectiveness.
I do not know if Governor DeSantis has appointed anyone since he became governor.  And I'm just kind of concerned about, you know, the sustainability of the Council when there's not being appointments made.
There's a lot of things I want to say on this issue, like the last couple meetings, we haven't had a DOH representative participate in the council meeting other than Tiffany.
So, I mean, anything that we say or share is not getting out there.  And I'm concerned about that on a regular basis.
And I'm sure Karen and others have considered that when they thought about whether they're continuing on the Council or not.
Both Cindy and I have been long‑term council members and it's because of our commitment to the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community.
I'm fortunate enough to work in a place that supports my time working on the Council when we have a quarterly meeting.
But I also put a significant amount of volunteer time in as well.
I would like to see the State pay that same respect back to me only in letting us know that our Council is valid and that they want us to continue.
And I'm ‑‑ I would like to know, you know, with the bylaws and the state laws related to the Florida Council, what it says about ‑‑ I know people continue on the Council when there's a vacancy and the appointment hasn't been made yet.
I've been serving for more than two years, past my term, my application is in there to continue, but it's not happening.
And, again, I'm concerned about that.
So I'm sure Karen has other things to say regarding what Glenna said and what I just said, but those are my thoughts.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Karen Goldberg?  Go ahead, Karen.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay, okay.  So there are a couple things I'd like to say about that.  One is, um... um... I will do whatever this Council needs.  So if I need to stay until a new appointment is made for another HLAA representative, I will absolutely do that.  I will do whatever to help this Council.
If in some ways I can help with writing letters to the Appointments Office to make sure that people have updated appointments, then I'm happy to do that too.  I'm very comfortable, and I know Glenna and several others on the Council are comfortable, you know, tapping on legislative doors and saying "hello!".
I don't know if I would be comfortable saying are you still supporting us and wanting us to stay a Council?  I would not want to give... um... them the opportunity to say this Council doesn't have a role.  I would really argue that the Council does have a role and we shouldn't be saying are we important enough?
I think we need to show that we're important enough.
And like I said, even if I step away from sitting at the table, I'm always going to be here to support this Council.  I just want to give someone else an opportunity.  And I want to be fair that I don't feel that I can give as much as I'd like to at this point, with my private practice and then my work that I'm doing, um.  And it's not fair.  I want to make sure that whoever is sitting at the table is ‑‑ has that availability.
And I know there are other members of HLAA who are huge advocates for hard of hearing and want to be sitting at this table.  And I want to give them that opportunity.
So, a couple points come up:  One is if we're serving past our time, what needs to happen?
Because I feel a little funny that I don't have a new application in for reappointment.  And, um, my term ended in December of 2020 and so I feel like... eh... am I here legit or not?  That's number one.
And number two, I want to be legit.  If there are interim appointments until they make new appointments, I'm fine with that.  I just want to make sure I'm legit.
That's a conversation that needs to be between the Department of Health and our Council and we really need to be asking.
When I first joined this Council, there was a lag time from my application until I got appointed.  But people had already said to me, I can't believe how quickly that happened.  And it was about four months.
So that was considered very quick.
And the reason was is that I was contacting the Appointments Office every week.  What's happening?  What's happening?  What's happening?  What's happening?  What's happening?  I think they probably got tired of me contacting and said to the Governor, God, it's been time, please appoint her so we don't have to get one more call from here!  [Laughs].
So, whatever it was, I'm happy to do whatever I can to support this Council.  I'm a huge advocate for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing individuals.

[Background noise].
  
>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  ‑‑ and deaf and hard‑of‑hearing kids.  Whatever I can do to support this Council is what I will do.
I don't know if there's anything else I need to say about that.
I will continue to do whatever to help this Council.  If I need to be sitting here until they appoint, you know, appoint somebody else, then I'll do that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Thank you, Karen.
All right, Tiffany?  First, can you hold for a minute and let Tiffany speak, please?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Thank you. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, Tiffany, go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Good morning, this is Tiffany.  I addressed this actually about maybe right before the last meeting with DOH regarding the continuation and plans for the Council.
They're not looking to close it or stop Council.
I think what has really happened and what they explained is that there is a lot of slow down due to COVID.
And because of that, it's not on the, um, the ‑‑ the ‑‑ the Governor's front list of activities to do, is to approve the, uh, the council appointments.
Now, keeping that in mind, I went ahead and contacted the Appointments Office to get some clarity on whether or not there's anything that we need to do to expedite this.
She explained to me, and I think I might have put it in the action items from last time, but she explained that because of COVID and because of the delay of approving people, everybody who is on there now, as long as they haven't requested to not be on the council, not just ours, every council, is allowed to maintain their position on the Council and they are legit as members of the Council, unless they request not to be.
On top of that, she reiterated that what she's having us do, and that's why I was having all of y'all get your applications in and prepared, was because ‑‑ the lady who works with our Council specifically, is to make sure that everything is completely in order and literally waiting in a folder so that the minute that the Governor has that few minutes to concentrate on approving council appointments, it's already there, set, and ready to go, which is why I was pushing it so much with you guys before this.
And so that he can just grab it, approve them all, and go.
So they're all just kind of waiting in limbo, as are we, waiting in limbo to find out.
However, as far as your legitimacy on the Council, that is continuing, based on the Appointments Office clarification, it is continuing until you decide to get off or the Council Administrative Offices up there in the Appointments Office have changed anything.
So you're still on; yeah.  And it ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any questions ‑‑ 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  You guys are still a viable Council. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris, go ahead, Chris.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Okay, this is Chris speaking.  Tiffany, I appreciate your comments and, um, everything Karen said as well.
I'm not trying to, um, you know, not show respect for the Governor, the Governor's office, or the Department of Health in any way.  I appreciate everything they do.
And I know that they, in theory, support the Council.
My concern is one of the comments that you made was about the slow down because of COVID.  To me, that... I would be remiss if I did not mention that we, to my knowledge, have not had a new council appointment for more than a couple of years.  COVID has only been around for one year.
So that's not really a strong factor for the Council.
And I realize we are not the only council that the state of Florida uses.  There are many, many councils.
I don't know how Governor DeSantis is handling appointments or where the disconnect is.  I'm just saying for us to be a valid council, we have to have some valid council members.
If I'm not mistaken, by state law.
And that is something that continues to concern me and for people to continue on the Council, you know, the Association of Late‑Deafened Adults is a very small organization in the state of Florida which is one of the reasons why I've continued as a long‑term member and not had the luxury that Karen has of passing it over to other HLAA members, where HLAA is a much larger organization in the state of Florida.
But there should be a smoother transition.
And I would like us to get some kind of update from the Appointments Office or the Governor's Office on what needs to happen with that.
And maybe one of the things we can do is invite them to talk to us and find out what we can do that we're not already doing.
Because whatever needs to happen is not working just standing by itself.
And I can understand what you're saying, Tiffany, that the Governor just needs to sign off on council members and move on to other of the many issues that he has to deal with as governor.
But, again, to my knowledge, this is the third year where we haven't had new appointments and that continues to concern me.
With my many years working with the council and on the council, this is something that is becoming more and more problematic.
Like Karen said, she got appointed in a matter of about four months and that's terrific.  That's, um, probably acceptable that's gonna happen.
But the last appointments happened where people's term ended with 2020 and now we're in 2021 now.
And, you know, yes, we are in a pandemic, but we need to ‑‑ I don't think COVID‑19 is gonna go away anytime soon, so we have to figure out a way to continue to do business properly, even with the pandemic, if you will.
So off my soapbox, I guess.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Thank you, Chris.
I was wondering, doesn't the Governor have an assistant?  Can the assistant accept all the appointments?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  [Shakes head]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I didn't quite hear what you said, say it again, please.
Oh, wait a minute, she'll show me.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I said is it possible that we can have the Lieutenant Governor or someone, assistant to the Governor, to accept these appointments?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Oh, I see.  Um... unfortunately, the way they run it down there is pretty much the way they run it.
If it's a governor's appointment, they have to have the governor sign off on it.
And I do understand what you mean, Chris, because I would understand that frustration very much so!
I want to also point out that yes, in 2020 ‑‑ we have been waiting for many years, I guess, to get the appointments done.  But you have to keep in mind that DeSantis wasn't here when your first set of appointment requests were sent in.  And then when it changed to ‑‑ from Rick Scott to DeSantis, they had you guys have to reput in everything.  And then we had to learn about that.
Because remember it was at first where they said well, no, it won't just be carried over, you have to reapply, and so everybody then had to reapply.
And so the time, um, the timeframe of waiting in you guys' mind should start from DeSantis taking over.
And then, of course, COVID jumped in right after DeSantis took over.
So, yes, it's been a long wait.  But take into consideration all of that.
But yes, I am sorry, it's been a long wait; you are correct, there has been a long wait.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Karen?  Go ahead, Karen.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I guess my question is, um, shouldn't we, um, ensure that everyone that is on the Council is up‑to‑date on all of the forms?  And I'm saying this because I'm not up‑to‑date on one of the forms and I need help.
But should we maybe have a little subcommittee that, um, on the Council that works on maybe serving as liaison to the Appointments Office?  So that we can ensure there is a timeliness with this?
And I'm volunteering to help with that, if we should.  

[Ping sound]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Mmm‑hmm.  I don't know if that's for me or not.  

[Pause]. 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  It's for whoever can answer that question.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm not in charge of the Council ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen, can you repeat that question?  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I guess my question, and it is to the entire Council, should we have a subcommittee that works with Shay and Tiffany, um, and ensures that everybody who's currently serving on the Council is up‑to‑date on all paperwork and, um... um... and if there's outstanding appointments that we're waiting, you know, for ‑‑ since ‑‑ I think there's somebody from HLAA who has applied to be on this Council.
Is there some way that we could serve, like, in helping to move this along?  And that we're on top of it?  That we know what's going on and what needs to happen to keep this Council strong?
I mean, I think that ‑‑ maybe we need to be a little more proactive in doing that.  Because the squeaky wheel does get that grease, oil, whatever you call it [chuckles] so we can keep our Council strong.
What do you guys think of that?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I think it would be a great idea.
But I think Tiffany is responsible to follow‑up on that, if I'm not mistaken.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yeah. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I actually ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Oh, I'm sorry.  This is Tiffany Baylor.  I'm actually designated with that responsibility and so the information that I was able to get, including getting you guys all signed up, and also providing that one spreadsheet, I don't know if you guys remember it from the last thing that showed who is on, who is completed with all of their signing up, and who is ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  John Jackson has joined the conference. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  ‑‑ that sheet was who completed what and with regard to who has a full completed application.  I'm not sure if you guys can see it because I've got all of this craziness with my background here, but it was the one that looked like a... uh... it was the one that looked more like a... like a table that discussed remaining FCCDHH council members and then the new applicants that were outside of the Council, and then when the application was sent and whether it was approved ‑‑ not approved, but accepted as complete.
Because I've been on a lot of conversations with people that have been there.
I would welcome an opportunity for you guys or someone else to, um, "squeak" a little harder.  I'm only allowed to "squeak" so much because I actually work for the State.  So I can squeak politely and ask and request and that type of thing, but I can't squeak quite as loudly as you all could, if you would like.  I would welcome that if you guys want some expedited movement.
But I'm kind of at the limit of what I can do with them.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Karen, go ahead, Karen.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I'm a really good squeaker and I'm happy ‑‑ 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  [Laughs]. 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  ‑‑ to help with that, so that we can get some of this moving, okay?
So I'm happy to assist with that, if the Council would like me to and supports that idea.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Thank you, Karen.
All right.  John, are you on board now on the phone?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  I am!  The volume is a little bit shaky, but I am.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Great.  Could you please introduce yourself?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  Good morning, everyone, my name is John Jackson, I am the deputy general counsel Department of Children and Families and I represent the Department on the Council and I'm from Tallahassee, Florida.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Welcome.  Thank you.
All right.  Glenna and then Tiffany.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  We've worked with two applicants that we've sent in.  They haven't heard anything.
Um... also, I think that there are some other reasons for this slow down, really, with the appointments.
New individuals have to go through an interview.  That individual has to be interviewed first, um.  The application process itself is ‑‑ it's a lot, it's a lot of hours.  Lots of calling, interviewing, lots of questions, inquiries, just to be approved.
And so I don't know if they're still doing that or not?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany, do you know?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  That's probably part of the reason there is a hesitation, because the time that goes into that and the planning is probably not a priority on the mindset of the Governor with all that else that's going on.
Because, yes, COVID is a really big one, but the normal stuff that he normally has to take care of and other things, time sure ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Drew has joined the conference. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  ‑‑ as part of that.
May I also address that I did find the directions for the web control for this Open Voice.  So apparently it is star 2 that mutes and unmutes a participant's line.  The star 9 is to raise your hand.  So I just put that in the chat and so I found the paper, it's here.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy, you have your hand up.  Go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay.  Before I mute, once we get the e‑mail on the log‑in information on the morning of the meeting, maybe we can also have the information for muting and unmuting, so if anybody else was wondering, we have it there.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great, yes.  And also I want to remind everybody at the next meeting, come early, at least 15 minutes early, to make sure we have all of the technical issues, so we don't run late.
And it's almost 10:00 o'clock ‑‑ it's 10:00 o'clock now.
We are now going to the committee updates.
But I would like to give everybody, if anybody needs any, um, restroom break, five minutes?  Anybody?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  No?  All right.  We'll move on.
Okay.  So the committee updates.  We have Debbe Hagner who is to do the Web Committee.
I have not checked the website in a while, other than been checking on the Facebook.  That's the only thing.
I had asked Chris to remove Darlene, as she officially resigned from the Council, and now that Chris made me also the administrator, so I've been checking to see, um ‑‑ posting things about the COVID and different things, different events with HLAA and things.
One thing I noticed is one person who always keeps writing and laughing every time I post something, I find it a little bothersome that this person is abusing the "laughing" icon every time I post something.  Um... I don't know if that's... I don't know... I kind of want to remove him, but... I don't know if I have the authority to remove someone for making some laughing comments every time I post something.  I don't know....
Any other comments related to the website?  Yes, Karen?  Go ahead.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Yeah, I was hoping you could explain that a little bit more, that somebody is making inappropriate comments?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah, he's using the icon as they're "laughing" and one time he made a comment well, I'm deaf, this is a joke.  And I'm, like... I don't know what me as the authority of the Council's Facebook page, if I have the authority to remove him or anything.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Is it somebody who is ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna, go ahead.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  That person I believe you're talking about who posts quite a bit there on the page, they do make comments and it does seem to be a Deaf individual, because the English doesn't seem to be grammatically correct, so I'm not sure if maybe they just don't have all their sense and marbles about them?  We could remove them.  We could check to see if it's the same person, if we're on the same page, regarding that person.  I would block that person, I would suggest to block that person because they just incessantly put negative‑toned comments.  They're obviously very narrow minded in their thinking.  If it's the same person we're talking about, I would suggest to block them and remove them from the group, so... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Karen, go ahead.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Just a quick thing.  There are other website groups that I have joined on Facebook and other social media make it very clear that inappropriate comments or, you know, or what they expect, you know, we expect positive, constructive, helpful, and that persistent negative or derogatory, that person would be removed.
I mean, other groups have laid it out, so I don't know why we wouldn't.
We're happy to here if there's something that you would like to say, but if it's a constant pulling you down, it's not helpful, it's not useful.  Um, you know, that kind of thing.
And this is, you know, not a freedom of speech kind of thing, you know.  We welcome your opinion, but at the same time, you are the administrator of the Facebook account and you have the right to say, block.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  All right.  I just wanted to let you know, you know, that I'm a little annoyed by this person, you know, putting the "laughing" icon every time somebody posts and I'm, like... I asked him, why are you putting the laughing icon?  Is there something ‑‑ why?  And he never answered me.  So... all right.
Cecil has his hand up real quick.  Go ahead, Cecil.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I just wanted to get some clarification from Timothy ‑‑ Tiffany, excuse me, if there's a way for us to handle legally for us to block a person like that?  Maybe we would need to ask DOH Legal Team if there's a protocol in place where we need to block an individual who puts in unallowable or inappropriate comments.
It might be worth pursuing that, to asking the Legal Team there at DOH.  I don't know, Tiffany, if that could be done?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Absolutely, I would be more than happy to ask the Legal Team.
I have to admit, though, they're going to have very, very short arms on this particular issue, because it is not a DOH website.  The FCCDHH Facebook site is specifically ‑‑ they were very adamant about it, that it is ‑‑ it belongs to the Council and so they have very little jurisdiction, so little that I can't even write anything on it unless I'm just writing as a typical community member.
So, I can get advice from them.
But as far as anything else, they would say that probably the general protocols that you can use in Facebook as it is, um, the site itself to block somebody would probably be just fine.
I'm not certain, but, I mean, because it's not a DOH or State‑run website, then I almost think that the Council can do pretty much what they want to do with that.
And there is a way on Facebook ‑‑ I had to find a teenager to explain it to me ‑‑ but there is a way to, um, block certain people from there.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna wrote, this is on Facebook and so DOH would not be involved with that, so we can do as we want.
Okay.  Chris?  Chris, go ahead.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris speaking.  I just wanted to say Tiffany's point is well taken.  And beyond that, the Department of Health, State of Florida, or the Council, does not really own the social media page.
It was originally initiated, with permission, as somewhat of a "like friends of the Council" page for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
I believe also in the above section on the main page of Facebook I posted several years ago about our rules, etiquette, and guidelines of the purpose of the page.  And with that, I certainly don't think it's a problem if somebody's posting negative comments to just block them.
If the person comes back and asks why, we can certainly, um, you know, refer them to the "about page" or add some comments.
Like you said, I think, Debbe, you tried to comment and ask them why they were making such comments and they didn't respond.
Some people on social media are just like that.  And they like to hide behind their computer and just pick at others.
So, I would just probably reiterate Glenna's comment, block the person.  Keep in mind that we do have guidelines for the Council's Facebook page on Facebook posted.
And finally, like Tiffany said, it is not an official State of Florida or Department of Health Facebook social media page, so although we certainly make references to the Department of Health and provide contact to reach out to them directly, they are very limited to what they can do or what their responsibilities are if there are problems with the social media page.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  I see Cecil has his hand up, and then we'll move on to the Education.
Go ahead, Cecil.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Well, while I respect the reality of the explanations that have been given, that it's not under the authority of DOH, I do understand that that's true.
However, what we do on the Council as a reaction or a response to things on Facebook could badly reflect on DOH.
And maybe people could have a bad perception of DOH based on our response.
So, remember, we are serving at the pleasure of the Governor of the State of Florida and so whatever we do could be harmful or helpful.  And it could reflect on the Department and on us.
So we just have to weigh these factors and that's all.
You know, I understand Chris's explanation there and, you know, our actions and our response to the individuals in the Facebook group could end up biting us.  So we just need to weigh these factors carefully.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Thank you.
Okay.  Now we have the Education/Medical/Outreach/Technology.  Who is involved with that?  I thought Gina was involved in that, correct?  Gina?  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Gina wrote me and said that she would be having to come in and out, and so she provided some information that I shared in the, um ‑‑ in an e‑mail that she gave me this morning, or late last night.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  So you guys might have to look at that on your own.
There was nothing really major to report at the time, but you'll see that nothing that would affect right now in this meeting.
So please view it at your leisure, maybe on the next break or something like that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Can you go ahead and read it, what Gina said?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I will.  Let me pull it up.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I appreciate it.  

[Pause]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  While I'm pulling this up, I wanted to let you know that in the chat, I have provided you the most updated, um list regarding the applications and who has completed and where it's been and it's in the chat. 

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Are you still looking for it, Tiffany?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, I am.  I am pulling it up... 

[Pause]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Sorry, guys, for the delay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris, go ahead, Chris.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris speaking.  A couple things.  Just a reminder, or maybe I missed it, was the break gonna happen soon or maybe I was multitasking and missed it completely.
But try to remember to come back if you can, because I have one quick task to take care of offline.
The other thing I wanted to mention, Tiffany could you provide us to documents through e‑mail and not Zoom because anybody can get them and they're only supposed to be for council members.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  My apologies.  I just wanted you guys to access it immediately rather than opening up another window.  I would be more than happy to.
This is also the same sheet that I sent in the last packet of papers for the November meeting.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  That's fine.  It's not trade secrets or national security, I'm aware of.  Thank you.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  [Laughs].  Thank you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cindy has her hand up, go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Can you hear me?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, we can hear you.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Can you hear me?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay.  I didn't know if I was muted or not.
I would also like to remind Tiffany, if she says it's in the chat, which chat?  

>> OPERATOR:  The organizer has disconnected, the call will now end.  Goodbye.

[Please standby.  Conference call disconnected].

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Sorry!  My phone [laughs]!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Everybody's phone got disconnected and got dropped somehow.

[Individuals rejoining conference call].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  So we have to figure out how to prevent that from happening.  So....

[Individuals rejoining conference].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, Tiffany, we'll give it a minute, hold on, to make sure that everybody is back online.
Is everybody back online?  Please type in the chat box yes, your name.
Cindy's on; CART Lisa is on; Lisa Schaefermeyer is on; Cecil, you're on, you're on the phone?  

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has joined the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Tiffany, go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  That was actually my debacle, I was trying to answer a message from a council member on the phone and it shut everything else down when I tried to send it.
So I just won't use that to answer any of you all.
So if you have any questions, maybe hit me in the chat, because I just don't even want to touch that telephone.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Things do happen.
Okay...!
So, Tiffany, you were going to send everybody an e‑mail about what Gina said 
>> OPERATOR:  John has joined the conference 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So, did you find it or is it too complicated that we'll move on to the next one?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I would suggest to move on, because it was actually from Mary Hodges, not Gina, and so ‑‑ and I think that's part of the reason that we all got disconnected and I was trying to do that at the same time as well.
So I'm just gonna use the chat for a minute.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Cindy, you are next, you are on the committee.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  All right.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  The committee of something, I don't know what... but go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Oh, it's Gina and I are the committee, they rolled over the ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I hear you.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  They rolled over the Technology Committee to join with Gina's committee.  So we really have not had a meeting.  The last time we met, we were talking about doing, like, a quarterly newsletter and asking for articles from everyone.
I think maybe we're waiting until we have what's going to go into the biennial report so we don't repeat it.  So there's really nothing to report on at the moment.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  All right.  We'll move on to the next one.  We have the Legislative Committee.  Glenna?  

[Background noise]. 

>> Hello?  Hello?  Hello?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  Glenna?

[Background noise].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We need to get attention ‑‑ Glenna?  Go ahead.  

>> OPERATOR:  Drew has joined the conference.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  The Legislature, their meetings were January and February. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So they're open.
I wanted to check to see if the bylaws had already been ‑‑ I know there were, like, 2000 already.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  A couple of those were related to disability, I know there were quite a few for deaf and hard of hearing.  I know there were some tweaks that needed to be made to them.
HB373 was related to insurance coverage for hearing aids for children.  And that was suggested again by Dannon ‑‑ I'm sorry, it's Brannon.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So it was the same as last year, so we could support that.
The only other one that we were interested in was HB3 and that was, um, the books to take home for the elementary students and supporting those both, Republicans and Democrats were doing that.
It wasn't a generalized idea for low‑income individuals, it was a struggle for the reader, so we wanted to send them home, you know, the children, with books monthly.
We were doing that as a reading program and it seemed like it was a new program that maybe was linked to other programs and other services that were already ‑‑

[Background noise].

>> VOICE:  [Open mic].  We have a break at 10:45.  Lunch is at 12:00 to 1:00.

[Background noise].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I don't know if that was happening or if that's passed, nobody mentioned that disability and how to deal with that with the Deaf children.
So maybe we need to ‑‑

[Background noise].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  ‑‑ home, K5 was one of them, because HB3.
That's really it, that's all I had.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Thank you, Glenna.
Cindy asked, do library books from school not automatically go home?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy asked:  Do the library books from school not automatically go home?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Um... all right.  We're going to ‑‑ any other comments?  I'm watching the chat and watching everybody, everything.  Any other comments?  Cindy?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You have your hand up, go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay.  I guess I'm trying to understand why we have to have a bill about books?
When I went to school, they sent the textbooks home, they said you could take library books to go home.  They were expecting you to be reading.
Do they not do that anymore?  We have to have a bill for that?

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I don't know, I don't know.  I guess... Glenna?  Glenna?  Can you follow‑up on why the, um, about the ‑‑ more in‑depth about the books and the library business?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna!

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna!  We're trying to get your attention!

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I'm typing, I'm typing write now to CART, to CART services.
Because the ‑‑ 

>> INTERPRETER:  I'm sorry, the interpreter ‑‑ you're right, the interpreter was trying to get your attention to stop and I could not see you.  I had you in a small box.  I'm so sorry, this is the interpreter speaking, I have you on a small box and I could not see you.  I'm so sorry!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  In the chat ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> INTERPRETER:  She wants to know if she can talk ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  It's books bought and sent to homes for struggling readers K5 every month but it requires local funding.
They can work with the programs to promote reading to including libraries.
Does that answer your question, Cindy?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I guess all of us should kind of follow‑up on that and read more in‑depth.
And maybe send your comments or questions to Tiffany to share with the rest of the Council on each of the bills, if you wouldn't mind.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I was trying to unmute my line.
I'm assuming not a regular library, but a school library, even a classroom library, so I'm very confused here, because I have never heard of not having that in a classroom.  Um... so I'm not sure why you need anything else when you can get it from school.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  What we can do is during the lunch break, we'll try to follow‑up on that bill and then reconnect about that issue related to the books and library stuff.
Is that okay?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I would like to move on to the budget.  And budget, Cecil?  That's all yours.  

>> Yes, hello.  First of all, can you hear me?  This is Cecil's staff interpreter.  I am going to be interpreting for him today.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Hi, Drew is going to interpret for me.  I am connected on the video phone.  I really appreciate the interpreters, but Drew knows me well and he is going to voice this portion.
In looking at the budget, all of you should have received three separate forms, I have them right in front of me and I would suggest ignoring two forms.  You don't have to look too much into the encumbrance report and the surplus deficit report.  Don't worry about those.  But concentrate on our checkbook, okay?  That's what I'll be referring to.
So I'm looking at this large spreadsheet 

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has left the conference. 

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Let me tell you about our expenditures.  If you look at the second line there on the bottom, this is for Tiffany's job that refers to the OPS position.  The line below refers to other services that we have spent money on.
And I think in general, we're doing pretty well.  There's one category where we haven't even spent a penny and that would be related to audio services.  We don't need audio services with our virtual meetings.  Nonetheless, we are still stuck with it because we have contracted with them and we have encumbered the money.  So therefore there's nothing we can do but leave it alone, as we are not spending it at all.  So we could spend it or we could spend nothing.  We certainly haven't spent anything on audio services so far.
In the very last column of the spreadsheet, the checkbook spreadsheet, you'll also notice interpreting services and CART services.  I think we're doing pretty well there, we're on point.
And then if you look third from the bottom on the checkbook, you'll see we've spent almost $33,000.  Therefore, that leaves us with about $37,700 and I would say all in all we are in pretty good shape.  We have not spent anything on travel due to COVID‑19 and not traveling.
So basically I want to say we're on target fiscally.  And we're also, so far, really underspending what we have.
All right.  Does anyone have any questions for me regarding the budget?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody have any questions for Cecil?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Thank you, Cecil.
I want to go back, um... go back to what Glenna said.  Glenna said... F‑O‑K‑A‑Y, Cindy said that.  Glenna said it's an additional program in addition to everything else they are doing at this time.  The difference is that the children own the monthly books.  

>> OPERATOR:  Drew has left the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy said so is it a good time to reconsider PSA?  And then Cindy adds, would we have the budget?  For the PSA, you're talking about, Cindy?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  The budget for what, for PSA?
Yes, okay.
Cecil?  Do we have the budget for the PSA?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I don't know.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Interpreter, where are you?  Drew?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  This is Cecil.  So you asked about the budget for the PSA and right now, I can't predict that, because it says some of the expense categories are non‑encumbered and that would include about $49,000 as encumbered, but we don't touch that, even though that's an expense.  And we have an expense category for 67,367, and so we have a lot ‑‑ we haven't spent much money and it's very broad, the categories are very broad, and it's not very specific.
We probably could ask Tiffany to ask her boss if we can use some of the money, an expense category for PSA, so we would need to ask for that.
And we have about ‑‑ I'm sorry, 16,000, that's a correction, before I said 67, but it's 16,000 that would be flexible enough to allow us to take that out and spend that on the PSA.  So 16,000.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cindy wrote:  Maybe even a new one for communication in the days of COVID with utilization of the masks and distancing.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, Tiffany?  Do you have the answer to that?  

[Talking over one another]. 

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  ‑‑ perhaps we could use that money.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Who's talking?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Um... 

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Hi, this is Cecil.  So Debbe and I were asking Tiffany to maybe ask your boss to see if some of the expense category funds could be used for PSA and perhaps other things that would be in regards to what Debbe was just explaining.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy, you have your hand up, go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Oops... wait... oops.  Maybe it would be more appropriate. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Cecil. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  Hello?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Wait, Cecil was till continuing talking and I didn't see it.  So hold on, Cindy, please.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cecil, go ahead.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I'm so sorry to interrupt, I just thought of one more thing and it's quite consequential since we're not going to be meeting until three or four months later, you know, at the fiscal year, it might not be enough time to get permission or approval to process the development of all of that.  By the time we're done, the fiscal year might already be completed, so maybe I'm a little concerned about that?  I don't know, just throwing that out there.  Perhaps that's a factor.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Now Cindy, go ahead, Cindy.  Sorry.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay.  So I was thinking now between masks and distancing and the effect on individuals, even those who don't think they have hearing loss but do, that would be a more appropriate... uh... PSA.  But maybe somebody has one made that covers everybody.
Maybe, um, somebody has ‑‑ maybe HLAA has one that we could use.  Maybe another state has one about it that they would let us maybe make some modifications in use for our state rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch.
And obviously we're not going to be in person, we're distanced, so it's not, you know, it would have to be someone who could do this from various distancing.
I just think we can do a simple one, a very short one, and make people aware, especially those who did not think they have a hearing loss but do.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We have Glenna adds:  Yes, and all possibly more people realizing they have hearing problems with their masks on. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Maybe do a committee meeting to get it going.
NAD has a lot of information on communication and masks.
So, Glenna, you as a representative for FAD and NAD, can you look at some of their websites and make some suggestions and send it to Tiffany what's to be added to the FCCDHH website?  Is that possible?  Glenna?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I'm sorry, look at that what?  This is Glenna, look at what?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Ask NAD if there's anything important related to the masks and communications that should be added to the FCCDHH website?
Okay, great, super.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yes, NAD already has a lot to say about that, about communication with masks and it includes some information.  Actually some of that information is included in the report.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I know they had it.  But is there anything that we can pull from that particular thing and add it to the FCCDHH website?
So look for anything important, worthwhile, to add to the website, okay?  All right, great.
All right.  And I will do the same for HLAA.  And if Karen and Eloise, if you look ‑‑ if you see anything from HLAA, please let me know ‑‑ I mean, please let Tiffany know that this is good and worth putting on the FCCDHH website.  Okay?
And that goes for anybody else, same goes for RID or for audiologists that we can use to support FCCDHH, please do so.
Okay.  Cindy said:  Maybe we can do something for the Governor's report and then expand for the PSA.
Cindy also said I would like to be all inclusive and check all the organizations' websites for this.
And I will look at the audiology website.
Great, Cindy!
I would also ‑‑ I already sent an article to Tiffany a while ago.
Okay.  Let's see... anybody else has any comments to add?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  We are ‑‑ it is now 10:41, my time.  We still have about 15 minutes ‑‑ or five minutes, five minutes, and then we'll take a break.
I think we should go ahead and take a break now and then resume at 11:00 o'clock.
Is that okay with everybody?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Karen Goldberg?  Go ahead.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Just to let everybody know I have a meeting from 11:00‑11:30 that I have to attend and then I'll come back at 11:30.  Is that okay with everyone?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  [Thumbs up]. 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Thank you. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  So we will now take a break now and resume at 11:00 o'clock sharp.  And then we'll have Tyler James from the Department of Health and Education here from the University of Florida to speak.  Okay?
Yes, Tiffany?  Go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  You have the papers for him, for Tyler, T‑Y‑L‑E‑R.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay, okay, okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  So take a break and we'll resume at 11:00 o'clock.

[Break]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  The speaker has a PowerPoint that he wants to know if he is able to show and this question is more for Lisa and let him allow ‑‑ give him rights and let him show the PowerPoint.  

[Talking over one another]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm sorry, I couldn't understand. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  A couple of things.  Lisa, you need to make the speaker co‑host so that he can share the screen for the PowerPoint.
Glenna asked for the CART to be added to the chat box, please, Lisa.  

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  I'm sorry, this is Lisa, CART.  Did you address something to me?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Please put the link for the CART in the chat box, please.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  Glenna?  Glenna?  We added the CART link to the chat box.  In one more minute, it will be 11:00 o'clock.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We don't want to spotlight Lisa, the CART Provider, we want to spotlight the speaker. 

>> TYLER JAMES:  Hi, this is Tyler speaking.  I actually brought my own interpreter today and he will be interpreting for me and I will be signing in ASL English.

[Background noise].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  So we should only see the speaker and the computer.
Glenna, would you like to introduce the speaker and the interpreter, please?  Glenna?

[No response].
[Background noise].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna, don't use the sound on the Zoom.  Mute yourself on the Zoom.  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So, I knew both of these individuals back at the University of Florida.  Tyler was my student for a short time and David was my TA, teacher's assistant for a short time as well, and both of them have really, really come such a long way and I'm proud to see both of them here and I leave the floor to both of them now.  Tyler?  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Thank you all.  Can you all see my screen?  

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  So I did send a PDF of this presentation to the council members, but in addition to the multiple documents that you should have received already, there were three separate documents, and so this PowerPoint presentation will kind of take you through all of those.  And this presentation is for deaf people in Florida and hoping for a call to action.  

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Because we are using data that was provided by the Florida Department of Health and Center for Disease Control we are required to use the information in this presentation does not reflect the institution, employees, and Department of Health and we have no interest financially.
It does provide a brief overview of what we're going to be discussing.  The first study is Florida deaf health needs assessment 2018 which you received a one page document brief.  In addition to a qualitative study on emergency room communication of deaf ASL users, you received a one page brief on that and policy implications and you received a three page document discussing policy implications.
For the first one, the Florida deaf health needs assessments that occurred in 2018, our team included a diverse group of deaf ASL users and researchers and a hard‑of‑hearing researcher.  I'm a hearing English speaker, my parents are both deaf and hard‑of‑hearing English speakers; Dr. Glenna Ashton is a member of the council; Stephen Hardy from University of Florida and former Florida Association of the Deaf; David Maruca; Meagan Sullivan; Yary Santiago from Gallaudet University and now back at the University of Florida; Dr. Mike McKee, a deaf family medicine physician from the University of Michigan; David Phillips, an interpreter who works in the Jacksonville area; and my supervisor, Dr. JeeWon Cheong.  
There are multiple barriers to healthcare for people with disabilities that work at various levels.  A provider level, you can have someone accommodating deaf and hard‑of‑hearing patients unwilling to provide interpreters or working with them on modalities.
On a criminal level, there could be budgetary constraints or they say constraints and a negative attitude towards providing interpreters or other accessible modalities.
At the healthcare system level, we think like a major hospital, there's the strong reliance of using video relay interpreting within hospital systems and a lot of hospitals here in Florida don't specifically have staff ASL interpreters and in the health environment level a more policy government level there is a reflection on ‑‑ for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people.
On collecting data, both the Center for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health mostly out of the Rochester area, there are more ‑‑
[Speaking very quickly].
‑‑ low health literacy, more frequent ER use, higher prevalence of mental health, higher rates of interpersonal violence, higher cardiovascular risk, administer sexual partners, and preventive behavior disparities.
This is in the nation but this information comes out of Rochester, New York, and there is a lot of deaf people, they have hospitals and staff there and they have ASL, providers provide medical communication directly in American Sign Language, whether they are deaf or hearing.
In addition there's a deaf mental health center and we have to recognize these disparities are less than what we've seen in the ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has joined the conference. 

>> TYLER JAMES:  And to embark on that study working with the Deaf community and we use the health education planning model and this model really calls on strong community engagement and community members concerns over the concerns of researchers and so one of the first steps we did was engage with the community, we worked with deaf community leaders across the state to identify members of the community that would represent their unique areas.  Dr. Glenna Ashton, for instance [indiscernible] Dr. Maruca representing Tampa areas, Stephen Hardy representing the needs of Central Florida and based off this these needs, we looked at the communities' needs as opposed to what the actual needs were and we felt what was necessary measured by the survey and what the experiences could tell us most about health and connectivity.
And this is the first health and needs assessment particularly for the state of Florida designed for the state of Florida by deaf and hearing researchers.
We also empower people in the study and a lot of researchers working with the population, the hearing researchers take control of the study and we split that paradigm here, we wanted to make sure that deaf ASL users really had the power that this was really nothing about us without us but also ensuring they have full control over all studies online.
The survey was developed with the Deaf Community Advisory Board and it was completely accessible, we have captions as well as visual descriptions, English, videos provided in American ASL.
This video those two actors, a certified deaf interpreter and Stephen Hardy informing the risks of the study.
Yeah, so we collected data during a three month period during the summer of 2018.  This is a very small survey because we weren't sure the methods were going to work but over that three month time period, 92 people responded.
We had an age range of 18‑80‑years‑old and the sample was mostly female, white, 1/4 of the population was Hispanic 

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference. 

>> TYLER JAMES:  ‑‑ employees the vast majority of ASL users that responded to our study were deaf before age three, called prelingually deaf and we went all over the areas.
[Indiscernible] what is the greatest concern of ASL users?  Researchers identify health priorities and needs based off the prevalence rate or incidences [indiscernible] in our case, we decided to [audio cutting in and out] and what they thought their health concerns were.
And by and large, almost 30% reported mental health anxiety and depression as their greatest health concern, followed by weight management and specific conditions, which include joint pain, cancer, cardiovascular disease.

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  This alignment of mental health concerns aligns very strongly with FAD and the National Association of the Deaf's priorities of mental health, being a priority area for deaf ASL users.
Interestingly, most of research today would say that cardiovascular health is the priority research area.
So then we wanted to compare the health behavior using our survey data with the Florida Department of Health 2018 system data and a sample, hearing English speaking and Spanish speaking individuals, in addition to deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people who use spoken language to communicate.
So based off of this, we were able to have three groups to compare.  We have our deaf ASL sample, deaf and hard‑of‑hearing English speaking people who we have on this presentation and the hearing people in this case English speaking.  We removed Spanish speakers from the sample because they might have different behavior and health concerns than English speakers and these are the six health behaviors we compared our sample on.  Health insurance, routine checkup or using a primary care doctor for a general checkup during the past year; HIV testing history throughout their lifetime; cigarette use; binge drinking defined in a short two hour timeframe, men drinking five drinks or women drinking more than four drinks during that time period; and overweight or obese body mass index.
We found that approximately the same percentage of deaf people are ensured as hearing and hard‑of‑hearing people, roughly about 90% and when we controlled for demographic characteristics particularly there were no differences.  

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Routine checkups in the past 12 months, going to a primary care physician, and ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> TYLER JAMES:  ‑‑ and we also found that hard‑of‑hearing people whenever we are controlling for demographic characteristics had 1.8 times higher odds of going to the, um, primary care center to have a routine checkup, and what this means really is that for every 100 hearing people who have had a routine checkup, 180 hard‑of‑hearing people have.

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  We found that deaf people have been tested, more deaf people have been tested for HIV than hearing or hard‑of‑hearing people.  We don't exactly know why, but this is something that has replicated in several [indiscernible] the same phenomenon in Rochester, doctor [NAME] [indiscernible], in Washington, D.C. at Gallaudet, they have identified samples and deaf people have been tested for HIV more frequently than hearing people, and controlling for demographic characteristics, there were no differences.
Cigarette use in the past 30 days is across deaf and hard‑of‑hearing groups.  There were no differences when controlling for demographic characteristics.
However, one thing to note is that our sample being only 92 people was pretty small and so our error rate is potentially much higher.  As you can see this gray bar here is quite large in comparison to the hearing's gray bar, and so really what this tells us is we don't have a lot of precision with this estimate, it could be smaller, it could be larger.

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  And then binge drinking, which is also defined as high risk alcohol within 30 days, one in four people binge drink which is higher, more than 10%, double than hearing or hard‑of‑hearing people and to break this down, deaf people have 1.8‑2.2 times higher risk of binge drinking and what that means is for every 100 hearing people who are engaged in binge drinking, 180 deaf people are.  And for every 10 people who are deaf and hard‑of‑hearing English speakers engaging in binge drinking, 220 deaf people are.
And so this is an area of what we would call extreme risk.  The Deaf community has a much higher risk of engaging in binge drinking than hearing or deaf and hard‑of‑hearing English speakers too.
Now, there's a lot of issues of measuring body mass index or BMI which is calculated off of a person's height and weight.
My father who is a professional body builder BMO would indicate he's obese.  He's not.  Muscle has a lot of weight to it and he's quite short.  And so there's a lot of issues with using BMI there are a lot of errors associated with it but because of what Center for Disease Control and Florida Department of Health use, we decided to use this here as well and there's prevalence with being overweight and high BMI across the categories and there was nothing in controlling the characteristics.
We also measured other health areas that we're not able to compare with the Florida Department of Health sample.  One we used a depression screener, two questions and has a high likelihood of identifying depression and 16% of our survey have depression and according to the CDC is approximately 8.1% so we can say almost double the amount of deaf people have depression than hearing people.
56% used an emergency room in the past 12 months.  This is not something that is reported in the general literature and so we aren't really sure how the Deaf community compares to the hearing community.
And interestingly, over 1/3 were denied an interpreter at a medical facility after requesting one in the past 12 months.
And this finding is relatively novel.  There's not been any literature that is focused on interpreter denial rates in healthcare.
The only other specific that we have is someone in the United Kingdom back in 2005 that says approximately 12% went without an interpreter at their primary care appointments.
But of course that's not the same as being denied an interpreter after requesting it.
So they thought this analysis, we have found two priority health areas.  First is mental health and substance abuse.  Deaf community members say they are concerned about mental health, stress, anxiety, and depression.  They have higher rates than the hearing community screening for depression, and also higher risk of engaging and higher risk of substance abuse.
So substance abuse and mental health go hand‑in‑hand and a lot of people result to abusing substances.
In Florida, 70% of facilities say they provide accessible communication to deaf patients and that comes from the Department of Health and Human Services at the national level.
Just because a hospital says they provide accessible communication does not mean that they do.
Just last March I was in a mental health facility here in Gainesville advocating for a deaf person who had been Baker Acted who went 3½ days in the facility without access to communication and was being discharged despite not receiving treatment.
And that brings us to the other priority areas, access to healthcare communication, and we know that Florida really lags behind a lot of other states in access to healthcare communication.  And even if an interpreter is provided, they're not necessarily qualified to be working in that environment, and that's the second health priority area.
And these are also developed in conjunction with the Florida Association of the Deaf, we presented at their 2019 annual meeting in South Florida and worked with the community to defined these health priority areas.
I do want to give a special thanks to the State Deaf organization in addition to Deaf Service Centers throughout the state and regional associations of the deaf and other three members not affiliated with the study but champions.  Jackie Heyward, Patti Sanchez, and Julia Michalka all here in the Gainesville area.
So that takes us to the second study, which is an interview study related to emergency room communication for deaf ASL users.  This is a quote from the study ‑‑ one of our study participants:  They're not willing to accommodate deaf patients.
And so whenever you go to ‑‑ this may not be new to any of you, so we're all on the same page, there are many modalities, the first is written communication, which is optimal to people who use spoken English to communicate and deaf ASL users to use English in their environment.
This was provided by a local community advocator who is deaf.  This is something a doctor wrote during one of the patient's ER visits.  I think it's appointment, but you can tell this is written on a brown paper napkin, and so not only is it illegible and not provided in the deaf person's secondary language but also not written on a piece of paper and I think that really shows how diminishing of these concerns that providers can be for deaf patients.
So the second and most of the time preferred method is on‑site interpretive communication where an American Sign Language interpreter is present and facilitating communication between the physician and the patient.
And of course video remote interpreting or VRI, which is always a hot topic because it doesn't work very well.  I once described it as an iPad on wheels, which we'll get into all of these as we're moving through the presentation.
Our team includes myself, qualitative expert who is from Brazil, David Phillips and David Maruca and Dr. McKee and my supervisor.
So first some background here, as Dr. Ashton mentioned, whenever I got involved in the Deaf community back in 2014, I was visiting a lot of Deaf community events and deaf and hard‑of‑hearing members in an interpretive level reported levels of accessibility between emergency rooms and the emergency room ventures (sp) in Gainesville.
And of course whenever you hear people talking about the same issue over and over again, you're more inclined to believe it.  And I did believe the experience that Deaf community members were mentioning.
In 2017, I was having lunch with a deaf mentor, he thought he was having a heart attack, he had had one before and he thought he was at higher risk, I called 911 and we went to the emergency room and I was advocating the entire time for him as an interpreter, which is exactly what the individual wanted, and we waited eight hours before communication access was provided.
And so to really break down what happened there, we arrived five hours later, they finally brought in a video remote interpreting and it did not work, they couldn't figure out, one, how to turn on the machine, the machine wasn't charged, and if it was charged, there wasn't enough internet bandwidth to get a picture.  Three hours later, an on‑site interpreter was provided.
I'm a Ph.D. student and I like to look at the research and literature and see what is there and what we found is oral and written communication is not effective for communication access and providers have discomfort providing access to deaf and hard‑of‑hearing patients.  Some provide good access, some don't.
My biggest issue is the Gainesville deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community concerns and the experience I had witnessed did not align with the research literature at all.
Where I did find alignment, however, was litigation.
There have been multitudes across the country and within the state that discuss Deaf patients' communication rights in hospital settings.
And whenever I read these cases, I saw the exact experience that Deaf community members are talking about that was not represented in the peer reviewed literature.
Whenever we think about it, medical providers are reading the medical literature and they will believe that literature than the general news and I thought it would be important to represent the Deaf community's experience in the literature.
And the literature that was available, however, of course what's happening in large urban areas, such as Rochester, which we've already established is different in access than Florida, and those studies focused solely on the emergency room context and what that means is that they did not take into consideration ‑‑ excuse me ‑‑ emergency room burden, provider burnout, and/or other issues that are very specific to the ER.
And there were no studies available after the dissemination of the remote interpreting.
VRI was around in 2010 and 2011 but not nationwide and there was nothing that discussed video remote interpreting and the passage of the Affordable Care Act and Obama Care 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> TYLER JAMES:  Section 1557 provides specific language for deaf patients and under ADA Title III if they receive federal funds are now considered under ADA Title II which has more protection for Deaf patients.  

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  And so we conducted interviews with Deaf ASL users in the North/Central Florida area they used in the past three years.  And this was used 2017 to August 2019 and all conducted in American ASL and after we finished our studies, we got feedback and representing their experiences and making sure we captured and described their experiences sufficiently.
As a hearing researcher, I can't pretend that I would understand the nuances that Deaf patients face in the ER whenever there is incredible communication and this is a validity check to make sure my interpretations were correct.
So we interviewed 11 people.  The range of EDUs or emergency room use was between two to greater than ten times.  Seven participants were culturally Deaf and all were deaf before age three, one had deaf family members, and almost all of them were at risk for inadequate or limited health literacy.
And so whenever we think about how providers might be providing information through verbal or oral methods and through written communication, it's likely that this population may not understand.
We found that the experience was best captured using five themes, which are now displayed on the screen.  The first theme, requesting communication access can be stressful, frustrating, and time consuming.  The second perspectives and experiences with video remote interpreting.  The third, expectations, benefits, and drawbacks of using in‑person interpreters.  And for written and oral communication providing insufficient information to deaf patients.  And theme five, health systems, emergency room staff, and providers lack cultural sensitivity and awareness towards deaf patients.
So the first thing was really focused on the times that deaf patients spent negotiating access.  What I mean by that, they arrive to the emergency room and disclose they need an interpreter and probably the deaf ASL user [indiscernible] they say we don't have interpreters available in this building, do you mind if we use VRI or they just resort to talking to you verbally.
And during that process, deaf patients described a lot of self‑advocacy behaviors.  Many use the NAD advocacy cards which describes that VRI should not be used and they're requiring an in person interpreter and what we found overwhelmingly that request for on‑site interpreters foot the bill and that occurred 30 minutes to five hours after the request for interpreter.
When video remote interpreting was not available or not able to provide sufficient access and the deaf patient was with a friend or family member, friends and family members were then coerced to be an interpreter and this led to a variety of issues.
In fact, I have one quote here, where the deaf patient said I really don't like my family to know my personal business.  I prefer having interpreters who have to be confidential instead of using my family because then they start knowing my business.  And this deaf person really preferred to have their health information private, they did not want it to be shared with their hearing family members, they lived with their hearing family.
When we think about potential outcomes of what could happen after sharing this privileged and confidential information.
In the family environment, could bring about abuse.  This deaf person in particular only lived with one family member who used American Sign Language and go without access and don't know what the family members is talking about and that information may not be shared.
This can also lead to interpreting errors.
One deaf‑blind member mentioned the child was a teenager, not an adult and providing interpreting services.  When asked if their child was comfortable using sign language modality, the deaf‑blind person said they were not.
In fact, not only did they not provide simultaneous communication, they would omit something or leave out something they did not know.
How did the deaf person consent to the treatment or diagnostic test they don't know about, in addition to HIPAA, the privacy concerns.
And ultimately this leads to additional stress on deaf patients and their family members.
The second theme was perspective and experience with video remote interpreting.  Which specifically we discussed diminished patient care and communication.
One deaf patient mentioned that they were going into the ER because of an injury and that they had a lot of pain occurring from this injury.  And in the time that the providers were trying to set up VRI and called in a mechanic to try to fix the VRI, the deaf patient was just sitting there in pain the entire time.
There's also a lot of discussion about the appropriateness of VRI and more frequently the inappropriateness of VRI.
Some deaf people in our sample mentioned that VRI could be appropriate if and only if it was used at triage, just to get the basic vital signs and needs, but also still calling for an on‑site interpreter.
And it was labeled for people who were deaf‑blind and use tactile American Sign Language to communicate and also for deaf people who are in a large amount of pain.
Here's another quote related to the diminishing of patient centeredness.  It took 30‑45 minutes to log into the system and then once we were logged in, the interpreter was choppy and I couldn't understand what they were saying and we were trying to work on communication while the technology froze and it was slow.
This leads to poor coordination of care and [indiscernible] in addition to additional stress on the deaf patient.
Theme three is expectations, benefits, and drawbacks of using on‑site, in person interpreters.
The first, of course, is that it can lead to increased patient engagement.  Whenever deaf patients mention having an interpreter in the ER, they are more engaged in the healthcare decision, asking more questions to the provider and asking the questions to the provider actually answered.
That was particularly the benefit of on‑site interpreters over VRI, um, was not only having the opportunity to ask more questions, but also building a rapport with the interpreter.
So, with VRI, a new interpreter is provided every single time which could lead to having to provide a description of the medical problem at every single VRI interaction and an on‑site interpreter only could the deaf patient build trust with them but do monitoring of the interpreter and there was more consistency and continuity of the information.
We did find, however, there is some interpreter behavior that harms patient provider communication.  One example of this will be provided on the next slide.  But in a more extreme example is that deaf patients in our sample mentioned that there is one interpreter in the North/Central Florida area who is working in this area still and took a selfie of a patient in an Ocala Hospital and posted that to social media.  And that only not violates the code of professional conduct for interpreters and discloses patient private information, but also harms deaf patients' perception of interpreters and wanting an interpreter.
And of course expectation of ASL interpreters which is provided ‑‑ which I provided more documentation of to the Council.  And this has to do with deaf patients expect their ASL interpreters enter their environment and knowledgeable about medical terminology and certified and this is at odds because Florida doesn't have a certification law and many hospitals work to agent's discretion what they deem is a qualified interpreter and here in North Central Florida, we have non‑certified interpreters working in medical settings.
Here is an example of that interpreter behavior.  The interpreter kept crossing a line.  He kept asking the doctor thanks and I had to ask him to stop and that's not his job.  He was overembellishing everything and getting an example.  That's not good.  Interpreters can show they care more and then clarify with me before getting more information from the doctor but involve me more in the communication process.  The deaf patient said the same interpreter had interpreted a prior interaction with a specialist medical provider and had actually disclosed information from that appointment to the medical provider in the emergency room without the deaf patient wanting that information to be provided.
And so this, of course, has several potential outcomes.  The first is behavior by the interpreter can lead to poor self‑advocacy behavior of the deaf patient and bring mistrust and that leads to poor patient and provider communication.  
Written and oral communication are, of course, insufficient.  We found that written communication doctors used medical terminology that did not provide access to the deaf patient or provided very limited description.
We also found that masks really impede this and lip reading is important.
And discharge information was inaccessible and all of this information is known.
Once that patient said the ER will give me prescriptions and send me on my way without explaining anything that's going on.  There is no communication.  I have to wait until I see my primary care doctor until they tell me what to do with all of these medications that the ER has given me.  I don't know everything that's going on with my health.
And so first of all, what that means is the deaf patient has access to a primary care physician and not everybody in our sample did.  But also there's decreased self‑patient activation and self‑advocacy.  How is the patient supposed to maintain their health and resolve their medical problem if they don't have access to the information that's supposed to tell them how to do that.
In addition to discharge failure and when poor instructions are given at the discharge, the patient goes back to the ER within seven days, which is seen as preventible.

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  And lastly, health systems, emergency room staff, providers lack culturally sensitivity and awareness towards deaf patients.
They prescribed communication access quite frequently, when the deaf person says this is the communication modality that works for me, providers say no, this is what you're getting or this is the provided access.
What we see most often with VRI when the patient wants an interpreter and they say no, VRI is good enough.
Finding this in the same health system, for instance, one of the hospitals included in our sample was UF Health Gainesville which provides an emergency room and two small urgent care centers near the hospital and one of the urgent care centers, when they get a deaf patient, they immediately provide VRI and the bandwidth is strong enough that actually works, according to the deaf patients.
At another center, they never provide VRI or an interpreter.  At the main hospital, the emergency room hardly ever provides a main interpreter and ‑‑ an on‑site interpreter and frequently provides VRI after hours, like after multiple hours of waiting.
We found the policy application within the same hospital system inconsistencies.
And lack of awareness of working with deaf patients, which I have an example of here, ignored friends and family ‑‑ I meant to change the title of this ‑‑ but this is specifically related to the labeling of deaf patients.
They put the sign up on the wall that says if you're hard of hearing, the patient is hard of hearing, speak loud.  But I can't hear him, I'm completely deaf.  I don't know why they have the hard‑of‑hearing sign but people are coming and talking and screaming at me and I tell them and it's frustrating.
This not only was invalidating the person as a deaf person but also mislabeled their medical diagnosis and their preferred communication method leading to lack of communication access and instead the patient was inundated with a patient screaming at him and I witnessed this particular patient in the ED having medical providers speak very loudly to them.
And of course it leads to additional stress on the patient.
And for the key takeaway from all of this is deaf patient communication rights are fundamentally denied in some emergency rooms here in Florida, which impedes the development of effective patient provider relationship and has replication for short and long‑term health outcomes.
Patients are not provided the opportunity to consent to diagnostic and treatment decisions, to engage in decision making with their providers about their health issues and may revisit the ED because of lack of communication access or completely disengage from healthcare and this decreased communication access maintains low literacy and many people in our study has low literacy and this communication access does not ‑‑ this affects how communication access is engaged later on.
I've outlined a lot of issues and so now I hope that we can engage in ‑‑ and also I'm excited that I got to present today right before you all are starting to work on your report to the Legislature and Governor's Office, because I think there are some policy applications that are applicable here.
The team that developed this includes myself, hearing interpreters, deaf interpreters, deaf public health practitioner, in addition to local deaf advocates.
In addition, to mention, Yary Santiago works in the deaf community and she has limited access and she has worked with government and communications and policy in Puerto Rico.
So in developing policy targets, our team thought of these three questions:
What is the evidence for effective policies to improve deaf health?
What do deaf community members and deaf advocacy organizations recommend?
Because as we have learned over the past 200 years, we should be believing deaf people when they mention solutions to their barriers.
And what has been done in other states that has been affected ‑‑ effective, excuse me.
And thinking about the levels of influence, of course the last thing I want to be focused on is the individual, because I think that this research has shown and decades of research has shown that deaf people are not responsible for the access barriers that they experience in healthcare settings.
And at times, even providers at a secondary level are not responsible for it because it's all coming from a lack of policy application and a lack of care from the health system.
And so I really think that by engaging in good policies, we could really achieve better health equity for deaf people here in Florida.
And to that end, we have provided I think it was eight or nine policy recommendations to improve the health of deaf ASL users in Florida.  Which is the three page document.
And that's all I have prepared today, um, that gives about 15 minutes for questions, if anybody from the Council has any questions, um... yeah.  Thank you.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Thank you so much, Tyler and David, for providing interpreting.  That was a wonderful presentation!
I learned a lot.  I'm surprised at some of the numbers.
So I have a couple questions but I want to ask the Council if they have any questions?
Hold on, let me see everybody... okay.  Cecil, go ahead.  Cecil?  Cecil?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I really appreciate this great study ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hold on, hold on, hold on ‑‑ oh, sorry, Ryan.  Now we can hear you.  

>> INTERPRETER:  Okay.  Everybody can hear me okay?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Okay.  Hopefully you can hear.
Thank you for the great study, the data that was collected and the interviews going on, it was a great study and great information.  Thank you.
Is there anyway we can get more recent, like, maybe 2020 or 2019?  Because we're now in 2021, any data from there?  Because there's a lot of things that have happened, really, that, you know, maybe hospitals or medical providers might be more concerned about lawsuits and complaints that have been filed, you know.
I agree that we're still very far behind, but I'm just wondering if there's a need to look at self‑advocacy.  Is there any area where we can learn more about empowering ourselves to pursue, such as filing a complaint, you know, where ‑‑ who do we meet in the hospital?  Getting in touch with attorneys, writing letters, rather than waiting for policy decisions to come down the line.
Any thoughts on that?  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Definitely, thank you for that question, Cecil.
So, self‑advocacy is something that FAD members also mentioned should also be a priority.
My concern, as a researcher and someone who has done advocacy in these medical settings is that the medical providers that I have engaged with on behalf of deaf people are not willing to even listen to anyone, really, like except for their supervisors in these situations.
And to put in a context, whenever I was working in a mental health facility with a deaf patient, the social worker refused to look at the social code of ethics of the Baker Acted deaf patient and I provided a list and they didn't provide an interpreter and they had spoken with the director of patient experience and language access with the hospital.
And so my concern is that if we make this an individual self‑advocacy issue or priority that deaf patients are gonna be engaging in self‑advocacy, as they continually do, but hearing providers are going to listen to them or access that information.
This information can be very delayed.  I know one deaf patient in the local area who is filing a lawsuit against the UF Health Hospital System and they have been passed around to three separate attorneys over the past year and a half and deaf and disability rights laws and lawyers are overwhelmed with accessibility concerns.
Now, back in 2016, I believe?  This is one of my first recommendations was enforcing access to all interpreters in medical settings.  The Florida Association of the Deaf worked with the Morgan and Morgan Deaf Disability Rights, Sharon Caserta, in addition to the Florida Attorney General's Office to develop a complaint system.
The issue with this is one, it requires English text and two, it is extremely difficult to find.
I tried to find it myself and it took me a good 15 minutes, following the direction that FAD had provided to find the form.  And once it's provided, it requires all English test, and so for deaf ASL users, it may not be the most successful modality.
And so I think that a first good solution is the Florida Attorney General's Office will accept complaints via video phone or an interpreting line for deaf patients to be engaged that are in their self‑advocacy.
But the other issue is that the Florida Attorney General's Office does not promise to investigate those claims.  I actually did a public records request personally to see how many complaints have been filed since 2016.  As of this past summer, there were only eight complaints that were filed.
Now, eight complaints is a lot different than the 33% of deaf people who have not received access back in my study, in addition to the 11 people that I had found in the interview study.
So, I'm thinking that the complaint system is just really inaccessible right now and something has to change in order to ensure that deaf people are going to be filing grievances.
But also making sure that those grievances have been investigated I think is important.
In addition to that, I also provide a recommendation that not only do we need to ‑‑ we should be training deaf people how to be effective self‑advocate, but there's also a quality improvement mechanism for hospitals and it's called a PFAC, P, sorry, PFAC, and a PFAC is patient advisory council and they improve the quality of care.
What I recommend is we provide advisory councils for hospital quality improvement.  I tried to do this with UF Health, I had a champion who worked in the quality department who was very willing to work with us on designing a deaf‑specific advisory council to receive input from deaf patients.  The director refused to allow that to happen.  So we need to centralize or fire the development of these councils to make sure deaf community has the opportunity to speak to decision makers about these issues.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any other questions?
I want to ask, this report was written before the COVID, correct?  

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  I'm sure that ‑‑ 

>> TYLER JAMES:  Sorry.  The policy recommendations that I provided was developed over the past month and so there's not a lot related to COVID in it.  And that's intentional, because COVID eventually will be gone.  I'm positive that COVID eventually will be gone.  What will not be gone, though, is the exacerbated accessibility issues of COVID and the issues that were there pre‑COVID and I steered away information before COVID.
We need to be providing clear masks and ensuring that Zoom calls allow for interpreters to be called in either through VRS or directly having an interpreter there and ultimately provide interpreters when deaf patients request it.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Another question I have, I would like for H ‑‑ next time you're doing a report to include HLAA virtual members with hearing loss, because that's huge.
Also, for the people who are addicted, from my experience, there's no AA or Al‑Anon or ACOA, there's no interpreters for those, and so they're not getting the help they need to understand in those support groups.
So just that's another issue.  Who's responsible to pay for the interpreters for that?
And then we have the confidentiality again to educate those who are in the group or talking about for AA or NA or ACOA or any, DA, SA, there's different addiction groups, none of them provide an interpreter.  So that's another issue, who's responsible to pay for it?
I know that Kim is mental health for children and I know Eloise was a nurse ‑‑ Glenna, go ahead.  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Thank you so much for the wonderful presentation.  There's been a lot of improvement over the years on both your parts for sure.
So that report and the research that Tyler is doing, is that gonna become your dissertation so it will be published, it seems?  So I think it's important that we continue to attack these problems, because ‑‑ and continue to have research, because having valid facts and tangible proof on these matters is so critical to moving forward.
So I just want to continue to recommend that.
And the issues that you saw with your interviews are the same things we hear in every single meeting!  Problems with VRI, problems with interpreters.  But there's no proof.
And so your research is, in fact, providing that, so that will be a great foundation.  Thank you!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah, I would like to pull some of those facts and incorporate that into our biennial report.
Okay.  Is there any other questions?  We have about six minutes before our lunch break.  

[Pause].  

>> TYLER JAMES:  If not, I just want to ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody on the phone have any questions?
Go ahead, Tyler.  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Thank you.  Just to let you all know, my e‑mail address is on the PowerPoint that you will be receiving, in addition to all of the three documents, the policy brief and recommendation documents, feel free at any time if you have any questions, reach out to me.  I am very passionate.  I do know American Sign Language, for those of you that know me, but I'm comfortable having my own here.  

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has left the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Thank you.  We probably ‑‑ I would like to probably invite you to HLAA to speak, I'm associated with that ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  ‑‑ and you can learn from those who are hard of hearing and that group of people.
Okay.  Any other questions?  Comments?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I'm looking in the chat and checking.
And again, thank you, David, for interpreting, and Tyler, thank you, Tyler, for coming.
Okay.  I'm checking.  Anybody on the phone?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Nobody is saying anything, so we will take a lunch break and we will resume at exactly 1:00 o'clock.
So enjoy your lunch and see you back at 1:00 o'clock.  

>> TYLER JAMES:  Thank you for having me.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So you can just turn off your video and then just leave it, you don't have to get out.

[Break].

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  It's 1:00 o'clock.  Welcome back to the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing quarterly meeting.  Today is February 11th and it's 1:00 o'clock.
I want to take care of a couple things.  I want to again thank the interpreters; we have April Perry, Ryan Tatum, Donna Flanders, and we have Lisa Johnston, who is our CART Provider.  And I want to thank AQI, Lisa, for setting this up.

[Background noise] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So we do need to do a roll call.
So, again, my name is Debbe Hagner, I represent HLAA Florida State and I'm going to ask the next person would be Glenna.  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Hello, everyone, this is Glenna Ashton and I am representing Florida Association of the Deaf, acronym is FAD, and I am from South Florida.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Who else is on Zoom?  Tiffany, do you want to go ahead?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, hello, my name is Tiffany Baylor and I am the coordinator for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing working with DOH.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Do we have anybody on the chat?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm on the phone, this is Cindy.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Could you identify yourself, please?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Yes, my name is Cindy Simon, I represent audiologists, and I am in South Florida.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Thank you.  Anybody else on the phone?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cecil, Cecil, would you like to introduce yourself?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Hello, everyone, this is Cecil Bradley representing the ‑‑ yes, again, this is Cecil Bradley representing the Department of Education.  Hello, everyone.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Anybody else?  I know Karen stepped out for a meeting.  I believe Chris is in a meeting.  Um... anybody else on the phone?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Where is John?  Tiffany, can you call John?  

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anyone else I'm missing?  I know we have three ‑‑ it looks like we have three visitors and I want to hold on to that.  

>> MARY HODGES:  This is Mary.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, Mary, yes, I'm sorry.  Please introduce yourself.  

>> MARY HODGES:  Hi, this is Mary Hodges, Department of Elder Affairs.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.  Anyone else?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  It's 1:00 o'clock and so we have public comments.  And I see that it looks like we have three visitors and so I would like to introduce Eloise Schwarz.  Eloise, please identify yourself and you can make your public comments.  

[Pause].  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Hello.  Can you hear me?  Okay.  My name is Eloise Schwarz.  I'm a hard‑of‑hearing patron [chuckles], well, I'm really a hard‑of‑hearing person since birth.  I am a new Floridian of more than a year.  I have been with the Hearing Loss Association organization since 2000.
I am a leader here in Sun City Center, Florida since I came here.
I'm from Wisconsin and have been involved with ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  John Jackson Department of Children and Families has joined the conference.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  I have been involved with advocacy of Hearing Loss Association in the state of Wisconsin and now in Florida since I've been here.  This particular Hamlet is in Hillsborough County and I am interested in what Florida has been doing in comparison to what Wisconsin has been doing.
I lived in Wisconsin 46 years and have been a strong advocate for hearing loss since I learned about hearing loss when I turned 50, I discovered I was hard of hearing and also was diagnosed with organic brain syndrome as a consequence of not having hearing loss taken care of early in my life.
So, for me, this is a huge passion and I need for, um, this to be taken care of in Florida.
So, when I came down here, I discovered there is not a lot of services for the deaf and hard of hearing like I am accustomed to in Wisconsin and I would like to help the disabled or those who are in Florida discover and work with those who have the capability to help us, and that's anybody that has any kind of disabilities of any kind.
We have many abilities as, you know, a group of people who have many capabilities.  And I include.  I have an MBA, I am a retired nurse, and I have a strong voice for advocacy.
And as I was listening to all of you talk about all of your different, um, advocacy, directions of what you're able to do, you already have, you know, the capabilities to make inroads here in Florida and there's much to be done here in Florida.
And I can offer some assistance.  But the list that I directed to your president Debbe has some of the things that I suggest need to be put on the agenda for going forward for those who are hard of hearing.
Because these are the things that I take for granted need to be had for those that are hard of hearing.
Since there's over four million hard‑of‑hearing people in the state of Florida, these are things that I take for granted need to be had because if I can't exist without these things, then my life is poor.  And so are the other seven, you know, 600,000 people or 300,000 people in the County of Hillsborough or the four million people who are in the state of Florida.
We have audiologists in the State of Wisconsin that directly gave us and work with us with our hearing aid.  We did not have hearing loss support specialists directly working with us for giving us our hearing aids.  That was a new one on me here in Florida.  And I'm appalled at what they do here.
Even though they have education, I have a high risk for having difficulties in placing hearing aids in my brain because I have many, um, difficulties with my brain, seeing as I have organic brain syndrome and hearing loss specialists do not know how to treat me.
So ‑‑ and when I discovered that you have on the books, which Wisconsin does not have, you have, um, a title here of Section 468.1135 that says, you know, that you have audiologists that work with, you know, patients with putting T‑coils in and hearing aids, you know, that are programmed for audiologists to be talking with their patients right off the bat with T‑coils, which I rely on for hearing in a looped room, you know.  It's like, you know, you have all the great parameters for making sure patients get all the education they need; yet when I encountered patients here in Sun City, they didn't know how to use their hearing aids.  They had all their hearing aids in their bureaus instead of in their ears.  
We have a great difficulty with denial and medical ‑‑ mental health diseases and those type of things which mirrors the study that, you know, this gentleman, um, you know, talked about, Tyler, of the Deaf community.
So hearing loss specialists, audiologists, anyone that has hearing issues all mirror the same thing; you know, we can't hear, we can't communicate with others.  And that becomes a real, you know, difficulty.  That's the baseline for anybody and everybody when it comes to, you know, how do we deal with this huge problem of communication?
There's many angles to it, you know.
And I'm dealing with it and so is everybody else.
So, we have to get down to the basics here.
Um... our seniors here, you know, not only, you know, with hearing aids, but our seniors here don't have access to computers/technology.  You know, is that ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hold on, hold on a second.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I want ‑‑ Cindy has her hand up because she's an audiologist.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So I want her to answer about the T‑coil.  All right, Cindy?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Sorry, I had to unmute. 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Thank you so much for coming.
I am an audiologist and I know some people are using T‑coil and bluetooth as a T‑coil and I was disturbed when you said audiologists weren't delivering.  There were audiologists assistants and there are instrument specialists and I think you have to see if it's through an insurance, you may not get a choice if they say you have to go to this place and that's what the place uses.
But certainly if you go privately, I wouldn't allow anybody to do anything for one of my patients, that's why I don't have an audiologist assistant because I don't trust anyone but me.
And certainly if they want a telecoil, we are more than happy to ensure with the rechargeable hearing aids all coming out now, basically all of them do have telecoils built in that can be turned on, and I think any audiologist would be happy to do that.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  All right. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  So, I don't know.  Does that answer that part of it for you?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Right, it does.  The difficulty is many ‑‑ there's some people that know about them, some people don't, and the advertisements out right now is all bluetooth as opposed to telecoils, because telecoils is old technology and bluetooth is new, you know, new technology.
The difficulty is bluetooth doesn't work in an environment such as, you know, in theaters and, um, you know, in churches, houses of worship, you know, places that will give you the best, you know, hearing in an unobstructed, you know, environment, you know.
The best technology allows for, you know, you to hear directly into your ear without, you know, getting you any background noise, you know.
And there's always going to be someone that will tell you that's one technology that's better than another.
So there is this animosity with, you know, what's better for you and what's not.
And, you know, that's always going to be there, because they're always predicting one is going to be better than the other, so....
I know by experience that I need to have both technologies, because, you know, when I go into, you know, um, our businesses here have the loop system and I can hear when we have business meetings.  Or if I go to church, you know, my church, I have the loop there so I can hear my pastor talk directly into my ears, you know.
And I don't hear anything else but that, you know.
So, when people, you know, need to, you know, understand, you know, that yeah, I can have the bluetooth for very specific, you know, instances, for streaming into, you know, this here right now, but I don't have a loop in my house here, but I could if I wanted to.
So technology is very complicated now.  So we need to further that education component.
What I'm saying is we need to have an education that will promote this so that people are not confused about the fact that, you know, they need, you know, to have all of the ‑‑ all of the technology knowledge about what their hearing devices have on them.  Because right now, most everybody when they buy their devices do not understand what everything is, you know, involved in that technology.
The devices are computers.  There's a lot to them.
My hearing aid that's in my left ear broke this morning and I have a call to my [chuckles] audiologist that I have to have a new hearing aid.  Because I'm only listening through one hearing aid in my right ear.
So suddenly I'm without hearing and it's going to be terrible, because I can only hear in one ear.
So, you know, what do we do in this world, you know, if we can't hear?
So, this is a dilemma for many people.  And they put it off or they do something about it.  But our world is so full of so much information, it's not all correct.  And that's what I'm bringing to this Council, so that you can be a conduit of information that will help direct some of that, you know, you know, all of this information to help us, you know, give us, you know, good information that's useable, that ‑‑ because some information out there is not applicable or correct for everybody.
You know, I mean, I'm helping our own members, you know, but I think there's some misinformation that's out there.
And I think, you know, because of the fact that, you know, not all information is given to the clients in the stores, it's not given on the first, you know, mention of patients that are going in.  And that's not always helpful.
Of course, they don't always want the information or they're not always listening, so... 

>> CINDY SIMON:  So I don't ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I don't mean to interrupt you, I don't mean to interrupt you, but we have exactly one hour and I don't know if Jenny is here for the public comments or Taylor.  And Cindy, do you have something that you want to add to that?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I will make it very brief.
I think that it's our graduate programs are at fault because they don't concentrate on that.
Just so you know, we do have a requirement in our hearing aid contract to have them sign that we've told them about telecoils and their benefits and they have to sign off on that.
So I always make sure I do tell them and give them the option.  Very often they get an option with a model with a telecoil but it's bigger and they say I don't want that, I don't go anywhere that has this, and I want the other model.
So that does happen as well.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  But I wouldn't disagree.  I think it's our graduate programs and maybe you want to create from a consumer point of view a talk that you can bring, and I can help you bring it, to the various Audiologist Associations in the state to make them aware of this.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay.  All right.  We can talk about that later on, so... okay.  Um... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Um... Tiffany?  Are you there?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm here, yes, ma'am, I'm here.  Hello, yes, I'm here, I am actually putting eye drops in my eyes right now.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Lisa wants you to mute your phone.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mute your phone.
Okay.  All right.  I was just informed that Jenny does not have any public comment and she is just on as a visitor.
Okay.  You may continue, Eloise.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay.  Some of these items here have to do with the Florida Building Acceptability Code and there's a lot of things in that code that need to be updated, because as I see it, our senior citizens don't have landlines now because they have smartphones and they don't have computers.  I've seen that here in Sun City because it's a 55‑plus community.  So they're unaware of the emergency access of staying safe.  Specifically with fire, you know, or knowing about, you know, hurricanes, that type of thing.  They can't hear and they can't respond, you know, they're deaf, hard of hearing, and that becomes a problem.  And I wrote down page 47 for that.
And then 51, assistive listening devices, the TTY is nice and wonderful, but there's no few of them around, they're using more now the amplified phones, talk‑to‑talkers, and then we need to have the statewide 911 put in place.  That has to be ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Karen Goldberg has joined the conference. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  ‑‑ and this particular state ‑‑ the state needs to be working on this.  And instead of the TTY, I've seen them around.  Hardly anybody has those in their house.  They have the amplified phones now.
So those need to be put in places for people to use instead.  And, you know, that will ‑‑ people know how to use that and I've been working with people and to get it out to others.
Next, funding sources, reaching out to the hard‑of‑hearing community takes money.  Grants and funding sources are short on helping reach out to these people.
I mean, I underwrite so much of my own funds and I'm on limited funds.  I lost my own social ‑‑ I have my Social Security [laughs] but I don't have any pension, I don't have anything.  I underwrite my everyday expenses to help these people, you know.
And I get from my campaign, I get funding for that and I'm still doing that.
These are my masks and I'm giving them out to everybody and anybody.
And it's not only for the ‑‑ it's not only for the hard of hearing and their caregivers, but it's for the businesses.
Yesterday I dropped them off for the EMS system here so that they have them for their staff, but also for anybody that doesn't have one if they see them in their house.
Because what I found is our hard‑of‑hearing people here do not want to be known.  They're denying or they don't hear or they don't see the paper.
I've been in the paper and on the radio and everything advertising this for the last year since COVID.
And, you know, I have been at the Chamber of Commerce, of which I'm a member, I'm an ambassador, I'm involved in a lot in the community here.  The businesses have it, I'm sending it out from, you know, Washington, D.C. all the way to Maine because we have snowbirds here, you know.
And they all want to have them because they know somebody that's deaf or somebody that's hard of hearing or they have hearing aids because they're losing their hearing aids and I have everybody around here at the hearing store replacing them or helping those that don't have any with donations.
So, coming forth, you know, we need to have, you know, help support that have some of these restrictions as far as helping support those that need to get some way of communicating with each other.
What I'm also trying to do is getting the RNs here or the healthcare groups here to find those that do not have support here that live here by themselves because their kids are somewhere else in another state.
And the only problem with that is, you know, is self‑awareness, not being able to get approval to see them or know of their wherewithal.
Because we have some 40,000 people in this, you know, this suburb and, um, you know, they're all, you know, behind closed doors and they don't all know who they are around here.
Clear masks, you know, it was supposed to be just, you know, last year that I was doing this, but because The Men's Club which is my sponsor for Hearing Loss Association in the Sun City Center chapter knew I was going to continue making the masks and gave me another $500 for them and there are two of us that are making the masks.
Well, I get more response than I have time to make them, so....
I'm featured on the HLAA website and then they also know me on the Mail Connect site.  So I can't keep up with them.
Captioning.  That's a big issue about, you know, having the apps available.  I have an app on my phone that allows for me to follow and then, of course, Zoom has it.
But I think, um, you know, we don't have enough captioning around for everybody to follow and understand where you can get them without having to pay for them.

[Background noise].

If I put it on my phone, some of the apps require me to pay for it and I will not pay for it, because I have too many bills as it is.  And if I'm footing the bill for paying for things that I'm doing for the hard of hearing here, I can't pay for my medicine, which are quite high in price, so....
So there's, you know, issues with that.
And then our veterans here.  Half of the people that live here in Sun City are veterans.  I have spoken to a couple of the groups here and have referred them to HLAA for references and, of course, for services rendered, and they are quite pleased, but they need a lot of services, because they're not getting everything that they need to have.
And I will continue to work with them as much as I can.
The other issue also is while ASL for Deaf is, you know, and their services that they need, our English language is one thing, but there seems to be a lot of Spanish around here and we don't have services for information enough to cover for the Spanish.
We have a lot of service providers around here for keeping up our landscape and people around here, but they're also a lot of hard‑of‑hearing people.
And I'm starting to try and figure out whether or not I can provide information in Spanish for the people around here to help them as well.
And I don't have anything on HLAA or anywhere on the Floridian website that has help information or information that can help them in their language that could be of written information that I can help.
Because I don't speak Spanish.  I have enough just understanding my own language in English!
So, but, I just thought, you know, that might be something of interest as well for this Council.
And my background, just for your information, I ‑‑ in Wisconsin, I served on the Governor's Council for the deaf and hard of hearing for three years, I served on other councils for three years and I've been on HLAA since 2000.  I have been on a lot of work in the background, so....
Any questions?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any questions for her?
Thank you so much, Eloise, for providing us two pages of your concerns in public comments, so that was great.
Anybody has any questions for Eloise or comments?  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  This is Karen.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I'm on the phone, so I apologize, I can't raise my hand.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead.  Go ahead, Karen.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Hi.  Okay, thank you.
So, Eloise, thank you so much for that wonderful, um, summary of concerns facing the hard of hearing in Florida.
And you brought up so many good points, it's hard to know where to start.
But it's important to understand that people who are hard of hearing have, um, many concerns about access as well.
Um... I have, um... been working with a group on, um, getting Zoom captioned and it's been really difficult, because the cost can be high for that.
Um... for instance, I guess, if there's a weekly meeting of some sort that's non‑profit, how do you ‑‑ how does somebody, um, get that paid for if it's a group that's, like, a donation base, like a 12‑step meeting?
And, you know, how do you, you know, the participants that go to the meetings, you know, may donate $2‑3 a week, but in order to make that 12‑step meeting acceptable to deaf and hard of hearing, we need captioning and ASL.
And that, many times, is cost prohibitive.
So, that's a concern for me.
And when I talk about, like, Zoom, what shocks me about Zoom is that as much as Zoom costs or some of these other platforms cost, that they're not offering caption service.
And I know that the NAD has been working on that as well.  And hopefully we'll get something going there.
Do you have any information about legislation, either nationally or at the state level, about, you know, covering the cost of captioning?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  No, no ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I know for ALDA, it's speaking ‑‑ has a lawsuit against Zoom right now to provide captioning.  It's only to the paid license of Zoom can request for live captioning, live transcribe, I should say, which is automatic voice ‑‑ automatic speech recognition software.
I have it on my own personal Zoom account.  I can give you the name of the person you have to ask for to request for the captioning.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay.  Is that a covered cost?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  It's free.  I pay $14, 15 a month for my personal Zoom account.  So as a paid Zoom account, I can get the live transcript because I applied for it.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  That's interesting, because I can't get that and I have a paid Zoom account that's HIPAA compliant and I was told that it has to come from a third party. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  I'll give you a ‑‑ no, I'll give you the contact lady in the Zoom company to request for the captioning, the live transcribe.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay.  Thanks.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  I can do that.
All right.  Anybody else?  Eloise, do you have anything you want to add?  Anybody?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  No ‑‑ 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  This is Karen ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah?  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I'm sorry, this is Karen.  I had one more comment.  Can I ask and add that?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Okay.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Okay.  So, Eloise, you also talked about these masks.  And there is a couple of companies that are selling the masks that are clear in the front.  Um, the one that I use is from a company called Space and Clear in North Carolina and the woman that owns that, I believe she's a nurse and she's hard of hearing.  And this one has gotten FAD approval and that's a surgical mask that's clear in front.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Right. 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  It's pretty costly, though, I mean, I think they're pricey. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Right, yeah.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  Yeah. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, that ‑‑ she came out with that two years ago and was given approval for it, but it's on backlog because everybody's using it.  You know, the nursing profession is using it, so, you know, if you want to order it, you have to wait for it for a half a year in order to get it, so... 

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  They're no longer on back order.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Oh, they're not?  Okay.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  I spoke with her last week and I got an order within five days.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Oh, well, that's good.  

>> KAREN GOLDBERG:  They're no longer on back order.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Well, that's good.  Yeah, we could direct it to her and put it out there if there's any way we can get them, so... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  I'll get ‑‑ Karen, I will get you the lady's name at the company, the person's name and who you have to contact at Zoom.  And I'll share it with everybody else.
Any other comments?  And we'll open it up to any other public?
We still have another ‑‑ about a half hour for the public comments.
Anybody on the phone?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany, we may want to indicate some of the apps that they can use for the voice to access, Ava, Otter, um, there's a couple other ones.  Otter.  

>> OPERATOR:  Eloise Schwarz has left the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Otter and Ava.  Both of them will allow you to have up to so many minutes free and then after that you have to pay.
Live Transcribe, if you have an Apple phone, that's another one.  Live Transcribe is on Android phone, excuse me, not Apple.
Okay.  Any ‑‑ Cecil, I saw you had your hand up?  Cecil?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  We can maybe discuss this after 2:00 o'clock, but Eloise really brought up some excellent points.  And I have to tell you, I'm curious about your home and where you lived back in Wisconsin providing services.
I know Wisconsin has great programs, great state programs, they're well known for that and their Congress has programs, and I'm just curious Eloise's involvement with that and her experience with that, if she could share a little bit more about that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Well, she stepped away for a minute, so... as soon as she comes back, I'll let her answer that question.
Glenna, go ahead.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I do see Jenny Locy and also a Taylor Howard as participants but they don't seem to have comments to make, but I would like to see them, if they don't mind introducing themselves.  I know Jenny is a very interesting person, if she wouldn't mind introducing herself?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Jenny and Taylor, would you like to introduce yourself?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead.  

>> JENNY:  Can everybody see me?  Okay.  I can't see myself.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go to the upper right‑hand corner and change it to gallery view.  

>> JENNY:  Well, hello, everyone, it's nice to see everyone in the meeting today, my name is Jenny Locy and this is my sign name and I work with Lisa at AQI and I'm really just observing today.  I have an intern, Taylor here, with me from University of North Florida and she's just observing the interpreters and the procedures of the meeting.  So I appreciate that.  Thank you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  All right.  

>> JENNY:  And yes, I still do enjoy exercising!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Taylor, do you have anything ‑‑ would you like to introduce yourself?

[No response].  

>> JENNY:  [Signing; no interpreting]. 

>> Hi, everyone, hi, so, hello, my name is Taylor, I am here today just observing and learning whatever I can, as much as I can.  I'm working on my receptive skills and seeing and understanding ASL.  And I am in an interpreter training program.  

>> JENNY:  At the University of North Florida.  

>> Yeah.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, welcome.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Do either of you have any comments to add to the discussion today?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody on the phone have any comments?

[No response].  

>> Lisa Schaefermeyer is saying hey, Debbe, they went off the screen and they don't have any comments for you.  

>> LISA:  Thanks for asking, Glenna.  This is Lisa.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise?  Cecil....

[No response].  

>> It looks like Eloise is on the phone.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  This is Cecil.  Maybe she's texting.  Just watch her!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise?  Cecil has a comment or a question for you.  Go ahead, Cecil, ask the question.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Hi, Eloise?  Hello?  Eloise?  I have a question for you... hmm....

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise?  

>> OPERATOR:  Eloise Schwarz has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise, Cecil has a question or a comment for you.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  I'm sorry, I had to quickly take a telephone call.  I'm here now, yes.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  You know what?  That's okay.  I think that, you know, it's natural, it's when you have this "monster" of a smartphone, it can take you to positive or negative places in your life and in your relationships with others!  That is fine.
Good afternoon, Eloise.  What great discussion points you brought up today 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Hi.  Okay.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  The comparison of your perspectives and in the different places that you've lived.
And I know that you mentioned previously you lived in the State of Wisconsin.  State of Wisconsin is renowned for their services for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people.
So I'm curious about your level of involvement there.  If you were on the commission, if you were, you know, if you ‑‑ what you did in the front lines for things that needed to be done in Wisconsin, could you talk more about your personal history there?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Sure.  I would like to.  Um... I was very involved in the HLAA, um, and was encouraged to, um, apply for the Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing so I did and Governor Doyle appointed me to the Council.
So they had an opening for a hard of hearing, so I became ‑‑ I was appointed, um, it didn't take very long either, because they were quite involved.
So, there were a number of different issues that were coming up for both the deaf and hard of hearing.
And one of the biggest issues were hearing aids for children.  And we worked on that issue for, um, for about a year.
And we were one of the first states in the Union to pass legislation for children up to 18 years of age to have hearing aids and cochlear implants.
We did a lot of studies for the State to make sure that, you know, self ‑‑ self ‑‑ insurance companies across the aisle, those that were self‑insured, as well as private and public, would be paying for the hearing aids, the cochlear implants, because babies, it was shown, were million dollar babies if they weren't given hearing aids.
And it was a contentious situation.  But we came across with getting them, you know, coverage for that, and it was monumental at the time.
So I was able to be with the Governor at the time when he signed the legislation.
We also worked on legislation for interpreters, because it was also at that time when legislation ‑‑ when interpreters, um, and, um, those that were doing CART were not really at different levels.
There were, you know, there was no real determination as to how they were qualified.
And while those that were deaf on the Board, on the Council, were helping me get the hearing aids passed, I helped them get, you know, their interpreters set at different levels so that they were qualified to do the interpreting, as well as the CART providers were at different levels too.
So we worked on that for over a year and a half to make sure that the legislators understood how interpreters and CART providers were educated, licensed, and/or provided ‑‑ providing accurate, um, you know, interpretations in all levels, whether it was in the hospital, whether it was in, you know, the lawyer, you know, um, in the state, you know, in the State Houses or anywhere, as they were providing their services for whomever needed to have, you know, the CART or, you know, captioning or an interpretations for the Deaf.
Because the Deaf community was so vibrant throughout the state, our Hearing Loss Association, you know, was working hand‑in‑hand with them and I was, you know, I knew them personally, because I, you know, interact with them both in Milwaukee as well as in Madison, because I did a lot of traveling.
I knew them, you know, and I wanted to work with them to make sure that they got what they needed and I got what I needed.
So, I worked intently to make sure that we knew and understand each other's ideas as to what we wanted.
And even though we were advisory only, we made a lot of impact on key legislators, as well as the Governor.  And he liked that, because we were able to get, you know, both small bills, as well as large bills, passed.
And, you know, we were able to fill all of those positions on the Council.  And we got, you know, the Governor to make sure that those that were Council, you know, did good work.  And if, you know, those people that didn't want to do any good work, you know, or continue on, you know, the Council, then they were, you know, if they didn't want to work, then they weren't on the Council.
And I think, you know, as far as this Council is concerned, you know, letting the senators know, you know, we mean business.  Everybody comes to the table with an agenda, you know, as far as who you represent.
And I, you know, Governor Walker and Governor, um, Doyle both knew who I represented, because I interacted with them all the time.
Um, I was, uh, working for 20 years with, um, Representative Spencer Britter (sp), I was in his office all the time about everything, you know, and he knew me, you know, backwards and forwards, like, you know, um, Dick Cannon knows me now.  I can call his office now and they know me right off the bat and I'm here only a little over a year.
You know, everybody has to know what my contention is, you know.  My contention is, you know, you have to know what I mean when I mean something, you know.
So when you come as a representative of this Council, that means that I mean business, like, like, you know, what you said, you know, if you're constantly coming at you, you know, like the squeaky wheel, it's true!
If you're constantly saying something that means business, they will address it.
They know I mean business and they know it's a win‑win situation for not only themselves, but for you.
I've already been in contact with, you know, um, um, Buchanan, Marco Rubio, I've already had time with, you know, his office.  He already knows.  I've sent documents upon documents to his Washington office.  He knows exactly what I want, you know.
Senator Scott, you know, he already has information from me, you know.  So I'm not a silent person, because this is too, too important.  I have organic brain syndrome.  I have to work hard to make my brain work.  But it's too important not to do this.
Because I may be dead tomorrow.  And if I don't take care of it today, who will?
You know, you have ‑‑ you have plenty of time right now to do lots of things.  You have admirable things to take care of.  Fine.  Okay.  Speak up.  Do things.
You know, you have plenty of ideas here.  You know, I've given you ideas to what our chapters here and HLAA has been talking about.
I only just put this out on Monday.  All of a sudden I got all of these e‑mails from all of these chapters, you know, and saying oh, well, you know... I mean, I only had a few things and all of a sudden they gave me all these other things!  I mean, I'm new!  You know, I came down here to retire!  I didn't want to do anything!  But all of a sudden, you know, here I am!
You know, so, it's like, you guys do this!  Well... I guess not, you know... I'm not here to retire... you know....
But I'm here as a representative and somebody who is retired, yeah, but, you know, I can give me two cents' worth, you know.
I have Molatosa, where I was living, and they don't understand.  I mean, we have deaf people here, we have blind people here, we have hard‑of‑hearing people who need your services.  So you put the blinkers on, you have the doors that open up!
You make it easy for us to live here, so they did!  Because we opened our mouths!
You know, we're a user‑friendly place.
We have a big, big medical, you know, um, you know, company here, you know, we have a medical college here that needs to be servicing us, you know.
So I work there.  I work with those doctors and I showed them that even though I'm a nurse, I'm equal to you.  I can talk to you because you're not God, you know!
And I told them, this is what you need to do, you know.
And I spent my time showing them how to do it and they respected me for that, you know, and they changed their way, because, you know, yeah, maybe I'm one voice, but doggone it, you know, there's a lot of people like us.  And it needs to change that way.
And I showed them how to do that.
And I expect to do that here.  I'm going to be setting up time for it at the South Bay Hospital so they can see how they can interact, you know, with the hard of hearing and the deaf.  And, you know, it can be done through the quality.
I did it because my mom was in a nursing home in Milwaukee, she almost died of COVID.  So I called ‑‑ I called in the quality assurance in the State of Wisconsin and I had them go in and do a private investigation in that nursing home, because too many people on her floor died of COVID!
Well, doggone it, you know, the next ‑‑ Quality has to go in.  I used to be a quality nurse.  I've worked all areas of nursing, you know.
And there's got to be an action that has to be taken whenever there's something of negligence.  And that's the one part is if you have too many ERs, you know, a hospital has to be effective for the Federal Government and that shows negligence, you know, that shows bad work, bad working.
So that's where, you know, I can go into the hospital here and check to see whether or not, you know, they're doing good care for our patients and whether or not they're teaching them properly.
And if there's a way that they can't communicate, then we're going to help them do the communication.
I'm gonna be their answer to help them make it better for our patients when they come in.
So, I'm gonna be the go‑between so that our members have a better way.
And one of the reasons, one of the things I'm doing is when I'm giving out the masks, I'm giving our residents the tips on helping them have a hospital, you know, a hospital kit.
One thing HLAA has available for them is, you know, a hospital kit that allows for them to prepare in case they have to go to the hospital.  What should they have with them in case they go to the hospital so that they be somewhat, you know, prepared, you know.
And I talk to them when I have them on the phone, you know, so that there's a little bit of, you know, preparation ahead of time, you know.
So every opportunity that I have with anybody, on the streets, you know, or anybody that wants information, you know, I take that opportunity to talk to them and let them know, you know.
So every time I have a time, it's an advocacy time, an education time, an information time, you know.
My head is ready, you know, to blow up sometimes because I'm constantly in that mode of thinking, because you'll never have that chance again, you know.  It's always that time when, you know, it's like why didn't I think of that?
Well, you know... you don't always know, but, you know, it's, like, you can't take that time back.
So, I always think well, you know, I had that chance back then.  I did, but this is a chance now for us to do that here.
And, you know, I did that, all of them, because I was so passionate for it then.
I left it there and there's people that are doing my work there.
You know, you can check with them, they are ‑‑ you know, Jack Spears and working in the medicine area and they have chapter meetings, you know, the Board of Trustees, I worked on the Board of Trustees in the State of Wisconsin, I was on there from ‑‑ doing secretarial all the way to past president.
I have in the back here all of the awards ‑‑ I don't care about awards ‑‑ they're all around here because of all the things, initiatives that I gave.
I gave people appointments, things to do, you know, like the hospital kits.
I gave, you know, all kinds of ideas for people to pick up and do.
Working with the Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing or even with the Department of Health and, you know, and Human Services in Madison, Wisconsin, I worked with them all the time, you know, as far as different things they could do.  So....
I have connections.
But, you know, I just ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  And you were working with Juliëtte Sterkens. 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, Juliëtte ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  And got many places looped. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, I was at the state conference in 2016, a plan that took me two years to do that and I had ‑‑ I did that in Milwaukee, because there was one place in the State of Wisconsin, the state got over 800 places work and I've worked with Juliëtte Sterkens who is known for the looping advocacy. 

>> OPERATOR:  John Jackson has left the conference. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, Juliëtte and I have known each other for a long time and we were trying to loop Wisconsin and I held a conference in Milwaukee and it turned out really well, we had well renowned speakers, Einehorn and Juliëtte and people from the college and we had many vendors and I raised over $25,000 and they started a loop in Milwaukee, and so that contributed to lots of knowledge and understanding about looping, hearing aids, and it was quite successful, so... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You're fabulous, we're so grateful to have you here today.
It is 2:00 o'clock and at 2:00 o'clock we are open for response to the public comments, especially what Eloise said.
So anybody ‑‑ Tiffany, did he with get any e‑mails from anybody?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Hi, I'm sorry, I had that muted.
Yes, none specifically that I needed you guys to discuss specifically, like last time, that the person was using that e‑mail in lieu of coming to the meeting.
But I did want to talk with you guys with the contact log and the changes that have been there with the people who are calling in.  
Of course, due to COVID, they are not calling in as much but some percentages have changed related to the kind of calls we get.
Hearing aid questions is 8%.  Everything rose, but except for identification of hearing loss.  That didn't rise and sign language classes didn't rise.
10% of the calls were identifying hearing loss.  And 6% of the calls were for sign language classes, to seek out sign language classes.
The next number that was up is the hearing aid questions, just questions about using hearing aids, was only at 8%.
But that's most likely because at this time we just ‑‑ it just kind of fluctuates at this time.
Interpreter services still remained around 19%.  I think that's what it is... 

>> OPERATOR:  Karen Goldberg has left the conference.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm going to tell you what was mostly, it was mostly medical facilities wanting to get information about how they can get an interpreter, um, for their client.
Most of them, honestly, did not feel that it should cost so much for them to do so.  And they felt that how are we supposed to do this if every time we have a client who is deaf or hard of hearing we have to pay this exorbitant amount of money to get an interpreter?
It seems to be the same scenario kind of across the board.
Of course, I explained to them and explained to them the law and what they're responsible for and that the person doesn't have to bring a family member, because that's usually one of those things that they want to ask.
Um... but that's 19% of the calls.
12% were independent living situations where they were trying to figure out if they could get some assistance for someone that they knew, a family member.  The person was calling from out of state, they had a family member that was living in Florida and wanted to see if they could find services for them to help them with ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  ‑‑ and find self‑reliance, housing, community resources, etc.  So that was kind of up there.
IEP situations and advocacy where people were having difficulties, not as much with the IEPs, but definitely the advocacy for being able to have some assistance with their rights as a person who was deaf or hard of hearing.
And then the one that was actually one of the highest, that was 22%, but it probably should have been more, was the service dogs.  Because there's been recent legislation regarding service dogs going on right now and they, I guess, that's sparking a lot of curiosity and questions.
And especially with travel and that sort of thing.
So, and the designation of what is a service dog and that emotional support dogs are no longer recognized for a lot of the things like that, including housing.  And a big deal was housing.
So if someone had ‑‑ most of the people had an animal they were using for emotional support in their housing area and then found out the new law and they were wondering, you know, they were saying, I need to show this identification and proof and they wanted to know mostly about that.
So that was pretty much the calls.
Like I said, there were considerably less this particular quarter, due to probably COVID and just people not going out and doing things, so they didn't need that as much.  So... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, thank you for that, thank you for that.
Glenna, go ahead.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Thank you for answering those questions about service dogs, because I thought there was quite a high percentage on that.  So the legislation has changed the rule, so that does make sense.
So I was wondering if people were trying to get, you know, kind of using an underhanding means to get a service dog, you know, get a dog and do the paperwork for that, you know, trying to, you know, find loopholes in the system I guess to get around that, you know, changing it to emotional support dog or something like that or are people really confused?  I'm not sure which it is.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We still have time.  Any other comments?  Go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, as a matter of fact, there were.  Most of them were very confused.  As a service dog user myself, I encounter these kind of questions on a regular basis, outside of DOH and FCCDHH as well.
I think rather than say that I know that everybody's medical condition so I can judge which ones are the real ones and which ones are the not, I say ‑‑ however, I can say that many of them call and want to know the website where you can ‑‑ and they'll ask that same way, they'll say I need to know what website it is where I can turn my pet an emotional support animal and they're planning to say that they're going to fraudulently [chuckles] turn their dog into an emotional support dog.
And I will ask, it's almost God given that they've called me, an advocate for a service dog use and they'll ask that and I will explain and ask them the question and say okay, if this is a service dog and you have a disability that the service dog actually provides the service that your disability cannot, so there will be two questions that you're able to do whatever, and then I say yes, but we've heard of a website online that you can just, you know, send them some money and they'll view whatever.  And I have to let them know that the new guidelines are here.
And one of the new guidelines that really makes it difficult for people to falsify that information is before you can go to these little websites and then a doctor of some sort, it can be a podiatrist, can write something saying you need this emotional support dog.  It doesn't matter what kind of doctor, it doesn't matter where they were, but it can be out of state and all of this stuff.
With the new legislation, not only does it have to be a doctor that treats the disability that you're claiming that the dog is there for, but it also has to be a doctor who has seen you in the state of Florida.
If you have one that is in another state, they have to be one that has actually seen you within a last, you know, a certain period of time, it's something, like, within a year and they would have had to have seen you.
So it can't be some arbitrary doctor anymore.
So, I don't have the exact numbers and things like that and details might be off, but I think it may be difficult for people to do that, because as a person who uses a service dog, emotional support dogs that are being falsified to represent real service dogs actually impede the work of my actual guide dog for the blind.  And they actually will dark, they'll lunge, they'll try to attack, I've been in the airports when this has happened, and it's really ‑‑ I've had a dog ended up having to be retired from service due to the wrong‑doing of a dog that was ‑‑ that someone bought a vest for and just pretended, so....
But also keep in mind that the airlines are now jumping on the bandwagon and most of them are not allowing emotional support dogs on the planes anymore.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cindy has her hand up.  Cindy, go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm just backing Tiffany up on that.  I've had a number of people.  One guy asked me to write a letter that his Pit Bull was his emotional support animal for his hearing loss so that the condo would let the Pit Bull in since they have a no pet policy. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Right. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  And like Tiffany, I've also seen ones who ‑‑ they're unlikely to be trained support animals because of the lunging and the actions that they do.
So, I hope everybody is very discriminating when they look at this and they're signing off or writing letters on something.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah, I had so many people here in the community, according to the bylaws here, no animals.  What do I see?  Small dogs.  So... that's not what we're here for.
Okay.  Any other comments?  Gina ‑‑ Glenna, sorry.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  Another place that is not so, um, a good place is in stores, you know, when you're in stores.  I'm not talking about pet stores, I'm talking about other types of stores.  What are these pets, what are these animals doing here?  They shouldn't permit the animals to be in the stores because it's not a good environment for these animals to be in.

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We still have some time.  Anybody else want to make some comments?  Tiffany, go ahead.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Let me add that my little public speaking company on disability awareness regarding service dog accessibility, I go out and explain to the store owners and supervisors that there are two questions you can ask whether or not you can allow that dog in there.
And many of them speak that it is ‑‑ they're worried about a lawsuit, so much so that they would rather just back up and not say anything and hope that nothing goes wrong.  Which is very dangerous for people and that sort of thing, especially if the dog is aggressive or lunging or barking or irate.
And keep in mind, people, a "real" bona fide 18‑month trained service dog that has been at an accredited school for many, many hours of training, if it lunges or barks or seems aggressive is legally allowed to be asked to have it leave.
Most people don't realize that, at these stores and businesses, they don't realize that if the dog is aggressive, period, you're allowed to ask them to leave.  By law, you can't say you guys need to get out, you have to say the dog has to leave, but you are more than welcome to come into the store.
So those things aren't allowed anyway.
So, you know, I need to ‑‑ I work on teaching store owners and providing in‑service training to make sure that they realize their rights as a store owner when it comes to allowing accessibility with the guide dogs.
People are so afraid of the ADA sometimes when they are misinterpreting it, when they're wrong about what it really says, they panic and they back up.  And I don't want these people to be, um, so inhibited by that.
The ADA is there for people with disabilities and for people who are around people with disabilities.  It can benefit both.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Tiffany, you mentioned that the store owners have the right or the managers actually have the right, but I had ‑‑ I have to ask two questions.  What are those questions you are referring to?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  The first one is:  Is this ‑‑ is this a ‑‑ is this a ‑‑ there's some wording for it ‑‑ one of them is ‑‑ is this a, uh, a service dog ‑‑ or is this a service dog provided to you because of a disability?  And I believe has it been trained for the purpose of the disability, specifically trained?  I'm about to pull that up right now so I can give you the exact words.  Um... 

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I think it's important that we understand what the two questions are.  I thought that they're not allowed to ask about the disability.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, that's the thing, you're not allowed to ask specifically about the disability, nor are you asked to allow the dog to show you that he does, you know, whatever about, you know, for that particular disability.
There is a way that it's asked; I'm about to give you the revised requirements ‑‑ I'm giving you the revised....
The two questions are... 

[Pause].  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  Hold on... I'm so sorry... if you want to go on... I'm trying to pull it up... um... 

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  No, no, go ahead, we'll wait, we've got time.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  Here we are.  When it's not obvious what the service animal provides, only limited inquiries are allowed.  Staff may ask these two questions:
One of them is, is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?  I said that earlier.
Number two is what work or task has the dog been trained to perform?
That is it.  That is it.  You cannot ask the dog ‑‑ or for them to show you what the dog does.  You can't even ask for a card.  There is no card.  So people will call FCCDHH and ask where can I get this card?  And I have to explain to them that there is no card.
But that is the, um, the two questions that they can ask.
And that's ‑‑ that doesn't say a whole lot ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  ‑‑ but the dog is, you know, not potty trained, meaning relieving himself; if the dog is, you know, barking or threatening or, you know, being any otherwise detrimental to the facility like that, then you can't ask them to go.
Guide dogs, service dogs, real dogs, fake dogs, all of them in that category can do that.
Also, it cannot be a chicken, it cannot be anything else.  The ADA says dogs, miniature horses.  And I'll have to explain the miniature horse part sometime later [chuckles] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I can never figure out the understanding about a miniature horse, but... 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  [Laughs]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I can't get over that one... 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yeah. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise has a question. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  I don't have a question, I just had a comment.  Um, generally speaking, when they have training, many times they're part of these national organizations that do the training, they will have special harnesses. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Correct. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Or special acknowledgements whom and what company they were trained with.  And they will have that on them indicating who and what they had as the training.  And they will have that on their ‑‑ on their person, on the dogs, on them.
So that way you'll know that they are, you know, they've had the training.
So, that way you know, you know, there's some indication as to being a service dog.
Because I know in Wisconsin, we had a lot of different ‑‑ we had quite a few people who have the service dogs and they had the special apparatuses on them.
So, but we weren't real good with taxi services and hotels allowing for service dogs in that.  So we had quite a few lawsuits that were taken upon them, you know, because they didn't allow the service dogs in them.
So, HLAA had to get involved in them because of the fact that they didn't allow for them to be transported or be in there.
So I remember having to vouch for them during that time when I was there, so....
It's gotten better, but, you know, there still needs to be a lot to be doing about that, because they're abusing that for other than the service.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany, go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm gonna give you an example.  This here is my dog's harness, I hope you can see it.  And of course like she said, right here it says what school it is, and that's sort of a way to kind of gauge that it's possible that it is a guide dog or a service dog.
And let me tell you why I say gauge.  Because generally the schools will now have their name on that, but they guard those harnesses like they are gold.  Because to avoid people from ‑‑ from misrepresenting another dog by using one of their harnesses, because it has their name on it, so they don't want to be misrepresented from a dog that is unruly.
For example, when my dog retires, they have us turn that harness back to them.  Those harnesses are very, very important.
The thing to concern yourselves with these days, sometimes people are able to, you know, go to some companies and ‑‑ and get them, you know, buy them, and that is creating a little bit of a difficulty as well.
But generally, yes, it's there.
My dog's place, they gave us an ID card as well.  And they don't have to, but they do.
So, there are a lot of things we're trying to do.
Now, as far as what ‑‑ she was just now speaking, Eloise was speaking about the taxi, yes, that's a very real problem that we suffer with.
I'm an adjunct professor at Florida State, and just ‑‑ what is today, Thursday?  Tuesday, I used Uber to come back home, I have my guide dog with me, and the driver comes up and I come out, he saw the dog, he came up and he said I'm sorry, I'm not gonna let a dog in my car.  And then I reminded him well, the law, you're supposed to, and as an employee of Uber, you must, and the guy, you know, said no still, very adamantly, and I said well, let me just take your picture, and as soon as I started taking his picture, he sped off, and I had to wait until almost 9:00 o'clock and my class ended at 6:00.
So this is a real problem, yes, Eloise, this is a very real problem.
And when I'm in my car, and this is something, Eloise, that you can share with people that have this problem that I'm describing, you can share with them, make sure the dog is on the utmost behavior when they're in the person's car.
My dog gets in quietly, lays down on the floor.  Not on the seat.  Not jumping up and down.  Not looking out the window.  Nothing.  You let them sit on the floor quietly and they stay in the car until you get to where you have to go and then you signal the dog to get out, the dog gets out, so that the more these people start seeing that there is a blatant difference between a falsified service dog and a real one, maybe we can gain some leverage in letting them understand that we are actually using a real service dog.
But that's just one example.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Any other comments?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I know in the old days, there used to be ‑‑ my friend had a hearing dog and they used to have an orange collar and that was the way to tell that they have a service animal.
But now it doesn't have to be orange anymore.  Or orange doesn't mean anything, so....
Okay.  Yes, Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Tiffany, you mentioned currently you're working as an adjunct professor?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  What are you teaching?
And a second question I had as well, I think now that ‑‑ I remember in the past that ‑‑ in November, dogs were not ‑‑ are the dogs more happy working?
It seems like in the past, the dogs were not ‑‑ were a little upset and not happy working.  Are dogs happier now?  Your dog, is your dog happy now?  Back in November you said your dog was a little upset.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, I think my dog mostly was upset back in November because I wasn't working with her!  I was here at the house.  So working from home.  And she doesn't ‑‑ she's a German shepherd so, you know, she's go, go, go, go, go, all the time.
And suddenly, usually I get partway to work and I walk a mile and a half to work to get that morning exercise, we go to work, and then from lunch, I walk somewhere else for lunch and come back and at the end of the day I walk that mile and a half back and then we come home.
And the dog was stuck in the house.

[Background noise].

And he was very much not happy, like, not happy being home!
Now, we have incorporated quite a bit of activities.  Three miles everyday, it could be first thing in the morning or on the way back and also just walking across the Florida State campus from my classroom is a very long walk, so we do more than three.
She's getting more and more exercise now and is very happy now.
As far as teaching, I teach eye anatomy and low vision of students looking to become teachers of students with low vision.  So that's what I do.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Great.  Any other comments?  Questions?
What's going on with Chris Littlewood?  Karen Goldberg?  John?  I think Cindy's still on.  Mary's still on.  Or Mary had an appointment.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm still here.  

>> Do we technically have a quorum.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Do we technically have a quorum?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Oh, okay, so tell me exactly how many are still here.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  John's not here.  Chris may be present; I mean he's present but not present physically; Karen.  

[Talking over one another]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I believe you need to have... six at least.  

[Pause].  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  [Audio cutting in and out] we have three here on Zoom, but you need to have six; one, two, three, four, five... 

[Pause]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yeah, between five and six.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We technically have over 14 representatives on the Council and we have six present.  Okay.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Also, what ‑‑ what we can do, we actually can discuss ‑‑ we don't need to have that quorum until it's time to vote on something.  So I believe Mary Hodges will be back right after her medical appointment and so people will be back, I think.
I'm trying to read the chat.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  And we have two minutes until 2:30 to take a break.
I would like to go ahead and start taking that break now.  So until 2:45 so we can give the CART Provider a rest, the interpreters a rest, and the rest of us, and so really resume at 2:45.

[Break].

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Hey, Debbe?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Are you going to be able to do a roll call when everybody gets back so I can note whether or not ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, I will.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  We will start in one minute.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  It's 2:45, welcome back to the Florida State Coordinating Council for the deaf And Hard of Hearing, today is February 11th, it is now 2:45.
We've just finished with the break.
I need to do a roll call.
Again, my name is Debbe Hagner, I represent HLAA Florida.
Cecil, would you like to go?  Cecil?  Cecil, would you like to go?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Hello, everybody, again, this is Cecil Bradley and I'm representing Florida Department of Education.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Tiffany, would you like to go ahead?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yes, good afternoon, this is Tiffany Baylor, I'm the coordinator for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and I work for Department of Health.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna?  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Hey, everyone, this is Glenna Ashton and I am representing Florida Association of the Deaf.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Do we have anybody else on the Zoom that we don't see your video?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Or on the phone?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  This is John.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  John?  Cindy?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  This is John Jackson from the Department of Children and Families.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Great.  Thank you, John.  Cindy?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Karen?  Are you on?  Chris Littlewood?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Mary?

[No response].  
[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody else on the phone?  I know Eloise is still on Zoom with us.  And Taylor and Jenny.  Okay.  Glenna is in the chat, okay.  Gina, great.
Anybody else?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  One... two... three... I'm moving on.
Okay.  Now we are going to talk about the biennial report drafting session.
We need to review the past report, which we have in our packet.  We have the 2017 and the 2019, old ones.
Anybody want to make comments about the old ones now?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  No comments there.
So, anybody have the opportunity to review Glenna's report?  She took it upon herself to do the report herself, submit it, made some suggestions.
Is there any other suggestions that were sent based on Glenna's report?
Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I just want to confirm you got the right copy that I sent.  I had sent one to begin with and... it's good to know that first one, because the first page there's almost ‑‑ you know, there's very minimal ‑‑ it mentions the BIPOC and then later I sent a second one, it's, like, a second draft and then the last page talks about COVID‑19 and that's the one I want you to look at, the one that has the COVID mentioned on the last page.  I just want to make sure.
And in the packet that was mailed out, that was the first one, so I just want to make sure that you're looking at the second one, which is the correct draft.  

>> And the second one ‑‑ 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Basically I typed there in the report, you know, I made a couple of adjustments and tweaks.  And with Tyler's presentation this morning, we're gonna find a way to include some information about the healthcare portion as well.
And then ‑‑ 

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy, please wait.  Glenna is still talking, okay?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  That's fine.  I can't see because I'm on the phone, that's fine.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  That's okay.
Go ahead, Glenna, finish what you were saying.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  Okay, she's finished.
All right, you may go on, Cindy.  She's just wanting to make sure we had the second report that was sent by Tiffany today.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I understand.  I'm trying to clarify.  So every time you said "sent" they send sent, I didn't know if they meant by e‑mail or regular mail.  And I received nothing today from Tiffany, nor did I have anything yesterday with attachments with anything. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  So I haven't seen it.  I had tried to comment before when you were asking for comments in the health section, I have a whole other setting section that I wrote last year.
But the quote from [audio cutting in and out] that people need to have when they're out in offices and things and I was trying to cover all areas of hearing loss.
I think we need to add, you know, personal amplifiers, like pocket talkers being there, because that was lacking for those with hearing loss that they don't consider hearing loss.
So, I wanted to ‑‑ if we kept that wording, then I wanted to have it added in.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Do you have that, Tiffany?
You're muted, you're muted, you're not on.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I'm saying, hey, how are y'all!  [Chuckles].
Did I get her addition?  Is that what you're asking?  That she was suggesting?

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy wanted people to add pocket something?
Cindy, could you please repeat what you were saying?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I was in the process of trying to get and make ‑‑ I'm going to put the good or the copy that Glenna is referring to, I was gonna stick it in the chat for you guys if anybody wanted to open it and not have to look for it in their mail, but it would have been today.  So that's why I was sort of gone for a minute.  

[Pause]. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  So, can I also ask something?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, go ahead, Tiffany.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  This is Tiffany speaking, hello.  This is the drafting portion for this biennial report.  So because most of the information is information that you guys understand more and know about, it would really be helpful if you guys all sort of ‑‑ this is your drafting session, so I wouldn't be able to even ‑‑ I'm not looking at that sheet, I'm trying to keep things going.
So, 'cause you guys make sure you just, like, write some of this information down so that you guys can ‑‑ 'cause before you leave, the goal is to have everything you guys want to look at and know so you can discuss it for possible moving to the next step, and then if you could sit ‑‑ and then I can get that information from you guys of what you want to keep, what you want to, you know, get rid of, what you approve, and then we can work on trying to get someone to do the publication aspect of it or the proofreading or the type setting.
So, that's actually what that was my goal and my responsibility and I shouldn't be writing down what you all should be keeping and not keep.  I just wanted to be clear.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  So we have the CART ‑‑ all right.  Go ahead, Glenna.  Yeah, go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So I have been writing down some suggestions or ideas.  I've taken care of writing them down, the suggestions and ideas that have come to me, so I can work on that, sure.
But it seems that there might be a problem with not having the second addition that I sent out.
So it should say ‑‑ it's a PDF that I sent out and it was a second version.  I sent it last night, I sent it again this morning.  It should be in your e‑mail inbox.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to ‑‑ I'm sending it right now into the chat just 'cause ‑‑ the one that I have sent to them this morning was ‑‑ I just literally forwarded your e‑mail directly to everybody.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Um... I'm trying to think ‑‑ Lisa?  Do you know if Tiffany is co‑host that we can bring up her Word, the document that Glenna... yeah. 

>> LISA:  This is Lisa Schaefermeyer, I'm going to make her a co‑host right now.  And Glenna says yeah, I want the PDF, the PDF version, don't send out the Word doc.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Let's see why this PDF is not acting right.
Okay.  Download.  I see one that says PDF, let's see if it comes up with PDF.  Okay.
I'm trying to ‑‑ I'm really proud of myself for learning that.  Okay.
Let me see if this is a PDF, I have to go down to the end for a second and see.  It should say ‑‑ there we go.  This is the right one, Glenna?  I see the COVID at the very last page.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yes, that's the one, thank you, yes, that is the right version.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So let's start from the beginning and I guess what we'll do is, so, one paragraph at a time.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Should I turn it into, like, a Word document so I can do revisions in it?  I don't think I can type it at this point.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  No, no, that would be Glenna's job.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yeah, I'm going to take notes, that's fine.

>> INTERPRETER:  This is one of your interpreters asking.  Tiffany, could you make it larger to fill the entire box?  I would really appreciate that.  There you go.
Oh, so much better wow!  Thank you.
And Cecil is being very dramatic and falling out of his chair.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So, I could take the lead and read this, because people who are not on Zoom, if they're connected by conference call, they can't see what it is that we're all looking at.  So do you guys want me to do the reading?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Please, yes.  That's Cindy.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  Let's begin.  Page one.  And so, of course, it's headed with Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, 2021 biennial report, page one.  Introduction.
We need some sort of picture or a logo right there, but we can add that.
So then we go into paragraph one.  And it reads like this:  FCCDHH is a resource for persons with hearing loss who need assistance ‑‑ sorry, you keep losing me ‑‑ okay, there ‑‑ who need assistance with everyday needs, including education, employment, healthcare, legal, public safety and emergencies, communication technology and services, and other areas via communication access and accommodations.
Although this report is mostly highlighting healthcare, public safety, and deaf‑blind ‑‑ oh, I need to change that ‑‑ deaf‑blind issues ‑‑ hang on, sorry, I'm making notes while I'm reading.  Hold, please.  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I intend to change deaf‑blind to COVID effected or COVID issues, issues related to COVID.
There are other important concerns that FCCDHH continues to address.  Other important issues include hearing aids, equivalent education for Floridians who are deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf‑blind, legal systems issues, access to technology, and access to accommodations, such as qualified sign language interpreters and captioning as needed for effective communication in all areas.
That's paragraph one.  That's our opener.
Can you scroll down ‑‑ thank you.  Keep scrolling.
Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comments on that first paragraph?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy, I have one comment there.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I don't think you need to change deaf‑blind to COVID‑related.  But, rather, leave the deaf‑blind and add COVID‑related, if you want.
And I think the picture we have should be someone trying to communicate with a mask, preferably a clear mask on.  But I would love to see something which shows how much they're missing because there's a mask.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I have a picture which shows what it sounds like with the words through the mask, how some of the letters are missing.  And we can put that next to the mask.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Sounds good to me.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  This is Glenna.  I would like to respond about the deaf‑blind terminology.
So, um, really, the report is focusing on healthcare and public safety and so, really, there's three pages.  There's a healthcare page, public safety page, and deaf‑blind issue.  That's what we did last year.
Now, we were talking about first healthcare, then public health, then COVID as being the third.
Deaf‑blind people will be mentioned throughout.  But I'm just talking about the report itself.  And that's what this introduction is setting up.
Is that okay?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  So if we can move on to the second paragraph, which reads like this, and I'm going to read several paragraphs, Tiffany.
FCCDHH benefits from funding staff positions and state laws, regulations, and rules to effectively follow best practices and provide appropriate representation.
We have listed our accomplishments in previous biennial reports and the following is an update of some of the things that we have done since our last report.
First, FCCDHH continues to meet face‑to‑face quarterly throughout different areas in Florida to maximize outreach.  And during 2020, met online also.
Second, FCCDHH continually invites guests to be present ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ continues to be open to the public at all meetings, encouraging members of the community to share their thoughts, experiences, and concerns, whether face‑to‑face or online.
FCCDHH continues to provide resources and referrals to the public, as well as government agencies to maximize support for the Florida's deaf, hard of hearing, late‑deafened, and deaf‑blind community.
FCCDHH has a full‑time program coordinator who serves as a liaison between the public and the Council between meetings, answering calls and returning e‑mails, maintaining the website, and organizing the quarterly meetings.
Next page, Tif.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Let's ‑‑ time out.  Let's stop there, see if anybody has any comments on what Glenna's just read.

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cindy?  Mary?  Gina?  Karen?  Anybody?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm good; I'm good; no.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You're good?  Okay.  All right.  Go ahead, go ahead on the second page.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  This is Glenna.  Page two, there's a couple of things that we adjusted from the previous report.  I'd also like to put in some sort of graphic, some sort of image, maybe some statistics.  So here we go.
For the deaf, hard of hearing, late‑deafened and deaf‑blind populations within the state of Florida, inadequate communication causes medical errors leading to patient morbidity and mortality as well as an increase in overall healthcare costs.  
Floridians with hearing loss are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and then in parenthesis ADA, and have the right to full access to communication with their healthcare providers.
According to the National Association of the Deaf, and then parenthetical NAD, position statement on healthcare access for Deaf patients, providers, and staff, should ensure the right of deaf, hard of hearing, late‑deafened, and deaf‑blind individuals to determine for themselves the appropriate communication mode in the healthcare setting.
This means that the patient has the right to the use of qualified sign language interpreter, and in parenthesis American Sign Language or signed English, qualified Deaf interpreter, parenthesis DI, Communication Access Realtime Translation, parenthesis CART, or tactile sign language interpreter for deaf‑blind.  
The same issues of quality communication and properly functioning technology also applies to the use of virtual remote interpreting.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has developed the National Standard for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services ‑‑ 

>> OPERATOR:  Chris Littlewood has joined the conference. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  ‑‑ parenthesis CLAS, in health and healthcare.  
The National CLAS standards are intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and eliminate healthcare disparity.
CLAS is about respect and responsiveness, colon, respect the whole individual and respond to the individual's health needs and preferences.
In addition, health insurance, private or government, often do not address the financial issues with obtaining appropriate hearing services.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right.  Let's stop ‑‑ 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Can I ask Cindy?  And I don't know if we can do this, if it's a footnote or what it should be, but as somebody already mentioned, maybe adding something like different devices.  For example, the pocket talker, someone mentioned.
I'm sorry, Debbe, did you say something?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, we need to add about cued interpreters, cued interpreting, right?  Cued speech interpreters and oral interpreters.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  So adding cued speech and oral interpreters.  Okay.  Anything else?
Because I'm wondering if down at the bottom where it talks about financial issues with getting appropriate access to hearing devices and services, maybe we could add something such as hearing impaired, cochlear implant devices.  What do you think?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  All right.  If I may come in here.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Cindy.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  That was the area, because it really didn't leave much.  Most hard of hearing don't use CART, but they might take a personal amplifier, like a pocket talker.
I was curious, because so many people do view this as more of a "deaf council," if we could look at possible equivalency from HLAA and A.G. Bell, see how they fit some things in and maybe combine what they all said into a more comprehensive summary which might then eliminate the need to add the rest of it, depending what's being said.
It may be said in other places, but let's make them aware there are many organizations for different areas.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I like that.  So we should include a statement to look for HLAA's position statement, as well as A.G. Bell, as well as maybe RID may have some statements.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Exactly!  Let's look at what the statements say and say, according to nationally‑accepted groups, and then include all their names, this is what we need and, therefore, we're not limited but we can include what everybody says.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  It will make that ‑‑ 

>> INTERPRETER:  I'm sorry, who was that speaking?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Cindy.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay, Cindy, we are trying to ‑‑ we are trying to keep the report short‑ish, not go on and on.
And also, on the last page, I do list all of those members and the organization names.  The Florida‑based, that is, the Florida organizations and chapters and whatnot, those are on the fourth page.  So just to let you know, we're just not there yet.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  And I understand that.  What I'm saying is not so much to lengthen it, but when we look maybe HLAA has other things included that say FAD or NAD didn't include.
And maybe A.G. Bell had other ideas as well, then we could say in one sentence, you know, the national organizations, NAD, you know, HLAA, A.G. Bell suggests, and then you just have all the accommodations you listed.
It's not really gonna make it longer, but we may have a more inclusive set in there rather than a footnote.
We could look at it and see if it's doable.  It may not be.  But if we don't know, we won't know, and I would be happy to assist in doing that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  All right, Cindy.
Any other comments?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Well, this is Glenna... oh... 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  Me?  Okay.  Sorry.  Sorry, what was I gonna say... okay, yes, we ‑‑ we have checked with other organizations and we already know, we've done a survey of what's out there.
And NAD's information, National Association of the Deaf, they also have a list.  It's impossible to pull everything from out there.
But yes, we ‑‑ I'm definitely willing to pitch in and figure this out.
Okay.
If we're ready, we can move on to page three, Tiffany.
Now we're on page three.  We want to put in a few picture in the previous report and now I'm going to stop for each of your comments.
Paragraph one, effective communication in public safety and emergency situation is a civil right under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal law.  
FCCDHH is working diligently to provide information about public safety issues impacting Florida's deaf, hard of hearing, late‑deafened, and deaf‑blind communities.
FCCDHH has provided information about the importance of using qualified interpreters, captioning, and other necessary communication strategies throughout the state, counties, and local level during times of emergency.
That is paragraph one, so I'm going to pause for comments.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comments?  

[Pause].

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  Excuse me, Debbe, this is Lisa CART.  

[Pause]. 

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  Hello, can you hear me?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, go ahead. 

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  There are many comments in the StreamText chat.  They are asking if anyone is monitoring the chat; there are many comments. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, I'm sorry.  
Eloise said to avoid the word hearing impaired.  
Gina said that NAD states to avoid using the words hearing impaired.
Eloise says that we are not impaired.
And then Eloise said correct, what the hard of hearing use is not what the Deaf use.
And Gina said is there anybody monitoring the chat?
I apologize.
Okay.  Gina said:  I appreciate hearing from the organizations listed, but the ones mentioned primarily focus on the hard of hearing deafness.  We need to be sure we highlight NAD as well.  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  Okay.  Are we ready to move on to paragraph two of page three?

[No response].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  Paragraph two.
And also, by the way, I'm hoping the interpreters are reading the paper at the same time.
Yeah, of course, okay.  I appreciate that.  'Cause, you know... it's terrible sign language that I'm using because I'm reading off of the paper.  Here we go.  Paragraph two.
In the past several years, Florida has been impacted by major hurricanes, natural disasters, and public safety incidents, which has affected the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community as much as it has everyone else in the state.
There have been several well‑publicized communication barriers negatively impacting the safety of Florida's deaf and hard‑of‑hearing citizens.  This includes the use of unqualified interpreters, poor captioning services, and inability to access law enforcement in times of emergencies.
That is the second paragraph.  

[Pause].  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  I have some comments on the second paragraph. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comments?
Yes, you may, John.  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  For starters, the first snippets, in the past several years, Florida has been had hurricanes, natural disasters, and public safety incidents, my problem is with the second part of that student, affecting the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community as well as everyone else in the state.  I have a hard time believing that it's affected hard‑of‑hearing people.  The impact has been greater than it has on other Floridians.  Maybe you all disagree but I just don't see that. 

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> JOHN JACKSON:  I don't see that as being, I don't know, I don't want to be truthful, but let's be real.  I would think we could find a way to say that a little bit harder, a little bit stronger, in the past several years Florida has been impacted by several hurricanes, natural disasters, public safety incidents, period.
The impact of these, um, disasters or the impact of these incidents have had an even greater effect on the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community.  And leave it at that, period.
Um... and then my second suggestion would be on the last sentence, this includes the use of unqualified interpreters, poor captioning services, and inability to access law enforcement during times of emergencies.  The inability to access law enforcement during times of emergency is great because it gives you a better example of what you're talking about.
When you say this includes the use of, um, well, for starters, I think I would start the sentence off with, for example, comma, and then to say, um, the, you know, just examples, you know, the use of unqualified interpreters in medical settings or something along those lines, to get a better idea of what you're talking about.  And it is just an example.  But the use of unqualified interpreters, I mean, it's pretty obvious what that means, but it doesn't really impact, I don't think, the reader.  If you're giving examples like you did, access to law enforcement in times of emergencies, those four words "in times of emergencies" is where, I think, makes a ‑‑ sends a much greater impact than if you just say inability to access law enforcement.
So, for example, the use of unqualified interpreters during medical emergencies.  Poor captioning services during ‑‑ I'll let you guys maybe give a better example of that ‑‑ but that's as far as the second paragraph goes.  
I mean, I would argue that we should change that first sentence, I would argue that we should usurp that it has had a greater impact on the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community in Florida.
And lastly, that third sentence, I think, you know, throw in some more details about the unqualified interpreters and/or captioning services.
That's it for me, Debbe.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We have several people have their hands up.  I'm going to let Cindy speak.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay.  My only comment there is when you name the disasters, I would add COVID.  So you can really strengthen the effect on the deaf on hard of hearing and the inability to get the information appropriately.
So, I think COVID is one of the disasters we should absolutely have there.  So we can point out how much of a deficit we are because of that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Chris Littlewood?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Hi, everybody.  I have not been absent, just sometimes I have not been able to interact where I haven't had access to chat or video to communicate or audio to communicate.
So I have heard most of the discussion.  Great stuff!
When John came on, I misunderstood at first and thought he was saying that hurricanes and other emergencies have not impacted the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community.  And of course my hand flew up for that because it absolutely has.  And then I realized that's not what he was saying.
So, what I want to do also is just reiterate what Cindy was just saying about COVID‑19, because we are in a global health emergency in a global pandemic and we have a huge problem with communication access for people that are deaf or hard of hearing in a number of ways.
Not only are we dealing with non‑qualified sign language interpreters, a lot of times we're dealing with sign language interpreters not being present at all.
From the governor on down, when they're dealing with information that is related to a health emergency, related to the pandemic, there needs to be a sign language interpreter on the screen.  There needs to be valid captioning on the screen for people that are deaf or hard of hearing throughout the state.  And that has been a big problem.
Also, people that are deaf and hard of hearing have been hugely impacted by the fact, once again, that, you know, most of the world are using masks and it's very difficult to speech read or have any type of visual communication with somebody that does not use sign language if they're wearing a mask.
So I wanted to make sure that we mentioned again be aware of a public safety issue with a health emergency, a public health emergency and COVID‑19 in a global pandemic, and we need to make sure we include that in there, almost as much as hurricanes now, because it's hugely impacted on people that are deaf or hard of hearing.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna, go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yeah.  Anything that's related to COVID is moved to the last page.  So I get your comments, but if you could just hold off until the last page, you'll see that I covered COVID on page four.
It's going to be mentioned throughout, but page four is completely all about COVID, okay?
Okay.  So the changes that you're saying, you want me to say that deaf and hard‑of‑hearing citizens are more impacted.
And then moving onto the last sentence, adding medical crises, domestic violence, etc.?  Because I could certainly make those additions.
And remember, we're trying to keep this very readable, which means keeping it short and simple, right?
And if that's okay, then I'll go onto the next paragraph.
Because COVID is going to be covered ad nauseam on the last page, if that's okay.
Okay?  Okay, cool.  Then I'm going to go onto the third paragraph now.
FCCDHH works with public safety officials through educating about the needs of Florida citizens who are deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf‑blind, regarding effective communication strategies.
FCCDHH supports the implementation of the Communication Video and Accessibility Act of 2010 by moving from legacy to e‑911 to next generation or NG911 that allows for more advanced methods of communication for a public safety access point, in parenthesis PSAP.
Generally the majority of deaf and hard‑of‑hearing citizens have no direct access to 911, through voice calls.  However, the implementation of NG911 can allow texting to 911.
And I ‑‑ so actually there's a space there, but I'm going to continue on to the next paragraph, because it's more specifically geared towards 911.
Text‑to‑911 is implemented locally at the county level in the state of Florida.  By the end of 2020, almost 30 out of 67 counties in Florida have incorporated Text‑to‑911 in some capacity.  There are still many counties in Florida that still have not implemented Text‑to‑911.
While Text‑to‑911 benefits people who are deaf or hard of hearing, it is also beneficial to, and I'll say all caps, ALL Floridians for direct access to emergency services, parenthesis this is known as "deaf gain", colon, when a service that benefits the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community when it also benefits the community as a whole.
And then that's where we might want to add footnotes.
Questions or comments?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comments?  Go ahead, Chris.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris, I have a comment.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Chris.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Okay.  First of all, what Glenna just said is spot on.  And thank you so much.  Because I feel like everybody's been paying attention when I feel like I'm talking till I'm blue in the face about texting to 911.  And all of the implementations that have been made, but we still have progress to be made.
I think you've done a great job in talking about that.
The only thing I wanted to say from before, and I also put them both in the chat section on CART, is that I get and understand that COVID‑19 is gonna be its own section, but because it is a public health emergency, I think at least making reference to COVID‑19 in the emergency preparedness section, even if you just say it's there in a current section and then "see our other section on COVID‑19."  Where or how ‑‑ I saw Glenna signed where.  Where to put it in on the report?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris, make sure you're using the second one, the second draft, not the first draft.
One comment I want to make is that ‑‑ about, um... has not implement ‑‑ I want not capitalized, the word not.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Where are you referring to, Debbe?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  The word "not," where it says there are still many counties in Florida that still have not implemented Text‑to‑911.  So capitalize the word "not."  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  All right.  We'll put that in big caps.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any other comments?  Chris?  Go ahead, Chris.  Chris, you're muted.  Chris, you're muted.  Chris, you're muted.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Sorry, I thought I unmuted.
I was just gonna say that we probably should make a comment that as of February 2021, 35 counties do have texting to 911 available, but the remaining counties ‑‑ well, wait a minute, wait a minute, I don't know the exact number.  But I can get it for you.  Just shoot me an e‑mail or something.
That's not the exact number.  I will tell you and I'm just reminding you later.
I can... I can... [Sighs]... I'm waiting for Glenna to look.
I can't... 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yeah, I checked January, I couldn't see February's final tally or at least tally so far, so... I guess we're onto the last page.  This is the moment we've been waiting for, we are ready to talk about COVID!

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  So the header is page four, special consideration COVID‑19.  I would like to change a picture, maybe have a council member and we need to update the council member listing and contact information and change that to get the name there on the side.
All right.  So we'll begin with paragraph one.
With the advent of COVID‑19 pandemic in 2020, efforts to provide full access through English captioning and American Sign Language interpreters has varied from non‑existent to sporadic on state and county and city levels, leading to outcries and lawsuits in Florida and nationally.
Continuing into 2021 requires sustained communication access on community measures such as masking and social distancing, vaccine distribution and appointments, and any other similar efforts.
National Association of the Deaf, parenthesis NAD, has many position statement papers, including accessible emergency management and communicating while wearing masks applicable to Florida.
That's the end of the first paragraph.  Any comments?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy, I'm really sorry.  NAD is a very important organization, but we need to have more than one organization on there so that people with all different degrees of hearing loss feel included.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Eloise?  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, HLAA ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hold on, hold on.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Yeah, okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hold on, Eloise.
John, are we allowed to have Eloise speak or only the Council?

[No response] 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  John?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  I'm sorry, Debbe, was that question for me?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah.  Is Eloise, who is not on the Council, is she allowed to speak while we're on this part?  

>> JOHN JACKSON:  We can let anybody speak during our council meetings if we choose to do so; it does not matter if it's in the public speaking time or not.
The thing is that Eloise will not be allowed to vote, but I think Eloise knows that, unless Eloise is part of the Council now and I forgot or I missed that.
But, no, I mean, anyone can provide input at this time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Okay, go ahead, Eloise.  Sorry.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  Just as the previous person spoke, the NAD ‑‑ the NAD has indicated they have a position regarding COVID guidelines.  HLAA also has COVID guidelines.  So they can be referenced for this particular paragraph as well.
And I know that a lot of the other organizations also have their guidelines.  So, you know, they can all be referenced.
If you go to each of their websites, they do have guidelines for their own organizations, so....
That's all I needed to say.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any other comments?
All right, go ahead, Glenna.

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  If I remember right, the NAD paper did not include just NAD's comments, but all national organizations related to hearing loss.  They all collaborated on the paper.
So we might see similar papers if we included those organizations.
But at any rate, I can figure out ‑‑ I can figure that out and perhaps add some mention of more organizations in our report.  

[Pause].

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  And I'm pretty sure, yeah, that paper is a collaborative paper on the organizations across the board.  That paper is quite lengthy, I obviously couldn't copy the whole thing, but I could fix that, if necessary.  That's fine.  Okay?
So moving on ‑‑ 

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  ‑‑ to paragraph two. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  One second.  This is Cindy.  When we have a situation and three main organizations collaborate like that, you could actually say NAD and HLAA and a number of other organizations collaborated in the following.  And then that takes care of mentioning everyone without having to get lengthy.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yes, I will do that, I will follow through on that.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  We'll move onto the second paragraph.
There are existing federal laws that are even more important during crises, including the following, colon, Rehabilitation Act of 1973, parenthesis especially Section 504; Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, parenthesis ADA; Section 255 of the Communications Act; 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act 2010; Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.
The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is particularly applicable, as it requires FEMA and State to provide accessible information, set aside disability accommodation funds within the emergency budget and include representatives from the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community in meetings, policies, and procedures.
End of paragraph.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comment on that?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Any comments?  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Okay.  We can move onto the last portion.  I can go back and add more if you want.
Next paragraph.  A few NAD ‑‑ of NAD's recommendations most relevant to Florida include the following:
Number one, establish protocol for immediate securing of qualified American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters during all emergency situation press conferences.
Number two, ensure that that ‑‑ oop, I repeated two words there, it was redundant with the word "that" ‑‑ the ASL interpreter secured for the emergency press conference is visible on television at all times during the broadcast.
Number three, ensure that broadcasters are able to provide quality live captioning for all broadcasts of emergency information.
Number four, ensure that emergency information provided online are fully accessible, including with captioning and ASL interpreting.
Number five, provide ongoing inclusive and accessible training for the deaf and hard of hearing community and affected emergency and health personnel.
Number six, incorporate texting capability with all N11 services.
Number seven, when warranted, provide clear masks and/or clear face shields.
Number eight, use additional communication strategies with cloth or surgical masks, such as using separate text devices or paper and pen, personal amplification tools, or speech‑to‑text tools.
And as a last resort, pulling down masks to allow for lip reading.
And that is the end of that paragraph.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any comments?  Any comments?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Yes, on your list, number seven, who are providers of those ‑‑ who are providing ‑‑ who's providing?  

[Pause]. 
[Talking over one another]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  That's a bit of a challenge. 

>> INTERPRETER:  Sorry, this is the interpreter speaking, I couldn't see Cecil for a moment, I apologize.  
Thank you, thank you, Donna.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Gina says:  Glenna, does not have a committee in place to establish the protocols to secure qualified interpreters, question mark?  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  One thing ‑‑ 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Well, generally ‑‑ this is Glenna ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  ‑‑ a general recommendation... 

[Pause]. 

>> INTERPRETER:  Sorry, this is the interpreter speaking.  Because you both spoke at the same time, I missed what Glenna said.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  In regards to number one, setting up a protocol for immediately securing qualified sign language interpreters for emergency situation press conference, I think there are two critical words here, "immediate" and "secure."  Those are two important words in that phrase/sentence.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Should we ‑‑ 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  And I also think it maybe should just say sign language and not say American Sign Language specifically; maybe be more generic with that.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Number seven, should we say something about approved by CDC or something about the face masks or face shields?  Something about approved?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I remember, I'm not sure if you remember, but when Eloise was talking about the masks and I remember reading somewhere it was already approved by the CDC and then when COVID hit, it was a little bit more of a kerfuffle and I think it might be better if we put more of that verbiage in there. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Maybe we should add a statement that says it has no approved clear masks or something like that, just so that people are aware there's nothing there for us, other than homemade masks except with the exception of that one company.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy.  I was looking up this morning and I think I saw there was an approved clear mask and I can try to find it later tonight so I can tell you which was approved.  And I think it was the equivalent of an N95 or maybe it was ‑‑ and they were gearing up to make them.  But I saw it earlier.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Eloise is holding up something.  Go ahead, Eloise.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  There is a communicating face mask with a clear window, it's FDA registered and it came out years ago and I used it as a nurse and you can go online and get them, and that's what I was referencing before.
So this is the only clear mask that's available that's FDA approved.  So they are out there.
I can ‑‑ yeah, you can buy them on Amazon.
When I looked at this years ‑‑ you know, last year, they were on back order.  But they're around.  Their brand name is called Safe and Clear, so it's called the Communicator.
And I have a copy of it.  Or I have some in my, um, in my bureau.  They look like this.  

[Pause]. 

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  So it's used, you know, in a hospital setting in the OR, because I wore them when I was practicing, so....
It's not like my own that I made, but it's close to it, so... that's what it looks like.
I can send an e‑mail ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> ELOISE SCHWARZ:  ‑‑ if you'd like.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  You had mentioned ‑‑ we don't want to mention CDC or approved because we don't have, you know ‑‑ we don't have that regular mask or approval except for the hospital, the hospital masks.
So, again, this is just a general recommendation.  We don't want to become too specific in our verbiage in this report.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Any other comments?  In general or anything on the report?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I have one more comment.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  I'm sorry, I do have one more comment.  And primarily in the COVID section I don't know if we can or cannot do this.
However, I would like to see something making our legislators aware that we have a bigger population than they realize with hearing loss, because there are those who don't even realize they had hearing loss until they can no longer see.
And then this thing with the mask and the distancing at their age, many have cataracts or macular degeneration, it makes it harder to rely on the lip reading and seeing expressions that they used to do.
And I'd like to see this worked in, saying this has been especially hard on the Floridian population and we must do something.
I can't imagine, and I've said this before, they should have a training for the caregivers in rehabs and nursing homes in how to communicate now, because those people can't hear them under regular circumstances, let alone be aware of what's happening now.
So, I would love to push the State to require something like that.
So, I don't know if we can work in a paragraph about that.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris.  The only comment ‑‑ the only comment I want to make on that is, Cindy, that's very good.  The phrase that we use in writing for the communication class that I teach for working with people that are deaf or hard of hearing is people that are not identified or do not self‑identify as a person that is deaf or hard of hearing.
And that would be very good to include in the report, because I know masks ‑‑ a lot of people have told me, yeah, masks are a nightmare for me because they muffle sound and I didn't realize how much I speech read people naturally and now I don't have that option.
I mean, it happens more so for senior citizens and people in nursing homes, like you said.  But it happens across the board.
So many people do that just naturally.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Exactly!  And that's my point.  Especially in the state of Florida.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Right.  This is Chris again.  I would just stick with the phrase including people that do not self‑identify as being deaf or hard of hearing.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  And I love that phrase!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna?  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  And in regards to number five, it says provide ongoing, inclusive, and accessible training to the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community, affected emergency and health personnel and that last comment mentioned masks and hard of hearing who have become deaf.  So I wrote the sentence that says interestingly, with the wearing of masks, more people are realizing their own or another ‑‑ or other people's hearing loss, period.
Are you satisfied with that sentence, additional sentence?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  It's more than masks, it's social distancing as well, because that's adding an additional conundrum in there.
And maybe you could use Chris's wording:  People who did not identify as may now be self‑identifying.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Cecil?  Cecil?  Go ahead.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  All right.  These pictures are on the right side and the squares are very small.
I want to say it's nice to use succinct phrasing, that's good, but many legislators don't know what you're talking about if we're too succinct.
It's going to be too difficult for them to understand what "self‑identify" means.  We may need to give some brief examples.
Previously we were talking about giving a couple of examples, you know, like those who have had eye surgery or... we need to educate the legislators to understand our point of views.
I'm just afraid, it is nice to be succinct, but we don't want to be so succinct that the legislators don't actually understand what we're referring to or talking about.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  And Eloise added in the chat that hearing people are using speech‑to‑text all the time.
Okay.  Any other comments?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  It's exactly 4:00 o'clock and we can take a 15‑minute break.  So we will resume at 4:15.  

[Break]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Hey, Tiffany, this is Debbe.  Can you stop sharing your screen?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  [Speaking]. 

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  Debbe, this is CART/Lisa.  I cannot hear you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Can you hear me now?  

>> LISA (CART CAPTIONER):  Yes, thank you.  

>> OPERATOR:  Debbe has left the conference.  

[Pause]. 

>> OPERATOR:  Debbe has joined the conference.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Can you hear me now?  Okay.  Okay.  It's now 4:16 and we are going to talk about the May 2021 meeting plans.
Tiffany, did you have something you were going to say?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Do you want me to show y'all the photos that you wanted for the biennial report?  I can share those on the screen.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Will we have enough time?  I don't think so.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  I just wanted to ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I don't think we'll have enough time for that.  I want to make sure that ‑‑ one, I want to make sure that everyone has a chance to read the last update from Glenna, all the changes.  This is your last chance to speak, say your peace, whatever, and approve of the pictures to go.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay?  Fair enough?
Okay.  We're now ‑‑ our next meeting is going to be May 2021.  We need to pick the date.  And that is May what?

[No response].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna, it's May 13th.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  And my guess is we will continue to do it virtually?  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  Yes. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Yes. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You had your finger up, does that mean you're trying to get my attention?  

>> Yeah, just give me a second.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris speaking.  We're moving it to May 13th, you said?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  No, we're not moving it or anything.  It's just that on the report, it just says May 2021 and I was looking up on the calendar which day it was.  It's May 13th. 

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Okay.  Thank you.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Sure.  Okay.  So we have May 13th is the next quarterly meeting for the Florida Coordinating Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
So it will be virtual.
Do we want to pick a theme or a focus?
Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This maybe is not the answer to your question, but you just said we'll be on Zoom again; is that what you said?  It's via Zoom?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I hope so.  I like it on Zoom, I think it's great.
Lisa, go ahead.  Go ahead, Lisa.  

>> LISA:  This is Lisa from AQI Services.  If you all like Zoom, that's fine, we can absolutely do this again next time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes, I like it.
Any other objections?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  If we're going to do that, can everybody participate on Zoom?  Because it was very confusing to read the chat, but which chat?
And then you couldn't see what was going on or who was there on the other side.
So it would be nice if somewhere all of us were in one place.  I personally would love to be in the Zoom group.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Lisa, do you want to comment on that?  

>> LISA:  This is Lisa.  Hi, Cindy!
We have, I think our license is up to 50 people, so I think we could fit all of the council members.
The only thing is, I would caution not to put it out to the public.  We would not be able to bring in just anybody, only the council members.
And if we do that, I would like to ask that anybody who is not speaking, that they close their camera off, because we want to make sure that access is visible on our screens.  And the more people that are on Zoom, the smaller the screen gets of the interpreter.
So that's the only issue with having everybody on.
But we absolutely can do.  If you're familiar with Zoom and you know how to turn your camera on and off and we can hide your picture and just bring up the people who are speaking and the interpreters, I think that will work great.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  That sounds great.  Because based on what you said, my only concern would be when I do my classes, the people who turn their cameras off, they still have a square with their name, so you're still stuck small.  So if that's what's happening, then, um, I can leave so you don't have that issue.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Lisa?  

>> LISA:  This is Lisa.  I think being a host of the Zoom, and I'm still learning this myself, I think there is a feature where you can hide the camera.  So even if you're, um, if your camera is froze and your name is up there or your picture is up there, there would still be the ability to literally take you off of the screen.
And then when you decide to bring your camera back up, now you're on screen again.
So we have been trying that out today and it's been working just fine, to be able to literally make sure the camera is hidden.  And that's what the feature is called, is "hidden."  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Yeah, and just backing up what Lisa says, from the user level and I believe it's a host level too, you can set it to where it does not show non‑video participants.  So if somebody doesn't have their video on, if you have the gallery view where you're seeing all the slide pictures of everybody that's in the meeting, you'll only see people that have their video on.
Additionally, the way Lisa has this meeting set up is where the interpreters and the primary speaker are spotlighted so they're larger on the screen and that's something that we should continue to do.
Finally, I will say that if we're going to move everything into Zoom, it would also be great if ‑‑ I don't know what experience Lisa has with it, but if we could integrate the captioning into Zoom as well.  All you have to do is put the API token into Zoom and that has to be done by the host.
So both Lisas, Lisa Johnston and Lisa Schaefermeyer, would need to work together to do that.
And if you guys need help with that, I do it quite often with different things that I do.
I've actually been using Otter and it integrates it that same way and I can help with that if necessary.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay, great.
So, getting back, we want to ‑‑ do we want to pick a theme or a focus for our May meeting, our May 13th meeting?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody on the phone?  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I don't have any theme in mind.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna, what did you have in mind?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  Honestly, um... I want to always be optimistic and hope that by November we're back together in person.
I guess my only comment is, um, is there anyone that we have not yet invited that we would like to hear as a presenter?
I have a feeling that there was a list that we made where we were inviting people from that list and different themes, and I don't remember that list now, it's been too long.  

[Pause]. 

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  This is Cecil ‑‑ 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cecil, you may speak.  

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  What if we did something related to COVID, perhaps someone from the state level?  Someone from emergency services?  Something that's related to public health.  It seems like we have a lot of information ‑‑ oh, maybe information about serving the public and getting vaccines out, public service, hospital barriers, family and friends going into hospitals, when they have a loved one in a clinic or a doctor's office or they're prohibited from entering the facility, that might be some sort of opportunities for someone at the state leadership level to explain, you know, why ‑‑ maybe it's an opportunity, rather, for us to explain why it's important to make that accommodation.

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  It also might be worth doing that sort of, you know, not necessarily an emergency that is limited to COVID, but, you know, we can only predict that there are going to be future situations that are going to be pandemic or epidemic or disaster level.  So maybe having someone come and talk about public services for people and doctors.

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  This is Cecil.  I'm not really involved in politics myself, but maybe questioning how well prepared we are for communication.
You know, we know that people who live in Florida cannot access government offices.  The news media often does not show the interpreter, even when there is a public office response, the interpreter gets trimmed out of the frame.
Maybe we could have somebody give us an update about any movement there.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  That could actually be a great topic for May, talk about TV, both captioning and interpreter being revealed on television programming and captioning being added on television programming.
I'm forgetting the name of the organization, but it's like a TV marketing association, whatever that is.  Maybe someone representing that organization could come.
And I don't want to say let's let them have it, but, you know, we could reveal our complaint to the Government, list some failures, such as the one that we all know where the ASL interpreter gets cut out of frame on, you know, public announcements or press conferences.
And also we could cover captioning as well.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  This is Chris.  I know one organization, it comes out of the Jacksonville Center For Independent Living, I believe they cause the catch phrase "stop the crop" and it has to do with where cameras cut off the interpreter.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  I was just waiting to make sure that the interpreters knew how to do that.  And they do it way better than me, so thank you!  [Laughs].
Also, Beth Meyer, the executive director for the Florida Center For Independent Living, she can help put us in touch with that person.  Or another person might be Bryan Russell, he is the state coordinator for ESF‑6, which is the Emergency Support Function for medical needs and mass care and he works for the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention from DOH, so he should be pretty easy for Tiffany to get ahold of.  I'm sure Tiffany is in communication with him pretty regularly.
He's also a great job and he helps all people with disabilities, so I'm sure he would be more than happy to help us if he can.
It would just be a matter of if we can rope him or others into presenting for us at the next meeting.
A couple ideas.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Sounds good.
Okay.  Maybe briefly we can go through and say what we've been doing for each of our organizations?
Me, representing HLAA, I've been doing virtual ‑‑ well, HLAA now is having their virtual conference in June on the 24‑25 virtual.
I've been hosting Zoom meetings for HLAA and different chapters.
Tomorrow I will be presenting how to set up Zoom for HLAA leaders.
Yesterday, we had 52 people showed up at the HLAA Florida meeting, and from Dr. Kyle Allen who talked about tinnitus, vertigo, and Ménière's disease.
In May, I will be graduating from Gallaudet University in peer mentoring.  So if anyone is interested in wanting to join or participate in the peer mentor from Gallaudet for the next term, it is a two‑year program and the class is online.
Before the COVID, we had to fly into Gallaudet for one day and then the class is online for two years.
And then we're supposed to go back to Gallaudet for the graduation, but since we're still in the pandemic, I don't know how that's going to be handled yet in May.
So that's all I have to say.  

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Who would like to next make their announcement?  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  FAD has a Chair, they will not be able to get in touch with them, but the local Deaf Club is really good about sending out releases and information regarding COVID and searching for information on COVID.
And also in regards to the vaccine, you know, the local club here in my home area is really good about sending out and disbursing that information.
FAD, well, I'll stay silent on that, I don't really know.  It's just not up to speed maybe.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris, do you want to say any comments about ALDA?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  [On mute]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  It helps if I turn my phone on if I'm going to voice!
For ALDA Suncoast, things have been pretty quiet.  

>> OPERATOR:  Has joined the conference. 

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Since May, we have been meeting virtually.  We have our meetings second Tuesday of every month at 7:00 o'clock, we've been doing it just like this, through Zoom, and using auto captioning or our long‑time member, Tess Crowder provides captioning for us also and we're lucky in that regard, where we have captioning and also interpreters for every month's meeting, we still do that, we just moved it from face‑to‑face to online.
We had this grand plan for 2020 that we were going to start moving our meetings around the county and no longer have them primarily in Clearwater.
And then COVID cropped up and knocked that plan out of the water.
So we have been meeting on Zoom.  Sometimes just to get together and chat about whatever is going on in our lives, how we've been dealing with the pandemic and stuff like that.
And we work on that, bringing in speakers as well, as often as possible.
So we'll have some updates that will go out on our Facebook page soon, hopefully.
I will also say on the National level, our 2020 National convention ALDA‑CON was postponed ‑‑ we don't like to say cancelled ‑‑ but postponed to the same location in October of 2021.  So fingers crossed, if things look up where we can still meet for our conference in October in Niagara Falls, as a matter of fact, and we're hoping things improve and we're hoping to meet in person by our conference and only miss one year, because that was sure hard on everybody that's involved at the National level.
Other than that, as things warm up, maybe we may move from our Zoom meetings to having a social of some kind outside and try to keep ‑‑ stay social distancing.  We'll talk about that as a Board and keep everybody posted.  But I'm just letting you know as things happen, we'll share them with the Council.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Thank you, Chris.
Anybody on the phone want to share information?  Glenna, go ahead.  Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I just thought of something.  The other thing that a local ‑‑ the local Deaf Club is doing is in regards to, like, for example, Valentine's Day, doing a drive‑thru thing, people will bake cookies and pack them up and then people will actually drive through and will hand them to the people who are driving through and it provides a little bit of social contact, which is nice.
And through the HLA local chapters might want to do something like that, to give something to the community, to provide something to people, have some social contact in a space manner, and it makes people funny ‑‑ I'm sorry, it makes people, um... enjoy themselves to have that limited social interaction.
And almost every month we're doing something like that, some kind of drive‑thru or drive by where we're handing out things 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  You don't want me to bake cookies, because I burn boiling water.  You don't want me to cook anything, because I don't cook.
Okay.  Anybody on the phone?

[No response].  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Go ahead.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  This is Cindy.  I just wanted to apologize and see if anyone was offended.  I just felt that because NAD was so prominent throughout the report and basically the only organization mentioned.  I wanted it to feel more inclusive and have more equity between all the different degrees of hearing loss.
So that's where I'm thought was.  I would have had the same reaction if it had been HLAA for everything.
I just think we need to make it feel more inclusive.  So I apologize if anyone was offended.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I don't think anyone was offended.
Anybody else want to make comments?
Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Not a comment, but a question, with the status of the biennial report.

[Signing amongst participants on Zoom; no interpreting].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I called Chris to speak.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Okay.  The biennial report, when all the draft information is compiled and everything, are we going to get that through an e‑mail in a final review before we take care of printing?
Because I know it's getting close to the time.  We should really be ready for printing now.  Historically we try to get ready in the very early spring right after this meeting.
So, are we going to see that one more time in a final draft?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah, I hope so, I would like to see it one more time as a Council, yes.
Go ahead, Glenna.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I'm planning to make the changes as you suggested.  And I will send them to Tiffany and Tiffany can disburse them to you through e‑mail to the Council with a deadline of when to ‑‑ when it's necessary to respond with suggestions and also typos and grammar, corrections, proof‑reading corrections.
I think maybe... we can easily see after we're done writing up the report and get the final draft which pictures we can add in there.
Secondly also, I think we should use the same outside printing, a printer or printing company, to make the color, um, flyer or for the report to be in color, I think that would be nice and you could save a little bit of time if we go that route, using that same printing company or printer that we did two years ago.
I don't know if it's required to bid on the printer or if we can just go ahead with that as we did two years ago before Legislature leaves.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  I wasn't here then, so I wasn't sure if it was through Pride.  If it's through some of the businesses that we don't have to ask for a bid, do you remember the company, by any chance?  What it was?  I was curious.

[No response].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna, no, I don't recall.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Okay.  Well ‑‑ 

[Talking over one another]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  They never told us.  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  If there's anything specific ‑‑ if it was one of those agencies where we, you know, where we have some kind of arrangement where we don't have to bid, then we will go with that and that will be the fastest route, you know.
Otherwise we can write a justification.  I mean, you know, that explains why we chose the same vendor possibly.  I have to see how well that justification has to be.
But it may lend to say something about they have expertise in how to work with a Deaf Council and the production of what we need specifically so that it meets our needs.
You know, so there's different kinds of justifications we can put together.  But we'll see; I'll do the best I can.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  And the reason we did the outside printing company is we wanted the pictures to be in color.  If we do it within DOH, it's going to be black and white and we didn't want that plain look, and so that was the reason we went with that outside company.
And maybe Shay remembers or knows who that company was that we used?  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  Absolutely cannot in my opinion be black and white.  We have never had a black and white biennial report and I would hate to see that happen.
The actual point of bringing this up is just to make sure that we avoid delay after delay after delay for finding printing.
We need to make sure that it has, as it has in the past, be printed sometime very soon, and so that said, we need to determine who our printer is going to be, get a final draft, approve, if you will, that we can all look at, and approve, and then move forward as quickly as possible.
And like Glenna said, absolutely have deadlines for any comments.
But we need to make sure that it is in color.  It should be easy enough to do.  We don't have to get as many printed probably as we have in the past because in recent years, more and more people are able to access the biennial report online in a PDF version.
I know we did have a problem with having a print version of the report and also having a PDF that was available to everybody electronically.
We want to make sure that point is present as well with whoever we use for printing or creating our final copy.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yeah, one thing Tiffany will have to check with Shay or ‑‑ I don't know if the printing company is kind of on hold?  Because a lot of the organizations have not even printed their magazines and newsletters for a while because they can't get into the buildings to print without social distancing.  So I don't know, you may want to check with what's happening with that, with the printing.  So it may have to just be converted to a PDF and distributed.  I don't know.  So that will have to be followed up.
Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  The printing company needs to be able to do both the printing and the PDF and make sure they look the same.  And it needs a quick turn around time.  Because we need to be able to look at the final proof.
In the past, we had problems with that, we couldn't fix it because we were unable to see the final proof.  So we need to be able to see the final proof from the printer, the printing company, first.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Any other comments?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I would just like to say I hope I did a good job.  If you have any criticism, now is the time to tell me so I can improve [laughs] for next time. 

[Applause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I apologize if I overstepped on people, keeping my eyes on the chat, keeping my eyes on the transcript, so....
Any criticism, I'm happy to hear it.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I think you did a great job, Debbe, and I like how you kept things on track.  I think you did an excellent job!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Any other comments?  Chris?  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  One last comment.  I think we've gone all day and unless I missed it, I don't think I heard anybody say congratulations to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in winning the Super Bowl!
I don't know if you can see my office, but the Tampa Bay Times on Wednesday did a whole section for information and pictures for the Super Bowl and if you're not aware, they're supposed to be doing an even bigger one in Sunday's paper.  So look for that.
But it was awesome to have our own team in the Tampa Bay area and in Florida win the Super Bowl.  So congratulations to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  We still have about ten minutes.  So anybody want to make any comments?
I just wanted to share with you what's happening in Salt Lake City is that one guy in Salt Lake City has been contacting all of the deaf people.  A lot of the deaf people don't have ‑‑ they only have VP, they don't have computers, they just have VP.  He's been coordinating and reaching out to all of the deaf people to have a time and a place to get their shots, with an interpreter, with people giving the shots and coordinating that.
I'm shocked to see that the Deaf Service Center here are not even coordinating or making sure that we're checking.  Nothing.
So I'm... I'm... is there something that the Deaf Service Center or Rosa and the Family Center for Deafness can do to help facilitate?
I'm not 65 yet so I can't get the shot now, I have to wait.
I just feel like I'm missing out on what's happening, when I can get my shot, if I can get it, because I have asthma and high blood pressure.  So....
Anybody know anything?  Glenna, go ahead.  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  I had mentioned previously that our local club was disbursing quite a bit of information about COVID and the vaccine and they have been doing a good job here.
I got my first round, my first dose, and I'm gonna be getting the second one in a couple of weeks, so I'm very excited about that.
Yes, I am that old, that does give away my age!
I said yes, I am that old.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Anybody else have any comments?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Anybody on the phone?
In the chat?

[No response].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Chris, go ahead.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  I make a motion we close a few minutes early.  I think we're about that time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Are we allowed?  We can't, it has to be exactly at 5:00 o'clock.

[Signing amongst participants on Zoom; no interpreting]. 

>> CECIL BRADLEY:  I think Chris just wants to take a nap.  It's his nap time.  Or maybe dance time, Glenna says, maybe dance time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  I want to thank everybody for coming.  Thank the interpreters.  Thank Tiffany.  Thank AQI.  Thank the visitors for coming.  Thank you, thank you.  And please be safe.  Get your shots when you can.  Social distance, mask.  Keep in touch.  Check on your friends, relatives, making sure they're okay, a‑okay.
Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Sorry to mess up this nice ending, but as far as homework goes, Tiffany had already sent out the picture for the report, so if you could please look at the pictures.
And also when I send out the report, please make sure to respond right away.
And Lisa Schaefermeyer and, uh, as well as Lisa ‑‑ I'm not sure who the other one was ‑‑ but they work together to, you know, make Zoom work and be accessible for everybody so we could be together again.  So hopefully we can do that as an action item.
And also, Tiffany will need to contact the presenter or presenters for May.
What other homework or action items were there?  I think that was about it.  

[Pause].  

>> CINDY SIMON:  I have a question.  Do we have a statement for the Governor that the deaf and hard‑of‑hearing community are at greater risk?
Especially because they can't see without ‑‑ with the masks on and they tend to be closer together and so maybe they could be counted as the exceptions for the vaccine at a younger age?  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Glenna?  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  Oh, that would be homework for the EMOT Committee to write a letter.  

>> CINDY SIMON:  Okay!  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Okay.  Eloise posted her phone number if anybody wanted to contact her, Eloise.  You can check in the chat box on StreamText.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Cecil, did you have any announcements from the Department of ‑‑ no?  Okay.  Chris, go ahead.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  I just wanted to clarify on the whole thing about making sure we finish at exactly 5:00 o'clock.
That was only necessary if we published that we were having public comment and we couldn't close early and then people looking for public comment would join last minute and then we were all gone.
But because on our agenda this time, we don't have public comment in our last hour, it would probably be okay to close a few minutes early.
I'm fine with staying until 5:00 o'clock.  And unlike Cecil mentioned, I'm not ready to take a nap just yet.  But we could close a couple minutes early.  It doesn't matter.
I'm just saying why we've said in the past that we have to go until 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock, it's because in that hour of the agenda, it's also the public comment time.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Tiffany?  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  You're right, Chris, that was one of the reasons why it would have been a kind gesture to make sure that we stayed going until 5:00, was because just out of courtesy, because someone might be trying to get in.
But as far as legally, since I had to post it on the Florida Administrative Registry that this meeting was going until 5:00, we have to go until 5:00.  But not all people have to stay, only Glenna ‑‑ yeah, um ‑‑ um Debbe would have to stay 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Debbe and Glenna and me and Tiffany. 

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Yeah, if you want to dismiss everyone, you're welcome to do so, but as long as we stay.  

[Pause].  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  If you wish to disappear, you may be excused, Chris, Cecil.  

[Pause].  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  I would just say it's great to see everybody and we'll see everybody again in May.  

[Pause]. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  And thank you to the interpreters and Lisa, both Lisas.  

[Pause]. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  Bye, everybody!  Stay safe!  

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference. 

>> CINDY SIMON:  Bye!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Thank you, bye.  

>> OPERATOR:  Has left the conference.  

[Pause]. 

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  This is Glenna.  I think this was a good meeting.  I think we got a lot done, especially with the report.  It was a very good meeting!  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  Yes.  

[Pause].  

>> GLENNA ASHTON:  At the same time while I was sitting in the meeting, we had people coming into our house to install gutters, some new gutters all around the house, so they were banging and that was a bit of a distraction.
But they're all done.
And next week with the rain, it will be a good test to see if they work.  

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  So we have one more minute.  And so I will make sure we all do virtual hugs. 

>> LISA:  This is Lisa.  I'll get with the other Lisa and we'll make sure that our Zoom also includes captioning.
So I'm going to learn something new.  And thank you, Chris, we'll be asking for your help, okay.  At least I will.  

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  It's really easy.  I'm happy to show you how to do it.  All you have to do is from the captioning, just copy the API token and then go straight from StreamText and it's imported into Zoom and then you get the ‑‑ the only problem is unless you're showing a full transcript in Zoom, it only shows, like, four or five words at a time, but especially when you're having a presentation and you want to look at the presenter, if you're also following the captions, it's nice to have those few words right on the screen at the same time.
Again, I'm happy to help with that 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  It's 5:00 o'clock. 

>> CHRIS LITTLEWOOD:  So, five, four, three, two, one, it's 5:00. 

>> DEBBE HAGNER:  See ya!  Bye!  Thank you!  

>> TIFFANY BAYLOR:  Thank you.

[Concludes at 5:00 p.m.] 

** This is a rough‑draft text file that was produced by a live CART Captioner (Communication Access Realtime Translation) to ensure effective communication for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.  This file is not a certified, verbatim record, and it should not be quoted as such. **